Woman's Hour - Diane Dodds, Child Q and Stripsearch, Charlotte Mendelson, Cook for Ukraine
Episode Date: March 16, 2022The recent resignation of DUP First Minister, Paul Givan, from Stormont last month, has left people in Northern Ireland without a properly functioning government. On top of that, an election is coming... - one that could bring massive political change if recent polls are to be believed. Leading unionist and DUP MLA Diane Dodds joins Emma on the programme to discuss Brexit, the Northern Ireland protocol and cooperation in Stormont.A damning new report has revealed how a black schoolgirl was strip searched by the Metropolitan Police while on her period after being wrongly suspected of carrying cannabis. The review conducted by City & Hackney Safeguarding Children Partnership took place without another adult present at the girl's secondary school in Hackney in 2020. The report states that during the search the girls "intimate body parts" were exposed and she was made to take off her sanitary towel. Emma speaks to Antoinette Bramble, Hackney's Deputy Mayor and cabinet member for children's services and Shabnam Chaudri, a former Detective Superintendent at the Metropolitan Police. Charlotte Mendelson's new books features the Hanrahans a big, arty family living in their bohemian North London home. Ray and Lucia are both artists, she has surrendered her career for his and their grown-up children seem dazzled by their outrageous, talented father. But, things are not as they seem and family secrets are bubbling under the surface. Charlotte joins Emma.Even in the face of war, food has a special power in bringing people together. Russian Chef Alissa Timoshkina and Ukrainian Chef Olia Hercules are best friends who have joined forces to set up Cook for Ukraine, a culinary campaign raising funds to support the humanitarian effort in Ukraine. They are encouraging people to celebrate Ukrainian and Eastern European culture by cooking traditional food. They join Emma Barnett to talk about their experiences as friends from opposing frontiers.
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Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4.
On today's programme, as President Zelensky of Ukraine says peace talks with Russia are beginning to sound more realistic,
at the same time there are more airstrikes on Kiev,
I'm going to be talking to two women, best friends and chefs
who live here in the UK, one of whom is Ukrainian and the other Russian,
about their campaign Cook for Ukraine,
but also about how friendships like theirs are working at the moment
and, of course, how their families back home are coping
and what their viewpoints are.
But what friendships have you had
across what perhaps some people would see or perceive as divides?
What have they brought to your life?
What understanding?
What didn't you know that you now know
and you wish others perhaps also could know?
Share with me here on Woman's Hour this morning, 84844.
That's the number you need to text me here. On social media, we're at BBC Woman's Hour.
Why not email me any of your stories or views throughout the programme via our website?
Also on today's programme, the author Charlotte Mendelsohn on artistic partnerships and messy
families, as per her new book, and the DUP's Michelle Dodds as the political power struggles continue in Northern Ireland.
But first, a damning new report has revealed how a black schoolgirl was strip-searched by the Metropolitan Police
while on her period after being wrongly suspected of carrying cannabis.
The review, conducted by City and Hackney Safeguarding Children Partnership,
took place without another adult present at the girls' secondary school in Hackney in 2020.
Police had been called to the school by teachers,
who told investigators that they were concerned that the teenager had drugs in her possession
because she smells of cannabis.
She was taken to the medical room,
stripped searched by two female officers while teachers remained outside.
The report states that during the search,
the girl's intimate body parts were exposed
and she was made to take off her sanitary towel.
No drugs were found.
Scotland Yard said the officers' actions were regrettable
and it should never have happened.
This follows an apology earlier this year from the police
after Dr. Koshka Duff, you may recall I interviewed her on this programme,
was strip searched by the Metropolitan Police, held to the floor and had her clothes cut off while officers joked about her, all of which was caught on CCTV.
Well, joining me now is Antoinette Bramble, Hackney's deputy mayor and cabinet member for Children's Services,
and Shabnam Chowdhury, a former detective superintendent with the Metropolitan Police.
Antoinette, I'll come to you first. Good morning.
Good morning.
Could I get your immediate reaction to this report?
The girl we're talking about, just to share with our listeners,
is referred to as Child Q.
That's right. So it's awful.
I heard you speaking about it, and every time I hear it,
it's almost the first time as I'm hearing it.
It's traumatic.
It's devastating.
It's humiliating.
It's disempowering.
It is awful.
And how, for a young person in their safe space,
one of the most awful things and invasive things could happen
to change that environment is really, really traumatic.
And, you know, my thoughts are just with her and her family
as all of this is now revisited in the media,
but rightly so, we are talking about this.
And also how other black children will feel in
this moment too yes because we should say the the report on the incident concluded that the search
and the way it was approached all of it was unjustified and that racism was likely to have
been a factor what is your view on that look we know there is we know there is racism in society, we know there is bias in society, whether
it's the disproportionate number of black children that are excluded. So we, you know,
we have to accept there's racism across everywhere, in every circumstance and in every situation.
As the report said, race likely played a factor.
And this is really, really worrying.
And that's why we need to work together to ensure these sorts of things don't happen,
because a generation in 10 years' time will look at what's happening now
and will be horrified that things can happen in schools
and affect children just because of the colour of their skin.
I think if you are just
hearing this report for the first time and we wanted to bring it to our listeners, that's one
bit of it that you may keep going over in your mind. How could this have happened in a school?
Shabnam, let me come to you as a former detective superintendent. Tell us a bit about how you think
this could have come about and also with your understanding of process should the strip search have happened
at all? Look first of all all schools have police school liaison officers who work very closely
with those schools with the head teachers and with the teachers to ensure that young children
are safe guided within an environment where they should be feeling safe.
So both systems and processes should already be in place. It's not uncommon for police officers
to go into schools to support teachers when there's been a criminal allegation of some sort,
whether it be a sexual assault, whether it be one robbery, whether it be any other criminal matter.
In my 30 years policing service, I have to be honest,
I was absolutely stunned at this. You know, the fact that a young child has been in an environment
where she is supposed to be safeguarded by her own teachers. And let's not just put all the blame on
the police because it's twofold issues here.'s the educational authorities as well as the police
she was told that we can smell cannabis well that alone is not grounds for searching um anybody you
need other factors to be able to support that information on top of that the two teachers had
allegedly apparently as i understand it had searched her bag already so this was a great
opportunity for the police officers
to enter into that environment and de-escalate the situation by explaining to the teachers look
we've spoken to the child you've searched her bag we're satisfied that whilst you say you can
smell cannabis that alone is not a factor for us to conduct an intimate search and it's not an
well it's not an intimate it borders on an intimate search and it's not an intimate well it's not
an intimate it borders on an intimate search it was a strict search within an environment
without an appropriate adult if there were such serious concerns i.e immediate safeguarding of
that child who may have harmed herself or was going to harm somebody else i'd understand some
form of an urgent search, but with an appropriate adult
present, with all the information and the intelligence together to be able to support that.
What this has done is this has further eroded trust amongst the black community.
Stop and search is already a deep concern amongst the black community because disproportionate
number of black young people are being stopped and searched. And yes, they are subjected to violence and may well be perpetrated.
That does not mean you give a blanket authority to stop and search everybody.
Something went horribly wrong in that environment.
And I'm afraid the elephant in the room that has just been exposed is the fact that racial bias highly likely was a factor in that.
Let me bring up just just building on that point about racial bias,
and come back to you, Antoinette.
In the review, in the local child safeguarding practice review
published in March, it said it was highly likely
adultification bias was a factor.
So this report just published where adults perceive
black children as being older because they see them
as more streetwise.
What do you want to say on that?
So if I could just reflect on Shabnam's point about saying that sometimes black people are perpetrators, so they might be searched. And as you talked about disproportionality,
my reflection is if you are not in the black global majority, even if you do commit a crime
or you're allegedly thought to commit a crime you are
not disproportionately stopped and searched or stripped so it's just a reflection back to you
that it's really important that anyone who does a crime or anyone who's suspected of a crime
everyone should be treated the same and that's the the issue. So adultification is that when you
are black or in the global majority, children are held to adult standards, but their white
counterparts are less likely to be held to those standards. So I'll give a little example.
A wall says no climb, no climbing. And if a white child climbs a wall, people think, oh, they're children.
They're really sweet. They're playing.
Oh, they wouldn't have seen the sign. They're too small.
If a black child climbs the wall, it's very punitive.
Get down. Can't you read? You're so disrespectful.
It's that kind of because you're black, you're held to a higher account
because you're a black child you should be seen
as an adult and there's nothing to say that they're more streetwise I mean what what does
that how are we measuring who's streetwise and who are we observing who's streetwise you know
it's it's it's ludicrous to say because you're more street wild that you should be treated like
an adult a child is a child,
an adult is an adult, and black children should not be subjected to that. Can you imagine the
pressure and the mental well-being on a young person when you are black? Because you are black,
you are perceived to be treated as an adult and overlying the concern of the parents and
the families of that child. And again, I'm just aware, you know, some of our listeners will be hearing this for the first time.
So it's extremely helpful to have given an example.
Thank you for that, because adultification bias is something that certain people are aware of, have looked into, have studied.
And I wonder, Shabnam, with your experience, do you think that could have been a factor in how the police approach this?
No, I don't. I think, unfortunately, I'm just going to be completely straight here.
I think there was racial stereotyping and racial bias towards that young child.
I think they formed an opinion as soon as they'd arrived and they've made the decision to search her.
They didn't have to search her, but they made that decision based on the information that the teachers told them. I'd be very interested to know what their actual grounds were for them to then conduct such an awful, traumatic search, subject us to such inhumanity that even I have never, ever seen that in my entire life, to be so traumatized by that i want to come to what child q the the what we're
calling the girl what's being called the name given in the report and what she's actually said
and put her words out there in just a moment but another question that we've had is whether it's
actually allowed uh shabnam to strip search someone while they're on their period are there
any rules around that well i think you've got to be
treating somebody with sensitivity, because if you've got a whole host of information, and
somebody tells you that they are menstruating, then you've got to take those factors into account.
But you've still got to consider how you conduct that search, where you conduct that search,
who is going to be present when you conduct that search whose consent you've um um obtained
for that search because you know perpetrators of any crime could use that as an excuse so you have
to so so the point is there isn't a rule against it but there should be context questions and care
taken when doing that yeah okay so let me give you the words and come back to you Antoinette
in the written statement here that we have from child Q within the report, she says, I can't go a single day without wanting to scream, shout, cry or just give up.
I feel like I'm locked in a box and no one can see or cares that I just want to go back to feeling safe again. My box is collapsing around me and no one wants to help. She wants everyone who allowed the strip search to be held responsible.
What do you think on that question? Who should take responsibility? Antoinette, just to remind
you, is the Deputy Mayor of Hackney, Cabinet Member there for Children's Services. What would
you say to that, Antoinette? Well, I first want to acknowledge the young person's feeling and saying you are heard you are seen
you are important and people do care it might not feel like it but you are absolutely heard and
people do care and one of the things that we have said is that in six months and nine months time
we want to see some actions and looking at how we've moved forward
on the recommendations that have been set out in the report it's really important this awful heinous
uh disproportionate search on a black child because of the the color of her color of her skin
whether you acknowledge identification or not happened.
And we have to ensure that we follow through the recommendations
to ensure that we safeguard this from happening to another young person.
I think the governing body have to look at whether they think
the headteacher can still hold the trust and confidence within the school.
I mean, you know, the school's not named, of course, and the police,
again, have to look at who's in charge and to see if they can hold the trust and confidence
in the community, because obviously the local police are working really hard with the community.
We've got a young group called Account that works with the police around policing relationship,
and this experience undermines all of
that positive work that's going on with our local police and the young people so whoever's in charge
have to say well actually am I still the right person to hold that to count am I the person that
people are going to trust if I lead on this and there is an independent office for police conduct investigation and we await to see
what that comes out with. Yes I was going to go on to say that that is still outstanding and we
will follow that. Thank you very much for your take Antoinette Bramble there Hackney's Deputy
Mayor and Cabinet Member for Children's Services and to Shabnam Chowdhury a former Detective
Superintendent at the Metropolitan Police. The statement from the Met, which has come from Detective Superintendent Dan Rutland
of the Met's Central East Command, says,
we recognise that the findings of the safeguarding review reflect this incident
should never have happened.
It is truly regrettable, and on behalf of the Met Police,
he says, I would like to apologise to the child concerned, her family and the wider community.
It is wholly right that the actions of officers are held to scrutiny.
We welcome this review, which was commissioned
by the statutory partnership with the support of the police.
We've already reminded local officers of the appropriate policies
in place around carrying out searches in schools.
We're conscious that the IOPC, as mentioned,
is still completing their independent investigations,
so further comment would be inappropriate at this time.
I have so many messages on this coming in.
I have a 15 year old says, Emma, I know how traumatising she would find this if this happened to her.
This should not be happening anywhere to any child or any young person.
Why did school staff allow this to happen? Such a massive breach of trust.
Another one here to Women's Hour. I heard heard of this strip search incident yesterday on the news.
I couldn't believe my ears.
If this happened in apartheid South Africa,
it would still be shocking.
As a white woman and mother, I want to say not in my name,
the teachers and police officers involved should be sacked.
Well, that IOPC investigation is ongoing
and we don't yet have the details, as I said,
about the particular school, but we will keep with this,
but wanted to flag this report to you
and go into some detail this morning with what we are able to share
and what we do know at this point.
So thank you very much for your messages.
But some also coming in with regards to friendship
and especially friendship over what could be perceived as divides,
depending on what's going on in the world.
Let me ask you this question, though.
Do you remember Cook for Syria, the 2016 campaign which raised more than a million pounds for UNICEF
to support children and families impacted by fighting? Well now there is Cook for Ukraine
based on a similar principle, encouraging people to cook traditional Ukrainian and Eastern European
food to raise funds and the campaign has been set up by two women who are best friends and chefs,
one is Russian, the other Ukrainian and so far they've raised more than £200,000. Well, the Russian chef
and historian who I'm talking about, Alicia Thomas-Shinkina, and Ukrainian chef and activist
Olya Hercules. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. Good morning. Welcome to
the programme. And I just wanted to come to you, Olya, first. You set this up very quickly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Tell us how it works before we, if you like, start to get into your friendship and how you know each other.
What's the campaign all about?
We swap questions. Alisa is much more, will explain much better because she's been kind of spearheading the whole campaign.
Very happy to. Al Alicia, tell us.
Well, thank you.
So the campaign is there to raise awareness about the conflict and the humanitarian crisis,
but also raise awareness of Ukrainian food and culture.
And in doing so, we are raising funds, which are then given to UNICEF, who are undertaking some really important work to help the children in Ukraine.
And how have people getting involved? How have they been doing that?
So the campaign works in three ways. One of them is through social media.
And the hashtag Cook for Ukraine now counts over 5,000 posts. So we encourage people to cook something, mostly from all your books,
because they're the best sources of history and culture and food from Ukraine.
And then share the picture and share the hashtag and encourage people to donate.
So raising awareness through this.
Secondly, we're doing lots of events in London, but also globally,
lots of people are hosting supper clubs, bake sales and other in-person events. And thirdly,
we have partnered up with over 200 restaurants in the UK alone, and they are adding a voluntary
donation to each bill. And again, all of that goes towards the campaign.
Oliya, have you been seeing a particular dish, if you like, come up the most?
Or is there one that, just to give an example to our listeners, that you would recommend perhaps starting that journey with?
Oh, there's been so many. It's been really heartening and positive.
I've seen quite a lot of borscht, which is, you know, a stereotypical Ukrainian dish, but one of the best for sure. I think the weather is still good for, you know, something like chard rolls or cabbage rolls called
holuptsi. There's loads of kind of like my mum's apple cake that people have been making. So yeah,
there's a whole lot of things that you can make and match for sure.
I was asking our listeners yesterday about action they're taking.
You know, of course, as the scheme opened up for taking refugees in your home.
And it wasn't just that.
Lots of people getting in touch to talk about protesting, lobbying, all sorts of things.
But I do recall yesterday, and I didn't get to read it out.
So from memory that we did get a message about making biscuits.
A Ukrainian recipe had been found and trying to raise money in that way. I wasn't sure if it was to do with your campaign or someone was just doing that. But it was a lovely message to see in the midst of that because of how important food can be for memory and culture at this time.
Oli, your family, are they still in ukraine they are yeah my my uh my parents are in the south of ukraine in my hometown
in the herson region which is now under putin's occupation and they're under siege um and my
brother is in kiev um who was a civilian just a few weeks ago and now is in the territorial defense
um and my nephews and my niece are in Western Ukraine,
kind of taking shelter and, you know, going to bomb shelters every night.
And then there's my huge extended family that's peppered all over Ukraine
from Berdyansk to Odessa, and obviously loads and loads of friends too.
And how are you able to talk to them at all at the moment?
How's the communication and what are you able to tell us from what they're saying?
Yeah, luckily, communication has been OK so far.
Last week, we had a couple of days when in the Kherson region, they've been trying to cut all communication.
So I lost touch with my parents for 24-7, which was the most terrifying thing.
What are they saying?
They're extremely stoic and brave
so I'm sure that my parents are not telling me a lot of things
because they don't want me to panic
which has been so admirable and my brother as well
he kind of sends me a video every morning and he cracks little jokes
and tries to make me feel positive
my nephews are just incredible.
You know, they're not sitting around during the day.
They're trying to help and coordinate help coming from abroad
and to send it all around Ukraine.
So, you know, but the situation is extremely scary now in Kherson,
even though it's not being bombed and it's not in the news as much as other areas.
What's quietly happening there are almost, you know,
well, Stalinist repressions, basically.
They're kidnapping journalists in my hometown.
They're kidnapping activists.
They're telling people that trucks with gunned men will appear
if people will come out on the streets to protest.
So it's a really worrying, stressful time.
I'm so sorry, you know sorry to hear all of that. And I'm so sorry for all the concern and worry you must be living with day to day at the moment. Alyssa,
let me come to you. I know that you have a lot of family still in Russia, of course, where
economic sanctions have been imposed. There's a lot of restrictions on what the people can
actually know with regards to the media.
We were only talking yesterday about the woman, Marina, who went in front of the Russian state TV to make her protest yesterday.
What is it like talking to your family at the moment?
Well, luckily, my parents have left Russia about six years ago after the war in Crimea.
But, of course, a lot of their life is still
connected to Russia. So the sanctions have affected them quite drastically. And they are
very openly anti-Putin. So, you know, it's very hard to see people who are equally opposing
Putin's actions. They are suffering in a very serious way, of course, nowhere near
as heartbreaking as what's happening to the people of Ukraine. And lots of friends of mine
had to flee. And they're really heartbreaking stories of families being torn apart because of
visa restrictions and families with different immigration status had to fall apart,
hopefully just temporarily.
There are lots of people now living in Istanbul and Turkey and Georgia,
but not really knowing what to do next because there's only a short amount of time that a Russian can spend in those countries without a visa.
So it's really devastating.
And the impact that all the sanctions are having on Russian
culture are, of course, heartbreaking. And for me, who has a very close connection,
personally and professionally, to Russian history and culture, this is absolutely unbearable to watch.
But my understanding was you still have some family and friends in Russia.
Yes, I do.
And what's been interesting for the few Russians I have spoken to during this time is they're also amazed and, you know, a range of emotions to see how little is known about what's actually going on for some of them outside.
And of course, we mustn't forget some will be supporting Putin.
Yes, absolutely. So my grandmother is still in Russia and she has always been a very
strong anti-Putin person. Sadly, she's fallen out with the rest of her family who are pro-Putin,
which is, of course, heartbreaking. She's an elderly woman who now doesn't have actually anyone
to talk to apart from us who are abroad. She's also cut off from any media outlets that are actually enabling people to know the truth.
And, you know, having watched for professional reasons, having watched a lot of state news recently,
you know, it's astonishing to think that this is the information that people are bombarded with. And of course,
if you have no means of accessing other sorts of information, then this is the only thing that you
will believe. And even if you do get shown the truth, people find it extremely shocking and they
say this is fake. So it's a complete inversion of truth and false values.
You both met as friends and we've been asking about friendships as well off the back of having this conversation with you today, which I'm so pleased to be able to do. And you met back at university, I believe, some years ago, 2005.
And you've been having this conversation in many ways for a long time about the relationship between the two countries, but also generally what's been going on politically in the area.
Olya, what would you say to people who are particularly struck
by this campaign being set up by a Ukrainian and a Russian
and what you'd say about the importance of having such a friendship?
So, yeah, me and Alyssa met outside of our university building.
You know, she was studying um film and i was studying
um russian um in english translation russian culture um and we um you know we just started
speaking and i think one of the first things that we asked each other you know i said where are you
from and she said um you know i'm from siberia and immediately the first thing that i would say
would be oh my grandmother on my on my dad's side is from Siberia.
And then, you know, the conversation starts and then she found out that I was Ukrainian.
And she said, oh, my grandmother and my mom's side is from Ukraine.
And, you know, and then there'd just be, you know, I think me and Elisa are so much on the same wavelength
in terms of how our brains work and also on a spiritual level
or, you know, on a kind of soulful level,
we're also on the same side, so to speak.
You know, we're interested, curious people who are kind and
positive, you know, and it's important not to lose sight of that. So if you have someone close to you,
it's not about labels in that sense. It's not, you know, Russia doesn't, the Russian doesn't necessarily equate, you know,
negative or evil. So people need to remember that, I think, and to hold their good friends tight.
And what do you want to say to that, Alyssa?
Well, it's really wonderful to hear that. And as many Russians who are not supporting Putin's actions in general, and especially in Ukraine,
I too felt a lot of shame
and I was extremely heartbroken when the war started.
And when Olya and I went to the protests
on the 24th of February,
part of me felt I shouldn't be here.
Who am I to stand here?
You know, people are right to be so angry at Russians. But having Olya there and, you know, having the emotional support, you know, I'd love to help her in her fundraising
activities, but I feel really conflicted. Is it okay for a Russian to be doing that?
And Olya said, don't you ever let Putin be ashamed of who you are and of your identity and of your
culture? And, you know, we hugged and it was so meaningful and so symbolic for me. And that's
kind of what gave us the energy and the inspiration to start Cook for Ukraine.
Yes, because I think there is also the concern about Russophobia and the culture with regards
to, you know, from food to everything else, being very much harmed by this, being erased and that
shame coming through. Are you concerned about that? Have you had any experience of that, Alyssa?
Oh, completely. Again, on a personal and professional level, I'm deeply concerned
about what's happening to the perception of Russia and, of course, to the Russian culture itself.
I know of cases where children of my friends, Russian friends, were bullied in school.
Some children actually afraid to go to school at all and now have to be homeschooled.
And of course, you know, news of ballets being cancelled.
And, you know, it's just deeply heartbreaking.
And A, I think it's extremely dangerous because it actually, in fact, feeds into Putin's propaganda about the genocide of Russian culture in the West.
So I really want to put a plea out there, you know,
let's unite against that, you know,
not give Putin any reason to say stuff like that.
But also, you know, on a personal level, you know,
human beings are far more complex
and they're far more than just their national origin so please don't
see people just as a you know a passport and a national affiliation we're so much more than that
and also just to say it's been extremely heartwarming to see through the campaign to
see people uh hosting supper clubs where they cook dishes from my book and Olya's books.
And in a way, in a symbolic way, they unite the two countries on the table.
That's just been extremely heartwarming and encouraging to see.
May I just echo that? Sorry.
Yeah, just for people, just imagine that Putin, you know, he represents patriarchy
and he represents that kind of like really old way of thinking and
the rigid kind of mind and you know everything that's to do with russian culture and creativity
is in opposition to that so by limiting and trying to put a negative uh kind of image on
everything cultural that comes from russia kind of yeah plays plays into Putin's, into what Putin is.
Thank you very much to both of you for talking to us this morning, Olya, Lisa.
It's been a real pleasure and also given us a different viewpoint, I think, of both the personal stories, the friendship and the food.
And the campaign is called, people can look it up, Cook for Ukraine.
Of course, very reminiscent of Cook for Syria, which others may have taken part in.
And there's some messages of what people are thinking about doing,
coming in at the moment.
But I just also wanted to be able to bring you some breaking news and some very happy news indeed, because Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe,
the British-Iranian woman detained in Iran nearly six years ago,
has been released.
She is on her way back to the UK.
You will remember that she was arrested.
The 43-year-old was arrested in 2016,
accused of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government, which she denied has always done so.
Her MP, Tulip Sadiq, tweeted that she is at the airport in Tehran and is on her way home.
Of course, we've had Richard Radcliffe, her husband, who's been an absolute campaigner the whole way through this on this programme several times, certainly one I've been the host. And it is a story so many of you have followed for so long.
She's being reported to be travelling with Anousheh Ashouri,
a retired civil engineer who was jailed for alleged spying.
But Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe, detained in Iran nearly six years ago,
been in prison and under, in most circumstances, most recently,
certainly through COVID, under house arrest, has been released and is on her way back to the UK.
So just to be able to bring you that news.
But I've just had somebody walk into the studio that I should tell you about.
Charlotte Mendelsohn has just walked in and her new novel, which was long listed for the Women's Prize last week, is called The Exhibitionist.
It's about the Hanrahans, a big arty family
and their large, and I'm going to say incredibly dirty,
bohemian house in North London.
Ray and Lucia are both artists.
He's a painter, she's a sculptor.
And Ray's art's always taken precedence,
though his success was years ago.
His wife spends her life tiptoeing around his huge ego
and trying desperately not to be more successful than him.
And it all gathers around this story, a private view of Ray's first solo show.
And there are lots of secrets, it's safe to say.
Charlotte Mendelsohn, good morning.
Good morning.
Thank you for joining us.
And I understand that you, when thinking about this book,
it was all started in a rather, what should we say, messy studio of Barbara Hepworth?
I think I've been to the same one.
Yeah, so I peeked through the window.
I was in St Ives.
And I don't know if it's a reconstruction, because I think the whole point was there was a big fire but anyway um and I just thought oh wow I want to be in there I want to be sort of rolling around
in the clay and playing with all the exciting tools and even though my job just involves a
laptop I have a massive predilection for you know things or clay or all the exciting things that other people get to play with in their jobs.
And I think it set off a little thing in my head that made me think I have to write about this.
And it is an artistic partnership of sorts, although one's career is going this way and the other one's going up.
But what fascinated you about that? Because the ego involved is extraordinary in this book? I think couples who are both artists, whatever you mean by that, you know, with at least a small
A, so artists or writers or whatever, there's so much scope for woe because it's the collision of
ego and neurosis and all the things that makes people artists, if they're married to another one,
it's fertile territory for chaos.
Yes, and there is quite a lot of chaos.
The description of dirt will stay with me for some time.
Thank you so much.
I'm so sorry.
It's extremely vivid.
I wanted to ask, though, I ended up in some ways,
and I don't want to give away too much here,
but I ended up disliking both of them profoundly throughout.
How dare you?
I'm sorry to say.
I'm outraged.
I was utterly compelled, though. And I wonder how you feel about that, creating characters that people can really feel very frustrated by.
I think it's reality. So, yes, Ray is, as someone recently put it, I don't know if I'm even allowed to say this on air, but the biggest arse in fiction.
And I mean, he is a he's a nightmare.
But I think he's a very familiar night where we all know people who are narcissists like Ray.
And Lucia is I mean, I don't feel I don't feel frustrated with her because I think I understand why she's stuck.
But I think there are so few people in the world who one thinks, oh, you are purely good and
perfect. And I think you're marvellous in every way. So frustration with people who can't get out
of the rubbish situation they're in feels honest to me. And I also absolutely don't think characters
need to be identifiable with, but you need to care about them when that's different.
Yes, it is. And you're right. There's so many things you'll see in friendships or family around
you where you think, please just find a way to change that. And you do feel that a lot in this.
And you know, you're powerless as the reader, you need to know what you've decided. And we're again,
won't give it away. But there are bits of hope throughout.
There are big bits of hope. And I think what I what I wanted that in a way that's the whole point of the novel what I wanted to write about was
why Lucia has been in this relationship for so long when we the reader can see there's so much
wrong with it why she couldn't see how much was wrong with it until now and then because of various
things that are happening she's starting to glimpse that there might be a world outside.
Yes, indeed. Well, there's also another storyline running through it, which is that Lucia has had a preventative mastectomy and it's caused her as well to re-evaluate her life and herself.
And I believe you wrote this in for very personal reasons.
Yes. And it's strange to talk about it because it's so private that I have only really talked about it to close friends.
And I realised on the bus coming here that actually it's so private that that's why I wrote about it, because that's what writers do.
We write about things that we can't really talk about. But it is personal because it happened to me and um and i think i somehow managed to be
in denial when i wrote the novel that anyone would actually say to me so did this happen to you um
but it feels even though it's something incredibly private and i'm very shy talking about it
especially uh in this context um it feels really important to own it, not to pretend that I just made it up.
Because when it happened to me, it was incredibly lonely.
And if I just heard one person talking about it on the radio, you know, the only person anyone's ever heard of is Angelina Jolie.
But, you know, I kind of think if someone heard Scruffy Charlotte talking about it and knew that it happened to her as well, if one person is helped by me being honest about it, then it's worth the discomfort, considerable discomfort.
And I can sort of, you know, detect that right now.
From my light trembling.
No, but I know you wanted to and I know you wanted to bring this out in the book.
And, you know, especially being on Woman's Hour, perhaps perhaps do lend that hand out to anybody else who could be listening and for you
you say a very lonely experience. It was incredibly lonely for various reasons in terms of relationships
in terms I was 35 when it happened I think I've maybe put even this, I mean, what happens to Lucia?
And this is, again, a weird thing for a novelist to admit, but exactly what happens to Lucia in my novel is what happened to me.
And I think there's a line in it, which is it's like an anvil fell from the sky.
And that's what it felt like, because, you know, I was incredibly lucky. I didn't have to have chemo. I didn't have to have radio.
I've always felt so lucky not to have had to go through those awful things but you know I
was 35 and just sort of trotting along with you know the usual doom and terror but not expecting
this and then it happened and and there were things like I couldn't I wasn't allowed to join
any of the breast cancer charity support groups because I hadn't officially had
cancer um which is a hard thing to hear when you're dealing with something like this and and
deciding whether to have reconstruction and how you feel about your body I imagine and and your
identity yeah all of those things and it was huge and. And, you know, when you're 35, it's taken me a long time to, you know, I have a considerable rack.
And it's taken me a long time to get used to that and to feel kind of comfortable in my body.
There'd been about a two year period where I felt proud of my body and then suddenly, wham, this happened. So that was really tough.
And did you go for reconstruction? Yeah, I did. It's funny because until quite recently, I haven't been able to say the word breast.
And I still struggle with the word mastectomy and reconstruction.
I'm just starting. So today's probably the first full public practice of that.
How's it going?
It's going well. I'm struggling perhaps on the third syllable um
i did have a reconstruction yes yes because i think the you know again i've read the book not
everybody has yet but you know you're you're in a situation where you are describing how a woman
feels about herself letting other people see her in relationships there's so much in there that i'm
sure it's one of the pet hates of writers that you get asked, is that you in the book?
Is that your experience?
But there is so much detail that it felt extremely, it didn't felt researched.
It felt very real.
Yeah, well, I'm sort of glad.
It's strange because I looked at, I mean, being a writer, a sort of born writer, of course, I wrote a sort of tragic
little diary while it was going on. And I look back at that for some of the things about how
it felt, but I remember it. I have sort of huge amnesia about large chunks of that, some of which
is only falling into place now, but there are so many things I remember. And one of the things I I really wanted to write about was what it what you see when you look at yourself with this new area.
You know, it's it's it's so weird and it's not talked about.
You know, luckily, cancer is talked about a lot more now in fiction, for example, which is the only world I recognise. But the sort of physical aspects of having a mastectomy,
and particularly if it's preventative like mine was,
I haven't read about it anywhere.
And so it felt really important to sort of admit,
I suppose, how much I slash Lucia hates it.
But I'm well past that stage now.
And it all feels so much better.
But, you know, if...
Is there anything you'd like to say to somebody listening
who may be in this situation?
Well, I suppose one thing is it all started
because I have a bad family history, which I kind of think maybe should be the title of my next novel.
But, you know, and I was incredibly lucky.
The NHS gave me a mammogram on basically my 35th birthday because of that.
And that's what found it.
So, A, I think, yes, if you have a bad family history, look it in the eye and do something about it if you can.
I'd also say for me, having a reconstruction was the right thing, although it was horrible.
I would say find a surgeon that you're comfortable with.
And the main thing I would say, which applies to practically everything,
you know, being a novelist, being gay,
being anything is it gets better.
It really does.
You know, even not that long afterwards,
it was incredibly tough
and that carried on for a while.
And now I'm so much happier
than I was just before it even started
because it's opened me out to all sorts of other things.
So it does get better.
It's horrible, but you'll be okay.
Well, it's within The Exhibitionist, your new book,
which we should remind everyone of,
which is how we began that conversation.
Thank you for feeling like you could share it.
Well, thank you.
Thank you for being someone I could tell.
And doing it with us like that
and with all of our listeners,
as you say,
you just don't know who's listening.
And I think that's always
the power of radio.
And Bad Family History
could have been
almost an alternative title
for this book,
considering what you've been looking at.
And, you know,
families all have a story
they tell themselves,
haven't they?
So the story you tell yourself
and actually reality
are often poles apart,
which you're so good
at teasing apart in this
work and others. Charlotte Mendelsohn, thank you
so much. Thank you. And I'm
sure many of you thinking about that
or certainly thinking of someone who could do with listening
to that and of course the conversations
are always available afterwards on BBC
Sounds if they're not listening right now
but to go to a discussion
or to pick up a discussion again we were having
last week, there is still no First Minister in Northern Ireland.
This is because last month, the former First Minister, the DUP's Paul Given,
resigned over Brexit checks on goods.
Well, last week I spoke to the woman hoping to be the first nationalist First Minister,
Sinn Féin's Michelle O'Neill.
And today I'm joined by the former Economy Minister,
the Democratic Unionist Party, the DUP's Diane Dodds.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Thank you for joining us today.
And just bringing it back to Ukraine, which, of course, is very much front of mind,
more than 100,000 people now signed up to take a refugee in their home.
One of the political concerns, certainly, or one of the things being raised with politicians today,
is that there's a concern about a lack of checks on the people, the hosts,
ensuring they are safe hosts. What is your view on that? Well, I think that these are the kind of
things that we put in place, but we need to follow up with the appropriate checks for, particularly
since most of the refugees are women and girls and children.
And it's really, really important that we have appropriate placements for people
and that people feel safe.
These people are fleeing war and terror,
and it's hugely, hugely important that they're safe
and that we are able to appropriately place people in the appropriate locations
and where they want to be.
I suspect many of those who are fleeing the war will want to remain maybe in countries that are probably closer to their home, to their family, in the hope that they can go back.
Many women will have left husbands and brothers.
So, sorry, would you support those checks being in place?
Well, I think that we do need to make sure that particularly
when we are locating women and children and young girls and boys
in places here in the United Kingdom,
that we act appropriately and safely. Because I mean,
the concern is that it will slow down the whole process and it's already being slowed down. But
Homes for Ukrainians, as the scheme is called, people have been looking it up, as I say, more
than 100,000 people now signed up. Have you looked at this? Would you be able to take somebody? Have
you thought about that? Well, I at the moment, no, I haven't. It's not something that I personally
have considered. I have contributed in the ways that I can to the effort in terms of the
fundraising. And also, I think some of my constituents have been delivering aid to Ukraine.
And I think that that's massively, massively important.
We will all do our own bit in the way that we can do our own bit.
And that's hugely important.
And there's huge, huge concern, but huge generosity for people who are fleeing this terrible war.
Well, coming to your ability to do anything at all, there isn't a functioning government
right now where you are, which some people would find extraordinary to be living with,
not least, I'm sure, the people of Northern Ireland. Your party leader, Sir Geoffrey Donaldson,
just this weekend, told a rally against the Northern Ireland Protocol, which, just to remind
people, had brought in mandatory checks on goods coming into Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK after Brexit,
that your party will not go back into government until the Northern Ireland Protocol is changed.
Do you support that?
I think that where we are in Northern Ireland is that we have a government in the United Kingdom that said in July in its command paper that the conditions were met for the triggering of Article 16 didn't take any action.
In the autumn, looked as if it might take some action and now seems to put the whole issue of the protocol on the back burner. Meanwhile, we have in Northern Ireland, a unionist community in particular,
and a business community that are suffering hugely because of the protocol. We have taken...
Sorry, aren't they suffering also because they don't have a functioning government? And the DUP,
people will have an extreme little sympathy for in some quarters, because you got into
bed with Theresa May's government to get Brexit through and took a billion pounds.
Well, of course, part of that billion pounds
is now being rolled out in Northern Ireland
in fast fibre broadband.
Yeah, but you can't have it both ways.
No, it's important, which will make Northern Ireland
one of the best connected parts of Europe
and which will drive forward the economy, which will level up the economy.
But you can't even pass a budget.
You can't even pass a budget because there's no functioning government.
And you can't rail against the government, the same government.
It's not a different government that the DUP got into bed with.
OK, so if you give me some time, let's unpack the issue of the budget.
Conor Murphy produced a budget for Northern Ireland.
That budget did not have the support of any of the political parties in the executive bar Sinn Féin,
because that budget was a budget which slashed cuts across a whole range of issues.
We have, for example, the Justice Minister,
the Alliance Party's Naomi Long,
saying that her department would have been most targeted by the budget.
The Education Minister saying that over the next three years,
Conor Murphy's budget leaves education £750 million short.
But that's not the point.
And that is just to stand still.
Sorry, that isn't the point
I'm making. The point isn't,
two points here, you cannot criticise
this government and expect sympathy
over Brexit when you got into
bed with this government over Brexit
to get it done. That may not
have been the slogan with Theresa May. And secondly,
regardless of what you think or what you're
saying other political parties think of the budget, there's no budget to be passed if
there's no government. And the reason there's no government is your minister, the first minister,
stepped down over the Brexit that your party helped create.
And our party has taken very limited, targeted action in order to focus the government's
attention on the protocol. The government
doesn't seem to want to do that. This week in Northern Ireland, we've had the Court of Appeal
actually say in its ruling that the UK and the European Union sacrificed, I'm quoting,
the long-standing soft border between Northern Ireland and GB,
dating from the Act of Union in order to perpetuate a customs and regulatory border
in areas specified by the EU. The application of EU law in Northern Ireland, the symptom of that
is the checks that we talk about. But the application of EU law in Northern Ireland is the actual
problem with the protocol. And that is the issue that needs to be dealt with. In relation to...
Some people don't. Sorry, if I may, just before you go on to Theresa May, I will let you go to
that. But some people do not believe that this is the reason for the DUP's position. Some are saying
it's rhetoric, it's an excuse to avoid cooperating with Sinn Féin and taking second place in Northern Irish politics.
Because if recent polls are right, Sinn Féin could be on track to becoming the largest party in Northern Ireland, taking over your party's top spot.
Well, of course, we still have 50 and we're fighting the election to win the election because we believe it's important that for the union and for unionism and for the benefit of all of the people of Northern Ireland, that that is what we do.
We are absolutely determined to fight to win the election.
So that is probably really irrelevant to where we are today.
Can I just address the point of Theresa May's government?
We entered into a confidence and supply arrangement
with Theresa May's government.
That confidence and supply arrangement is delivering
superfast broadband across Northern Ireland,
improving the economy, creating jobs,
creating prosperity to everybody in Northern Ireland.
And it's delivering Brexit.
That confidence in supply money is also creating multidisciplinary teams in some of the most deprived communities in the whole of the United Kingdom.
I don't deny any of that.
That's what the confidence in supply money is doing.
But you signed up to that government and that government was signed up to delivering Brexit.
And this is the Brexit.
And now there's no government.
So in terms of Northern Ireland.
So you're in a situation.
Go on. There's no government. So in terms of Northern Ireland. So you're in a situation. We signed up to a government that would deliver Brexit for the whole of the United Kingdom on the same terms for the whole of the United Kingdom.
That has not happened.
What we have in Northern Ireland is a Brexit delivered by the Conservative and Unionist government, which actually subjugates the Act of Union and actually impliedly repeals part of the Act of Union.
Do you feel guilty about that?
No, I don't.
I, in every way, voted against it.
And in fact, in my former role as an MEP,
went to every British MEP in the European Parliament
and told them that this was not a Brexit
for the whole of the United Kingdom.
And that includes all of those
who were leading the charge on Brexit.
But you've just been boasting about what the money's done
with a deal with the Conservative government
that has been in that position
to put in that Brexit that you're talking about.
And the other thing, just to say here,
a recent poll shows little more than one in 10 unionists regard the Northern Ireland protocol as the most important
issue in the election anyway. So in terms of you talking about not taking any votes for granted,
by dissolving Stormont like this, by leaving the Northern Ireland people without a government like
this, don't you think the DUP just looks like it speaks out of both sides of its mouth and leaves people high and dry?
Well, of course, Stormont is not dissolved and won't be dissolved until next week.
Dissolved, sorry, I meant in the sense of a government.
Ministers are still in place and doing their job. The only minister that isn't in place
is the first and deputy first minister.
Quite important.
And there's a coordinating role across the executive.
So, you know, I think we do actually need
to get our facts right.
I wasn't particularly boasting about the money
that came with the Convince and Supply Deal,
but explaining it, it is actually not money for the DUP.
It is money for all of the people of Northern Ireland
to ensure prosperity
in Northern Ireland. My facts are right. My word choice there was not correct with dissolved. But
what I meant was you talk about all other ministers are in place except the first minister.
That's like saying we've got the whole cabinet, but we haven't got a prime minister. You know,
it's a pretty important position to have left empty, which the DUP have chosen to do. Just
thinking about women in Northern Irish politics,
looking at representation,
there were concerns that Arlene Foster, of course,
a trailblazer for being the first woman at First Minister, DUP.
There have been concerns that the DUP, though,
is a boys' club, a men's club,
and that she was forced out
and there were misogynistic elements to that.
I can go through the numbers as well
of how many MLAs there are,
male versus female as well, of course, but it's a much smaller number of women.
What do you say to that, that people have a concern about the DUP as a party for women?
Right, so can I explain? First of all, Arlene is my friend and I see her and talk to her on a regular basis.
And from my point of view,
I have been in elected politics for a very long time.
I was first elected in 2003.
I've spent time as a councillor. I'm so sorry to interrupt.
I've only got a very short space of time.
Could you just go to that?
I'm coming to it.
So I have been given every encouragement to pursue politics as a woman representative within the DUP.
This week, I spent time talking on a bill around period poverty.
I spent time talking to...
So Diane Dodds, you would reject that notion of the party
not being a place for women.
I'm going to have to leave it there.
Do look out for details for the upcoming elections in May
and information on all parties and candidates stunning
on the BBC website.
That's all for today's Woman's Hour.
Thank you so much for your time.
Join us again for the next one.
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I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger.
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