Woman's Hour - Dolly Alderton; Rape convictions - Katie's story; How to work from home

Episode Date: October 16, 2020

Dolly Alderton joins Jane to talk about her first novel Ghosts. Her protagonist Nina Dean is dealing with a lot. She’s trying to make it as a food writer and finally has a flat of her own. Her dad is slipping away from her into dementia and her Mum is set on re-inventing herself. Friends are changing and disappearing into coupledom and parenting so when Max shows up via a dating app he seems like a dream come true. In fact, Nina’s problems are only just beginning. A rape survivor we are calling Katie contacted Woman’s Hour to tell her story. After a horrific ordeal at the end of last year, a few weeks ago her former partner was convicted of rape and sexual assault and was give a lengthy prison sentence. Katie feels that she has had justice and that she was well treated by the police and in court. But, as she explains to Jane, she is left with questions and an uncomfortable feeling that other victims of rape might not have had the same treatment or outcome. At a time when the rate of convictions for rape have fallen to an all-time low, Gillian Jones, QC and Head of Chambers at Red Lion in London, responds. When many of us suddenly switched to home working back in March, we might have thought we would be back in the office by now, but 30% of us are still working from home, and there is no timetable yet for returning to offices. So how’s it going, sharing work space with other adults, children or indeed no-one at all? What have we learned about the do’s and don’ts over the last 7 months? Jane speaks to clinical psychologist Linda Blair, and Chloe Davies, Head of PR & Partnerships at MyGWork, who originally told us about her experiences of juggling her work and two young sons back in May.

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hi, this is Jane Garvey and welcome to the Woman's Hour podcast. It's Friday, October the 16th, 2020. Hello, good morning to you. Dolly Alderton with us in a moment or two. Also this morning, a listener tells us what it feels like to get justice after an horrific sexual assault. But she does have questions now about the system that actually served her so well.

You can hear Katie's story, that's not her real name, on Woman's Hour this morning. And also a little bit later, we'll get the view of clinical psychologist Linda Blair on working from home. How is that going for you? It may have been many months since you started all that. How is it working out, working from home, if you're fortunate enough in many ways to be able to do exactly that? You can contact the programme at BBC Women's Hour on social media. I have to say, and against all regulations, you'll have to contact me on my own personal phone, which I have with me in the studio. Should never happen. It's because everything's gone down. It's one of those mornings at Broadcasting House. So you can contact us not on my personal phone number, but on social media, which I can see on my phone. I hope that's clear enough for those of you who are still sticking

around after that burbling introduction. Dolly Alderton wrote a best-selling memoir called Everything I Know About Love. She is the Sunday Times' style agony aunt and half of the successful High Low podcast with Pandora Sykes. Ghosts is her first novel. The central character is Nina Dean. She's a food writer. She's done very well professionally, but her personal life is in flux. A long relationship is over.

Her father has dementia. Her mum is busily attempting to reinvent herself. Friends are disappearing, too, into coupledom and parenthood. And then a man called Max shows up via a dating app. Dolly told me what she thought about writing fiction. The process of writing it, I found structurally harder because you obviously have to create a world. You have to create people within those worlds. You've got to create convincing psychology within those people.

So it takes a lot more kind of technical thinking. But emotionally, it's much less of a toll because you're not having to dig into your past and expose uncomfortable things about yourself. Writing something where most of the criticism would be it's badly written rather than she's an awful person feels like an easier thing to go through. Yeah, just to be told you're a terrible writer rather than a hideous individual is probably... Oh, what a treat.

What a treat for me now. Yeah, I'd prefer that. It made me upset and it made me laugh, sometimes on the same page. So can you just set up the premise for us? It's about Nina. Who is Nina and where is she at in her life? Nina is a woman in her early 30s. She ostensibly has it all together. She's been single for the last couple of years while she changes careers from being an English teacher to being a food writer. She has a surprising hit with her first cookbook. She spent most of her 20s in a very long-term relationship. She's now on

amicable terms with that ex. She seems to have everything together. She decides to try online dating for the first time as a 32-year-old woman. And things are much more complicated than she'd been led to believe. Right. Well, you talk about algorithm. Now, I don't know algorithms. I'm not sure whether this is true. But a friend of Nina's, I think, in the book tells her that on dating apps, they give you the good stuff initially to keep you interested. But then as the weeks go by, you end up with the dross. Is that terribly cruel or is that accurate? I'm not a techie person and I haven't been given the facts of this, but it's a theory that I have road tested over the best part of a decade Jane and it is

something that I seem to find over and over again I think they choose the people to present you with first as a shop window that hooks you in as we know with all these apps it's all about making sure you get addicted as quickly as possible so you will always be searching for the high that you initially felt so I think they present you initially with the people who have had right swipes the most people liking them and then it means that you're kind of for the rest of your time on dating apps I think you're always searching for those people again and obviously not everyone can be those people on dating apps it's got to be the whole spectrum of society. Of course. But it is a it's a truth, I suspect, that once you get to 30, with this book and with that character of Nina, that if you're a woman in your 30s and you know that that's a really interesting thing to balance if you're a woman who also doesn't want to be at the behest of male choices and male impulses

and wanting to feel autonomous and a feminist and independent and in charge of your own decisions so I think that that balance between intellect and biology and politics and biology was something that I was interested in looking at the tension between those two things. And I really do want to make clear there's a lot of comedy in this book and a lot of brilliant observation of life in the suburbs and midlife crises in one form or another. But it is important that we talk about ghosting, which is at the heart of the book. Is it routine in contemporary dating that somebody would really be super intense and really keen on you and then just disappear? How often does that happen? When I first started writing Ghosts, it really felt to me like it was something in the air.

It was something in the atmosphere. I kept hearing about it happening to other people. It was happening to my friends it became like ghost stories myths and legends of these horrific disorientating situations that would happen where you would feel like you were moving forward with someone and that you had a respectful intimate connection and then they would vanish they would disappear and I've spoken to people who are older than me and they've said that that definitely did happen but I don't think it happened as frequently because I think it people in the past normally have a person of connection between the person they're matched with whereas when you meet someone on a dating app it can be so anonymous because you can have worlds and worlds between you and no commonality

and that can mean that you have less accountability for each other. And you really can disappear. And do women do it too? I've had lots of crotchety men tell me that I'm being unfair and apparently women do do it too. It's not something that I've done. It's not something that I've heard lots of women do. But I'm sure there are cases of women doing it as well. The moment in the book that resonated and I think it probably will resonate with a lot of readers male or female is when you talk about the first time that Nina your central character I think she's on a bus she've her dad is ill he has dementia and she realizes that what she's feeling for her parents or him a a parent, is pity.

It's actually very unusual for people to write about that. It's not really the stuff of contemporary popular fiction and I mean that in the, you know, that's a compliment but did you hesitate about writing that? No, I think it's a really strange, uncomfortable, upsetting, sour feeling. I think it feels like vertigo, really, when you realise that the dynamic between parent and child has changed. You are the one that worries about them. You are the one that potentially is more familiar with the world and how it works than they are. You feel like they're the ones that need support rather than they're supporting you. And I think that that really, for most people, if they're lucky, that is a feeling that really intensifies in your 30s in a way that you don't really have to think about in your

adolescent and young adult life. This book, I think, contains the best description of a hen night, a hen sort of weekend or at least day and a half I have ever read. Have you genuinely ever enjoyed a hen night, Dolly? I'm going to sound like such a curmudgeon. I tell you what, I have really enjoyed hen do's and I really enjoy celebrating the women that I love and the big milestones of their life. I think the thing that I'm always trying to do when I examine Hindu culture or wedding culture is look at these very eccentric rituals and traditions. And that's the thing that I kind of gently want to mock and examine

rather than judging any woman who decides to have a burlesque hat-making tendu that everyone has to pay 450 quid to attend. You make the point because in the book, Nina is effectively a best person to her ex-boyfriend when he gets married. And instead of spending the morning of her wedding drinking hot water with lemon, having had a Brazilian or whatever it is the night before or the day before, she just goes out for a full English and they have a laugh.

I mean, because that's what men do. Why do we perpetuate this? Maybe if I ever get married, I'll be swept under by it all as well, because I don't know about you, but it feels like I know so many women who are so switched on about gender politics and gender inequalities and what is traditional and what traditions do they want to buck against and then suddenly this this structure is handed over to them of how you do a wedding as a woman you go on a ridiculous diet for six months you spend money that you don't

have to look like a five-year-old princess being given away by her father as you walk down the aisle and for some reason that all goes out the window. Also, though, this book does draw attention to something that can be really troubling when a friend crosses over into motherhood and becomes a different person, treats you differently. And that actually, for women, can be extremely hard to navigate, can't it? My first book was a love letter to friendship.

It was a love story about friendship. I remember older readers would say to navigate, can't it? My first book was a love letter to friendship. It was a love story about friendship. I remember older readers would say to me, you know, things do get a little bit trickier to navigate with friendship. It becomes harder to retain intimacy and familiarity and routine when your lives go in such different directions. But do you think sometimes that mothers in the early years of motherhood, for whatever reason, can be somewhat contemptuous of their friends who aren't there yet? fatalistic one and because of the enormous way in which it changes a woman's life and career and mind and body and brain and social life everything changes for a woman when they have a child I think that sometimes the way to understandably convince yourself that this was the right decision is to really double down and kind of do you know what I mean protect that decision and make it the

best decision that could ever have been made and everyone else is wrong who's not doing it. Can I ask about your other life as an agony aunt? Yes. I was particularly, you're the Sunday Times style agony aunt. That's right, isn't it? And there was a very thought-provoking problem this week about weight gain in lockdown.

Outline what that issue was. I really wanted to answer this because I think it's something that lots of people are feeling. A woman wrote in to say that she had put on weight during lockdown. That was the thing that she was really focusing on. What she wasn't focusing on so much, which I think is the most important part of her story, was that she was a single mother to two children she lived in a tiny flat in London and she had no partner and no friends nearby to help her and obviously she couldn't see her friends or family to help her and she was really berating herself about her habits of comfort eating and not exercising and she put on weight

and I think it's really important to address that what this woman was talking about she was framing in this idea that she'd messed up that she'd made bad choices and what I wanted to lead her to was a sense of she had not done anything wrong she was giving her body and mind exactly what it needed in a time of immense stress and what it needed was rest recuperation and comfort food and there's no morality attached to that there's no right or wrong there's no good or bad that's someone responding instinctively to their body in a kind and caring way dolly alderton with some sound advice there i know i have eaten more crisps in the last six months I

think than at any other time in my life um so that was Dolly Alderton the book is called Ghosts um I hope you got the right impression from that conversation I really enjoyed with Dolly it's such a good book I really really did like that one now here's something that we cover all too frequently on Woman's Hour um we often talk about low rape conviction rates. And according to the Crown Prosecution Service, rape convictions in England and Wales are at an all-time low. There is, of course, another side to all this. And the last thing we'd want to do on this programme is to discourage anybody, anybody from reporting a rape or a sexual assault. A rape survivor that we're calling Katie got in

touch with Woman's Hour to tell us about what happened to her. A few weeks ago, her former partner was convicted of raping and sexually assaulting her, and he got a lengthy prison sentence over a decade. Katie feels, and that's not her real name, that she has had justice and she was well treated by the police and by everybody she came across in court. But she is left with a whole string of questions and a rather uncomfortable feeling perhaps that other victims of rape might not have had the same treatment or the same outcome. I was asleep in my bed and at some point during the evening, my former partner broke into the house and subjected me to a violent physical and sexual assault, which resulted in three rape charges and three separate sexual assault charges as well. Did you ring the police? Did you go to the police? I rang the police, yes. I'd escaped from my home, I suppose really fearing for my life at that point

and had sought refuge at a neighbour's house, it was the middle of the night and contacted the police, really not knowing what I was reporting but to let them know that something terrible had happened, that I needed to be safe and as part of that I obviously described that I had been raped and sexually assaulted. And how were you treated? Really amazingly. I can't speak highly enough about every individual who's been involved throughout. I've never really given much thought to what the police do. But the officers that attended the scene initially were just

extraordinary, really. They let me know that I was safe. They really made me feel that they believed me. They guided me through the process, explained to me everything that they were doing and why. I was then taken to have a clinical examination. And again, what an extraordinary thing to do really when you just experience the rape to then have to have your naked body examined by somebody you've never met before but the person who did that made me feel as relaxed as it is possible to feel but it's interesting I do remember after the examination of PC he said he said to me, I've been very dignified. And I didn't think about it until afterwards. And I think it was a really well intended comment. And actually, what do you say to somebody in that position? But I've sort of reflected back on that even

afterwards and thinking, well, you know, is there a way to be when somebody is examining your body after a rape or a sexual assault? Did I behave better than other people? Was there something unusual in my presentation? I don't know. I don't know you and I can't see you. I could make assumptions about you. And for the purposes of this interview, I'm going to and I'm going to suggest that you are a middle class professional person. Would that be right? Yes, actually, i'm not a wealthy person but i do enjoy lots of the advantages that middle class people i think i am middle class do enjoy i have a supportive family i have a job which pays me well enough to support my family and which has supported me through the process i have been able to understand the process. I have an education.

It's really tricky to navigate or to understand everything that's being asked of you as part of the investigation. Sometimes it's difficult to understand why you're being asked certain questions or why you're being asked to do a certain thing. But I suppose I was able to understand it and I can quite easily understand how somebody wouldn't and actually moreover wouldn't want to because you feel or I felt extraordinarily chaotic after it happened and I would imagine most people who've experienced a rape would feel very very similar but I was able to create some sort of calm I suppose because of the support that I had around me. And part of that support is the fact that I was able to continue to support my family, continue to attend work. And I recognise that that won't be the case for all people who find themselves in the same situation that I did. And what about the fact that the man who attacked you was somebody you knew?

How early on in the investigation did that crop up? Was it ever an issue? I worried about it because when the idea of a credible witness was first introduced to me, I remember thinking, well, how credible is it that somebody who I've previously been in a sexual relationship with has somehow seemingly out of nowhere raped me? Will that be considered credible in the eyes of the law? But actually, fortunately, it wasn't taken into consideration, it certainly wasn't held against me. Well, of course, and nor should it have been. You don't seem to have, even for a second, thought about not reporting.

Am I right? You are, but the point at which I made contact with the police, it was to tell them that I didn't think that I was safe and I needed somebody to come and make me safe. I'd been forced from my home. I couldn't go back there. And it was only really with a very skilled call handler. It was only really when they were asking me to describe what had happened that amongst other things, I described that I had been raped and sexually

assaulted. It would not have occurred to me at the time not to report it. had I had the opportunity to think about it, I'm not sure I would have reported it. And I can well understand why people might be put off reporting when they see, as I have done since, how few reports of rape ever make it to prosecution. Nobody would give me any indication of what they thought the outcome would be. And I suppose I drew from that the fact that they didn't have much confidence that it would even make it to court, let alone for a sentence. What is really important about your experience is that you have been served well by this system. You went through an absolutely horrific experience.

Of course, you deserve justice. And I think you would say that you've had it. But your concern would be that other people simply not as well equipped as you, not as dignified as you, to use that adjective, would not have got justice. The outcome for me was exceptional. And actually, on the day of sentencing, when I relayed that message to various people, that there'd been a lengthy prison sentence, the vast majority responded with surprise. I don't think surprise because they didn't feel that it was justified, but because it's quite unheard of. So something was different.

And I suppose if I think about the process from start to finish, first of all, I was able to describe to the police what had happened to me and it seems like a really obvious thing to do but actually you first have to understand what is and isn't acceptable and I suppose that if you are someone whose life has been chaotic and perhaps you haven't had the same advantages that I have of a supportive family, good people around you, maybe you wouldn't think that some of the things that have happened to you were worth reporting. I also, as any victim of rape would be asked to do, produce a victim personal statement. And again, it was something that people described as being very moving,

that is something that they could really empathise with. And that's fine but what if I weren't able to express those feelings what if I weren't literate what if there's so many things which I'd never thought of as being advantages but will actually have advantages me when it came to expressing how how this crime had impacted me and actually when it comes to determining how this crime had impacted me. And actually, when it comes to determining the severity of the rape, there are various aggravating factors that are taken into consideration. Although the victim's personal statement won't inform sentencing, it does highlight the psychological damage that had been done.

Well, I find it very hard to believe that anyone who'd experienced the rape won't have some form of psychological damage, and I believe that's supported by the evidence. But the fact that I was able to express that in writing, I suppose, did advantage me or did enable me to get justice. And it's another instance where perhaps somebody else might not have done. Well, it's left you with, as you've already said, a feeling of guilt and lots of questions. But honestly, how are you now? I'm all right. I've been able to carry on my work and eventually found a new home for myself and my family. I haven't slept since it happened. I suppose in due course we'll

probably look for access and counselling. It had left me feeling that I had no worth. And I think that this is why the sentence is so valuable. Because I wonder whether, had this Crown Prosecution Service decided that there wasn't enough evidence that they couldn't make a charge against this individual, it would have left me feeling that actually it didn't matter, that actually what happened to me was okay. And I can just imagine that there must be so many people

who are left feeling that way for that reason. And I suppose that's where the guilt comes in. But I'm all right. A classic bit of British understatement there from a listener we're calling Katie, who contacted us with that experience. And that's her very personal story, of course. Gillian Jones, QC, head ofbers at Red Lion in London. Gillian, good morning to you. Good morning. First of all, what do you make of the essence of what Katie had to say there? I think it's an incredibly important message that these difficult and sensitive cases

can and are being successfully prosecuted. Katie's is not a unique experience, but one which isn't often heard. And I want to thank her for having the courage to share it. However, it does raise a number and perhaps highlight some of the areas where difficulties still arise in these types of cases. Well, let's go through them. And first of all, perhaps we should just celebrate what went right here. Absolutely. So what did go right, right from the very start? Indeed, what you had here, it seems to me, is a series of excellent communicators from the moment that Katie made that call, from the role of the call handler in the 999 call who elicited from her

what had occurred, to the officers who initially attended and were able to make her feel safe and explain what was going to happen to her, to the medical examiner, who even a few hours after she had had this horrific experience, were able to explain to her why they were undertaking the examination, so that she felt able to be, at least understand what they were asking her to do. And also the fact that she was able to articulate what had occurred to her, along with the fact that she had the support of her family through the process and was able to return to work and create a structure out of the chaos of which the attack created. And of course, the decision to prosecute, which meant that she had her time to go to court,

give her best evidence in order to have the cathartic experience, as she explained it, of seeing the case go through trial and ultimately for that sentence. So what happened to Katie at every stage of the procedure should in fact be what happens to every alleged victim of rape and sexual assault? Absolutely. So why doesn't it? Well, this goes back to what we've seen as the CPS have recently acknowledged that there is a justice gap. And there was a review last year of the CPS. Indeed, they've launched this year a five-year blueprint for the prosecution of rape and serious sexual offences. And the critical phase is from that first report through to the decision to charge. And great improvement is needed to ensure that

everybody has Katie's experience. And that's from improving collaborative working between police and the CPS, making sure that there is legal advice given in the early stages of the investigation to help focus on reasonable lines of inquiry, to ensure that we've got fully resourced specialist units with dedicated and highly trained prosecutors, to make sure people have, that making decisions, proper guidance as to changes in the law to aid the understanding of the complexities in this area,

and absolutely critically a better quality of communication with victims being sensitive to those needs when they are particularly vulnerable and if people need assistance in communication whether it's by way of interpreters intermediaries or specialists that they're brought in to ensure everybody has Katie's voice. Right just to try to get to the absolute heart of this, what do we all need to do as potential victims to give ourselves the best chance of getting justice? Would it be quite simply to contact the authorities as early as possible?

That's one really good thing we could do. Absolutely. But also, it's very important that people know that just if you don't report it straight away, that is no bar to prosecution. There are many historic cases that are successfully prosecuted as well. directly to the police if you don't wish to do so. One of them is a support service called the Independent Sexual Violence Advisors. And they're individuals who are specially trained to provide emotional and practical support about the criminal justice system to victims of rape and sexual abuse. And they're entirely independent of the police and CPS. And you can contact them through your local authority or via the Rape Crisis website. And that's irrespective of whether you've reported the matter to the police.

And they will not automatically tell the authorities themselves? The position will be that they will discuss it with you and assist you to make the decisions that are the best for you in the circumstances you're in. I mean, Katie had a lot of support, and such support services offer those who don't have that level of support an independent voice, in effect, to assist them. Can we just talk in more detail about what Katie said?

What do you think about the moment when she was told that she had been dignified? It's an interesting adjective and I think it highlights the fact that how people present is very different. When you're being examined, it must be very difficult for any of us to imagine what that must be like, where you're being medically examined naked after an event like this, something so horrific. but whoever examined her was able to um it's ensuring that people don't judge behavior and i think that's a critical point that we have all recognized in the criminal justice system everybody everybody presents in very different ways and ensuring that people who deal with um people at such vulnerable times times are able to properly deal and communicate with those individuals.

So it's to make sure everybody feels like Katie was able to ask questions, understand and have an understanding of why they're being asked to do what they're being asked to do. She also talked about her victim statement and she's an intelligent, articulate woman. How much power do these victim statements have? How much do they matter? Sentencing is a matter for the judge. There is guidance the judge follows that highlights the key factors that are taken into consideration when determining sentence. However a victim personal statement is a very powerful tool in explaining both to the court and to the public about the impact that this offence has had on the individual. There's a lot of assistance given to individuals in being able to properly articulate what they want to say and indeed some people read

it out in court themselves. And does that, I mean, not everybody would have the strength and we shouldn't criticise somebody who doesn't have it. Would that make a difference? I don't think it does in the sense it's more about the individual because that allows the, some individuals want to go through that process and it's for them. If they don't wish to do so, then counsel will read it out for the judge. So it's always aired in a way that that individual feels it's properly heard. Yeah, I think it's really important to acknowledge that clearly from what you're saying, and indeed from our own, we know, progress has been made in the understanding of sexual crime and its impact on victims. But, Gillian, we cannot get away from the low rape conviction rates in England and Wales.

Things are improving slightly in that area in Scotland, I know. So where does that leave somebody who is worried about what has happened to them, more than worried, and wants to get help, wants to go and report it, but feels they won't get anywhere? I think from the first point that must be made absolutely clear is report it. There is, as Katie's stories tells you, a huge amount of well-trained individuals willing and able to assist you. And you shouldn't be put off in not reporting for fear that the case won't go forward. I think we should encourage people to make that report. And the system is improving all the time.

And it's only with people's stories like Katie's where it highlights these issues, which makes government, the Crown Prosecution Service, its investment in the system that's needed to ensure that the proper resources are there, to ensure those who deal with victims are properly trained and not under-resourced. And I think it's also just worth emphasising that the woman we're calling Katie

was expressing a feeling of guilt. Of course, she is the last person who should feel anything like that in this set of circumstances. Absolutely it's absolutely she should feel no guilt at all and indeed what is imperative is that every person who goes through the criminal justice system that the system adapts to their needs it should adapt to the individual and not the other way around. And that is increasingly being the case and where there has been a huge change in the approach of the criminal

justice system in how to deal with these cases. There's still a lot of work to be done, but I think a huge amount of work has been done and it's getting better all the time. Thank you. Well, that is something. Progress is being made. Thank you, Gillian. Gillian Jones at QC, Head of Chambers at Red Lion in London. Any thoughts on that? At BBC Women's Hour on social media. I'm delighted to say that we're going to be talking about

one of my heroines, Victoria Wood, on Monday's programme because her biography is out. It's by a journalist called Jasper Rees, who I think I'm right in saying became quite a close friend of Victoria Wood. I just thought she was absolutely brilliant and we're going to delight in her genius on Monday Morning's programme. We're also next Friday, this time next week, talking about long COVID and the possible, the greater impact possibly on women rather than men, although we know more men than women die of coronavirus. We need to make

that absolutely clear. We do understand that. We've had a lot from you on long COVID. I gather no more is required. We've got plenty of material for next Friday's programme, but thank you. We do welcome your involvement. And that, of course, is exactly what the woman we call Katie did. She emailed the programme. Please do feel free to do that via the website with something you'd like us to talk about. Working from home, let's revisit this old corona chestnut in the company of clinical psychologist Linda Blair and Chloe, Chloe Davis, head of PR and partnerships at MyGWork. And I think Chloe Davis, you spoke to us back in May. How are things for you now, Chloe? We're going to hear from you in May in a moment, but just give us marks out of 10

for your current working from home situation. What is the best? Is one the lowest? Yeah, we'll say one is the lowest, yeah. We average between a three and a five. Good, okay. Well, let's hear you back in May. So I spend a lot of my time doing webinars or private sessions.

And as you can imagine, with a four-year-old and a two-year-old, it's having to get really inventive about where I can go for an hour's silence. So, you know, I'm grateful we have a garden. We've tried putting them outside when the weather is really nice. But my go-to space has now become the loft. So I'm currently speaking to you in our loft with the latch slightly up because they can't climb the ladder. You claim to have written a couple, at least three emails, I think you said,

with a child on your head? Yeah, that's my youngest son, Theo, who has no respect for boundaries at all. Chloe, where is Theo now? Theo is thankfully at nursery today. Oh, have you? OK. So your coast is relatively clear. Absolutely. I think there was an element of novelty about all this, I gather,

for those people who are working from home at the start. Seriously, is it becoming a real grind now? Yeah. I mean, we are, I was saying earlier, potentially looking at the now? Yeah I mean we are I was saying earlier potentially looking at the possibility of I mean we rent so now moving hopefully somewhere where we can turn one of the bedrooms into an office simply because the longer that we will be working from home it's getting quite difficult whether it be the weather or quite, I've got growing sons who are being more explorative. They want to do more. They can now climb that ladder.

Yeah, I bet they can. And remind us about your partner. So they they're working. Also, we both work from home. So he is actually we've now set up an office space, but we take it in turns. Who gets to use the kitchen? So, yeah, we just are running out of room. Yeah, OK. Linda, I think I'm right in saying the novelty is all over for all of us in every aspect of this wretched affair.

What would you say about how the nation is coping in terms of those people who are working from home? Well, they're being amazing. Absolutely amazing. Yes, we should say that, shouldn't we? Yeah. I think so. But you're right. The initial reaction is almost euphoria. You know, we're going to make this work. We're going to, because we're in shock and we don't get any emotional input at that point. But now we have the emotions and we are aware of what we're missing out on that we need, like social contact with other people who are doing similar things, direct emotional contact.

So that's hard. On the other hand, we now have habits and habits help us a lot. It takes about three months to get a habit going really well. And so at least we have that. I just want to bring in a listener called Jane, who's in Glasgow. She says she's a nurse in a neonatal unit. Well, it doesn't get more important than that as a job. She says her husband's a social work manager. He's got a blended system of work some days in the office some at home originally i thought it was great i do love him deeply we've been married for 30 years but now i have to be more quiet than if i were in the house alone radio sound down no singing along no playing the piano while he's on endless online video meetings constantly trying to keep our elderly and somewhat needy cat from joining his meetings being aware of having to stay out of view of the camera. So, in fact, she's also having her daytime sleep disturbed because she does night shifts.

It's an issue for everybody, isn't it, Linda? What do you do if, in fact, you're not the one homeworking, but you have to live around somebody who is? Well, I always say that there are four words that kind of help us do homeworking. One is structure. Another is good communication. Well, that's a phrase. And the other is mutual respect. And it's hard to have mutual respect all the time when you feel like you're the one who has to be quiet.

And you must remember from their point of view that you're the one that gets to go out so um i think regular discussions of not directly about the issue but just time to talk is really important like i get a lot of my clients to go on a date um you at the moment i don't know if we can leave the house but at least once. Yeah, you can leave the house with your person that you're living with. Yeah. And not much of a novelty, is it? But yeah, go on. Well, no agenda. You can make a nice meal once the kids are in bed. You know, something where you just have a good atmosphere and just see what comes. And I think that is one of the best preventative measures possible. I imagine, Chloe, to a degree, you'd acknowledge this,

you're in the happy chaos of family life, aren't you? Do you have peer group friends who are living alone and finding it tough? Yeah, you know, I think even to a certain extent, you know, I'd be lying if I said it's not all happy at all times. You know, we've both been working full time. We've both got children and trying to find space to just have a moment for ourselves where, you know, we can't apply self-care. I can't have a bath by myself anymore. So, you know, when I'm speaking to friends who are alone and they're trying to buddy or bubble with others, you know, before we could go for a walk or at least you know possibly go and have a

meal and and so the more restrictions that come the less that we can do to just keep ourselves on track at this time when we're under such you know constraints it is more and more difficult for everyone much more so if you've got dependents but not easy for anyone no i don't i don't think it is easy for anyone i just wonder linda whether, whether we'll know the full weight of this. Well, when we'll know it? I mean, it might be in, I don't know, 15 years time when we look back and think, oh, 2020. Do you think we'll ever fully understand the impact all this has had on us? I hope so. But I don't think we're going to feel the full impact for once restrictions are lifted and we feel safe again for another year after that. I don't think we're going to feel the full impact for once restrictions are lifted and we feel safe again for another year after that, I don't think. It's very like a grief.

It's a mourning. We lost something really big and we've got to go through the process of coming to terms with it. I mean, I keep referring to this, but we often have these sort of corona moments, don't we? I mean, I'll just sort of come to on a station platform and think think why am i the only person here at 10 to 7 in the morning i live in london um it's it's all just very very peculiar and i just we're missing each other desperately but we don't quite know how to express it linda i sometimes feel i know and just keep trying because um even those words can can mean so much. Of course, the best thing is a good old hug, but we'll get that.

Will we? When's that going to be, Linda? Oh, gosh. If I knew that, I would be on the radio all the time. I hope, I hope for the people who really need it sometime in the early, early spring. And I hope for the rest of us by the summer. But I don't know. I just follow the scientific report. That is the clinical psychologist Linda Blair. And we also heard there from Chloe Davis, who we'd visited earlier in what we might loosely call this trying period of our lives. So on to your thoughts. A listener says, can we please

acknowledge that WFH does work for some people? I save two hours of commuting a day, get an extra 30 minutes of sleep and pick up my children at five instead of six. And I love it. OK, yes, it is worth saying that, isn't it? Chrissy loves working from home. Never want to go back, she says. Sometimes a dog on a keyboard, but I think it's a small price to pay. From Lucy, I think it's safe to say this is affecting everyone very differently. We're all fighting our own battle. I can't imagine having to parent small children through lockdown. But I also wouldn't wish on anyone the genuine mental pain of going several months without human touch,

huge stretches of time without real human interaction, especially in areas that haven't been allowed to return to normal, and the fear of being left with your own thoughts when you have a pre-existing mental health problem. We're all experiencing this very differently and slotting everyone into a hierarchy of suffering helps nobody. Lucy, thank you for that. Colin says, my wife and I used to be up at six. Yes, I get up at six, Colin. Nothing wrong with that.

And leave the house by seven, not back from work until after six at the earliest. And that's where I do differ from Colin because I'm often back slithering onto the sofa by about two o'clock. Colin says, when working from home, one of us was in the kitchen and the other in the living room at the start. I then spent many days, weeks and months getting a room in our house done up to convert that to an office space. And it's a place we are spending longer and longer in

as it feels like a snug as well now. I know we are lucky having a house with room and the decision to have no children helps when full-time working from home, but it's not all bad and some balance to the very real negatives is not a bad thing. No, absolutely not. Let's have one more here. Over 50 years ago, divorced and running a secretarial service from home, I discovered from a client that he called to ask me to produce a leaflet or something. I was in the garden, but my three-year-old daughter Right. Thank you for that. Marion says, is that still relevant? Yes, it absolutely is.

Thank you very much for that, Marion. I'm glad that you're listening to the programme. Now, can we just talk about, I mean, it's such a, I know we've had many conversations over the years about, unfortunately, about rape and sexual assault. And I suspect come the new year and Emma Barnett's time on the programme, we will continue to have, the programme will continue to have those conversations. Let's just go through some of your thoughts today. In the early hours of the 10th of July 2005, says this listener, I was raped by a stranger in my bed. I didn't hesitate to contact the police and they were amazing. The police found the perpetrator and we went to court resulting in a conviction. My victim statement was taken into account but not read out in full by the judge which felt to me like a bit of a cheat. Please do let Katie and others know help is there. I also didn't sleep properly for three years and still wake up most nights at four in the morning, the time of the attack. It was when I finally convinced

a new GP that I was not depressed, I actually had PTSD and needed professional help, that I got referred to the Maudsley. CBT was hard work, but it changed my life and I started to feel almost normal again. Like Katie, I would strongly encourage people to report. If you don't, you will live horribly with the impact of the rape and may not be able to get the support you need when you need it. Thank you for that. That's your experience. Of course, I would. I've been very fortunate. I have not been sexually assaulted. I would also encourage people to report,

but I can't judge anyone who doesn't because what do I know? Susie says, I reported historical sexual abuse, I'm in Scotland, and experienced great kindness by all the police involved. They tried so hard to get a result for me. I was encouraged to report from the outset, but no charges due to corroboration law. That was something that we did discuss on Women's Hour a couple of months ago now. Elissa says, like Katie, are credible because of bias against race, class, youth, etc.

Well, of course, and that, I say of course, that was precisely the point that Katie was concerned about. That's why she made the point and got in touch with us in the first place. On Twitter, Havilina says, it was an excellent and informative feature and I'm glad it was broadcast. But I do wish Woman's Hour would address the taboo that women do occasionally lie about rape. False allegations and wrongful convictions are beyond devastating. Well, of course they are, but I think we need to say that false allegations of rape are extremely rare. They tend to get widely reported when they occur, and I'm not denying that they occur,

but they are very, very rare indeed. We've had this anonymous email. I'm a young woman and I was raped several years ago on a night out. After years of ups and downs, I now feel regret that I never reported it. The whole event has been very difficult for me to accept, even years later. At the time, I was in shock and embarrassed. I didn't want to be the cliché of a young girl without control over her own body. I now recognise it was not my fault, but I didn't for years. Since I didn't go to the police soon after, and I didn't know the man, I had no evidence. I've been debating with myself whether to report it years later even without evidence as part of me

wants it to be on record that this happened I hope to that anonymous listener that um that they find some sort of peace um I can't give you any advice but I I just hope that um perhaps even just telling us about it helps a little Yasminmin says, after listening to that experience, I would just like to raise awareness about the independent sexual violence advisors that Gillian, your QC, mentioned. We're all over the country. We are independent from the police and we support emotionally and practically survivors and victims of any form of sexual trauma. We're trained in the criminal justice process, but we are first of all victim led. We also offer anonymous reporting for those people who do not wish to report, but still feel

that they need to pass on intelligence anonymously. Really worth bearing in mind if you didn't know about independent sexual violence advisors. There was advice, of course, during the programme about how you make contact with them. I think it's also important that I read this email out. Again, it's one of those other side of the story, different experience emails. I was raped two years ago after my work's Christmas party. I reported the incident within 48 hours. I didn't report it straight away because I was frightened and I just wanted to feel safe and I hadn't even really understood what had happened. My friends helped me, took me to a hospital to have a rape kit done.

They were adamant I should do this first in case I wanted to prosecute. Within 24 hours of the examination, I called the police to make a statement. After a month of being interrogated by questions from the police, having my school and university details taken to see if I'd made a claim like this before, I hadn't, a video interview where I had to again retell the event, causing much pain, taking a new phone contract out

as my phone was taken for three months for evidence, my case didn't even make it to court. The police officers I dealt with were women and I grew to like them and they dealt with me well, but I was let down by the Crown Prosecution Service. I worry that my rapist has done this before and will do it again and I am left with the trauma I feel I will never get over. And although I'm glad Katie from your interview has received justice, rightly so, for most of us rape or assault victims, this is not the outcome. The day that the officers told me there'd be no further action, I cried for hours and wished I had never reported it.

I'm a 28 year old professional. Well, to that listener, I know your name and I'm so bitterly disappointed on your behalf that you had that experience. And I'm so sorry. And I appreciate that that does happen. Clearly, because it happened to you. Dolly Alderton is very, very popular and everybody loved hearing from her. Ghosts is the name of her book. Anthea said, I often have the fact that I've taken my husband's name thrown back at me for being unfeminist. I do find this perplexing and judgmental, as it often comes from women who've chosen to make the choices that Dolly Alderton outlined for their weddings, dressing like a

princess, spending money they don't really have, being given away by their father. I took my husband's name so that we, with our firstborn, who was 11 months at the time, could be a unit. The name was arbitrary. We walked down the aisle together. I was dressed in a lovely but frivolous £180 dress with shoes that came off almost immediately in preference for bare feet. I spoke first at the reception. It was no less special or meaningful. In fact, I would argue more meaningful than some weddings that I've been to.

I don't need to beat my chest every day with a name that signifies my feminist opinions. It's the actions we take and the lives we live. Thank you for that. Catherine, the comment from Jane looking down on women who haven't got there yet betrays an entrenched belief that having children is the goal for all women. It shows that as much as we proclaim otherwise, it's embedded. Otherwise, the comment may have been women who choose not to or women who make different choices. An example of unconscious bias, perhaps.

Yes, Catherine, I certainly didn't intend to in any way judge women who haven't had children for a string of very good reasons. You've every right not to have them. So sorry if it came across that way. I think I was actually suggesting that as a viewpoint some people might have. But look, I mean, you never know how it comes out in conversation. And we are having conversations, obviously, and sometimes we speak in a way that can be misinterpreted. And the listener says, I understand why you would take that line on comfort eating,

but supporting a person in compulsive eating and fixing on food rather than making healthy choices is not good advice. I think Dolly was just trying, well, I think she did show exemplary support for the person who had written to her problem page just asking for solace at this trying time. So I'm not sure I completely buy that. I think this poor woman who wrote to Dolly was just giving herself a hard time and she needed those words of consolation and comfort that she got in Dolly's answer in the Sunday Times Style magazine. And I did mean it, by the way. I'm just really, I could talk for hours about crisps, what I've discovered in lockdown about my favourite crisps.

But unfortunately, this isn't a crisp podcast, so I won't get the chance now. Thank you very much for listening. Women's Hour sails on, of course. The highlights of the week will be on weekend. Women's Hour available from tomorrow, and then we're back live and in podcast form on Monday morning. I know you just want to hear your show, but this won't take long.

I'm Miles, the producer of Radio 4's Tricky Podcast. And it works like this. Four people from across the UK meet up and without a presenter breathing down their necks, talk about issues they really care about because sex work is quite complicated for a lot of people and it's okay to be against it but not to you know shame someone because of their profession across the series we'll hear anger shock and even the odd laugh another thing that really gets to me is when people say

I know what we need to do. I know what black people... Shut up. You don't... Like, that's the thing. That's not how it works. Nobody knows. If you knew, you would have done it. Discover more conversations like this

by searching Tricky 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 The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in.

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