Woman's Hour - Donna Ward on reclaiming spinsterhood; Comedian Liz Kingsman; Scars - Jayne; BBC 100 Objects

Episode Date: December 29, 2021

Australian author Donna Ward’s new book She I Dare Not Name: A Spinster's Meditations on Life explores the meaning and purpose she has fought to find in a life lived entirely accidentally without a partner or children. Donna speaks to Chloe from Melbourne.Over the next few days we're talking to women about their scars. They all talk about physical and emotional pain they've experienced and having to deal with other people’s reactions on a day to day basis. They also explain how they came to terms with the skin they are in. Ena Miller went to meet Jayne in Shropshire and heard her story about surviving a flesh eating bug. Comedian Liz Kingsman, best known as a member of cult sketch group Massive Dad, is making major waves with her solo debut, One-Woman Show, which she is performing at the Soho Theatre from 5 January. She tells Chloe what inspired her.As the BBC prepares to celebrate its 100th anniversary through the lens of 100 objects, we get a sneak peek at a few items in the collection. The BBC’s Head of History Robert Seatter explains the significance of a 1930s press cutting of the BBC looking to recruit the first women TV announcers, a cookbook by Madhur Jaffrey and a 1920s scrapbook from Evelyn Dove, the first black female singer to perform on BBC.Image: Donna Ward Credit: Amanda Ford

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to the programme. Good to have you with us this morning. Now we're going to be talking about the former BBC Radio 1 DJ Janice Long. This is our first live programme since her death and we didn't want to miss the opportunity to talk about the impact she had on other women in the music industry. Janice Long opened doors for women. She championed female artists and she was an icon of the music industry. Her daughter Blue said you were a trailblazer for so many women to go conquer and succeed. The first woman to host

Top of the Pops and the first woman to have her own daily show on Radio 1. Well we're going to be focusing over the next hour on the difference that she made for women wanting to and working in the music industry. Now, when you hear the word spinster, what image does it conjure up? Well, Australian author Donna Ward will talk to us about how she's hoping to reclaim the word through her new book, which looks at life as a single and childless woman through accident, not choice. She sees the world as being set up for couples and families. So I want to hear from you this morning. How have you made living on your own a positive experience? You can text us now on 84844.

Text will be charged at your standard message rate. Is it about keeping yourself busy? Is it about being able to do whatever you want, whenever you want, without having to consult others? Do you relish having never to compromise? Share your experiences now via social media. It's at BBC Women's Hour, or of course you can email us through our website.

Now, the messy woman trope is one that has earned female writers and actors success in recent years. You think about Phoebe Waller-Bridge in Fleabag and the brilliant Sophie Willan in Alma's Not Normal. Well, now a new one-woman show on the London stage is parodying that genre. And the writer and actor Liz Kingsman is here to tell us all about it. And also over the next few days here on Woman's Hour, we're going to hear from women about their relationships with their own scars. Today, we're going to hear Jane's story.

And also later on in the programme, we're going to be talking about the fact that the BBC is reaching its centenary year in 2022. BBC History is launching its 100 Objects collection. It's highlighting some of the standout moments of the last 100 years. Amongst others we're going to be looking at the first advert looking for female TV announcers and Woman's Hour's quilt. It It was made, of course, by listeners of this programme to mark 75 years of suffrage back in 1993. But let's begin by talking about Janice Long, best known as a Radio 1, Radio 2 and Top of the Pops presenter. She died on Christmas Day after a short illness.

Now, this is our first live programme since then. We felt we couldn't let her death pass us by without talking about Janice. She was a trailblazer for women in broadcasting as well as being a champion for women across the music industry and was still presenting on BBC Radio Wales up until only a few weeks ago. Janice had a career that spanned five decades and she broke barriers as a woman at the BBC. She was the first woman to have her own daily show on Radio 1. Hello and welcome to the show.

It's great to be here. Hope you'll be around until 10 o'clock. Well, after almost 20 years of male hosts, she became the first regular female presenter of Top of the Pops. Here's a little bit of her presenting the show. Hello, regular female presenter of Top of the Pops. Here's a little bit of her presenting the show. Hello, welcome to a live Top of the Pops. I'm Aunty Janice. I'm Uncle John and we're going to play you some songs from the hit parade, aren't we Janice? They're smashing like the Style Council and walls come tumbling down. And they've plenty of reason to celebrate even though we celebrated it 20 days ago.

It's U2 in at number 23 and New Year's Day. Wow, that is just utter brilliance. She is so there, Cindy Redd singing live. Well, let's speak now to Nikki McKay, who is from BBC Radio Merseyside. She knew Janice from when she first started there in 1979. And I'm so sorry, Nikki, I can see you're really emotional there hearing those clips. You know what? What always amazes me about Janice was the voice changed I mean in recent times her voice was a lot huskier and she always had that great sound and there that just brought back the

memories of when I knew when we first met and I started in 77 at Merseyside. She started in 79. We hit it off. We must have hit it off so well for the simple reason I got married in 1980 and she was one of my guests at the wedding. So she was one of those people. I said it on Radio Merseyside the other day. She was WYSIWYG. What you saw is what you got. There was no side to her. She talked to you at a level like she talked to everybody. She was just the most kindest, nicest person you could possibly wish to have as a friend, really. It came across in the broadcasting, the kind of the happiness, the fizziness, the energy that she always had when she broadcast? She did. I mean, that smile, she always had that smile.

You know, when Janice came into Radio Merseyside, which she had done throughout the years of her broadcasting, because she came to Radio Merseyside's 50th anniversary and goodness knows what, and she always had that smile. And that smile reflected itself in her voice and she was just one of those fun people to be with. She was just delightful in every way. I was very fortunate to be invited to her wedding in 2017 and when she walked down the aisle with that trouser suit of hers on, she just was just buzzing. She was fantastic.

And yet she must have had to be a really strong woman. We've said for her to become the first woman to regularly present Top of Pops, to be the first woman to get her own daily show on Radio 1. You can't underestimate how tough that was for a woman. Not at all. And being at Radio Merseyside, she actually was one of the first female presenters to present programmes. She presented a programme called Street Life, which the equivalent today would class as the BBC Introducing, which is obviously very popular throughout the whole of BBC Local Radio. So Janice pioneered this fantastic programme of getting live, well, getting the local bands heard rather than the ones that were being typically played on BBC Radio 1 and things. So people were having the opportunity to hear local artists. And of course, as she moved on to the national radio,

well, the world was her oyster. But Janice was Janice. There was nothing, she had every right to be up there along with all the other presenters. She was talented. She was clever. She was smart. And she deserved that opportunity. I'm so so pleased that she

actually got it. She I mean we mustn't forget as well she was the only woman who was chosen to present Live Aid at the concert in 1985 I saw clips of that the other day I'd completely forgotten that um but she I mean she did come up against a lot of sexism, didn't she, during her time? Yeah, I think she did. I mean, that was the era, wasn't it? I mean, some of that goes on today. But it was the era of the time. It was, I don't know, I suppose it just went on like that. And it was one of those situations that no way could a female do this and I think it was the hindsight of someone at Radio Merseyside it was uh one of our managers at the time Roy Corlett and he could spot talent and he was very good at it and he saw that Janice

um had that talent that would just be if she just stayed as she was as a broadcast assistant, no one would have ever got to experience Janice the way she was and how good she was because she was a natural. Nicky, I want you to stay with us because I want to bring in Lorna Clark now, who's head of BBC Pop, to join our conversation. Lorna, thank you so much for coming to talk to us. I know you haven't heard everything that Nicky and I have been talking about, but really talking, Nicky, from a personal point of view,

but we're also talking about the impact that Janice Long had on breaking down barriers for women, and that really can't be underestimated, can it, Lorna? No, absolutely. I mean, you could argue that without someone like Janice, many of the, certainly the music broadcasters that I work with now may not have been around because we know how important it is to be able to see what you want to be. And Janice, I mean, she had a reputation of being a real mentor as well. So all the young people that came into broadcasting,

she would put an arm around them. So she definitely had a big impact. If I think about my music breakfast show presentation team now, they are all female, bar one out of five. And I think that's significant. I was reading earlier on that the BBC Radio 1 DJ, Adele Roberts, actually tweeted saying, thank you for everything you did to inspire others

and open doors for other women and other radio presenters to prosper. I've got a tweet which has just come in here from Kieran saying, Janice was a great DJ and a great supporter of new music. There was no box ticking. She had to work twice as hard as a man would have to do to get the same recognition. Would you agree with that, Lorna?

Well, I would say that if you're in a room and there aren't any other people who look like you, it's going to be more difficult. And you do have to have pretty special skills to negotiate your way around number one a pretty complex um organization like the bbc is big and it's impressive and you have to be able to uh maneuver yourself around what is still a male dominant music industry um and with janice all of the people who she interviewed, all of the artists, they all leave that interview

with a really warm feeling. It's one thing getting the opportunity to talk to, you know, impressive, important musicians. It's another to leave a really positive impression. And that's the effect she had on people. And we mustn't forget the sexism that she had to endure. We were talking to Nicky about that just before you joined us, Lorna. I mean, I was reading that Janice Long believed it was because

she became pregnant while she wasn't married, that she actually was effectively sacked from Radio 1. And she says that she complained about it. The corporation privately conceded it was the case. But at the time, her contract didn't allow her to do anything about it. I mean, how times have changed. Times have thankfully changed massively. I mean, again, it's as I say, there are so many fantastically talented women broad broadcasters uh across the bbc now um where that world uh

simply doesn't that doesn't make sense to them um the difference now is as i say you can be a breakfast host you can be a host of Women's Hour. You can be you can be anything you want to be based on your talent. And I've said this before, but I think if when you look around, there aren't many people who look like you, it takes an extra bit of courage. The BBC of many decades ago is not the BBC of now. I don't know those details, but I do know that myself as a as a senior leader at the BBC, I don't recognise that kind of behaviour at all. It's it doesn't get the best out of people it doesn't keep the best talent and someone like um janice you know she just kept sticking to uh what she knew she could do best which was

get fantastic stories out of um artists uh discover and really unearth things that were important and just stick to what was true. She really was one of a kind. Thank you so much, both of you, for joining us today. We heard there from Lorna Clark, who is head of BBC Pop, controller of BBC Pop, and we also heard from Nicky McKay from BBC Radio Merseyside, who knew Janice Longwell. We mustn't forget as well, she was one

of the first people that championed Amy Winehouse and Adele. I mean, that is just absolutely mind-boggling. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. Now, the Australian author, Donna Ward's first book, shows us the realities of living a single life in a world which she sees as being designed for couples and for families. She, I dare not name, Aspinsa's Meditations of Life, explores the meaning and the purpose she has found in life, which has been lived entirely accidentally without a partner or children. Now, by her early 40s, Donna's parents had died.

She was estranged from her remaining family. Romantic attachments hadn't worked out, and she realised she'd most likely live the rest of her life alone. Well, now she's 67, and Donna says that after a long period of struggle and depression, she now thrives as a self-styled spinster, but it often means dealing with the prejudice and the stigma of being different. I'm delighted to say she joins us now live from Melbourne in Australia. Hi there, Donna.

Hello, how are you? Very well, thank you. Thank you so much for coming to speak to us today. Let's talk about the word spinster, first of all, because it's quite a loaded word, isn't it? And lots of people can see it as quite negative. But in a sense, you kind of want to reclaim that, don't you? Yes, look, reclaiming is such a curious word because it sounds like I want to put a gloss on it and I don't want to say or or say to anyone really that I'm spinster and proud because I'm not spinster and proud I am spinster and um I uh can I say to you I began this book as a single woman. You know, I was writing about being single.

And as I researched the life of single and the meaning of single, particularly when it comes to statistical surveys, I discovered that single is kind of this heterogeneous, this conglomeration of different kinds of lives and mostly lives that didn't look like mine. Certainly single women, you automatically assume that there's a child attached to the woman, that women have children attached to them. And I was, when I was being a social worker,

fighting for that recognition that women shouldn't be seen just solely as individual members of society, that every woman had a child involved in their life. And so their income and housing and all sorts of things needed to take that into consideration. But as I was doing my research, what I was finding out was that there was a lot of reflection on single women and and those women could be like not yet married or they could be separated or divorced excuse me divorced or they could be it's sort of between relationships in a way or they could have had a partner living in another house down the road. So they were living very different lives to me, lives that were quite familied, which is the term that I sort

of coined for this book. The idea of I thought I think it's really much better to have a look at the difference between a familied world and a non-familied world. And that brought me into the idea of using the word spinster and bachelor for that term but that's even more complex yeah sorry no all I was going to say was let us into that world because I know that you were you were estranged from your family and you initially had some really close friends but as often happens they got married they had children maybe they moved further away and clearly there's technology now which can help that.

But many years ago, that wasn't the case. So just explain what that life was like. And I know you talk a lot in the book about solitude and silence and kind of the difference between that. So let us in on that world, if you would. Yes, look, I think there's the big hurdle that I think that single women, childless women face is just, I call it the grand exodus of friends into married life. I mean, once children come along, I perfectly understand that they're very, very, women and families are very, very busy.

And so friendship at that time from the 30s probably until the 60s really stretches out into the icing on the cake of another person's life, which leaves someone like me confronting the big reality of more solitude than you'd probably signed up for and probably more solitude than you probably signed up for and probably more solitude that then you thought you had sanity for now I discovered I have quite a robust psychology I certainly went through um some very deep moments um but I've I've got quite a robust psychology and many people don't have, and we're finding that out through the pandemic, the intensity of having to stay in your own home

for a very long time. Even I've found that quite different. But that solitude allowed me to think, to actually challenge some ideas around solitude. People compare and contrast solitude with loneliness and say solitude's like the good, happy version. Loneliness is the bad version you want to stay away from. And the project is to really bring yourself

from loneliness into solitude. Well, I see it differently. I see solitude or I've come to see solitude as the terrain of my life in which I live. Sometimes there's loneliness in that. I have feelings of loneliness. I think I call it the gritty beast in the book, the idea of loneliness, desperation, despair.

You see, we all have this in our lives. We all have loneliness, desperation and despair. And we need to challenge it and live through it somehow. And so I thought it occurred to me that that's just as much solitude as those glorious transcendent moments when you feel at one with the universe and very happy with everyone else and your life in general. And we mustn't forget here as well that you didn't make a conscious decision to say, I don't want children, I don't want a partner, I want to do this. This is something that just happened. Yes, and that holds a particular peccadillo in itself. I would love to have chosen my life. I think we'd all love to have chosen our lives.

If you have chosen the life that you're living, whether it's to be single and childless or whether it's to be coupled and with 10 children, who knows, if you have managed to luck out and choose the life that you're living, then, you know, you're in the winning seat really. But most of us haven't. We don't choose our life. Life happens to us and that's kind of chaotic.

We blame ourselves for it not being the way we choose and I think that's something that we need to attend to. I think we need to grow into, I had to grow into the idea that life is what it is and the challenge and the ask of everyone is to live the life at hand as best you can with all the strengths and weaknesses that you've got at your disposal. So there is still a stigma you feel attached to the life that you lead? I think there's several versions of stigma.

I kind of think of it as prejudice, but stigma is part of stigmas. You know, the minute I say I'm a spinster, there's that stigma. But I think that prejudice kind of ripples through everyone's lives. Certainly there's a prejudice against, from family people, against being non-family, that sort of pity that your life is, you've missed out on something. You know, I don't notice that I've missed out on something. There's that prejudice. Then there's even within the singles world this split

between whether you've chosen your existence and therefore single and proud or spinster and proud or whether you haven't and you're theoretically unhappy and want to be something else, you know, whereas I would say that, of course, there are times in your life where you're unhappy with your life and would want it to be somewhere else. And the story is how to move to a different place in being. So I was just going to ask you if technology has aided you in connecting and reconnecting with people. So many of us, as you mentioned, with the pandemic, we've had to have a smaller world forced upon us.

But technology has saved so many people if it's not too big a proclamation to make yes yeah if i could just finish that one of course on prejudice is that i think there's a benign indifference to the fact to to the existence of people who aren't familied. And that really demonstrates itself in our statistical research on people, and I really felt that during the pandemic. For ages here in Australia, those of us who are living life alone were not allowed to have a bubble buddy for, like, the best part of a year.

And we had, you know, we existed through one of the most severe lockdowns in the world, and it took a long time for the government to kind of, the wheels of government to grind into decisions and policies around people who would be living the kind of life I lead. Now I've forgotten the other question. No, just wondering if technology has helped you

to reconnect with people. Yeah, look, I have to say, it certainly reconnected me with friends. And I feel like I've got close relationships with people all over the world now. In fact, I was just reconnecting with a friend in France the other day. So that's a remarkable thing. But I have to say what's most remarkable is that this pandemic has brought technology to play so much in my life. And, I mean, the fact that I'm here today talking to you about my book is a remarkable wonder of technology. And also I think because everyone got onto technology and said, this is what my life's like, you know,

this is what I'm going through, there's whole conversations and groups that I've been able to connect with people I've met online who I'll never meet in real life. Just sharing the experience of the pandemic brand of solitude has been quite remarkable. I feel like it's broken open, a presence in my house. of the pandemic brand of solitude has been quite a remarkable, I feel like it's broken open, a presence in my house that I didn't have in my 40s or 50s. Donna, it's been lovely to speak to you.

Thank you so much for your time today. That is the author Donna Ward there, her book, She I Dare Not Name, A Spencer's Meditations on Life. She's talking about that book. So many of you getting in touch with us today about the positive experiences of living alone. Sue emailed to say,

I'm 71. I call myself a bachelorette. Of course, I've had some long relationships, but I've mainly been alone. I've traveled all over the world on my own. I go out, I have fun. There are ups and downs with everything. Pam says, I lost my husband

when I was 50 years old and I didn't find another partner. out i have fun there are ups and downs with everything pam says i lost my husband when i was 50 years old and i didn't find another partner i'm now 77 years old i do regret it although i was having a good life in my 50s and 60s i did not think about how it would be when i got older now i do regret it as it can be very lonely when you're older kirsty is living a life she's texted to say i'm eating a mini whisper in bed with the dog snuggled up, listening to Woman's Hour. It's a dream.

What more could you want? Kirsty says, it's total bliss. It's relaxation. I can't imagine being able to do this in any of my past relationships. I have a sociable job. I have extended family and friends of all ages.

I'm happier not in a relationship. And one last one here from Edith. She has emailed to say, I'm 48 and I've known since I was 17 that I didn't want children and I've never regretted that decision. I didn't get married until I was nearly 40. I've lived alone from about the age of 24. I went on holiday to Europe by myself.

I absolutely loved it. I was never lonely. I could eat what I wanted, when I wanted, keep the house as tidy or as untidy as I wanted to. I feel I'm now less brave being part of a couple than when I was on my own. Thank you for all of those messages. Do keep them coming. 84844 on the text or you can get in touch on at BBC Women's Hour on social media. Now over the next few days, we're talking to women about their scars. They all talk about the physical and emotional pain they've experienced

and having to deal with other people's reactions on a day-to-day basis. They also explain how they came to terms with the skin they're in. Enna Miller went to meet Jane in Shropshire and heard her story about surviving a flesh-eating bug. Now, this interview does contain some graphic descriptions. Following on from a surgery I got a flesh-eating bug which ate away at my legs from my mid-thigh down to my feet so my legs are quite big on the top but I don't really have too much flesh from the thigh down to my foot. Initially

there was no flesh on my bones from my leg down. So they've taken away some muscle from my legs. So they took skin from my back, my bottom and my, my stomach, and they've replaced all the skin from my thigh down, which is kind of looks a bit like reptilian skin because to get the amount of skin they needed, they had to stretch it like in a web to make the skin go bigger, like through a pasta machine sort of thing, and then replace where they'd taken all the skin away. I'd say your thighs are normal, from the part that I can see down to possibly halfway down your thigh,

and then you've got this crazy, what is it octopus tattoo octopus found an anchor I have a fascination for octopuses and then it's like a wedge I've sort of got a ledge where from a normal leg then it looks like somebody's just ripped the flesh off my bones really from my thigh down and also you were saying you can't sit on your knees or rest on your knees because you've got no muscle or no? No flesh at all covering my knees and I've got very strange sensations in them. I can't feel hot and cold and it's very soft because I've got no hair. It doesn't make its own oil the skin once it's grafted so I have to slather moisturiser on it all the time. It reminds me of you know when you go to some biology books they show you pictures of underneath

what the skin looks like it's like after your skin has been stripped back. Yeah that's probably the best description I've heard of it really. Yeah because you've just moved your leg there and I can totally see that muscle move yeah you can and that bit that one pops out what what muscle is that gosh I have no idea can I touch it yeah of course you can soft isn't it it's it's soft and it's quite bubbly it took me a long time to even touch my legs myself because the sensations are so odd. If nobody's had nerve damage before, you don't understand. When I touch it in certain places, I get like electric shocks

and things going up through my legs. In other places, I can't feel you touching it at all. Sometimes I feel like I'm wearing waders, you know, those really long wellingtons that people get up to their legs because I've just got such a different sensation from here down. The technical term, as you said, was, let me see if I can pronounce it, necrotizing fasciitis. That's it. Am I right?

That's the one. And so commonly known as the flesh eating bug. I had a condition called lipidemia and I did a lot of research into this condition. Lipidemia is it's predominantly women that get it and it's abnormal fat cells from the waist down so you could be a size six to eight on the top and then much much heavier on the bottom on your bum and on your lower legs and thighs. So what were you? I was on top about a size 8 to 10 and then on the bottom an 18 at one time and I lost a lot of weight but it doesn't diet or exercise away and it's very very painful. I'd been back and forth to doctors for many many years. I found that actually it

could be treated with a liposuction treatment but slightly different liposuction to the one that you would have for just cosmetic purposes. I had one operation which went really well. My legs look massively better. Why was it so important to you to get what people would think is cosmetic surgery? People think, oh, you've just got a big bum or big legs, but there's a lot more to it than that. So I'd started going back and forth with the GP probably about eight years ago and then was told that this condition wasn't treatable on the NHS. So it's been a long, long process really until 2017 when I'd got the courage to go and have some surgery on it. You had the surgery and then you got a flesh-eating bug?

Yeah, unfortunately. I'd heard a lot of positive things about surgery. I hadn't really seen anybody that had had too much negative with it. So I'd gone into it so excited about having this great life, being able to just wear normal clothes, which I hadn't been able to before. And then about five days after I had the second surgery I became very very ill I remember being in bed and it was the fire at Grenfell on midway through the week I was unable to get out of bed I remember seeing the fire

on the tv and I can't remember too much else and my daughter it was a Saturday morning, came in and I was jittery and freezing cold. And she rang my mum and rang the ambulance. And by the time they got me into the ambulance, I'd gone unconscious. The next thing I remember, I was waking up thinking it was minutes later to find that I'd been in a coma. And I totally delirious and I had psychosis and I thought everybody was robots. I thought I was in the hospital for medical experiments and it was just absolutely terrifying. I just didn't know what was going on. My family had been there. They didn't think I was going to survive the night and then they'd had to sign a consent because they thought they were going to have to amputate both of my legs. So it was a very, very scary time. Very scary. I didn't actually see my legs

and I think I was on such strong medication that my legs had been vacuum packed. So I was in there for a few days and then they skin grafted my left leg first, which was completely bandaged from the thigh down so even after the skin grafts I didn't see it I hadn't anticipated how painful skin grafts are so then because they take my skin for so many places even sitting back I couldn't sit on my side when they said they were taking the bandages off and they needed to bathe me, they gave me ketamine. It was so traumatic that they didn't think that I could manage to do it without being heavily sedated. So it was about maybe six, seven weeks in before I actually saw what my legs looked like. I remember I had rag and bone man on through my headphones and it it was a huge huge shock they just looked like two

pipe cleaners you know from somebody that wanted to have slim legs my legs looked like I'd come from a straight from the walking dead my family were coming in and saying oh they don't look so bad and you're kind of there thinking who are you trying to kid? You know, I can see them myself. I know what they look like. But it was just such a life changing experience. Did you wish you'd never done the surgery? Oh, obviously. We go through life just thinking these things don't happen to us. And I thought I was going to have a better health after doing it. It was almost like an investment in my future because I was already having walking problems and I was worried because my daughter was young, etc, etc.

And then it's just devastating when you do something and this is the result of it. So one of the things that you said, I guess, why it was important for you to sort of speak out was because you don't hear very much about life after flesh-eating bug. Right, indeed, that was the case. I mean, when I got home, I couldn't find any information really on other people that had the same injuries as me.

And I did eventually find a lady through a site in Cornwall and we met up and she'd had sepsis. Although she'd had a different condition her injuries were very very similar and that was great for me because it gave me a benchmark of where I could be in sort of 10 years time really. Can you describe to me a good day and a bad day? In some mentally, it's been really tough because I've got PTSD, especially to do with anything to do with medical. Yes, I had to go to the dentist and I start to get myself worked up. But actually what it has done in a really cheesy sort of way is it's really made me appreciate my life more. I've gone through a mad spell of trying really hard to do lots of things. In case one day something happens and I'm not here anymore,

I want to tick as many things off that bucket list as I can. Have you got the list? I have got my list. Oh, it's long. Let's see. These are the things at the top that I haven't done yet. I haven't been to the Moulin Rouge in Paris, the Orient Express. I want to visit Petra. I want to go to Amsterdam. Oh, I know. I'm not sure if the Mile High Club, I don't know if

Carl's up for that one, but it's on there regardless. Pompeii is another one. I like history. Your list that you've completed is just as long so the things I've done since is I went on a gondola in Venice I've been up in a helicopter I went to Edinburgh Zoo to see the pandas because I love panda bears we went on a hot air balloon

a nudist spa which I did before and I'm not sure I'd be brave enough to do it now but the person who went to that nudist spa, which I did before, and I'm not sure I'd be brave enough to do it now. But the person who went to that nudist spa and enjoyed it and was able to be nude and free isn't me anymore. Isn't me anymore. Even though I was a curvy lady and I had an issue with my legs that I didn't like them, it was still normal to have big legs rather than have how I'm left now and it didn't draw as much attention when you look at your legs and you know we talk about it's a scar some people talk about it as a disfigurement some people talk about it you know to you it's been an awakening some people would talk about it as something that

would hold them back how do you refer to it in your daily language with you and your family and your partner there's no doubt that it holds me back in lots of ways but I think you do adapt there are things that I would have done before I know I can't do now so I just do something else instead like I've always been one into festivals and things I can still go to a festival I glamp now because it's more comfortable and I can't get up off the floor and that's not such a bad thing is it no it isn't so I take a camping chair because I can't stand up whereas I'd be at the front of them or crowd surfing before I can't do that anymore how it's affected me as well as I've got so much more empathy for other people with disabilities and I perhaps didn't notice that

as much as I should before it's awakened me politically as well to things I follow everything that's going on in the world and homelessness and things like that it's affected me in a way that it didn't before because I had this nice life everything was going well because now you've been maybe put into that box that you were not part of yeah definitely definitely I mean I didn't work for eight months so you know I'd I got through my savings I had limited money coming in. My family had to help me. I'd never had a day off really work since I left school at 18. And it was a big lesson for me. People get sick through different reasons. I had to wait 18 months to get therapy.

I also had to get some therapy for my daughter because it was really hard for her. You know, she wasn't with me for eight months I had to leave her with a friend so she could maintain some sort of normality at school. Your youngest daughter she must be affected by that too because mummy's changed. It affected her the most I think because she called the ambulance she saw me in this situation at one time she couldn't even look at my legs. She's still, I think, a little bit delicate about the whole thing. She doesn't like to talk about it. I'm the one with the injuries, but it's affected everybody else. My mum stayed at the hospital for two months.

She didn't go home. She stayed by my bedside. When something like this happens, and then you have the scars to remind you of what happened how can you be happy or how can you be happier than before you have two choices you either be miserable and I could stay in the house and not go out and do anything and think oh that's it my life is over or you just have to do what you can and that's what I'm really trying to do. And it isn't always easy. And I'm not always happy.

And it's changed my personality. And then I just dust myself off and I go into the next day with a, right, that's it. We're going to do this. And that was Jane sharing her story with Enna Miller. There are sources of information and support available on the Woman's Hour website now tomorrow laura explains how being a burns survivor has shaped her life now if you've

watched fleabag on stage or on tv or any number of other comedy dramas around in the last couple of years often written by and starring women then you're familiar with the hot mess woman her love life is chaotic. She's upfront about sex. She's failed to fulfil her own expectations. Well, the actor and writer Liz Kingsman spotted that these stories were everywhere. And her debut solo comedy show called One Woman Show is a wicked parody of the lovable trainwreck genre. And it is a hit. It was delayed by COVID. It premiered in October and in January is going to run at the Soho Theatre in London. Sold out it did in the autumn. I'm pleased to say that Liz

is with us now. Morning Liz. Good morning. Thank you so much for having me. I feel a bit embarrassed that I hadn't noticed this until it was pointed out but now that it has been pointed out it's kind of obvious. So take us through this kind of hot mess thing and how you noticed it um yeah I suppose I noticed it because it's not something I hugely relate to in that I um I sort of go through life burying all of my mistakes and not owning up to them and trying to be really you know like two put together it's that's sort of how I go through life and um like I remember with a friend saying she she ordered the wrong thing in a restaurant she said she was unhappy with her meal and I said if that had been me I would have pretended that I was really happy with my meal so I I felt like there just maybe seemed to be a lot

to me because I was looking at it from the outside. That's not to say that my life is perfect and I'm really put together. I think everyone's life is a bit chaotic. But I just sort of spotted that there were a lot of them. And also, you know, I come from a fringed comedy background. And so you spend a lot of time at festivals flicking through brochures. And, you know, without even going to see the stage stage plays a lot of the blubs were quite similar so um like what for example oh they'd they'd be they'd all have like one singular title like uh like moon girl or something that isn't a real one

don't worry and um you know it would would be like her life's a mess, she's broke or she's skint and her love life's terrible and she's navigating womanhood, that sort of thing. And it would be tons and tons of adjectives, raw, honest, irreverent, bold. So, yeah, I started to go and see a couple of them and then that led me on a sort of year-long journey of just taking myself off to to hundreds and hundreds of hours of theater well talk us through the the devices the techniques that you use on stage in order

to parody parody them because it's a physical show there's lots of light and music cues i mean it's a physical show, there's lots of light and music cues. I mean, it's very slick. Oh, yes. Thank you. I have a lighting designer to thank for that. The show is, yeah, it's a parody of the solo theatre pieces, which are often very well produced. There's a lot of symbolism in the lighting and there's a lot of amazing sound design and soundscape and often and it's not just female solo shows you know one man shows do this as well the characters will play all of the parts sorry the main actors will play all of the characters

that they interact with in their days and they're often telling a story through memory or something in their day will remind them of something from their past. And then you get to find out about them through time jumps and things like that. And narration as well. First person, present tense narration. You know, I'm in a bedroom. I see this. The carpets are sticky, that sort of thing. So a real sensory experience for the audience, trying to paint as much as you can for the audience so tell us a bit about the woman who's at the heart of your your show i mean you don't name her but her job is very important her job plays a central role to it doesn't it yes um so she works in marketing

for the uh the wildfowl and wetlands trust which is a genuine real charity that protects the wetland habitats for birds and wildlife. And I sort of picked that job for her because one of the tropes I noticed in a lot of the shows was that the main characters tended to have quite surface level office jobs. Not that I'm saying marketing is surface level. What I mean by that is that the writer performers have probably not worked in that job so they're really writing what they think working in an office is um and so it's a it's it's uh her job is not her passion and she's found herself in a place where she's uh she doesn't know what she wants to do with her life which is another sort of trope that I've noticed

had come through a lot of the pieces. And the other trope, of course, is sex, female sexuality, you know, lots about casual sex, masturbation. You know, there's a lot of that within these kind of shows. Yes, there is a lot of that. It's, you know, it's a sassy sassy carefree version of liberation which is maybe a bit depoliticized it's not you know it's it doesn't come with all the baggage of feminism it's the fun alluring version um and it's a bit escapist as well you know i guess a lot of us aren't living

sort of um hugely sexed up lives and so it's i's, no, I'm not speaking for everyone, but yeah, I think it's a sort of fun fantasy version of a young modern woman. It's a difficult line that you tread here, I guess, isn't it? Because is there a danger you're, I don't know, biting the hand that feeds you? Because these kind of genres are doing very, very well. Yes, absolutely. I've made an incredibly terrible career decision.

Yeah, I think I am biting the hand that feeds me. A lot of young female playwrights have come to see the show and they're all very good humoured about it. And there's some Twitter threads going on and it's very fun. But I think, you know, at the same time, like, women have a good sense of humour. If, you know, anyone who's got a large group of female friends knows that we can laugh at ourselves and there's no reason to not poke fun at this stuff just because we're women. Do you think a lot of it gets written because it's women not being able to get the parts that they necessarily want, so they're writing to showcase what they can do?

Yes, definitely. And I often come away from, well, I haven't been to see any for a long time, but when I was researching the show, I would always come out of them just being like, they're such incredible performers and they're not, you know, perhaps given the opportunities to showcase this. And so they want to do it for themselves. And, you know, you had Lorna Clark on earlier saying

about the importance of seeing what you want to be. And so those trailblazers that you mentioned at the top, like, you know, make Michaela Cole or someone like that is it's it has it is a route into people having more agency in their careers and you know and they're not just writers and performers they're also like exec producers and they're they're they're you know really sitting in the decision making seats so I think that's really inspiring. Thank you for talking to us today. Really good to speak to you. Liz Kingsman there and her one woman show, it is called One Woman Show by Liz Kingsman,

is at the Soho Theatre in London from the 5th to the 15th of January. Now the BBC marks its centenary in 2022. It will become the first major public service broadcaster to reach 100 years of continuous broadcasting. Alongside it, BBC History is marking its 100 Objects collection that tells the inside story of the BBC. It's revealing some incredible objects used in BBC programmes and also in content. We can speak to the BBC's Head of History, Robert Seater. He's selected a few objects which he thinks are going to be particularly interesting to us here on Woman's Hour. So thank you for joining us, Robert. Hi, Chloe. Delighted to be here.

First of all, 100 years of the BBC. I mean, just give us an idea of what the BBC was like to consume and indeed to work at 100 years ago. Well, 100 years ago, I think no one had any idea what broadcasting would be. It was completely magic. So it was initially all about the tech. And when I talk about it, I often talk about it like in a similar way to online. It was a sort of male preserve. It was technical. It was something that mended in sheds. And then suddenly people realize in the space of a few years what you can do with it. And it transforms people's lives.

The early days of radio are so fascinating because suddenly you realise at the turn of a switch, you can have the voice of the king, classical music, band music, timekeeping, weather. It utterly transforms the nation. And then those changes go on and on as television comes, as colour changes, and people moderate and change their lives. And broadcasting, in a way, becomes a sort of memory of all of our lives. My big thing when I talk about BBC is I think the BBC is all of our memories and all of our constellations of lives.

So tell us some of the objects that you've selected today. Well, you're getting a tantalising taste for it because I've selected three. Actually, you've got four. You've got an extra one too. And actually, it's really interesting coming at the end of the program because I'm picking up, I think, themes that when you were talking about Janice, you were talking about the trailblazer. Lorna was talking about black women in a very male organization and how that's changed. So the first object really plays to that, that tune,

because it's Evelyn Dove's scrapbook and Evelyn Dove was a black woman and we think she was the first black woman to sing on BBC radio in 1925 so it's only three years after the dawn of radio and she was a mixed race woman she had a classical music education she went to the Royal Academy of Music and then she had a very successful career in cabaret and musicals. She sang on the continent. She took over from Josephine Baker at the Casino de Paris. So she had a very successful career. But what broadcasting does and what this scrapbook shows is how broadcasting gave her a completely different platform. It amplified her career and enabled her to be the trailblazer that she became. Even though

you know she's not that well known now, I hope she will be better known after The Hundred Objects, but in the scrapbook you get all the pictures, all the cuttings from the Radio Times, from the other press of the day, about her as a singing star in the early radio days and then she transitioned to television and became a star on television. So she's a trailblazing woman in the radio the early radio days and then she transitioned to television and became a star on television so she's trailblazing woman in the world of music in the world of the BBC. Let's talk about another female influence that you've got a press cutting of a job advert haven't you for the BBC? Yes and I'm going to read also the requirements for the presenter Chloe. Which I won't fit but let's go with it.

Just to see if you make the cut. So we're moving into the 30s. It's the decade of television. It's much earlier than people think. So in 36, the BBC launches the world's first ever high-definition television service. And the year before, they put out a call for female TV presenters or hostesses. And this is what you have to have. You have to have a super personality, a face which makes a first class picture, a mezzo voice, and a good memory.

And you really had to have a good memory because there was no autocue. So from that range of superlative patterns, that terrifying list of requirements, they got thousands of applications. In fact, Gerald Kopp, who was the director of television, was quoted as saying, an impossible situation has arisen. Women all over the world want to be announcers. So basically, this flood of requests, and then they finally, finally, I'm amazed they managed to find two, they select two women, Jasmine Bly and Elizabeth Cowell, who in their mid-20s who become stars overnight and it literally and visibly and metaphorically puts women center stage because in the early days of radio they were always male voices doing announcements and news

and they were never named because they thought that the personality would intrude into the news giving. So basically, these two women become stars of early television. When television closes during the war years, Jasmine Bly is the first voice, the first face you see saying, hello, do you remember me? Welcome back. Listen, we've only got a few more minutes left and I want to get through these next two items because they're both fascinating. Let's talk about the Indian cookbook, which you selected for us. So in 1982, she's the first woman really to promote true Indian cookery on air. And she does the book Type TV Tie In, which had just been done with Delia Smith, founded by the Education Department.

And the great thing about Mother Geoffrey is that she became a chef completely by accident. She couldn't cook at all. She was in this bed sit in London. She wrote to her mother. These airmail letters came back to her with all the recipes. And she began to learn how to cook. And that's what she did on television for the nation.

She transformed the British nation into a nation of curry lovers. And she made us, by stealth by by love by our aberration for her um a multicultural nation in the heart of the home and tell us yes go ahead we've got a couple of minutes left but this is the one i really wanted to talk about well we couldn't tell the story of the nation and the story of the bbc without showcasing women's art because you have been an amazing uh vehicle for showing the transformation of women's lives and the story of the BBC without showcasing Woman's Hour because you have been an amazing vehicle for showing the transformation of women's lives

and the ongoing transformation. So what we have as your showcase object is the Woman's Hour quilt from 1993, which celebrates your 50th anniversary and 75 years of suffrage. And so the 80 patches came from all your different listeners and telling, and they told personal, very personal and very diverse stories of women. So you have first female priests, you have female workers in World War II using parachute silk they'd made, you have female

activists, and they're all made into this wonderful quilt, which is now actually in the V&A. So it's enshrined in the nation's history of craft making. And yeah, so that's one of our star objects. And it must have been very difficult to select which of those patches went into the quilt because how many were there? Maybe 80 in the quilt? And clearly there were many more.

80 patches. And thankfully that task didn't fall to me, but that was Jenny. And also I think she had curators from the V&A. So they were looking at it as a piece of, which is what it is, a piece of social history, capturing all that story and all the aspirations to come as well.

How important is it for these objects to truly reflect what the BBC is about to many, many different people? Because people have different relationships with the BBC, don't they? I think the BBC is as diverse as Britain. And it would be odd if there was only one story to tell. So often the story that's been told in terms of anniversary and evolution is technological change, which is very important, radio, television, online. But what I was really keen to tell was what other stories about the reflection of the diverse and changing Britain, about the moments that have really brought us together and convened the nation, about how we've defined sort of Britishness as well. That's one of the things the BBC does.

It's sort of there as a place to debate who we are and what we want to be and what we aspire to be. And we come to it in different ways and use it for different things. Thank you so much for speaking to us. That's the BBC's Head of History, Robert Seater there. Thank you. So many messages coming in this morning, particularly about Janice Long. Elizabeth says, Janice made a difference. She led the way.

I was a commercial local radio presenter in the early 1990s. It was a different world back then. I remember a presenter saying to me, we don't have women on FM. Thank you, Janice, for achieving what you did. And Carl says, this is a fantastic tribute on Woman's Hour to Janice Long, a pioneering woman who changed so many lives and opened the door for female broadcasters. She will be missed. Thank you for your company today and as ever for all of your messages. We'll be back tomorrow at 10 o'clock. Uncanny. Do you believe in ghosts? No. Have you seen one? Yes.

Real life stories that are supernatural, told by the people they happen to. Presented by me, Danny Robbins. There is a very strong sense of pure evil. Subscribe to Uncanny on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven, Subscribe to Uncanny on BBC Sounds. fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.