Woman's Hour - Dunblane 30 years on, Catfishing, Forgetting birthdays

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

Ahead of the 30th anniversary of the Dunblane massacre on Friday, presenter Anita Rani speaks to three women whose lives changed for ever that day; Melanie Reid, a journalist who was one of the first at the scene in Dunblane that morning, Rosemary Hunter, one of three women leaders of The Snowdrop Campaign that changed UK gun laws and Anna Hall, who grew up in Dunblane and is the director of a Channel 4 documentary about the shootings, The Dunblane Tapes.How would you feel if everyone in your household forgot your birthday? After a woman's social media post saying her family had forgotten hers went viral, Anita talks to the author Poorna Bell and the journalist Nell Frizzell about whether forgetting a spouse's birthday is simply a careless moment or the sign of something deeper.Catfishing is the act of creating a fake online persona to deceive others for romantic, financial, or malicious reasons. This happened to 19-year old Sasha-Jay Davies, from Aberdare in Wales who for almost four years has been accused of leading men on, arranging to meet them and not showing up, and been harassed by complete strangers, all because someone else has been using her photos without permission on social media. BBC Wales reporter Eleri Griffiths has been covering the story and joins us along with Reagan Brien, a solicitor at Cohen Davis who has worked on similar cases.New research carried out by the University of California in the US has revealed that a blood test can detect dementia in women, years before they have symptoms. Dr Shoena Scales, director of research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, explains the research findings and what it could potentially mean for women's dementia diagnosis in the future.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Rebecca Myatt

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. For years, I've sounded like a broken record. I do not want kids. I do not ever want to have kids. I don't want to have a kid. Don't want to have a kid. Don't want to have a kid. I'm in my 40s now. The door is almost closed. And suddenly, I'm not so sure. The story has always been, no.

I'm just wondering to what degree it's just a story. Definitely just a story. From CBC's personally, this is creation myth. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, I'm Nula McGovern and you're listening to The Woman's Hour podcast. And while you're here, I wanted to let you know that the Woman's Hour Guide to Life is back. You might have listened to some of the episodes from the first series, including ambition without burnout, or turning aging into your superpower.

Well, we've got six new episodes for you over the coming weeks that will give you practical tips on issues like self-promotion without feeling awkward, caring for aging parents, navigating infertility with family and friends, and also how to love your face, whatever your age. I'm really excited about this series of The Woman's Hour Guide to Life, so I really hope you'll join us. You will find the episodes in the Woman's Hour podcast feed on Sundays. It's only on BBC Sounds. But now, back to today's Woman's Hour with Anita Rani. Good morning and welcome to the programme. Now, tomorrow marks 30 years since the Dunblane massacre when 16 primary children aged 5 to 6 and their teacher

were murdered in a school shooting in Scotland. It was a shocking, horrifying events and one that led to our gun laws being changed forever. A new documentary called The Dunblane Tapes takes us back to tell the story through the eyes of the people involved. Parents, journalists, campaigners, some of whom I'll be speaking to shortly. Also, new research has shown that a blood test can detect dementia in women years before they have symptoms. We'll be learning more about that.

And birthdays, how are you at remembering them? What if your partner forgets your birthday? Well, it happened to one woman whose husband and children forgot her birthday. She baked herself a birthday cake after midnight when they'd all gone to bed. We'll be discussing this, but I'd like to hear your thoughts. Has your birthday been forgotten? How did you deal with it? Did it matter?

Why does celebrating birthdays matter? Or would it never get to that stage in your household? Because you talk about your birthday months in advance. Birthdays and your opinions on them. Please get in touch in the usual way. 84844 is the text number. You can email the program by going to our website, or you can WhatsAppers on 0-3700-100-444.

Your thoughts, opinions are welcome on anything you hear on the program today, as usual. But first, tomorrow marks 30 years since the Dunblane massacre when 16 children and their teacher were murdered in a school shooting in Scotland. They were young children, most only 5 or 6 years old. The event caused shock across the nation and led to a change in our gun laws, making Britain one of the strictest countries in the world for gun ownership. As we discussed this today, we remember the parents and families of those children whose lives were changed forever on the 13th of March 1996.

A new Channel 4 documentary, the Dunblane tapes, looks at the impact of the shootings on those families and the small Scottish community that was thrust into the headlines. Joining me is Anna Hall, who grew up in Dunblane and is the co-director and executive producer of this documentary. Also Melanie Reid, who was one of the first journalists at the scene in Dunblane that fateful morning, and Rosemary Hunter, one of the leaders of the snowdrop campaign, which has pushed for a change in gun laws. Very good morning to all of you. And thank you for taking the time to speak to me about this. Melanie, I'm going to come to you first. It's one of those moments in history, isn't it? When if you're old enough, we all remember where we were when

we heard this news. So talk us through that day for you. Where we were. Where we were. We were you? I was, I then worked for the Sunday mail, which was at that time, Scotland's biggest selling newspaper, we sold to more than half of this population of Scotland. And we were in conference, morning conference, and the Deputy News Editor knocked on the door and came into the room, which was very unusual, and said there has been some sort of shooting at a primary school in Dunblane and we everyone reacted with absolute shock because I mean 30 years ago is more than 30 years ago in the sense that we were such an innocent country you know this was this was before it was before Diana had died it was before Sandy Hook it was before Columbine we weren't

we weren't used to great tragedies I mean it was it was we didn't really know what was happening. And we were, a photographer and I jumped in a car and we were, we were sent straight up the motorway. And all we had to find out what was happening was the radio, the car radio. What was it like when you arrived? Well, we, we were, we were in it. I mean, it was happening all around us because, I mean, on the motorway up, we were passed by the, the, the, the, the, crash teams from the children's hospital in in Glasgow, you know, and screaming past us in the fast lane. And just outside Dunlain, we were stopped at temporary traffic lights. And that was when they said on the radio that it was, it was primary one, you know, year one children.

And we both physically gasped, you know, because we were hearing, we got, we got there and the road outside, everyone was just making. The parents, the journalists, there was a few journalists, there were police, they were, but mostly it was parents and families and local people just mingling around the street outside because it was just bewilderment and chaos. Families were still trying to find out, I mean, it would take hours eventually, but, you know, there was no control because the police, obviously, you know, there were no protocols in those days for disasters or disasters. asked to management. There was no internet, there was no emails, no mobile phones. It was just

families were shouting out, have you seen so and so? You know, they're okay, you know. And I saw one very moving image, which has seen in my mind, was women were coming out of the side door and coming down through the grounds of the school. And they were carrying children, their children had survived and they were carrying those children in their arms, but they were children far too big to be carried. It is a profound image

of clutching, clutching these big children with their feet almost dragging on the ground, but clutching them with an intensity which you know, a mother can only imagine. And we see those images in this very powerful documentary Anna that you've made

and you have a very personal connection to Dunblane. Tell me about that. Yeah, well, I grew up in Dunblane. So Dunblane primary school was my primary school. And, you know, Dunblane, you know, I had an incredibly happy childhood there. And, you know, for me, it was, you know, like all of us, I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news. And, you know, I was in a working in a newsroom in York at the time in a radio station and, you know, just stopped and watched the television. all day as it was unfolding. So yeah, it was, you know, a very personal connection for me. My cousin, I still had family in Dunblane who knew the family. So my cousin was a deputy head at one of the local nurseries. And that was an incredibly, just, you know, difficult time for her and her family. She knew Mitt North's daughter extremely well because Sophie had been at her nursery and My cousin Orwin had, you know, often taken Sophie after school when Mick couldn't get home.

And so, you know, for me, it wasn't, you know, it was a kind of a national tragedy, but I also had this incredible connection where my little cousin was in one of the school huts at the time and was shot at in one of those school huts. So, you know, as I was watching all of that unfolding, of course, I was thinking about my family who were in Dublin. Of course. And it moved you to make the first documentary. that you made about this was a year later. How important was it for those involved that it was

somebody who understood and who was from the community? Well, I mean, I think, you know, I think it was really important for them. You know, because of this very personal connection, I met Mick initially and then I met most of the other families. And I think for them it was important that there was somebody there that they could just trust. And, you know, as you remember, you know, the world The world's journalist descended on Dunblane and the residents of Dunblane talk about, you know, the news trucks and the satellite trucks and, you know, being stopped when they were, you know, going to the shops and all of that kind of stuff. And, you know, for me, I just, I suppose because I knew the school, I knew loads of people there, it was just a way of being able to, you know, have those conversations from a position of complete trust. And they knew that, you know, because of my connection, I guess, that, you know, I hope that whatever. I would produce would be really sensitive to those families.

So we ended up making a film that went out on ITV a year later on the first anniversary. It was called Dumblain Remembering Our Children. And at that time, you know, actually all the world had seen of the Dumblone families was their campaigning. And lots of the news footage that we now have in this film. But in the very first film we made, we made a film about the children and about the extraordinary. friendship that had grown amongst the bereaved families after, you know, that horrendous tragedy. And I think that that was something that it was very unexpected for all of them that, you know, and again in this film, one of the parents says, you know, I would never have got through it if it had been me on my own. You know, the fact that there were, there were 17 of us in that place is really, really important.

It's a very poignant part of the film. There's so many poignant moving parts, moments in this documentary that you've made. You know, it tells, it takes us back, it tells the story, it breaks our hearts. But it also is one of those films that reminds you that the country was very different before. We almost take for granted our gun laws now. And this takes you back that it was only 30 years ago. And because of the campaigning from the parents that the gun laws were changed. So Rosemary, I'm going to bring you in here.

Tell me what your life was like in 1996 and where you were. Yeah, so I lived in Dublin. I'd moved there just before my daughter was born, which was in 93. And I worked as an independent financial advisor, which I'd done. I'm not doing it now, but I did that for about 30 years. And on the morning of the shootings, I was in Bridge of Allen with my colleague who were working from a home office in his house. and my mother phoned up to say

have you heard the news have you heard the news she was in a blind panic it's obviously she's phoning the landline and basically we went through and looked on teletext because that's how you got your information back then and sure enough it's shooting at Dumblane Primary was up in the teletext lettering

so just what Melanie was mentioning I went and picked my daughter up from the nurse outside the university and I held on to her very tightly and it was a very surreal moment going into knowing by this name I think I picked her up

about half 11 or 12 knowing that something terribly tragic had happened to a lot of children and yet it was there was complete normality in that in that nursery classroom so yes I took her home

and hugged her tight Melanie, you were there on the day. How did the mood change as the day went on? Well, most of the day that I was there was total bewilderment. You know, people trying to make sense of something that, even now it's hard to make sense at all. And I think, I know now that there was anger later from the parents for whom it took very long time to realize, to be told that they had lost their children.

But if you read the Cullen report, which is dreadful, but if you read the details in the Cullen report, Lord Cullen's report after the shooting, you will realize that the police were not able to identify people because there was no one to identify them initially. and therefore there was this awful delay which was felt to be inhumane before the parents could be told that they had definitely locked their children

because the police didn't want to make, didn't want to misinformed people but of course the parents were desperate to know so I know that there was anger and upset and that grew later in the day and it also grew because people knew who the perpetrator was because he had a bad reputation because he was well known

And so the mood did change. I wasn't personally involved in that because I wasn't reporting on the day. But no, definitely. But bewilderment. That was the main thing, truly. How did the snowdrop campaign begin, Rosemary? Yeah, so Anne and Jackie knew each other pretty well. And I think immediately they had spoken and thought,

how can we make sure that the gun laws are amended or that this doesn't happen again? Give us some context. Tell us about Jackie. Who was Jackie? Well, Jackie and Anne, Anne had lived in Dumblyne, but she'd moved into a town just a little bit out of Dumblyne. And Jackie also was living just outside, but they knew each other from Dumb Lane previously.

I had met Anne from, we both had very young children, and there was a yoga class which had a crash. So that was a bit of two hours' freedom from the children, a bit of relaxation. So we used to meet at that and we'd go for coffee afterwards. So in the immediate aftermath, Anne and Jackie had spoken and thought, how can we, you know, what can be done. Jackie then contacted the House of Commons to find out how you submit a petition

and was given all the wording, was given a great deal of help and support. And when I met Anne the following week at our yoga class, she mentioned this. And I said, yes, straight away I was happy to help with that. You know, I think none of us, we've said this repeatedly. You'd no idea what you were letting yourself in for. We thought we were going to be standing on street corners, taking a few names and sending off. a few sheets of paper.

And that's how you started. That's how you started. Exactly. Exactly. And then tables with signatures grew up all over the UK. We had people sending as petition, completed petition forms and asking if we could send things out. So it really grew exponentially. I mean, I genuinely don't think we could ever have imagined how it was going to end up.

And Jackie's story of arriving at the post office and being asked if she'd are car because there were six full bags of mail. It still makes me smile in some ways, but it just showed the strength of feeling in the country. Really, everybody believed that this should not happen again. And we had an opportunity with Hungerford to change things, and it was all dampened down. And so I think the fact there were so many children affected and therefore so many families affected. Yes. That gave us the strength, gave the petition the strength.

to carry on. Yeah, the mailback story is you just had a P.O. box for people who wanted to sign the petition and get in touch. And then one day it was almost the tipping point where the post office said, have you got a car? Because there were six full bags from having small bags. And so you went from a young mother who tended a yoga class to becoming a political activist campaigning at the highest level. What was that like? Well, you just got on with it in many ways. you know, we hadn't, I was a little bit, you know, interested in politics, but it had never been directly involved.

I don't think the other two even had had a second thought really about things particularly. But as things grew, you know, we, it's very easy, I think, when you've got one issue that you're concentrating on, to be very up to date with all the information and all the arguments. So, and for us to get our message out and our voice out, we had to accept. TV interviews or radio interviews in order to make sure we got to as our message to as wide a public as possible. So you just kind of got on with it.

But yes, at times it was scary and you're suddenly very much out your comfort zone. I think for Anne, the Blackpool speech at the Labour conference was another level. And I think to the state She immediately accepted and then was terrified at the idea of having to go and do it. We're going to hear a clip of that because this is the campaign in action.

This is when Anne Pearson, one of the Snowdrop campaigners, she spoke at the Labour Party conference in 1996. It's very powerful. Have a listen. Dunblane was a cold, premeditated massacre, well planned in advance. He went in with 700. 143 bullets, enough ammunition to kill everyone in it. He fired at the children and the teachers as if at targets, some of which received seven bullets. Some fired at point-blank range down into them where they lay injured.

He fired at injured children as they tried to crawl away, again and again, and again. Three minutes, one pistol, 105 bullets fired. 17 dead, 14 injured and one child who stood and watched it all. A complete handgun ban is the only answer to Dunblane. Dunblane paid the price for compromise after Hungerford. This time, there is no compromise. I would like to leave you with this final thought. Yesterday was a little girl's sixth birthday.

She got cards and flowers, but she wasn't there to blow the candles out on her birthday cake. She was Sophie North. Compromise cost her, her life. Very difficult to hear that, and people were in tears in the conference, but Melanie, it changed the law, that speech. Extraordinary.

It was extraordinary. I was a little bit involved in the sense that we took a posse of parents and the daughter of the teacher, the dead teacher. We took them to Westminster to meet John Major and Tony Blair, and we had a big petition in our paper and I know that there was a sense that it was going to happen I mean Tony Blair who was glittering with power the Prince in Waiting

it was definitely going to happen and what happened you know we the world changed a bit for the UK I mean it was a nation-changing event and I think you can't dwell on it but I think you can't dwell on it but I think you can very, very safely say that there would have been many terrible outrages

with guns, with handguns, with semi-automatic handguns, had not that legislation been passed. I think enormous good came out of the deepest of tragedies. Anne, your documentary marks the 30th anniversary of this tragedy and it has a really special aspect to it. This is the footage that you have from one of the parents, John Crozier. Can you tell us a bit about that?

Yes. So in 1996, when I was making the first film, we gave some of the families a little mini-d-V cameras. And, you know, this, again, going back to 1996, we didn't all have cameras or videos on our phones. And John, in fact, wasn't in our first film, but John just really started to use. that camera to document what was happening. And when I went back to start researching this film last

summer, somebody said to me, you do know that John has got so much archive of this period of time and that he was filming non-stop. And I can remember John filming, but I just didn't appreciate it. I hadn't realised how much footage John had. So, you know, I approached John and said, you know, do you still have these tapes? So 30 years later, little mini-d-b tapes. Are they still in good condition? You know, can we find them? And John said, sure, you know, why don't you come and we'll see if we can play them? So, of course, we had to scrabble around trying to find a machine that would play these little tapes.

And we had this extraordinary day where we went to John's house and we put the first tape in and it worked. And we sat with him and, you know, we all laughed and cried. You know, John's a very funny man. but also, of course, there was extraordinary footage on those tapes. And even on that first day, I could see that there was footage there that we could use. And, you know, then we had a very, very careful process with John of just working out what we could use. Of course, so much of it was so personal for him and his family. But he was amazing.

And, of course, he had filmed his friend, Les Morton, who had also lost his daughter, Emily. Yes. And then we had to go and talk to Les and show, the footage and you know neither of them had seen it for 30 years and you know just talk to them about whether they would ever release this kind of incredibly intimate material and it makes for a very powerful very moving and with a lot of documentary with a lot of humanity at its heart um yeah i'd like another very moving um moment and if it's okay with you i'd quite like you to to do this now is when you read the article that you wrote for the newspaper,

you read a bit out in the documentary and I'd quite like, if you would, for you to read it. Anna, for us now. Just the first bit, yeah. First few paragraphs, yeah. Well, this is, yeah, I didn't know what to write because whoever does, there are no words for these things. This was the Sunday following the Wednesday. Today with an irony so dreadful it stills our soul is Mother's Day, even in Dunlain.

And inside Gwen Mayer's deserted Primary One classroom lie the cards that will never be finished. Every mum knows those adorably haphazard offerings from Primary One, those smudged infant images, those daubs of bright colour from little hands that aren't quite sure which hand to hold a paintbrush in, let alone right. Those little fragments of love that mum's never throw out but cherished and hoard, tucking away in drawers with a secret smile. But no more. For the bereaved mothers of Dunblane,

waking up not to a cuddle and a sticky kiss, but to emptiness, those joys have gone forever. I'd like to thank you all for speaking to me this morning, Rosemary, Melanie and Anna, and the documentary, the Dunblane tapes, It's out now on Channel 4 and it's streaming. The directors were Neve Kennedy and Anna Hall. And if you have been affected by anything you've heard today,

you can go to the BBC Action Line website where there are links to information and support. Once again, thanks to all three of you for speaking to me this morning. Now, the Woman's Hour Guide to Life is back with practical tools to help you cope with some of our biggest dilemmas. This week, Nula's tackling a phase of life many of us don't feel prepared for. that's looking after our parents as they get older. Kat Sims is classic sandwich generation looking after kids

whilst her parents who live hundreds of miles away face mounting health challenges. So increasingly they need her support too. She tells Nula about her strategy for handling decisions they might make that she just doesn't agree with. It is difficult to manage it without trying to put pressure on each other. So we do sort of, I suppose, keep quite a lot to ourselves. And I have to say my mantra now, after trying and testing various different ways, is I support your decision because it has become really clear to me that it's easy as a grown-up daughter to kind of infantilize your parents when they get to this age.

This, I think is so important to talk about. And I did that. I think that's a really natural thing. It's like, I know best. This has to happen. And it just caused so much tension. And it upset me, upset dad. that in the end, you know, I remember talking to my husband and you went, babe, you know,

you have to give your parents the grace of making their own decisions and their own mistakes. And it just made so much sense. And so that is my mantra. I support your decision. And then I go to my husband and vent about what a silly decision it is. But it's really important that I do give them that space. That's the Woman's Hour Guide to Life, caring for ageing parents. And you find it in the Woman's Hour feed only on BBC Sounds.

Now, be honest. How would you feel if everyone in your household forgot your birthday? Well, this happened to a woman recently who posted about it on social media. She wrote, well, there's one more hour left in this day, and it's become clear that my husband and kids forgot my birthday. I thought they were all being quiet because they'd pline something. I was wrong. Yes, everyone in her household forgot a birthday, including a husband.

So I'm throwing this out to all of you. how much does forgetting a birthday matter in a relationship? Is it simply a moment of carelessness or does it speak to something deeper? Well, to discuss this forgotten birthday, I'm joined by Purnabelle, a journalist and author of the book, She Wanted More, and an author, journalist and mother of two, Nel Frizzell. Welcome to both of you. Hello. Morning.

I'm going to start with you. Is it simply a moment of sloppy oversight or is there something more going on here? I think context is really important. And I think that, you know, yes, you could say that it's people forget things sometimes. There are things going on. I think in this particular story, it was the response that her husband had when he remembered. And he didn't call her. He didn't say it to her in person.

He sent her a text saying, sorry, we couldn't do more. And the internet just exploded because they were like, how can you do more when you did nothing? Do you know what I mean? As in, yeah. So I think that most people were just really taken aback by that. And I personally do think it is the symptom of something deeper, something more. It's something having spoken to women, you know, let's say on the side of divorce. This hit a huge note with them.

They said that it was one of the, you know, fourth horsemen of the apocalypse when it came to divorce. And I found that was very interesting. Sorry, we couldn't do more. It was the we that troubled me as well. I know. It's like, you and the kids are not on the same level. you're an adult. They're your children.

You're meant to be an equal partner in this relationship, surely. I've got lots of messages coming in on this. I'm going to read a couple out in a moment, unsurprisingly. But before we do, Nell, just after midnight, the woman who posted, she decided to bake herself a birthday cake and leave it on the table for everyone to see in the morning. And a teenage children were apologetic. We've just heard that a husband decided that the right course of action would be to send this text message. Sorry, we couldn't do more for your birthday.

Would you ever bake yourself a birthday cake? What's your take on this? I like to think I'm fairly passive-aggressive, but even I wouldn't go that far as to bake myself my own cake. I'm actually someone, I know this is an unpopular opinion. I think cake is exceptionally overrated. I think it's an infantilising snack. I don't care if I never have another birthday cake ever again.

So this wouldn't bother me at all. And I also think the idea that you should be celebrated on your birthday is completely wrong-headed. And actually the person who should be celebrated honored, remembered, thanked, maybe even baked for, is the person who gave birth. However they did that, you know, whatever birth looks like and whatever it involved in however long ago it was. So on my birthday for an instance, I give my mum a card. Because really, if we're honest, all I've managed to do over the last 41 years is not get sort of involved in a lethal sort of

incident with my own bedding or fall in a skip, whereas she went through this like cataclysmic, life-changing physical event and then raised me, which must have been no easy task. So I sort of think the idea that you should be given a cake on your birthday is wrong. And the person who should be given the cake if cake is needed. But let's be honest, there's also cheese and wine out there is the person who gave birth. I like how we're hating on cake for a moment. Yes, cheese and wine suitable alternatives. But I'm going to bring poor an eye on this because it's more the fact that her partner,

the person that she's spending her life with who she's raising these children, that guy forgot. And what's the significance of that one person not recognising that very important day? I think that it's not just Rebecca who posted this blow-by-blow account, right, of her family forgetting her birthday. It's also a lot of other women who have chimed in is to say that for you, if your entire family forgets your birthday and especially your spouse, you've become wallpaper.

You know, you are someone who is. just seen as a means of providing service, you know, whether that is making an effort for other people's birthdays or cooking or doing domestic labor or whatever it is. And someone said, which I do get the point, which is, you know, let's just say you're not a big birthday person and you don't want a big fuss made out of you. I can completely understand that. And also, you know, I don't think it's fair to expect the same level of reciprocity in what you might do for someone. So if you throw a massive party for someone. Some people are just not good with that kind of thing.

But I don't know a single person on earth who doesn't, even the bare minimum of being wished happy birthday on your birthday. And anyone who says otherwise, I think is in the vast minority. Like I've been to, let's say, you know, classes in my gym where there's a middle age guy. And at the start of the class, our coach says, oh, and now it's, you know, Kevin's birthday. And Kevin is just giggling away. Like Kevin's not going, oh, you know what, I'm too old. I'm like too big for birthdays.

Like, there is no person that doesn't at least like it to be marked. And then, okay, fine, you move on or whatever. But I'm so sorry, Nell. I'm staying in a hotel where they give you free cake at 3 p.m. And I think it is honestly, out of everything that they could have done, this is a thing that has made me decide to come back to this hotel. So I'm still okay, unfortunately. Nell, isn't this about the value within a relationship and within your household?

Well, it makes me think of, I think it's Alan de Botton has this argument that being in love is not the same as being psychic. And loving someone is not the same as having either a photographic memory or being able to read the desires of another person's heart. And I have to say, you know, as a 40-year-old, 41-year-old now, if I want a cake, I'm going to ask for a cake. I'm not going to wait for a cake and then be upset when it doesn't arrive. And I think that is a lesson for sort of throughout wider relationships. And maybe exactly like Gordon is saying, this is an approach. horsemen of the apocalypse. But one way to head off those horsemen

is to be clear about your desires and what is important to you and how you feel love. And if that's gifts, then you owe it to your partner and children to appreciate that and plan that and give you. You have to tell them that that's what you want. And if you're not someone who's interested in cakes and gifts,

which I'm afraid I'm not, then you can communicate that, but you want to be recognised in other ways and perhaps on other days. Would you expect more from you? your teenage children on your birthday now? I would expect the, I think from my own children on my birthday, I just want to have sleep. That's all I care about.

And I don't really care about cards. I don't care about presents. I'm not particularly sort of materialistic in the tangible sense. I, but actually what I do on my children's birthdays is I tell them the story of how they were born, which is in graphic veto. Absolutely. Rip-roaring, fluid-ridden escapade of, uh, you know pain joy beauty euphoria and i sort of think that as a ceremony means more to me than

blowing out candles and opening presents i think it's really important that we talk about birth and motherhood as an ongoing process as a physical thing and the communal activity it's exactly like born is saying it's not a woman should not become the sort of white noise of efficiency yeah but isn't isn't the point now that you shouldn't have to remind like when we first discussed that we were going to do this. Like I am someone who forgets people's birthdays, but my mum reminds me. I'm just going to fess up and put myself out there, right? But we're talking kind of cousins, aunts, your partner isn't the whole point that you shouldn't have to remind them. And it's about feeling sort of noticed, not even cherish.

Just note, I acknowledge everything that you do in the household for the children for me. And in this, and I've just remembered you on this day today to say, well done. You're great. Yes, wouldn't that be lovely? But every time I have to fill in a form where I'm asked for my partner's date of birth, I have a cold shiver of horror because I genuinely don't know it. I don't know it. Sometimes I forget my own children's birthdays.

I definitely don't know my extended families. It's just not something that has lodged into my memory. Fair enough, then. You can't expect them to remember yours, I suppose, if that's the case. Buranat, we've got to go back to the response on this on social media. Huge. It received millions of views, well over 10,000 comments, suggesting that it might have resonated with people. It resonated hugely. And I think that on threads it had something like, you know, thousands of thousands of comments. When I posted about it, it just triggered such a passionate response in people. And I think that, you know, wishing someone happy birthday, wishing your spouse happy birthday isn't like a reward or to say, I see you. I think that I think it's the bare minimum. I felt like I was almost going mad reading a lot of comments where, you know, the way that people were describing it. And I just thought, you're not even talking about someone put.

on a party. I mean, I'm, I hate receiving gifts, for example. I'm just a bad recipient of gifts. Me too. But I love a card. I don't. I mean, who does it look at the card? What do you do with them? Just put them in a box to, oh, anyway. I would venture to say that the people who are giving you the cards are not writing good enough messages. Because for me, I feel it's like a mini letter of how someone says that they appreciate me or what I mean to them in my life. So that, that is something that means something to me. But if, again, if they don't give me a card, I'm not sort of having a secret tally of like, you know, revenge. But I just feel that it was a signal, it was a canary in the mind that women have been,

our expectations are so low that we see someone, our spouse, our partner, wishing us happy birthday as an add-on. And it's not an add-on. Like it's in the basic package of relationship, surely. Surely. Brilliant conversation. Thank you so much. Lots for us to think on Purna's new book,

if she wanted more, reimagined your future and live by your own rules and it's out now. And Nell, thank you so much. Thanks to both of you. I've got to read out some of these messages. I had a boyfriend who used to religiously wish me happy birthday on his ex-girlfriend's birthday

until I finally dumped him and then miraculously he got the date right for several years trying to get me back. I'm pleased to say my husband never forgets. I don't think he'd dare. I always make sure he and my kids feel special on their birthdays and you know I'd be hurt if they didn't do the same.

Another message here saying, I rely on myself for my birthday by inviting hordes of wonderful people, all females and my son, for a feast of friendship and hopefully edible fair, much prep and bustling and such good fun, and they all get going home goodie bags. I love a goodie bag, yes. Yes, celebrate your birthday and offer your friends a goody bag. For years, I've sounded like a broken record.

I do not want kids. I do not ever want to have kids. I don't want to have a kid, don't want to have a kid, don't want to have a kid. I'm in my 40s now. The door is almost closed. And suddenly, I'm not so sure. The story has always been no. I'm just wondering to what degree it's just a story.

Definitely just a story. From CBC's personally, this is creation myth. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts. Keep them coming in, 84844. Now, catfishing is the act of creating fake online persona to deceive others. It could be for romantic, financial or malicious reasons like bullying. This happened to 19-year-old Sasha J. Davis from Aberdeer in Wales. She told the BBC that for almost four years she's been accused of leading men on,

arranging to meet and not show up and being harassed by complete strangers, all because someone else has been using her photo on social media. But it's not just her photos, the identity thief has taken. They've also been posts relating to her late. Ad. Aleri, who I spoke to earlier, has been reporting on the story for BBC Wales. And I began by asking her what happened? For almost four years, Sasha Jay Davis has had someone impersonating her online, creating fake accounts of her, creating fake accounts of her friends, her boyfriend even,

all to then kind of catfish men and women. And this all began back in 2022. She was 16 years old. Sasha J was at the time and she just started college after leaving school she realised that someone was using her photos on TikTok

and within a few months an account then appeared on Instagram as well where photos of her were posted every day but it wasn't just pictures of her that were taken that the fraudsters were using the account has posted cruel messages relating to her late father

and the account has also reposted racist and offensive content and shared photos of other women with bodies similar to hers. She says, obviously, these are photos that have attracted many strange comments from men, making her feel, well, quite frankly, violated. The accounts have been deceiving a number of men and

women by also texting them, and then they've been arranging to meet her and not turning up. And the fake accounts were also created for her friends and boyfriends to make just everything seem more believable. Sasha Jay says, she's, you know, she's tried to do everything to get rid of

these accounts, including contacting the police, the social media platforms in question. But obviously the fact that the fake accounts have got thousands of followers just made it more difficult, making obviously Sasha Jay look like the person impersonating these accounts, not the one that was doing it. It's really hard to imagine, you know, at the age of 16, it started in 2022. So it's been going on for a few years that somebody, that this is happening, that her image is being used as a fake, fake identity.

entity, people think they're contacting this person or talking to her. What kind of effect has it had on Sasha Jay's life? Well, when I interviewed her, Sasha Jay was just very frustrated and desperate for help, really. I think she felt quite helpless in the situation. She's tried and tried to get help and support, but nothing was happening and nothing was working. I mean, over the past four years, she's had around 20 boys and several girls contact her on social media saying that they've been talking.

talking to Sophie Kedar, when obviously that's not her name. Her name is Sasha J. Davis. She's had obviously boys coming up to her when she's out with friends, saying that they've been texting her. I mean, something she says is, well, is terrifying. And I think she worries that, you know, although the men have been quite nice to her so far and have understood what's been going on,

she's worried that one day she might meet a man who's not as kind and something quite drastic and quite differently could be happening. Let's hear from Sasha J herself. This is an extract from your interview. I do wake up scared to leave my house because I don't know what man's going to come and approach me next. Someone has stole my identity and pretended to be me online.

This account was viral. Like it was everywhere. They're messaging people every day. There's fake accounts of my friends. There's fake account of my boyfriend. They've recently uploaded pictures of other girls in bikinis and focusing on their bottom heart.

trying to make it out as if obviously there is me. Last year, it was my first ever night out in Swansea. This boy came up to me and he was like, Sophie, Sophie. And I said, like, I'm not Sophie, I'm Sasha. He said, I've been texting you for ages. I said, that's not me. Like, that's a fake account. Even if I'm shopping in Cardiff,

a lot of people come up to me and ask me if I'm Sophie. That's how much, like, is taking over my life. I could be in the supermarket and this person could be next to me and I don't know who they are but they know everything about me and it is really scary and frightening it sounds it you know living in that state

of paranoia as well I mean it's and as you mentioned earlier it's not just photos they've been sharing no it's it's everything it's not just pictures that they've been sharing it's content about her father passed away and they've been using things about that

including faking a pancreatic cancer certificate that she had donated, saying that she had donated seven thousand pounds to the charity. It's also, you know, they've been using pictures of other women taken, you know, from social media that have a similar body to Sasha and using them so that it looks like her. And again, yeah, the content is very completely. The messages, you know, have been quite flirty back and forth is what Sasha J said. obviously trying to normalise who this person is. What have South Wales Police said?

South Wales Police haven't given us a direct comment, but have just said that they're investigating into the case. And then also since the BBC, you know, we've contacted the social media platforms, it themselves and TikTok and Instagram. And they have said, they've not commented directly on it, but since I've contacted them, the accounts have now been removed. And what does the law say about this?

Well, according to the UK, safer internet centre, catfishing and impersonation is not always illegal in the UK, but related behaviour can break laws. So, for example, if someone uses a false identity to obtain money or donations or causes reputational or financial harm, the organisation said that impersonation and catfishing were a significant problem, and had contributed to 5% of their cases reported to the service over the past two years. Obviously then, under the Online Safety Act 2023, platforms must take action

if impersonation leads to illegal content such as threats or fraud. So what can anyone do who might be experiencing something like this? Yeah, so the advice that we had kind of from the UK Safe Internet Centre was just the importance of, you know, verifying identities, asking questions, you know, making sure that the person that you are speaking to is the real person. You can also set up identity verification on these social media accounts and just being extra cautious and mindful. And hopefully using Sasha J's is quite terrifying experience

to prevent that going forward and making the sensible decisions. And she's still very young. She's only 19. How is she having been through all of this and still going through it? Um, she told me, which kind of, um, you know, is what stood out to me most, that she's, she's just really socially aware after the whole experience and feels that when she's in supermarkets, you know, when she's out and about on nights out like a normal 19 year old girl is doing. She's having eyes everywhere thinking, does this person know me? You know, does this person, could they be the one behind the account? She's very anxious constantly and just always probably thinking the worst.

And, you know, that's quite a scary way to live, isn't it? That was BBC reporter Alari Griffith. And I also have Reagan Bryant, solicitor at Cohen Davis, who has experienced prosecuting similar cases. So, Reagan, how difficult is it to prosecute a case of this nature? Yeah, so it is actually quite difficult. When it comes to the police, they can be often very slow. Obviously, they have quite a large workload on their desk at the moment.

And it really, it depends on, you know, priority tasks for them. In terms of a civil side, there are as routes that you can take to reveal the identity of people, you know, catfishing who are behind the personas and the anonymous accounts. That's an application to the High Court in England and Wales. hours. And it's something that Cohen Davis, we do regularly. We have cases on Guyin at the moment. And yeah, we do that regularly. But there are some difficulties when it comes to the criminal side of prosecuting individuals who are operating these anonymous accounts. Yeah, I'm sure there's lots of companies that offer that service. But what is your advice

to women in these situations who feel totally powerless? What can they do? Yes. So the first thing I would advise is to preserve everything. So take screenshots, you know, copies of links, screenshots of the accounts, messages between the catfisher and yourself, and then go to a legal representative like ourselves, and obviously inform them of the issue that's going on. We also advised to report the matter to the police, but like I said, previously, obviously the delays, and sometimes they may not be as helpful as you wish them to be. Yeah, and then also reporting to the platform, so TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, under the Online Safety Act, they have a duty to try and protect people online.

So that's sort of where I'd go forward with that. Reagan, Brian, thank you so much for joining me to speak to me about that this morning. Now, new research has shown that a blood test can detect dementia in women years before they have symptoms. This research has been carried out by the University of California. I'm joined by Dr. Shona Scales, Director of Research at Alzheimer's Research here in the UK, to explain more on what it means for. for diagnosing dementia in the future. Welcome to Woman's Hour.

Hello, welcome for having me. So tell us what researchers have found. So this is a really fascinating study. So it was a study looking at women over around 25 years who were taking HRT or they weren't. And the study very cleverly took a subset of these women, around 3,000 of them, and looked at a particular level of protein called Ptow 217.

We know that there's a lot of work around Ptow 217, and how it's associated with underlying brain changes and people who go on to get dementia. It's critical to say that these women, when their blood was tested, did not have memory problems and didn't have dementia at that point. And they looked at these levels and then looked to see who went on to get memory problems later in life. They were able to follow these women up to 25 years,

which is really exciting. And they could see that actually there was association between the level of P-Tal-217 earlier on and who went on to get these memories and problems later in life? So many questions. First of all, why is the 25-year time frame significant? It's really significant because very few studies do work over this length of time. Actually, most studies do sort of a couple of years

and we're able to see that snapshot in time to get this longevity and to see something so early on in somebody's life way before these cognitive symptoms actually occur, gives us real insight into the underpinnings of the disease, the very earliest stages, which is fascinating for us all. So what is the correlation then between this P-Tal-217 and the likelihood of getting dementia? So what we know is it's a really complicated picture.

What this showed was that people who had elevated levels of P-Tow-217 were more likely to go on and get dementia or memory problems later in life. But it was a complicated picture as to how this worked, whether women had taken HRT. Their differences in genetic backgrounds, there's a certain gene called APOE4, which is a risk factor.

And women who had this risk factor, also it was shown that there was an association between that and higher levels of phosphatow 217, and then whether they went on to get dementia later in life, And so you can see it's a really complicated picture when we're looking this early. And we're just starting to understand how complicated that is. And what is the impact of HRT? What did they find around that?

So they, as I say, they were looking at women over a long period of time who were taking HRT or they weren't. And what they saw was women who were taking particularly estrogen and progesterone. This test worked better in those ladies. that essentially when they had a higher level of P-Tal-217 earlier on and they also were taking estrogen and progesterone, they was able to better predict whether they went on to get dementia or memory problems later in life. In what way?

There was a better association between those levels and the women who then went on to get it. But I think it's really... They did go on to get it. It was an association between and how well the test worked. That's the critical thing. to understand. The impact of HRT and taking HRT is actually a really complicated picture and one that we're really, the evidence really, we don't really, we haven't been able to unpick yet.

Some studies have shown the benefits and other studies have shown it's actually a really complicated picture. And I think the essential thing is to say we just don't know and more research is really needed. I think that's the thing, isn't it? We're here talking about this because it's significant, but also very difficult for you because we have to explain it in a way that because people might be thinking, well, what does this mean? Should I be getting the test? What if I have this, Petow 217? So what would you say to people who are maybe looking after elderly parents or thinking about

themselves, if it's in the family? What's the real world impact of research like this? Yeah, you're absolutely right. This is such a complicated picture. What we know is that Petow 217 is becoming a really powerful tool for diagnosis, for people who already have memory, who are already concerned about them. memory and it's being used to improve diagnosis for those people who are concerned and it's helping to speed up their diagnosis but for people without memory problems it's a really more

complicated picture and actually we don't yet know enough to be able to use it as a tool to be able to use it earlier on for people who haven't got those memory problems to say who will go on to get memory problems and dementia later in life and also what we know is is that people who have that that higher level of Ptow 217, they don't necessarily go on to get it. So having this blood test doesn't mean that you will go on to get it. It's just helping us to understand that the earliest starts of the disease. A ethical question about whether you'd want to know. Exactly, exactly.

Because if we don't know what that means, obviously it changes the way that you live your life and the way that you approach things. So really, it's a really complicated thing. And why is this important for you? As someone who's been working in this field for a long time, what's the significance? The significance for me is understanding those real differences in brain changes when the disease starts will help us to identify those people who could be able to have earlier interventions. We have new drugs coming through.

There are new drugs on the horizon. We're understanding more about lifestyle impact and things like that. So as we start understanding the earlier stages of the disease, one day we can hopefully use these interventions that are the real hope on the horizon to help. And why was the focus on women, Shona? So this was really interesting because so few studies actually do look at women. This is why I think it's grabbed us all a little bit. And here people are really thinking about those differences for me.

We know that out of every three people who get dementia, two of them are women. We don't understand why. So this study was really clever in going, what are those differences for women and those differences across women? So the differences in treatments they take, the difference in ethnic backgrounds, etc. And how does that impact, how these tests could work in these women? So it's a really interesting question and one that we really want to know more about. Yeah. And what's next in terms of finding a treatment cure or a preventative something for dementia? So now is an exciting time for dementia and for treatment of Alzheimer's disease, which is one of the main diseases that causes dementia.

So there's around at the moment 180 clinical trials happening worldwide testing a number of drugs. And that's really exciting. This means that there's lots of shots on target that are coming down the line. There's real hope that one of these will really, you know, be able to help us to either slow, down the disease and we already do have those drugs at the moment but they're not yet um on we can't yet use them on the NHS so we're really excited about the next drugs that are coming ones that are using different modes of delivery and different um and looking at different parts of the disease that's why it's so important for us to understand the different parts of the disease

you'll have to come back and talk to us about it again but for now so interesting dr shona skills thank you so much um i'm going to end the program with some of your messages lots coming about birthdays. Totally unforgivable in my book for getting a birthday, but it just would not happen in my household as I give them excellent hints, suggestions on the fridge, for example. They have plenty of warning. And another one here saying, on the theme of birthdays, the six of us in our family are on the long drive up to Angles Sea in North Wales for my mum's 50th birthday tomorrow. Would you please give her a shout out? Not usually, but today, absolutely. Her name is Suzanne. Thanks from her daughter, Jess.

Suzanne, your family have wonderfully not forgotten your birthday. That's it for me. Thank you for your messages. Join me again tomorrow for more Woman's Hour. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. What would you do if your deepest secrets were held to ransom? In 2020, every patient who had used a Finnish psychotherapy service called Vastamor had their therapy notes stolen and held to ransom by a faceless, remorseless

hacker. It could be some extortionist gang from Eastern Europe or it could be somebody living next door to me. I'm Jenny Clemen. Join me as I discover just how vulnerable our deepest secrets can be. I think I'm going to have a heart attack. From BBC Radio 4 and intrigue, this is Ransom Man. Listen first on BBC Sounds. For years, I've sounded like a broken record. I do not want kids. I do not ever want to have kids. Don't want to have a kid. Don't want to have a kid. Don't want to have a kid. I'm in my 40s now. The door is almost closed. And suddenly, I'm not so sure.

The story has always been, no. I'm just wondering to what degree it's just a story. Definitely just a story. From CBC's personally, this is Creation Myth. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts.