Woman's Hour - Elizabeth McGovern, Pat Cullen, David Carrick, The Wife of Bath

Episode Date: January 17, 2023

Elizabeth McGovern was Oscar nominated for her portrayal of Evelyn Nesbit in Ragtime and, by the age of 21, had played leading roles in Once Upon A Time In America followed by The Handmaid’s Tale and The Wings of the Dove. She is probably best known though for playing Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey. She is now on stage starring in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The actress and musician joins Jessica to discuss her varied career so far and what drew her to the role of Martha.A misconduct hearing today will formally dismiss David Carrick from the Metropolitan Police, after he admitted twenty-four counts of rape and multiple sexual assaults. Carrick was finally stopped when one woman reported him in October 2021. Sir Mark Rowley, the Met Commissioner, has apologised to Carrick's victims, and says the force is currently also investigating 1,000 sexual and domestic abuse claims involving about 800 of its officers. Jessica is joined to discuss by Shabnam Chaudhri, who served as an officer in the Met for 30 years.Tomorrow will see the start of a second round of strikes by the Royal College of Nursing. The RCN says that this will be the biggest walkout so far, affecting 55 trusts in England - that's 11 more than last month. They are calling for a pay rise of 5% above inflation, with inflation currently sitting at 14%. The government says the demands are unaffordable and pay rises were decided by independent pay review bodies. NHS staff in England and Wales - including nurses - have already received an average increase of 4.75%. The union says that there will be a further two strikes in February in England and Wales, unless there is movement on pay by the end of this month. Pat Cullen is the General Secretary and Chief Executive of the Royal College of Nursing, and joins Jessica.Today marks the 250th anniversary of the UK in the Antarctic following the first voyage of James Cook in 1773. In contrast to Cook’s all-male crew in the 18th century, the UK’s current polar leadership includes several women. What is it like to be a female leader in this field? Jessica Creighton is joined by Jane Rumble, the Head of Polar Regions Department at the UK Foreign Office, Professor Dame Jane Francis, the Director of the British Antarctic Survey and Captain Milly Ingham, the Captain of HMS Protector, The Royal Navy’s ice patrol ship to find out.One of literary history’s favourite characters – Alison the Wife of Bath – from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is re-examined in a new book by Professor Marion Turner from Oxford University. Marion tells Jessica how the lusty life story of the medieval Alison who married five times has inspired other writers from Shakespeare to Zadie Smith.

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Jessica Crichton. Welcome to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to the programme. Now this morning I want to talk to you about how much confidence you have in the police. After a serving Metropolitan Police officer has admitted to being one of Britain's worst sex offenders, pleading guilty to 49 offences. David Carrick raped and sexually assaulted 12 women over two decades. The Metropolitan Police have apologised to all of these victims. But what will be the ramifications of this? Do you feel safe around the police? Text me 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate.

You can send me a WhatsApp as well using this number 03700100444. That's 03700100444. On social media, we are at BBC Woman's Hour and you can almost email us as well through our website. Also this morning, I want to take you back in time to the Middle Ages as we dive into one of Chaucer's most popular Canterbury tales, The Wife of Bath. The author I'll be speaking to believes the tale's protagonist, Alison, is one of the most recognisable and ordinary women in English literature, inspiring writers from Shakespeare to Zadie Smith.

And from one female protagonist to another, you might be familiar with Martha from the play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Her exuberant character is currently being played by actor Elizabeth McGovern, who you might know from her role in Downton Abbey as Cora Crawley. The Oscar-nominated actor will join me to discuss playing Martha, Downton Abbey and her successful career. Also on the programme, with it being the 250th anniversary of the UK's first voyage in the Antarctic, we speak to three women leading the way in polar exploration, one of whom will hopefully be speaking to us live from her Navy ship. Exciting. Also this morning, we'll be speaking to the General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing,

Pat Cullen, about the second round of nurses' strikes in England and an update on those negotiations with the government. But as you've been hearing a lot about today, a misconduct hearing this morning will formally dismiss David Carrick from the Metropolitan Police after he admitted 24 counts of rape and multiple sexual assaults. The former police constable is being held in prison ahead of sentencing next month for a total of 49 offences. Carrick was finally stopped when

one woman did decide to report him. In October 2021, after publicity about disgraced Metropolitan Police Officer PC Wayne Cousins, she contacted the police in Hertfordshire, where Carrick lived and committed many of his crimes. Sir Mark Rowley, the Met Commissioner, says the force is currently investigating 1,000 sexual and domestic abuse claims involving about 800 of its officers. He spoke to our colleagues on the Today programme earlier. Here's what he had to say. We are determined to turn over every stone and to find those that are letting us down and whatever that means for changing leadership culture um for changing our systems and practices

changing our recruitment all of that is is up for grabs because we have a an organization with a tremendous history that's got too many things wrong recently and we're all determined to turn that determined to turn that round. And as I say, I don't expect women to hear these interviews today and be reassured. People are going to be questioning, but what they will see is change and that's how we will rebuild trust. Well, listening to that as well was Shabnam Chowdhury, who served as an officer in the Met Police for 30 years and joins me now. Good morning, Shabnam. What was your reaction to what the police commissioner, Mark Rowley, had to say there?

Well, I accept some of what he says. I definitely agree with him that there needs to be a change in the leadership culture within the Metropolitan Police. It's the leadership at all levels that actually let policing down because there are victims, there are officers who fear coming to speak out who when they do speak out they have ranks closed around them so I think that's one area of policing that hasn't necessarily been tackled appropriately in the past that now needs to be really robustly challenged with the managers at all levels of policing so that those officers

who want to feel safe to come out and speak out about corrupt officers, about officers who have red flag behaviours, are going to be supported appropriately so that he can root out the dirty cops within policing. Yeah, I think that's one of the main talking points here, isn't it, is how the Met Police and other police forces will protect whistleblowers and we'll come to that. But another talking point, a part of this, Shabnam, is the opportunities that were there, the red flags that were shown before they caught David Carrick,

because there were opportunities to catch him before it got to this point, before it escalated to this point. Can you just take us through those nine opportunities that the Met Police missed? Absolutely. So we can get a sense of the scale of this failure. Yeah, for sure. Let me just give you a little bit about his career history and apologies. I'm going to read it because the fact is I'll take the bullet points from it. But he joined the Met in 2001. He already had two allegations that had been made against him in 2000 for malicious communications and a burglary matter, but he passed the vetting process. He worked as a response

officer in Merton and in Barnet, and in 2009, he transferred to what is now the Parliamentary Diplomatic and Protection Command. So protecting people at the highest levels in our society who have high profiles. And he remained there until his arrest. He had five public complaints made against him. They were in between 2002 and 2008. And two of the complaints alleged he'd been rude in his manner. They were dealt with by Management Action locally, which would seem about right. And then there were further complaints relating to his incivility and use of force were received, but subsequently they were either withdrawn or dismissed. The Met had identified that it had come to the attention of the Met and

other forces on nine occasions, as we've just briefly mentioned, prior to October 2021. Not one of those were charged with a criminal offence, and it would appear that none of those also went to a misconduct panel or a misconduct hearing. Why do you think that was, Shabna? Honestly, I think it gets brushed under the carpet. I think the professional standards units do not actually robustly challenge these individuals. What will happen is that he may and he may or he may not have worked in an area of policing where he was classed as a good egg and a good thief taker, and that actually just supersedes anything else.

So other people will say, oh, yeah, but he's a good egg. And, you know, the banter that he had, he had a name, a terrible nickname amongst his colleagues, which speaks volumes and which would get anybody's alarm bells ringing. So in 2002, he's accused of harassment and assault against a former partner. He wasn't arrested, no further action was taken in relation to any criminal investigation. This was actually the start of his service as a police officer but the matter was not referred to the Director of Professional Standards. That basically means it was dealt with in-house

and as I've explained most likely brushed under the carpet in 2004 he was involved in a domestic incident no criminal allegations were made and he wasn't arrested that does not mean that he should not have been dealt with internally again the matter was not referred to the director of professional standards 2009 Hertfordshire Constabulary officers responded to a third-party report. That means that the victim was so scared that she didn't want to come forward, that somebody else reported it on her behalf because to them it was serious and they were so concerned. No criminal allegations were made and he was not arrested.

Records with Hertfordshire in relation to that incident, Met supervisors were informed at the time because he was a serving Met officer, however no record of this has ever been found on the Met systems and it doesn't appear a formal referral to the Met was made. To be honest with you that's irrelevant because whether a formal or informal referral was made he still could have been dealt with. Somebody would have said, hang on a second, this is not right. Let's do some checks and balances on this individual. Let's do some fact-checking, but they didn't.

2017, he was spoken to by Thames Valley police officers having been ejected from a nightclub in Reading for being drunk. This was provided by a third party and there's no record or incident on the systems. He was neither arrested nor the matter was referred to the Met. 2019, he assaulted a woman during a domestic incident by Hertfordshire and it was reported and dealt with by Hertfordshire officers. He grabbed her by the neck. So that's quite serious in my personal view because it's those minor incidents that suddenly become really major. No further action, no criminal investigation and no case to answer in relation to any misconduct.

And the list goes on. The nine major opportunities for the Met to step in and they didn't. You mentioned vetting there, Shabnam, because he was vetted twice and passed both vetting checks. Is there a problem there? Does that need to be tightened up? There's a serious problem with the vetting across policing across the UK. Basically, what might happen is that if an officer is applying for the police services,

they do these tick boxes online. And if they tick the boxes to say, no, I've not been affiliated to any neo-nazi groups no I'm not in looking at extreme pornography no I don't engage in social media misogyny sexism or racism and then that's not really scrutinized the Met are saying they're changing their processes and now they're reviewing cases where officers come to notice for domestic abuse or sexual offences or racism or sexism and they will review the officer and then they will decide whether or not they need to be re-vetted. When you've got 45,000 police officers and you're trying to vet all of those it's going to be an absolute jungle to get through. I hope that they

get through it but they have got to pick out the priority jungle to get through. I hope that they get through it, but they have got to pick out the priority cases to get them urgently reviewed and either dealt with, restrict them or get them kicked out of policing. Yeah, we did contact the Met Police about their vetting procedures. This is what they've had to say. The Met's approach to vetting has changed significantly in recent years and is now far more robust. We are confident that someone applying to join the Met today with the same pre-employment history would not receive vetting clearance. A review of Carrick's case has also determined that were he to have been revetted following his arrest in 2021, according to the processes in place today, he would not have received

vetting clearance. Shabnam, you also mentioned that he was well known amongst his colleagues. Talk to me about the culture within the Metropolitan Police. How easy is it for a police officer, a fellow officer, to report an officer they feel is behaving badly? Well, I speak from experience. OK, I made an allegation back in 1999. Unfortunately, I was vilified. I was victimised. I was subjected to investigation throughout my career on two separate occasions. I was vindicated. Yes, I was given words of advice. Yes, I was wrong. What happens is police officers want to work with good police officers. They are working with officers that are either misogynistic or sexist or racist, have this banter that they

think is really funny. Carrick had a name, if I may say it, he was referred to as Bastard Dave amongst his colleagues. That speaks volumes in itself. What then happens is when an individual wants to make an allegation, ranks are closed around them. Other police officers isolate them. They suddenly find that they've been subjected to performance matters. They suddenly find that they've been investigated themselves. There isn't a safe place for police officers to actually go and speak out.

I really hope, because I've not heard the Met talk about this at all, they need to create safer spaces for officers to speak out from all backgrounds, white, black, Asian, male, female, whatever their protected characteristics are, they need to be able to do that because that is the only way the Met are going to root out this toxic culture that is so embedded in policing that it's going to take a long, long time for Sir Mark Rowley to actually eradicate these issues and to root out the rotten apples. Yeah, of course, we don't have details of your particular case, Shabnam, but we do have a statement from the Met Police about whistleblowers more generally. And they said that Baroness Casey's interim report into our culture and standards uncovered systematic failures in our misconduct system. And we are working to address

these, including by putting a significant number of extra officers into our anti-corruption and abuse command to proactively root out those who do not belong in the organisation. We recognise that people may not feel safe to report wrongdoing directly to the police and we have developed a strong relationship with the independent charity Crimestoppers to become the first UK force to launch confidential reporting services

for our officers and staff as well as members of the public. What will be the ramifications of this, Shabnam, in terms of reaction from women and feeling safe around police officers? Look, desperately, I say every time, I still desperately want women to be able to report crime. I can't say that they feel safe because too many women are saying that they're not. And there's been too many catastrophic failings by the Met Police in terms

of things that have happened in the last couple of years. So they've got a lot of work and ground to cover up. What I would say is I'm hoping that this hotline is something that has initiated the increase in the number of officers that are now being investigated for sexual offences, for domestic abuse and domestic violence. In terms of the 400 officers that Sir Mark Rowley has said that he has now initiated to investigate those using all different types of tactics, the question I would ask Sir Mark Rowley is, did you vet those 400 officers?

Because actually those 400 officers come from across policing, from a pool of officers who sat within those offices and shared that banter and had some of those views and were involved in some of that culture. I'm not saying all of them, but it only takes two or three to get through the net within that investigative process that actually tarnishes everybody else and destroys what they are trying to achieve. So I'm hoping that Sir Mark has vetted every single one of those officers and didn't very quickly put this command together so that he can come out and tick a box and say, I've actually initiated these officers, because that is a really important question for him to be able to answer. Yeah, and once again, we can't speak for those officers. They're not here to defend themselves.

But Shadnam, thank you for sharing your experiences. Shadnam Chowdhury there who was a former metropolitan police officer and as I thought before the programme lots of you getting in touch about this because it's such a desperately heavy talking subject isn't it? So many people messaging in someone says absolutely no confidence in police in any part of the UK. It's not just the Met. Police forces are corrupt and full of characters of dubious nature. Someone else is saying, interesting to have yet another apology from the Metropolitan Police regarding how they protect and safeguard the interests of women. They need to take race concerns seriously. Someone else has said, as a mother to two grown-up daughters, we have experienced several contacts with police for help,

which has fallen on deaf ears. One instance was my younger daughter being pulled off a bike and thrown into a grass verge. And just another one here, when other professions carry out extensive psychological screening of applicants, why can't the police? They seem disproportionately to attract unsuitable people and put power in their hands. Please do continue to keep in touch with us throughout the programme. You can text, you can WhatsApp, you can email,

and you can get in touch on social media as well at BBC Women's Hour. Now, tomorrow we'll see the second round of strikes by the Royal College of Nursing, whose members will be striking on Wednesday and Thursday. The RCN says this will be the biggest walkout so far, affecting 55 trusts in England. That's 11 more than last month.

The RCN is calling for a pay rise of 5% above inflation, with inflation currently sitting at 14%. The government says the demands are unaffordable and pay rises were decided by independent pay review bodies. NHS staff in England and Wales, including nurses, have already received an average increase of 4.75%. Well, the union says there will be further strike action on the 6th and the 7th of February in England and Wales, unless there is movement on pay by the end of this month. The February strikes are projected to involve even more nurses, with more than a third of NHS trusts in England, and all but one

Welsh health board affected. Pat Cullen is the General Secretary and the Chief Executive of the Royal College of Nursing and joins me now. Good morning, Pat. Good morning. Just give us an update on these negotiations with the government. Has there been any progress? Has there been any movement? Well, it will not take me long to update you on negotiations because there aren't any. We've certainly had some meetings and we are communicating, but we have had no progress at all with negotiations.

So last time you came on the programme, which wasn't that long ago at all, you accused the Health Secretary Steve Barclay of using bully boy tactics. Is that the same attitude that you're feeling you're getting from the government? Has anything changed in that regard? Well, we're getting meetings and discussions, but we are getting nowhere at all with our dispute and certainly no progress at all with negotiations. When it comes to negotiations, it seems to be that this government just draws a blank and is quite frankly refusing to negotiate with the Royal College of Nursing.

I found it interesting that the Sunday Times and the Observer reported a potential split in the cabinet regarding how the government's going to approach the strikes. Are you noticing that? Can you feel that? It's very difficult to make any comment on that. The government has neither formally or informally put any offers to the Royal College of Nursing, and certainly to me as their General Secretary. Any meetings that I've had so far, it's with the Secretary of State. And the last meeting was as late as last week. And at that meeting, the focus tended to be on, look, if you as a college can help us find efficiencies or increased productivity,

then perhaps maybe there could be a case made to Treasury. And that's very difficult to do. What does efficiencies mean? What did you take from that? Well, that's the question we left that meeting with. Of course, in any organisation as large as the NHS, you're always looking to see how you can efficiently do things better for patients and for the staff. But it's very difficult for us as a profession to understand what efficiencies can be got from 47,000 missing nurses and then tell them to be more efficient. They're working 14-hour days well over their contracted hours. And some of those nurses are saying to me,

look, we're spinning patients like we're spinning plates. So when you've got an NHS in crisis, as we have at the minute, a nursing workforce that is feeling absolutely rock bottom with a government that has turned their back on them, it's very, very difficult to sit down and work out how we can get anything more from those nurses. As you say the NHS is experiencing hard times at the moment with nurses walking out won't that make it even harder? What will happen to patients? Well you know we'll hear a lot from this government

that patients are dying as a consequence of nurses striking. With not turning an eye to the fact that we have 7.2 million people on waiting lists year on year simply because of the way that this NHS has been treated by this government. Patients and people are not dying because our nurses are striking. Our nurses are striking because patients are dying. We are standing up for our patients and saying enough is enough. The health service is in crisis. We need to do something about it. We need to do it quickly and the way to do that

is address the crisis within our nursing workforce. They deserve more. The people that carried us through the pandemic and long before it and now this government has turned its back on them. Enough is enough now. We're walking out again tomorrow with really, really heavy hearts on strike, two days, and then having to announce further dates.

And what I'm saying to the Prime Minister this morning is, come on, I've not just reached out with an olive branch to the Prime Minister and said, we'll meet you halfway. I've actually bent the whole tree to him. And it's really, really unfortunate that that just has met a continuing stonewall from this government. It has to stop. They have to start respecting the nursing workforce and start to negotiate, not legislate as we've seen last night. What a place for us to all find ourselves in. So it's been reported that you're asking for 19%.

If you're willing to meet halfway, what does that mean, Pat? Well, I've always said, look, let's not talk about nursing on the airwaves. Give them the respect and get into a room and negotiate with those nurses. I can't negotiate at a table on my own. I've always said, I'm not going to disrespect our profession and negotiate on the airwaves. So I said, meet me halfway, come to a negotiating table, lay out your position, government. I will certainly lay out mine for the 300,000 plus nurses that are participating in this action. So you'd accept less than 19%? Would you accept 10%? Look, I've said very clearly,

we will meet you halfway. And doesn't that send out a very strong message? Our nursing profession are not a greedy profession. But we're absolutely saying we will do everything in our power to make sure that this NHS service is brought back from the crisis that has been created. Would you accept 10% Pat? Look, I've said again, and I'm not trying to be in any way disrespectful to anyone here, but I'm saying please come to a negotiating table and let those nurses lay out their position to you. Surely to goodness, this government owes that to the nursing profession that has never turned their back on anyone in society and continue to work every single hour of the day throughout this pandemic. That's not much to ask. Pat, there are many in the private sector who are receiving below inflation pay rises and they've decided not to strike, although you seem to have public on your side at this point.

Would you agree that that would continue if you then go on to strike next month as you plan to do? Look, first thing I would say is there's many in the private sector have got above inflation pay rises. And that's a well-documented fact. These nurses are not being greedy. They're asking for a cost of living pay rise so that they can pay their bills and continue to work the 14 and 16 hour days that they work to look after their patients. They're not asking for much more than that. But the other thing that I do want to say this morning is a massive thanks to our public, because every single member of the public gets nursing. They get the reasons why those nurses are standing out again

for another two days, losing another day's pay from the low salaries that they get. And you know what? If anyone has time to visit those picket lines and see the patients and the public standing side by side with their nurses, bringing them food, offering them all sorts of things on picket lines to try and make the day a little bit easier for them. Tea, coffee, all sorts of things. The public really get this, but we will never take our public for granted.

We will continue to stand with our public, right side by side, the way they do with us. And you know this, the government could take a leaf out of the public's book. The public absolutely could show this government how to really stand up and do the right thing for nursing. Yesterday, you would have seen that the strikes bill aimed at enforcing minimum service levels for the public sector during strikes passed its second reading in the Commons. What's your position on that? Again, I think that is just another example of how this government has got things so wrong. They're demonising nursing staff and many other workers for standing up and standing up for actually the people of this country. They're also saying that this is about minimum safe staffing levels during a period of strike.

The NHS is in a crisis. It's operating with minimum safe staffing levels every single period of strike. The NHS is in a crisis. It's operating with minimum safe staffing levels every single day of the week. And the government's going to punish nurses now for standing up and speaking out and saying the health service needs to be brought back from the brink. I don't know how they are going to do this with 47,000 unfilled nursing posts. And this government wants to actually start to sack nurses instead of sitting down and talking to them. What a shameful position to find ourselves in. Pat, thank you for joining the programme this morning.

Pat Cullen there, the General Secretary and Chief Executive of the Royal College of Nursing. Now, we did approach the Department of Health and Social Care for a statement. We haven't received one yet. If one does come in before the end of the programme, of course, I will let you know what they have to say. Now, Elizabeth McGovern was Oscar nominated for her portrayal of Evelyn Nesbitt in Ragtime. And by the age of 21, she had leading roles in the film Once Upon a Time in America, followed by The Handmaid's Tale and The Wings of the Dove. She's probably best known, though, for playing Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham

in Downton Abbey. And she sings and writes as well for her band, Sadie and the Hotheads, and has even opened for Sting. She's now on stage where she's starring as Martha in Edward Albee's masterpiece, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, described as the greatest slanging match in the theatrical canon. Elizabeth joins me now. Very good morning to you, Elizabeth. Welcome to the programme. Well, thank you very much. My pleasure. Yeah, pleasure to have you on.

Now, of course, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf first staged in 1962, but who can forget the Academy Award-winning film adaptation, which had Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton starring in it. How much did you actually know about the story itself? Just give us an idea relationship to the play because I can remember in high school doing scenes with my acting partner at the time. A man has gone on to be quite a successful director, Todd Haynes. And we used to do these drinking, slinging match scenes as 14 year olds. So it's been part of my DNA for years.

And of course, like everybody everybody I loved the movie so it's been such a privilege for me to experience the play by being in it in this venue which is so small that the audience is literally with Martha and George in their living room and it's been quite an extraordinary experience, I think, for everybody. I bet. That sounds very intimate. Oh, it's masterful writing too. And it's wonderful to hear the audience laugh and gasp. And we're just literally, you know, 10 inches away from their faces.

So without giving too much away, just give us a brief synopsis of the play itself. The play is about the complexity of a marriage that you get to know when they come home late at night from a party and they invite another younger couple to come share an evening of drinking with them. And in the course of the evening, both marriages are exposed. And it is so fascinating because there is great love there, but there is anger pain frustration disappointment i mean it's kind of the whole spectrum um it's kind of life you know i bet they'll be very relatable it's from a to z yeah and um and it's also terribly amusing the dialogue is very witty as as you said and barbed and um it's it's it's just a kind of, it's an experience.

It's hard to describe. Well, you described it well. Let's hear a clip, shall we? This is you as Martha and Dougray Scott as George. Make me a drink. What? I said, make me a drink. Well, I don't suppose a nightcap would kill either one of us.

A nightcap? Are you kidding? We've got guests. We've got what? Guests. Guests? Guests. Yes, guests. People. We've got guests coming over. When? Now. Good lord, Martha, do you know what time it, who's coming over? What's their name? Who? What's their name? Who what's her name? I don't know what their name is, George. You met them tonight. They're new. He's in the math department or something.

Who? Who are these people? You met them tonight. I don't remember meeting anyone tonight. Well, you did. Will you get me my drink, please? He's in the math department, blonde, about thirty and... And good looking? Yeah, and good looking.

It figures. His wife's a mousy little type without any hips or anything. Oh, you remember them now. I think the energy between the two there is very relatable to a lot of people. So just tell us a bit more about Martha. What sort of woman is she? I think Martha is a typical woman of 1950s America, which is full of suppressed ambition that she does not even realize she has, which manifests as anger and frustration and wit and a lot of alcohol is kind of how she manages it. And that to me is emblematic of that generation. And it was a generation that had convinced themselves that their lives were perfect.

It was the 1950s and America was supposed to be this wonderful place. But Albie sort of cracks the surface and you see beneath that veneer. Tell me about your career in Hollywood as well, because you were very successful from quite a young age, weren't you? Your first role in Robert Redford's Ordinary People alongside Donald Sutherland, which won four Oscars. A year later, you had your own Oscar nomination for Ragtime. And that was all by the age of 21. How much of a whirlwind was that for you as a young actress? Well, you know, for me, it seemed sort of ordinary because it was all I knew. I mean, I had sort of stumbled into acting in a, in a weird way. I mean, I didn't come from,

even though I grew up in LA, I didn't come from a family that was in the business. And so it wasn't, I wasn't spoon fed the sort of the, the dream to be a Hollywood star in any way. I was doing plays in high school and I got an agent who said, oh, let's go for a job this summer. And the job turned out to be this movie that did very well. And so in a way, I think that made it easier for me because I just kind of was taking one step at a time and getting through the day, really.

And it's only when I think back on it that I think, my God, you know, I didn't realize quite how lucky I was. Yeah. And the success has continued because of your role as Cora Crawley, the Countess of Grantham for Downton Abbey. Did you realize at the time how successful that was going to be? No, that's another one. I mean, I think in some ways, you know, whoever is up there takes care of us by having, giving us lower expectations sometimes. And that was a script that I liked, but I, my, my feeling was, oh, my mom and I will both like this. And it turned out that it was my mom and I and like the rest of the world. It was, you know, really a shock.

It's interesting because that character that you play is so different from Martha. What do you like about playing Cora? What is it specifically that attracted you to that role? Well, she's a very nice person, you know. In some ways, I feel a lot more engaged with the Martha role because there are parts of my authentic personality that I can access and almost sort of purge on stage playing Martha. I feel very sort of cleansed

because there's a lot of bitterness, angry ambition, which are, you know, I have to admit, in me, you know, which I don't get into playing Cora. So they just sit there and they sort of stew while I sit in my corset. And so I feel it's nice to get all that stuff out in the safe environment of the stage. And it's not just acting that you're known for. You have another string to your bow, Elizabeth, because you're a singer, songwriter as well and play the guitar. How do you find the time um and you have a band

Sadie and the Hot Heads tell me about that and how does it feel when you're performing on stage with your band compared to being an actor um oh well thank you so much for asking about that I I I love it I feel like it's truly my voice for better or for worse you know it's it's my vision my words my my kind of inner monologue I feel like that's what the songs are that's what that's where I that's where the place I write from so when I do a play I really try to embrace and, and convey what I what my interpretation of somebody else's inner monologue. And so for the for the music, it's my inner monologue. So of course, I love it. It's, it's, it's a, it's an absolute privilege. And we've got another album coming out,

so I'm very happy to be able to talk about it. I'm not sure when, but it's brewing. We look forward to that. And you opened for Sting, didn't you, recently? We did. We did. How was that? You met him?

Oh, yes. And he's just an amazing, hardworking, true artist. And really, really very respectful and wonderful guy. I'm glad it was a positive experience. Thank you so much for coming on to Women's Hour, Elizabeth. You can watch Elizabeth in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf at Theatre Royal in Bath until the 11th of February. There's still lots of you getting in touch about the conversation we had about how much confidence you have in the police and how

safe you feel around them. Someone has said it's a complex and difficult issue that cannot be cured with a simplistic solution. The police culture is a closed one and constructed as a family and this makes it very difficult to critique and change. The family culture has been built up over decades and is an important aspect of policing and police trusting each other but absolutely hopeless in cases when the police behave badly. Please do continue to

get in touch with us. Like I said you can whatsapp me, you can text, we're on social media as well, or you can email. Now with a risk of icy conditions and some snow across the country this week, the UK Health Security Agency is encouraging people to stay warm and to look out for those most at risk from the effects of cold weather. Some women who know all about extreme cold join me now to mark the 250th anniversary of the UK in the Antarctic, following the first voyage of James Cook in 1773. This was the first recorded crossing of the Atlantic Circle. However, in contrast to Cook's all-male crew in the 18th century, the UK's current polar leadership includes several women. So let's talk to some of them now. Joining me are Jane Rumble, who's head of the Polar Regions Department

at the UK Foreign Office. Also joining me, Dame Jane Francis, the director of the British Antarctic Survey, and Captain Millie Ingham, who's the captain of HMS Protector, the Royal Navy's Ice Patrol ship. And I believe you are on your ship right now, Captain Millie. Good morning to you all. Good morning. Good morning. I would like to know, was it the story of Cook's expedition

that inspired you to get involved at all? Does that come into any of your thinking when you got involved? Jane, first, what lit the spark for you? For me, it was my science. So I'm a geologist by training and I work on ancient climates of the earth using rocks and fossils. And Antarctica is absolutely fascinating place to work. So what took me to Antarctica was invitations to go and look for rocks, fossils and try and understand what Antarctica was like millions of years ago when there were forests in Antarctica, dinosaurs lived there, and the climates were much warmer.

So it's a fascinating place to work. I can't wait to find out more. Let's just find out from Captain Millie, what inspired you to become part of the Royal Navy and join the Ice Patrol ship, and also to jane francis as well what what inspired you um it's captain millie greetings from antarctic it's a bit rough and windy here at the moment but um i joined the navy 24 years ago a little bit by accident um and uh my boyfriend at the time his father was in the navy and then i met a woman at a careers fair and then i ended up in the navy and then i've been in this ship now for about a year and we're about to start

our third atlantic patrol as um antarctic patrol we're now in antarctic waters wow that's incredible thank you so much for joining us live from the very ship itself um jane what is it like in those conditions? Sorry, which Jane? Sorry, we're two Janes. Jane Francis, director of the British Antarctic Survey. Tell me, what is it like in those conditions? Because it just seems unimaginable to most people. Well, as a geologist, I just go out into a field tent. So we work for about two months out in the field in a tent camp, very, very much focused on collecting rocks and fossils. And actually,

you know, it is cold and it is a bit remote, but we're in contact with our local research station and we wear plenty of clothes. And, you you know after a while you kind of get used to the cold really yeah but you know we wear good clothing and uh we're out every day so we're physically very active so and we eat a lot of food so you burn a lot of calories so we eat a lot of food to keep warm but it is quite fascinating and the landscape is so beautiful so it is quite an amazing place to work and the food you're eating is it food that we'd recognize or is it a special type of food that you have to eat at that temperature well mostly most expeditions take food in boxes and quite a lot of it is dried obviously so um actually it's sort of reconstituted region a lot of spaghetti and mashed potato and dried food

that we have to rehydrate and a lot of chocolate. Chocolate is a key component to a lot of my field boxes because it's sugary sweet and gives you lots of calories so you'd be amazed at how many 200 gram bars of chocolate I can eat in a field season. Chocolate, I'm in. Jane Rumble, as the head of the Polar Regions Department at the UK Foreign Office, tell us what you do exactly and the conditions that you work in. So I represent the UK on all issues relating to Antarctica, including at the Antarctic Treaty Meeting that meets every year to discuss all matters relating to Antarctica

as the treaty sets it aside for peace and science. So I actually spend most of my time in meetings around the world talking to other international partners that have interests. I've spent nearly 18 months of my life in meetings talking about Antarctica. But I have also got to go and visit Antarctica with the British Antarctic Survey. And how did you find it? It's absolutely awe-inspiring as everybody says it's kind of difficult to comprehend the vastness of it the remoteness of it but also the beauty of it sometimes you see pictures and it looks very grey and it's just full of ice but actually you get every colour and the animals are amazing

because they're not particularly scared of humans so they'll come and investigate you and you need to tread very carefully to make sure that you don't disturb them. And quite a lot of what we've been doing is relating to tourism management to make sure that we tread softly in Antarctica because we know how important it is for the rest of the globe. What happens in Antarctica doesn't stay there. It drives our oceans, it drives our air, and therefore we need to understand it better to know what's happening to us where we live here. So, yeah, we try to make sure that every human activity in Antarctica is well managed. Millie, as Jane Rummel just said there, it's a very remote part of the world.

So how do you find it on a ship? Is it isolating being in such a quiet region of the world? We are operating at range from the UK, and in fact the ship's been away from the UK since August 21. But we're a really close-knit team on here, so we do lots of things to keep ourselves entertained. Obviously we're working quite hard. This week we're going to Port Lockroy to see the women at the post office that you might have seen in the news, and we're going to be conducting some hydrographic surveys in that region as well as

assisting them and then the following week we'll be down to Rothera to the British Antarctic station to drop off some stores but we're pretty busy down here so whether it's counting penguins, making charts or assisting with other British partners in the region or visiting other stations so it's really important that we all meet our environmental standards and but on board we keep ourselves busy we have a very good gym on board we have wi-fi so that we can keep in touch with our families by whatsapp and have a brilliant chips library so we're pretty busy It's interesting as well that three women in positions of leadership

does that make a difference do you think? Is that an important milestone? Dame Jane Francis Well I'm the first woman director of the British Antarctic Survey I think Antarctica has generally been considered to be a place with

men with beards, if I can stereotype it. And certainly things are changing now. And there's a lot more women doing science. And of course, a lot more women are rising up to leadership positions. I think women probably do tend to do things a little bit differently. I think we are a little bit more interested in working as groups and sharing problems. And there's certainly lots of problems and risks to deal with in the polar regions. I work very closely with Jane Rumble and I'm looking forward to seeing Millie when she returns from Antarctica. Yeah, of course. I bet you are. Captain Millie, would you encourage young women and girls

into this area of research and exploration? Absolutely. I mean, it's fascinating. And, you know, some of the surveys that we've been doing were last done by Captain Cook in 1773, and there's so little shipping around. And as James Rumble said, the animals aren't scared of you. So it's just fascinating, you sort of you feel like an explorer coming across

islands for the first time, huge pods of whales, you know hundreds of thousands of penguins but also, you know I've had a really enjoyable career in the Royal Navy, I've got technical skills, I've got engineers I've got women at every

level on my ship, both officers and ratings working in everywhere from the engine room to the galley, on the bridge. I've had a fantastic 24 years and I couldn't recommend it enough. Yeah, it sounds absolutely incredible and I love to travel and it's definitely one of the places in the world that's on my bucket list. Big thank you to Jane Rumble, Dame Jane Francis and Captain Millie Ingham. Thank you for coming on to Woman's Hour. Now, if you're familiar with Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, you will have heard of Alison, the wife of Bath. She's been described as a literary and feminist icon. She's considered unusual because she wasn't a queen or a princess or a witch. She was simply an ordinary woman.

And her character has inspired writers from Shakespeare to Sadie Smith. Professor Marion Turner is a fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University, and she's written a book called The Wife of Bath, a biography. Marion joins me in the studio. Good morning, Marion. Hello, thanks for having me. This is fascinating because it's been years since I read The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer. So I had to become reacquainted with this and the story. Tell me why this story and this woman in particular, Alison, is so important, not just at the time, but still relevant now? Well, you know, today's programme, I've been listening so far, and the issues you've talked about today, rape, domestic abuse, the rights of working women, trailblazing women, these are all things that the wife of Bath talks explicitly about. So it's really interesting to reflect

on the fact that these issues that are the main topics of Woman's Hour in 2023 were being raised in the late 14th century. So as you've already mentioned, at the time, she was a completely new kind of literary character. For the first time, there's a major character in literature who is middle-aged, you know, over 40 and yet getting her voice heard. She's sexually active. She works. She has friends. She gossips. She makes mistakes. She's a flawed character.

She's not perfect. She's funny. She has a sense of humour. All kinds of things that make her quite different from the damsel in distress who needs to be rescued or the old prostitute who's telling men about her tricks. And as you mentioned, she therefore has caught people's imagination right up to the present day. And it's really astonishing when you see how many people have been influenced by her.

So it's the first ordinary woman, you said, in English literature, where they're not a princess, they're not a damsel in distress, they're not a witch. So was that rare at the time? Yes, completely. So she does something totally new. And this ordinary woman's voice, this is not the kind of person that is heard at that time in literature. And not only is she heard, but Chaucer gives her more of a voice than any of his other pilgrims. So all of his pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales, they have a prologue and a tale. Most of the prologues are very short.

There are a couple that are a couple of hundred lines long. Hers is over 800 lines long. And she tells us in the prologue all about herself. So not only do we get the story that she tells, but we also get the story of her life. And Chaucer makes her more of a subjective individual than any of his other characters. And in that story, she tells us about the community of women that she lives,

that she lives with in her household. She tells us about marriage and sex in a lot of detail. She talks about her genitals and when she likes to have sex and lots of things like that. But she also tells us about domestic abuse, about the fact that her husband hit her. She talks about the weight of misogyny. And so, you know, you were asking about was this unusual? Not only was it unusual, but she foregrounds that by saying, well, in my life, my husband used to read all the time, every day, the Book of Wicked Wives. So her husband had a book, which was a collection. And these were real medieval books, collections of tracts about how awful women were. And she talks about what it feels

like as a woman to sit there hearing people say terrible things about women. So she was dealing with misogyny? Exactly. And what she says is, well, the reason that there are so many misogynist books is that one half of humanity has written all the books. They've all been written by men. And she says, you know, if women had written stories as men have in their oratories, they would have talked about the wickedness of men. And when we look at updated versions, you know, Zadie Smith makes the Book of Wicked Wives into a collection of books by people such as Jordan Peterson. Patience Agbabi makes it into Playboy, for example. So modern writers emphasize the fact

that women are still dealing with misogynist books. There's still a weight of literature against them, though, of course, the balance has been redressed a lot since the 14th century. And while The Wife of Bath is a fictional character, she is writing, she's speaking at this moment when we are getting more female authors and lots of the things that she embodies so the fact that she's a working woman she's a woman who inherits a lot of money and is able to keep that inheritance she's a woman who travels all over the known world at the time she's a woman who makes her voice heard and tells stories all those things were real things that real medieval women were doing at the time and lots of people assume that medieval women were

kind of staying in the house all the time yeah there's a part in your book where you do detail that some medieval women in England were much more liberated than we might think. How so? So lots of women had jobs at the time. So some of those jobs were domestic service, the cloth trade, like the wife of Bath, working in the victualing industry, so food and drink provision. But we also hear sometimes about women who are blacksmiths, skinners, parchment makers, scribes, ship owners, running enormous estates. And at this time in the 14th century, lots of people have called this a golden age for women. Now, of course, it wasn't great, you know, they didn't have the vote or things like that. But compared to other parts of Europe at the time, there were other parts of Europe, for example, which were reliant on slave labor after the plague.

In England, after the plague, more women entered the workforce, moved to cities, got paid jobs. And it was a time when domestic service was actually a way for women to get out of their father's control, earn their own money, save money, and then be able to choose their own marriage partners. Because as we all know, economic control and sexual control are very closely tied together. And this was a time when women were often asserting themselves and the law did protect them. It did allow them to inherit money. It allowed them to keep that inheritance if they married again. So we often see women making really interesting decisions. And, you know, one of the things that was fun about my book, The Wife of Bath, the biography, was that it was a way for me to tell lots and lots of women's stories.

So to tell the story of the 15th century duchess who married a teenager when she was in her 60s. Wow. Of the maid who travelled all over Europe, abandons her employer and then gets a much better job in Rome and ends up dispensing patronage to her employer. Of the women who, and, you know, your previous guest, Pat Cullen, would be interested in this, the women who formed a kind of union in the 1360s to demand better wages

and to protest against price fixing by a man. There are so many risk-taking, interesting medieval... It's so relevant, isn't it? Yeah. Nothing new under the sun. So whilst there were a variety of women who were perhaps more liberated than we might have expected in medieval England, there was also misogyny, as you've mentioned, that women were also dealing with. And your book has this photo of a vulva brooch.

Tell me about the significance of that and what it meant. Yeah. So in the 14th century and 15th century, when people went on pilgrimage, they would often buy souvenirs, brooches. And one of the brooches, and we have an example of this still surviving, it's an image of a vulva as a pilgrim. So it's a vulva with a little hat on and little feet and carrying a pilgrim's staff. And the idea of this is men would buy this brooch and it signifies that they believed that women were only going on pilgrimage in order to have sex. So it's a deeply misogynistic idea that a woman traveling is just walking genitals. She's only doing it for sex. And of course, in actual fact, what we see in pilgrim accounts is women being very frightened of rape.

You know, they are going on pilgrimage for devotional reasons or sometimes for a holiday, but they're not going because they're sexually available. And, you know, this is an example of the kind of misogyny that the wife of Bath is talking about. And in her own tale, she talks about rape and the problems of men assuming that women are sexually available. And the story that she tells is all about trying to educate men to leave women's bodies alone. And it is interesting that across time, you know, the second half of my book talks about how people have responded to her across time. And we see a lot of really misogynistic responses of people being very anxious about the wife of Barth making her voice heard, trying to put her in her place. And we see examples of people such as Voltaire really defending the rapist in his version of her tale, for example,

and making it into something quite different. Pasolini, who essentially turns the woman into the sexual predator figure. And he, in his film in the 1970s, depicts sex with an older woman actually killing her fourth husband, literally killing him. So there's all kinds of really interesting responses that tell us a lot about misogyny across time, which has not always improved. Indeed. It's been fascinating diving back into Middle English and reading that book. Thank you,

Marion Turner, for coming onto the programme. Professor Marion Turner, book that she's written is called The Wife of Bath, a biography, and it's out now. That's all we have time for on Woman's Hour today. Back tomorrow. And that's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. My name is Jonathan Myerson, and two years ago we produced Nuremberg,

a dramatised reconstruction of the trial of the major Nazi war criminals. Their crimes were indisputable, but one mystery remained. How did this group of unremarkable men come to rule all of Germany? Our new podcast, Nazis, The Road to Power, unravels this improbable story in 16 episodes, starring Tom Mothersdale, Derek Jacoby, Alexander Vlahos, Toby Stevens and Laura Donnelly. It remains a lesson for us all.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.