Woman's Hour - Emma Webber & Sinead O'Malley Kumar, Maureen Lipman, Nina Bhadreshwar

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

Anita Rani speaks to Emma Webber and Sinead O’Malley Kumar mothers of Barnaby and Grace, both 19, who were killed in Nottingham in June 2023. They’ll be responding to the findings of a major review of the NHS care of Valdo Calocane the man who attacked their children. A report Emma has already described as a horror show.Nina Bhadreshwar’s crime novel The Day of the Roaring tells the story of Sheffield Detective Inspector Diana Walker, who is trying to solve some particularly grisly murders while dealing with corruption and racial and sexual discrimination at work. Nina joins Anita to discuss her own Yorkshire upbringing, launching a magazine which led her to a friendship with rapper Tupac Shakur and a job at the notorious hip hop label Death Row Records.A new opera is being written about Margaret Thatcher. Seen by many as a divisive figure, the Rest is History podcast co-host Dominic Sandbrook's new work is going to look at her 11-year tenure as prime minister. Dame Maureen Lipman - who played Margaret Thatcher in an episode of the British sitcom About Face - discusses her appeal and what she was like to play as a character.Dr LaShyra ‘Lash’ Nolen is one of the charity, One Young World’s young leaders. She was the first African American woman to serve as student president at Harvard Medical School in 2019, was on Forbes 30 Under 30 Healthcare list in 2022 and now works as a resident physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. ‘Lash’ as she is known, joins Anita to talk about her daily work, her journey to a career in medicine and her desire to see equity in healthcare throughout the US.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Kirsty Starkey

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 Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to the programme. Grace O'Malley Kumar, Barnaby Webber and Ian Coates were all tragically killed in Nottingham in June 2023 by Valdo Callocane. On the programme today, Grace and Barnaby's mums give their reaction to the 300-page report which was made public yesterday

and which admits the system got it wrong and identified clear failings in the treatment provided to him. Also on the programme, debut novelist Nina Badeshwa will be telling me about her page-turner of a book and also about her time working with rapper Tupac Shakur and being his pen pal. And as you know, we're champions of impressive women here and Dr. Lashira Nolan is seriously impressive,

being named in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in healthcare and as the first African-American female student president at Harvard Medical School, no less. And Mrs. Thatcher,cher the opera would you watch it get in touch let me know about your thoughts and feelings about anything you hear on the program your opinions are always welcome get in touch in the usual way the text number is 84844 you can email me by going to our website and the whatsapp number is 03700 100 444. That text number, once again, 84844. But first, a major NHS review was published yesterday,

which investigated the care and treatment of Valdo Calocane, a paranoid schizophrenic who killed Barnaby Webber, Grace O'Malley Kumar and Ian Coates in Nottingham on June 2023. Since that time, their families have fought tirelessly for answers to understand what led to these terrible events. And now this independent mental health homicide report has thoroughly reviewed the NHS care and treatment provided to Callaghan by Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and the interactions the NHS had with other agencies involved in his care. It identified numerous failings that show, and I quote, the system got it wrong. Overall,

his risk was not fully understood, managed, documented, or communicated. Emma Webber and Sinead O'Malley-Kumar are mothers of Barnaby and Grace, both 19 when they died. Emma and Sinead, join me now live in the studio. Welcome to both of you. Hi, Anita. Morning, Anita. We are going to get your reaction to the report, but I think I'd want to start by just checking in with you both. How are you this morning? Pretty exhausted.

It's been a really busy 48 hours and it's such a relief that finally all of the details about the treatment that Valder Calacane received are actually

out in the open that we can speak about it openly because it's something we've known about for a few weeks. We've been kind of gagged. Well, we were gagged. We had to sign an NDA. So we're really relieved to be able to talk about the failings and try and use this now as, as Sandra said yesterday,

a turning point, you know, a line in the sand for moving things forward. You were given the report a couple of weeks ago. Three weeks ago. All 300 pages of it. It was commissioned by NHS England and Themis Consulting, who carried out the investigation, looking at a three-year period from Callaghan's first contact with mental health services in May 2020 to June the 13th, 2023,

when he carried out the attacks. It must have been unimaginably difficult to read. What do you make of the information that's come out of it, Emma? Yeah, it's an appalling horror show. It's as bad as you could imagine it might be to hear it and to read it. It was presented to us. And at the time, as we've alluded to, we had to sign an NDA. And I, you know, feeling gagged to talk about it was very difficult. Extensive Review Identifying Failings is one of 600 over the last 30 years that are on the 100 Families charity website of NHS investigations into deaths, murders through mental health illness. that we're facing here because this is 600 and something in a report.

It's not a one-off. It has happened since, as is evident by the heinous atrocity in Southport, just to name one. And what we're trying to illustrate and did, I hope well yesterday, is that this report is one of nine that we've had to suffer the torture of being involved in and we've had to fight at pretty much every corner all of those reports across the police sorry I just finished very quickly I know I'm talking about across the police forces across the NHS they are not in their entirety adequate. They do not address the real situation and the failures. And so therefore, the call really is, yes, that happened.

That's yesterday. That's this big, awful fat report with catastrophic findings. But we must have the statutory public inquiry because it all has to come out. The truth has to be outed and it still isn't. You described it, I was picking up on you describing it as a horror show. What was the most difficult part of it for you to read?

When you look at during when the report was being presented to us, we didn't actually have the opportunity to flick through the actual details of it. But when you look into the minutiae of how some of his care coordinators

wanted him or suggested he might have depo or long-acting intramuscular medication, and he did not have that. He was deemed to have capacity to actually choose not to have that. That was horrific. The fact that the risk he posed to healthcare professionals was documented and there was no loan working allowed and it was changed that only two

nurses could see him at a time. That was horrific. It's horrific because they knew the risk he posed. They knew how violent he was. And the mental health trust just did not treat him. They could have changed the course of his direction. They could have moved him a few degrees away from the 13th of June. Our children could still be alive if he'd have been adequately medicated. He just simply wasn't. And that's very hard to bear. That's so hard because we're just heartbroken aren't we emma oh we're just heartbroken and when you hear that simple medical management wasn't followed it's changed the course of our

lives it's it's it's resulted in our beautiful children being killed, and Ian, and the three others that were injured. It's had such a far-reaching effect, and it's heartbreaking. What stood out for you? The detail. Having it in front of you, seeing it, is I expected it to be bad it clearly there were there were terrible failures and and very poor decision making leadership but but seeing the the stark facts

of four sectionings for violent escalating violent offenses the fact that the people on the ground were too afraid to to visit him on occasions they had to plan their exit routes to make sure they knew how to get out and the fact that these in that there are numerous instances of of these these care workers in the community escalating their concerns voicing their concerns about how dangerous to the public he was, not just to himself. And that didn't go, as the NHS used the term, vertically. The leadership didn't do anything. The note-taking is appalling.

There's hardly any. We could pick this report apart um but but what purpose would that serve because it's an it's one of hundreds and hundreds of reports um so so now now is the time for it to be addressed fully and and the point that we've both tried to make very clearly this morning is that we are not witch hunting we are not here with pitchforks asking for public naming and shaming. But what we are insisting upon and we will make sure we get is individual accountability

through the professional means for those people who didn't do their jobs properly. You're also asking for a retrial. Why? I think our legal team have managed any expectations with regard to that. We're so glad that everyone can actually see the contents of this report. It is available on the NHS England website so that they can see how bad everything was managed.

And we just, it was alluded to in some of the press that we wanted these healthcare professionals actually named. That's not actually true. We're not looking for people to be, you know, doorstepped or anything like that. But we do need healthcare, so be it. But we do need to get to the bottom of it through the professional channels. I'm just going to pick another piece that came out of the report that's in September the 22nd. He was discharged from early intervention in psychosis service to his GP and there was no contact between Calicane and mental health services or his GP for roughly nine months from this time until the case.

Anita, my husband's a GP. GPs have thousands and thousands of patients. They get discharge letters from hospital and various services all the time. You've got hundreds a week. Yeah, absolutely. Hundreds a week, if not sometimes a day on a Monday, you know, after a week. But saying, oh, patient discharged due to lack of engagement. What is a GP supposed to do with a complex patient like Valdo Calacane? But he didn't know, she, the GP didn't know. I mean, what are they supposed to actually do with that information? Are they supposed to try and chase them up?

Are they supposed to call them in for an appointment when the specialists can't engage it's complete and so i i don't blame a gp for not following up on that definitely the point is is that the um consultant who helped bring this report together her name was jane eubank dr jane eubank she said herself discharging a patient because of non-engagement is very poor practice. Another thing that was highlighted in the report was that the family, Callaghan's family, said that they weren't listened to. How does that make you feel?

Well, I think we're not here to comment on what the family have or haven't said. You know, they've had their Panorama documentary. There's clear attempts that they did, and we're not here to read and analyze that um what's what's painful is is to uh when you talked about retrial this report does evidence that what was put what was put forward in in the hearing it wasn't a trial what was put forward in the hearing to the court by the expert doctors um appears to be wrong because he was sentenced based on his treatment resistance which means that he was take the treatment didn't work um actually what's evident is that when he did take his medication it did work he did get better every single time and as his brothers alluded to himself um he's now responded

to treatment and they've got him back if they said that a year ago nearly in in their panorama documentary so how can it be fair how can that be right that that was allowed to be presented at court that this individual that was presented at court was a very very different individual that uh is is evident in in this report um in in great detail so he did respond to medication every single time he didn't want to take it he chose not to take it he didn't like needles it's not for us to to analyze in great detail what the family did or didn't do what the health care professionals did or didn't do we shouldn't it's shameful that we're even here as lovely as it is to meet you it's it's absolutely shameful we've had to do this um and the fact that two police forces had countless

missed opportunities to stop him to change that that degree that course and i maintain that had all of those individuals across all of those agencies done their jobs properly barney would be alive grace would be alive and ian would be alive um shanae the report highlights pressure on the team that led to failings, including workload and that the discharge system didn't function as it was supposed to. What do you think about that? whether the discharge system is because of human, a human neglect, or whether or not there was no actual software, or I don't know what they mean by that. I think that's a bit woolly. It's not explained, and I'd like that to be drilled down to.

Is that actual lack of nurses or doctors doing their discharge summaries correctly? Does that give you the right to go, well, you know, we were too busy, we're too under resource, so if you lose your life or your son gets murdered, then, you know, sorry. And these were, as Emma said, this is the same kind of excuses that come up in every investigation. Poor risk assessments, poor risk assessments, poor discharge planning, poor medical management. It's all the same time and time again. And it's kind of just making excuses. I'm sorry, but systems are made up of people. Marjorie Wallace, who's

the chief executive of mental health charity SANE, said the publication of the review should act as a watershed moment. Watershed. The NHS has been given six months to consider Themis's recommendations. You say there's nothing to compel the NHS to implement them or any mechanism to hold the NHS to account if they fail. What would you like to see happen? Can I just make a point about this

Themis report? There's no point going into the great detail of the great battle we have had to with NHSE with regards to how they've handled all of this and us and the publication. But what's relevant is that two days before this report was published in full because of the enormous fight and pressure that was that was very public, whether you turned the 11th hour. Two days before that, the decision had been made and an email was received where I was told, you asked to be kept up to date with what happens for the cost of publication. This report will be sent to all mental health trusts across the country.

They will be compelled to read and to implement the recommendations. To which I went back and said, that's fine. So can you please confirm what reports who are receiving? What are the media receiving and what are the trusts receiving? What do you mean regarding trusts? The email came back and said, I need to know what the trusts are getting. Are they getting the executive summary, which is 30 pages, or are they getting the 300-page full detail?

Oh, no, no, they'll just be given the executive summary. And I think I just leave it there. So that's how we improve in this country. That's how those lessons that are learned after all the unreserved apologies, which is a copy and paste, in my opinion. That is, how can that be adequate? NHS England, how can that be adequate? You send an executive summary and that's almost like a revelation.

Yeah, this is this is why woeful you know a statutory inquiry like the mid-staffer hospital inquiry and the francis report that will lead to changes in legislation changes in code of practice changes in in in the way uh you know expectations and standards are we need we need legislation change how likely is that to happen? I don't know, but I tell you what, the Royal College of Psychiatrists need to take a good hard look at this,

need to see where their members are falling short. You know, the consultant I spoke about who was part of this report said that this kind of behaviour is widespread. We were horrified by that. She said this is quite common that you just discharge a patient. I mean, I know in the meantime, West Treating has said no patients are to be discharged due to lack of engagement. But this was common practice.

Now, that's just not good enough. What other common practice falls short of what's good practice? I'd like to ask you both about your driving force through all of this. And is it anger that's pushing you on? I think, I often say, people always say, and I know they say the same to Sinead, I didn't have the strength to do it. Where do you get it from?

And I don't have an answer to that. But I do have a clarity of mind that I don't know where that comes from. I suspect it's Barney. He is, you know, I'm a mum. It's that invisible umbilical cord. And it's the same with the dads and the brothers. You know, we have to do this for him.

He didn't lose his life on the 13th of June. He didn't lose anything. What he had was taken, stolen. His future was taken. And we've got this individual that now resides as a patient in a hospital in receipt of income from the state. And there's every chance he'll be out within 10 to 20 years. So yeah, I want to be positive. I want to change the language, use it. It will change. We will meet with the Prime Minister and the team. And what's about you, Sinead?

Well, you know, just from the point of view as a doctor, and I know I've laboured this perhaps, but, you know, every healthcare professional has to deliver the best care that they can. I don't want to hear about resources. You just do the best you can. I don't blame an operating department. I get on and I do the job. I do it the best I can and I'm afraid that from my point of view I just want accountability and like I said it's not about

naming publicly. It's about accountability. Who did what? Who did what was done wrong? Because we've been told you know repeatedly by the CQC by the homicide report that things have been done badly. And I want to know what was done badly and what can be improved. Because I tell you what, the next time a kid goes off to university,

I don't want the parents worrying about them coming home and being safe, you know? I've been thinking about you a lot in the last 24 hours, both of you, and thinking about you coming in to talk to me and how this report has come out and you're in all the newspapers this morning you've been doing other interviews this morning um does the campaigning help with your grief or can it be re-traumatizing it's constantly re-traumatizing it's trauma upon trauma upon trauma. It's unimaginable. It's hard to describe it. But I think it's making it count. after June the 13th, when the chief constable at times said, don't worry, Emma, we've got him, he's going down. You think, OK, so now I have to try and think, how do I even survive?

How do I get through each day? And as all of these epic levels and unfathomable levels of failures have come out, it's not waging a war. I don't want to become a campaigner a campaigner but we have to we have to do the right thing we have to just get the answers and the truth it's that simple and how do you get through a bad day Sinead well because I'm doing it for grace can't do anything else I've read criticism in the papers about these campaigning parents who do nothing but go on breakfast TV, banging their drum.

And it's so insulting because all we're doing is, it's for Barney and Grace. What else? We've got nothing else left. We've got, there's nothing more we can do but try and make, and I know it may sound, you know,

trite and it may be a cliche, but we should try and improve the system because that's all we can do. I think we will improve the system. We have to make this that watershed moment, Sinead, because how many parents say to you, I'm so worried about my son and my daughter at university. But also you can't send your children to holiday club. How important is the support that you give each other? It's vital, I think.

Don't cry. Why do you cry? We cry every day think don't cry we cry every day don't we you're the only one that knows Emma you know so it's horrible I wish there wasn't an Emma but at least we know how each other feels

our families, our sons our, we're in the same boat. And we do take strength from each other. Barney and Grace were friends. And now we know the Coates family as well. And we're part of this. It's a crazy new family that we've got. But I live with guilt I wasn't there for Barney. I know it's irrational I said that last night.

But also I live with that knowledge that that beautiful girl tried to stop this monster from hurting my son. And she could have run and she didn't. And I think that Barney chose well when he chose her as a friend. And that's why I hope, well, we're friends, but it's more than that, we're family. And I always think we'd have met each other anyway somehow one day. Maybe not the Coates, but, you know, those boys, that family, they're amazing. The people of Nottingham are amazing.

But we just have to get this done, Anita. And the two of you are quite remarkable, the strength that you have found within this unthinkable tragedy and the family of one of the three young girls murdered in Southport made contact with you Emma yeah amongst lots of people that reach out and how have you been able to support them I think like I think as Sinead has has um, we can't make it better for anybody. We can't change what happened. But what we have is this awful solidarity and understanding where you don't have to mask.

You don't have to put that front on because even with your own friends and family on occasion, it's hard. Because you almost want to look after them and protect them whereas all of that's stripped away when you're talking sometimes i just don't people just don't get it no and if you know friendships suffer all sorts of things suffer because of this because i'm in this whole i often say i'm in a whole new world but when that type of when when they reach out, I know how important it was to me when Sinead got my number that god awful day that it happened. And she sent a message to me. And I think it was the first time in that awful bleak new world where I thought, OK, there's someone else. What did you say, Sinead?

Oh, my goodness. Well, I had to ask. I had to obviously ask permission. I asked our family liaison officer if I could have Emma's number and of course I understand that she had to then ask permission to pass it along.

I don't even know Emma. I could look at my phone. I think you said something, I don't know. I don't know. I think you said something like Emma, it's Grace's mum. yeah shanaid and it was something like how do we do this i don't know um and then and then we met you know the first time the families met was in in nottingham at the university at that vigil that's right when i thought there might be 50 people there and there were thousands and thousands that day and what was that like to experience that and to meet Sinead for the first time?

It's one of those visceral moments. It's one of those you cannot, it's hard to put into words the power, the emotion and the feeling from those amazing people that turned up at that vigil at the university. But also the next day in the city. Yeah, Market Square. Oh, God. Yeah. So there's more good than bad out there. And we have to believe in that as well.

You try to find... I'm actually just scrolling. We'll be here in half an hour. Find the message, the initial message that you sent. Yeah. I can't remember how it was. It came through in a weird way. Well, the first time we met was the following morning.

We didn't speak on the day we found out because we were so shell-shocked, of course. You found out about Rony before myself and my family found out about Gracie. But the first time we spoke, I think, was actually at Nottingham University Physically, so we spoke, yeah Yeah

And you have each other Yeah I want to thank you both Thank you for coming in to take the time to speak to me Thanks for listening Thank you And hopefully, yeah

every mother out there will send their child away to school and to university And know place eventually, safer society. Thank you both Emma Webber and Sinead O'Malley-Kamar for coming in to speak to me this morning. And I must say that if you have been affected by anything you've heard, then please do go to the BBC Action Line website where you will find links to support organisations. Emma and Sinead, thank you once again.

Thanks, Anita. Thank you, Anita. Claire Murdoch, NHS England's National Mental Health Director, said our thoughts continue to be with the families and loved ones of Barnaby Webber, Grace O'Malley-Kamar and Ian Coates who have suffered the most unbearable loss and continues to say it's clear there were failings in the care provided to Valdo Callocane,

which is why the trust responsible was placed in our highest oversight and support programme, which has seen them overhaul their risk assessment processes. Nationally, we've asked every mental health trust to review these findings and set out action plans for how they treat and engage with people who have serious mental illness, including how they work with other agencies such as the police, and we've instructed trusts not to discharge people if they do not attend appointments. We're determined to do everything possible to transform how the NHS treats people with a serious mental illness who often require long-term support,

backed by a £900 million investment over the last five years into improving community services. The next stage of transformation of services for those with the most serious illnesses is the trialling of mental health centres open 24-7 from this spring and providing people and their families with support if they're in crisis without needing to book an appointment, as well as provide housing or employment advice to support them to stay well. And once again, if you have been affected by anything you have heard in the programme today, then please do go to our BBC Action Line website.

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'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. Now, Nina Bradeshuawa has an extraordinary life. Brought up in Barnsley, she started her journalism career at the Barnsley Chronicle. She began her own music magazine, which fell into the hands of rapper Tupac Shakur, who became a friend.

Nina went on to work at the hip-hop label Death Row Records before training as a teacher back in the UK and has now published her first crime novel, The Day of the Roaring. I started by asking Nina what drew her to crime fiction. My experience and also the experiences of the people I'd sort of spent most of my life with had been very much on the receiving end of crime or in you know in in some way it was there and there was always so many layers to crime that I didn't find presented in sort of crime fiction or literary fiction it wasn't specific and the day of the roaring um came to me as I didn't feel competent enough to do it for a long, long time. And I think the loss of my dad and then lots of things happening. I was like, you know what, I'm just going to have a bash at this.

And it's been successful. So tell me about the Day of the Roaring. What's it about? So the Day of the Roaring is a police procedural. It's set in South Yorkshire and sort of that liminal space next to the sort of like peak district. The main core character

is a DI, Diana Walker, who's sort of mixed race and her mother's Kenyan and she's got this very complex back history. She doesn't have time to explore. She's focused on her police work. But it is multiple. I wanted the multiple narrative voices because I did want to involve both her history,

which refers back to the legacy of criminal past, you know, colonialism, And also the young student, the young voice of South Yorkshire. So having a character that represented Sheffield now. And she really does, Diana, your protagonist. But she also struggles as a police officer, doesn't she? Because so many people she's close to simply don't trust the police. Why did you want to tackle that? I really wanted to tackle it because that's a struggle I went through as well. You know, I think growing up in a mining town, you know, and particularly during the mining strikes and there was all the legacy of misogyny.

You know, I lived through the Ripper years and how that affected women. And it was in the newsroom when I was working at the Barnsley Chronicle. And then South Yorkshire police, so much corruption, the Hillsborough disaster. My dad went out when that actually happened. So I knew there was this legacy of racism and misogyny and corruption. However, when I returned from Los Angeles, I began to have different experiences through WPCs. That's what we called women police back then.

And I think the germination of D.I. Walker started then, yeah. So this book is a culmination of your own vast varied and uh adventurous shall we say life um can we i'm going to talk about little bits of it and maybe we should go right back actually and talk about when you were very young because you're only 13 when your mother was diagnosed with cancer right that's right and you had to become her carer. Well, I mean, I wasn't officially her carer, but she was like, that's it now, your childhood's over. I need you to take me to radiotherapy. She didn't want to involve people in the community

because cancer was a dirty word back then. What year was this? So this is early 1980s. And she, so I went with her and I was, I was a, you know, I wasn't even 14, 15. So young. Yeah. And the way of treating it was really brutal. And she, yeah, it was a real struggle.

She was a young woman herself and she, she wanted to shield my younger siblings so she didn't really discuss it with them so yeah seeing her go through all that um um how did that impact you I think it it's I didn't have a vision of a future do you know what I mean she was more like a big sister we were very sort of close and she didn't herself have sort of like a mother figure in her life. So it was it was a journey. I'm really, really glad I went on because she the way she connected with me was through writing, you know, writing me wee notes each day. She wasn't and she would. she's the one who encouraged me to write and to speak up. And then your writing took you to starting up your own magazine. And this is because you're, like me, you love music. I love music. It was around that time of rave and rave was at that point in sort of that late 80s, early 90s, was really quite innocent and wonderful. You know, it was all about the sound systems. And because I had my eating disorder at that point,

I was, I found music really healing, do you know what I mean? And it introduced me to communities where I was included, you know, it wasn't misogynistic. You know, you could go and dance all night and not be bothered by people. And there wasn't the pressure to drink.

And I didn't drink. So what led to you setting up your first magazine? Well, I needed to be part of a community. I was very lonely. I felt like a ghost. I felt like a ghost around South Yorkshire. I wasn't seen. I wasn't getting opportunities or jobs. And I was like, I've got these journalist skills. I've got my

shorthand. I've got my report writing. Instead of writing about potholes in Barnsley, why don't I? Write about your passion. Yeah, write about that. Which was poetry, music and graffiti. Yes. And we need to make the link now. I mean, your story is so remarkable. How that went from you being a young girl in Sheffield who was passionate about music and what was happening in the rave scene in the UK back then. And with, you know, with all the kind of health issues, you had an eating disorder, you lost your mum, but then you found yourself in L.A.

Writing to Tupac Shakur. I think that I was writing to him before LA so it was New York so I went over to New York and the graffiti writers there and that was the moment it was like 1993 it just sort of like fireworks went off in my head I was like I have to be in America they're having the conversations I need to have because they're talking about it was all about art and music. So exciting. Yeah. Time to be there. I had nothing going off in the UK and my magazine had taken off. I'd got three distributors in the USA and I I was also focused on the injustices that were happening as a consequence of the Rodney King verdict, you know.

And that was an issue no one was talking about over here in the UK. And they were talking about it over there. And I was like, I need to hear this. I need to be there. So that's how I ended up in Watts, Los Angeles. Writing to Tupac. Yes. I've been writing to him since New York what were the letters like I mean I was a letter writer I mean I think his letters his letters he was he was he was a letter writer as well he wrote loads of letters not just to me lots of people I kept them I, and others didn't, but he did write lots of letters.

He would talk about, he would talk about not personal stuff. It took a long time for him to start talking about how he felt as himself. He was very aware that he had a voice for young people. He was very aware of his responsibilities. He was very community orientated and I think I felt like I could learn a lot from him I trusted him and I told him things I wouldn't tell other people you know tell him about my eating disorder I wouldn't even talk about that to other people what was it about him that made you want to write to him I mean I like you say I know I know lots of people felt like that about him yeah why were you writing to him? Right, because Tupac stood up

to the things that were going wrong. He spoke into them. He spoke with authority and with knowledge. He didn't speak. People talk about his rage, but I didn't hear rage when I heard him speak. I felt strength. I felt courage.

I felt encouraged when I heard him. How did you get a job at Death Row Records? So you've, I'm just going to bring people up to speed. You've moved to America. You're in New York. You're writing to Tupac. You're publishing your own magazine. And then Death Row came to you to say, can work for us?

Well, I used to write, transcribe. So I'd interview people, whether they they be gangsters or former addicts, because I was working with a Christian mission out group called Victory Outreach. So I would be interviewing people all the time, all the time, and I would write up their stories. and Death Row asked me to write the bios of their artists because they weren't getting much traction with the media. Their artists wouldn't work with the US media. So I went in and they got on really well with me. They trusted me for some reason. And I did a very quick turnover because I know how to do those things.

What was it like working there? I mean, it's quite a notorious record label. Well, they say that, but it was fantastic for me. They were really welcoming. There was nothing there. I was like, you call this a business? There's just carpets and chicken wrappers and phones. You're in the heart of it.

You're in the heart of hip-hop at that time. I didn't. You know, for me, I was in the heart of what's you know what I mean I'm used to trauma and craziness going on me so I had my computer in Sheffield I shipped that over I was like we can do something here and they said you know whatever you need and I got a desk in a windowless room it was just a tiny little corner but I was like I know how to do this and it was across the way from Interscope which which I then discovered was Tupac's record label yeah so yeah and you met him later on down the line yes we were still writing but that was um at during Snoop's trial for murder

he was uh I used to go down there and I would be having his PayPal's doing his promotion. And I saw Tupac at the car then. And obviously we'd never met in person person. And I said, I'm Nina. I wrote to you in jail. And he just lifted me up and he just hugged me. I want to bring it back to the book because you have written this real page page turner of detective fiction and with a character that you don't normally see. She's a mixed race woman who is at the heart of this and there's lots of women of color in it.

I'm struck by something you said that you felt like a ghost in Sheffield. By writing this book and putting women of color at the front and center, You've got the mother, your grandmother, you've got the victims, you've got the detective. Was that, in a sense, bringing them to the forefront? Definitely. And I think they have such rich and layered lives and there's so much drama in there. I was like, I have to, you know, you can tell an entire story through these women

and their voices. And they're powerful because they have weight to them. And we've got to talk about Yorkshire. I mean, two women from Yorkshire, how can we not? You set it in Sheffield. And what makes, not just Sheffield, but Yorkshire in general, the perfect backdrop for your story? Sheffield, but Yorkshire in general, the perfect backdrop for your story? Sheffield, Bradford, Manchester, you've got these urban, multi-layered cities,

proper cosmopolitan cities, bang next to wildernesses. You know, it's like you've got all this wealth of literature and possibility, you know, and human experience just there waiting to be explored. I was like, I have to set it here, you know, and the human experience just there waiting to be explored. I was like, I have to set it here, you know, and particularly talking about land and land ownership when we're talking about the Kenyan uprising. Because her ancestry is, her family's ancestry

is from that part of the world. Yeah. And also people of colour, their relationship with land, you know what I mean? And when we're separated from land, it means a big deal. I remember my parents were really into the Peak District because it was available, the national parks, you know, every weekend we'd go off to the moors.

You know, it was a gift, this space, you know, this space where you could just be. Yeah, it's wonderful. Nina Badreshwa on her book, The Day of the Roaring. The text number to get in touch with the programme, if you'd like to, is 84844. Now, a new opera is being written about Margaret Thatcher, seen by many as a divisive figure. The Rest Is History podcast co-host Dominic Sandbrook's new work is going to look

at her 11-year tenure as Prime Minister. Here to discuss her appeal and what she was like to play as a character is Dame Maureen Lipman, who played Margaret Thatcher in an episode of the British sitcom About Face. And she joins me now live. Morning, Maureen. Welcome to the programme. So what's the draw to play Margaret Thatcher? Oh, it's always good to play a villain. It was at the time I felt quite viscerally about her, like most of my leftist friends, we were marching against all sorts of things. And she just had, to me, I think the most interesting thing, and I've played this before with Kitty McShane,

who I played with, oh, Mother Riley. If someone's a bad actress, it's fabulous to play. I think that's what Meryl Streep picked up when she played her and her mannerisms and the fact that she was so very careful of the way she sounded and how she sounded. And because there was an element of having been taught to speak, which some people might recognise from today's politicians, very much in the news, you had a handle on someone who was incredibly prescribed. Now, looking back now, I have much more sympathy for her as a woman. Why is that? How do you think about her now? Looking back now, I have much more sympathy for her as a woman.

Why is that? How do you think about her now? Well, I think now of her in terms of surrounded by men. So she had to become more masculine in order to dominate. And then the domination kind of took over. So when I started playing Margaret Thatcher, I used to have my own suit. I had my own wig. I was met by my uncle, then Lord Mayor of Hull at Paragon Station, got off the train in full blue suit and wig. Did you have the handbag? Did you have the handbag as well? I had the handbag. I had everything. I had the court shoes you know and I

made my face kind of into that sort of very very very earnest and listening look at me. And also I used to do as a fab interview with Mavis Nicholson the great who in which I did the early Margaret Thatcher

when she was much more high pitched and very much more anxious to please. And then to the very sort of last, I'm dominating this conversation and you won't get a word in. And I've worked with various people, Steve. Nalon used to play her and, of course, Hayden Gwynn, the late great Hayden. Did you ever meet her? I nearly met her.

What happened? Well, I was due to go to a thing in Finchley where she was going to attend and I got as far as reception and then I thought, I can't do this. And is it because I was meeting my nemesis or because I thought I was going to behave badly? I have no idea, but I left. So you didn't want to meet her because you thought for you, you were meeting your nemesis, but then you chose to play her. Now, and I've spoken to other actors. They've said that they have to find the humanity in the characters that they're playing.

Well, you do, because let's face it, the thing you dislike in other people is what you dislike in yourself. So you can tap in to those qualities. I can be patronizing. I can be domineering. I can be all those things. And you just tap into them. And the recent Maggie and Brian with Harriet Waters, I must say, I thought that was a terrible piece of casting, but she was quite marvellous because for the first time, including the great Meryl and everybody, for the first time, she let you see her vulnerability.

She let you see why she behaved the way she did. And she didn't caricature her, which we all did to some extent, particularly the boys who played her. So do you think there's an appetite for sort of theatre pieces, musicals, operas about divisive women? I'm thinking about, there's one about Imelda Marcos or Evita. Is there space for a Margaret Thatcher shaped opera? to work. And so the few that have have had to battle through in a male-dominated world and have become certainly a bit more testosterone-fueled. And so, yes, Bodicea is more interesting than someone who stayed at home and ground nuts. And yes, Cleopatra is fabulous because she was powerful. So I think there will always be. And look at Shakespeare, it's full of strong women.

So we do exist, but in small quantities. It's been such a pleasure to speak to you and to hear the voice as well. Dame Maureen Lipman, thank you so much for making the time to speak to us about that. I can't wait to hear the voice, the singing voice, the opera. Margaret Thatcher with opera coming out. Well, who's going to play her? You up for it? Yeah.

How's your operatic singing? Fabulous. Of course. Thank you, Maureen. 84844, the number to text. Now on to my next guest, an inspiring young woman called Dr. LaSheerat Nolan, who is championed by the

charity One Young World. That's a global network of more than 19,000 ambitious entrepreneurs, activists and creative minds aged between 18 to 35, who One Young World bring together with a view of building the next generation of forward thinkers and leaders. Lash, as she's known, was the first African-American woman to serve as student president at Harvard Medical School in 2019. She was on the Forbes 30 under 30 healthcare list in 2022, and she's currently working as a resident physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. But she's found time in her busy schedule to talk to me. Lash, welcome to Woman's Hour. Anita, it's great to be here. Thank you for having me.

You know, I mean, I'm so impressed by your CV at such a young age. I'm also slightly depressed for myself, but that's okay. So tell me what's happening at the moment. You're working at a widely respected medical institution. How is your work-life balance? How's your week looking? Yes. Well, it's the typical life of a resident physician. I actually am going to be going into the hospital briefly after we finish speaking. And right now I'm on the general medicine service. So I'm taking care of folks who have issues with their lungs, their heart. And there's a lot of flu going around these days too. So taking care of patients. And yeah yeah I typically finish the

day around 6 p.m uh come home spend time with my partner um and just try to reset for another day of caring for folks the next day well you are seriously impressive and you've also founded something called we got us which is a community empowerment project it's aimed at increasing vaccine education and access to healing in marginalized communities. Tell me about that. How's that going? Yes. So We Got Us was initially started in response to the way that people were talking about the vaccine in the Black community. Folks were making this assumption that Black people did not want the vaccine because of this history of medical racism, but they weren't talking about access and how folks did not have access to trusted messengers or the vaccine themselves. So what I was able to do

is to really rally a group of young people, predominantly people of color who were interested in careers in medicine, or they themselves were medical students to be trusted messengers in our community by taking all of the information about the vaccines, trying to make it into pamphlets and these empowerment sessions that were easy to digest for folks, and really getting out there in the streets, collaborating with community organizers to make sure that people had access to accurate vaccine information. But we recognize that a lot of the inequities that were highlighted by the pandemic were inequities that already existed before. And we knew that as the pandemic started to wind down, we still wanted to make sure that community members knew that we were going to be there for them. And then we were going to do our best to mitigate the effects of systemic racism.

So today we still continue to do things like acupuncture clinics in our community. We have empowerment sessions around different topics such as food apartheid, how to make sure that you're eating healthy, diabetes, hypertension, and really see ourselves as, you know, the idea of We Got Us is, you know, when systems fail, we as a community will always be there to pick up the pieces. And I've been so inspired by the work and it's all youth led. So two of our members have already gone off to medical school. And I think that that's one of the coolest aspects about it is we're like training the next generation of young leaders and in healthcare. So you are doing all of this work. And then President Trump has moved to dismantle

diversity, equity and inclusion, DEI program. So talking from your own experience, what do you think this is going to mean for healthcare and women's healthcare and women of colour's healthcare in particular? Oh, my goodness. Anita, you're asking. I know. We're going straight in. We're going straight because I know you've got it. I know you can tell me.

Oh, I got you. I got you. Well, I mean, this is such a critical question. It's one that I've been thinking about a lot ever since Trump took office. And I would say the first thing that I've seen as far as the conversation around DEI is that now key information that was on the Center for Disease and Control, the website about LGBTQ communities or HIV have been removed. So if you go to try to access those pages, you can't even access that information. So that's already an issue because I told you about We Got Us and how we were trying to make sure that folks had access to accurate information. That's challenge number one. The other thing that has also been a challenge around this conversation around DEI is that researchers who had initially had papers accepted around conversations related to topics

such as advocacy, there's words like underserved, inclusion, disability. If any of those words that have been deemed as, you know, words that the Trump administration is not on board with are in your research, then they've been told that they have to retract that research. So that means that all of the work that we've been doing around things such as the pulse oximeter, which during the COVID pandemic, the pulse oximeter is a device that we use to look at oxygen saturation. So a patient who has a pulmonary illness, it helps us understand if they're able to properly oxygenate their body's tissues. And it was shown that that device was not programmed in a way where it could pick up the oxygenation status in patients with darker skin tones. So it would give you feedback that the oxygenation status was actually higher than it actually was. And there was research happening at the federal level to try to combat this, to try to make sure that we were providing the highest levels of care for all patients by fixing this technology.

And now that work is at risk of not moving forward. This is in the middle of flu season. COVID rates have been stably rising as well. And we're not going to be able to make sure that patients with darker skin tones are able to accurately have their oxygenation statuses reported. So I think those are some of the tangible ways that we're seeing the impacts of this legislation. And then you put all on top of all of this, the fact that, you know, now immigration officers can enter hospitals and question patients about their immigration status. So now you have patients who are deciding not to come to their primary care visits because they're afraid that they might be deported while they're getting

their diabetes checked or getting the physical exam. And you're on the front line of this. So this is your day to day. I literally just got training about this before clinic on Monday. So it's it's top of mind. It's impacting the way that we're providing care. And, you know, even even, you know, I all residents, for the most part, do a rotation at one of the veteran health administration's hospitals. And I have to be trained before my block that starts in a week and a half. And the training to do that has been taken down temporarily because there's one slide on there that talks about diversity, equity and inclusion. So I can't even get the proper training to be able to provide care for

our veterans because of this legislation. It's wild we're gonna have to keep um keep in touch with you to keep up to date with how how your world is being impacted but but whilst i've got you on because you are as i've said seriously impressive and you've got so many achievements at such a young age you're not even 30 yet we need to talk about your mum because she brought you up as she had you when she was 19 but i always wonder how brilliant young women are formed. And your mum was also a brilliant young woman, had you at 19, but you sat and did your homework together at the kitchen table. Yes, yes. How much of an inspiration was your mum? Oh my gosh. My mum is the biggest inspiration in my life. She is incredible in every sense of the word. And when people talk about how excellent and how great I am, it's truly a reflection of all the work and all the brilliance she put into my life.

As you said, my mom, she became pregnant with me when she was a senior in high school. And she had me when she was 19 years old. And despite this, my mom went on to become the first person in our family to get both her bachelor's and her master's degree. I would watch my mom work at McDonald's, Pizza Hut, collaborating with my grandmother, who equally is an incredible woman in her own right. And seeing my mom work so hard, especially the way that she censored education, it made me want to do the same thing. And that's why when I came to her and I said, Mom, you know, I want to become a doctor. She never said, oh, well, that's going to be tough or I don't know, baby, or anything like that.

She said, OK, let's do it. And that's despite the fact that no one in my family was in health care. Despite that, you know, I ended up becoming the first physician in my family. And that wouldn't have been possible without her. And despite her having all these challenges in her own life, she still now today has a trucking business. She's opened up a facility supporting folks with disabilities. She has a nonprofit organization that is all about empowering women and they get together and have fun together. She sounds amazing.

And no wonder you are who you are. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak to me. I know you've got to get off to work. I just have to add that Trump and his supporters say that DEI programs end up unfairly discriminating against other Americans and weaken the importance of candidates' merit in job hiring or promotion.

But thank you for sharing your experience with us this morning. On tomorrow's Woman's Hour, I'll be talking to the star Marisha Wallace, who's in the latest edition of Cabaret at the West End. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. 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 first on BBC Sounds. 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'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.