Woman's Hour - Female truckers; Dealing with disappointment; Caitlin Moran; Maternity failings

Episode Date: July 6, 2021

There is currently a huge shortage of road hauliers in the UK. According to the Road Haulage Association, up to 100,000 more lorry drivers are needed to transport the food, medicines and equipment vital to the UK economy. It’s estimated that 95% of all the products we consume are at some point moved around by road freight. And with Brexit, the Suez Canal blockage, and coronavirus restrictions causing big logistical issues, more people are urgently needed…. But of the half a million licensed lorry drivers, only 5% are women. Why is this? And what would encourage more women to get behind the wheel? Emma speaks to driver Suzy Mackenzie and Kate Lester, the Chief Executive of Diamond Logistics.Disappointment is a fact of life, but that doesn't make it any easier when it comes. At last night's Wimbledon, 18 year old British wildcard Emma Raducanu had to retire from her last-16 match after suffering apparent breathing difficulties. Although we're still not sure exactly what happened, it's not a huge leap of imagination to say that she'll be disappointed to see the end of her dream debut. But what can us mere mortals take from it? Annabel Croft, BBC tennis commentator and former British number one, and Julia Samuels, psychotherapist and author of 'This Too Will Pass: Stories of Crisis, Change and Hopeful Beginnings', talk about the nature of disappointment and the strategies we can use to pick ourselves up again.Caitlin Moran is a journalist and columnist at The Times. Her first book ‘How to Be a Woman” came out in 2011 and has sold more than a million copies in 28 countries. The sequel ‘More than a Woman’ came out last year and is out in paperback today. She is currently on a live UK tour and joins Emma to talk about motherhood, daughters, female friendship and coming to terms with getting older.Maternity services in England are failing mothers and babies leading to hundreds of avoidable deaths each year, according to a damning report by the Health and Social Care committee on maternity safety in England. It also describes a "debilitating culture of blame" preventing lessons being learned from previous tragedies. Jeremy Hunt, the former health secretary and chair of the committee pointed out that 1,000 more babies a year would survive if England's maternity services were as safe as Sweden's. The committee's report found although maternity safety had improved, the deaths of a number of newborn babies at several hospitals in recent years were a reminder that much more needs to be done. Emma is joined by Dame Professor Lesley Regan, Head of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at St Mary’s, Imperial College and past President of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

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 Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to the programme. I don't know if you were watching the tennis last night, but even if you weren't, you probably will have heard about the British wildcard, 18-year-old Emma Raducanu, having to retire from her fourth round match at Wimbledon after suffering breathing difficulties. It really was a heartbreaking end to her dream debut and a tough watch. You could see her battling to keep going.

It's important to say we are waiting still to hear from her. And that is something we will bring you if we hear it while we're on the programme, while we're live. But Wimbledon officials did confirm her coming off court was linked to breathing difficulties. However, what's not too difficult to imagine is the huge disappointment, not being able to bring her A game or even finish the match. And that's what I wanted to discuss and hear your experiences of today, personal disappointments and crucially, how you got over them. Let's help each other a bit, shall we?

When you've been down, when something hasn't gone your way, whatever it was, whether it was going for a job, giving a speech, preparing for something, and it didn't go how you thought it would in your mind and you had a big disappointment, albeit not on a national or international stage

for most of us, what did you do to pick yourself back up and what was the thing that knocked you down? Text Womans Hour here at 84844 or get in touch with me on social media and the team here at BBC Womansout or email us through our website. I'll be joined by the former British tennis player,

now Wimbledon commentator, Annabel Croft, who was watching that match live and giving post-match analysis and the psychotherapist, Julia Samuel, who could tell us a bit about trying to cope, picking yourself back up. Let us know your experiences. I'm waiting. Also on today's programme, she's back, Catlin Moran,

10 years on from her best-selling book, How to Be a Woman, She Wants to Right Some Wrongs. And with so many job vacancies for lorry drivers, why don't women apply, or more of them? We hope to hear from Susie McKenzie, a lorry driver who transports horses around Europe. That's if she can find somewhere to pull over. But first, it makes for grim reading. Maternity services in England are failing mothers and babies, leading to hundreds of avoidable deaths each year, according to a damning report by the Health and Social Care Committee on Maternity Safety in England, published today. It also describes a debilitating culture of blame, preventing lessons from being learned from previous tragedies. Jeremy Hunt, the former Health Secretary and

Chair of the Committee, spoke about this on the Today programme earlier this morning. One of the big problems is that in order to get compensation if your child is born disabled, you have to get a court to agree there was clinical negligence. And that sets families against doctors and hospitals. In Sweden, all you need is for there to be agreement that a mistake was made and then compensation is payable. And then they can do the most important thing, which is to try and learn what went wrong and how to stop repeating it. You should be able to learn, shouldn't you, in both cases? I mean, in both systems, you should be able to get to the facts. You should be able to. But the problem is,

in this case, if a lawyer is saying that a doctor is responsible for clinical negligence, you start a court process, which can often take about five years. And people are incredibly careful about what they say. It becomes very, very defensive. People naturally want to protect their reputation. The doctors want to do nothing more than the right thing and learn from what went wrong. But you have lawyers, the CQC, they're worried about being struck off the register,

they're worried about being fired. And so invariably the most important thing, which is to learn from what went wrong, is the thing that doesn't happen. Jeremy Hunt. He also pointed out a thousand more babies a year would survive if England's maternity services were as safe as Sweden's. And the report found that although maternity safety had improved, the deaths of a number of newborn babies at several hospitals in recent years were a reminder that much more needed to be done. Well, I'm joined now by Dame Professor Lesley Regan, Head of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at St Mary's Imperial College and the past President of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Good morning. Good morning, Emma. This is an

incredibly distressing read. What is your takeaway from it overall? Because I know that you've fed into this. Well, there are two reports, the one that Jeremy Hunt and the Health Select Committee have published today, looking into maternity safety. And at the same time, another report has been published by the expert panel that the Health and Safety Committee appointed to look into various aspects of health care. And the first task was to look at maternity safety. And so four experts were invited to join the panel. Four maternity experts, two midwives, two obstetricians. I was one of those people. And yes, it is very distressing. And I think it's given us all the drive to try and improve things going forward. We really do need to do better for mothers and their babies in this country. Is he correct that the culture of blame is stopping lessons from being learned?

I think that's one of the factors. I mean, blame is always very difficult to deal with in a litigious system. And if we had a different way of investigating and compensating, and as he points out in his interview this morning on the Today programme, if we were to look at develop a system for avoidable harm, rather than having to prove negligence, that might make it a much more open culture for everybody. But that's only one of the factors I think that we need to address. We'll come to some of the others in just a moment, not least staffing. And I know you're busy this morning trying to see people. But blunders on maternity wards are costing the NHS 2.3 billion in payouts each year. 2.3 billion. And we're talking about, of course, more money for more staff and drives to get more people. But that's a huge amount of money.

It's a vast amount of money. And 10% of the claims that go to NHS Resolution, which is the organisation which looks into medical claims, the 10% are obstetric, and almost 50% of the pay out. And as you say, 2.3 billion per annum goes on compensating families who, where the mother has been damaged, or the baby has been damaged, in particular, brain for women where the mother has been damaged or the baby has been damaged in particular brain injury cases where the compensation usually has to cope with looking after the care of that child might be so for the rest of their lives so if we were to organize if we were to improve the staffing and improve the training which i believe needs to be multi-disciplinary training in teams you can't treat train one group of maternity services to do things

without looking at it in its entirety. We could run umpteen of these really successful training programmes for a fraction of the bill that we're paying out for damages. So it really is common sense to do, make a really big improvement in staffing and in multidisciplinary training to make our services fit for the 21st century. Let's talk about the level of staffing.

Eight out of 10 midwives said they didn't have enough staff on their shift to provide a safe service. We don't obviously want to scaremonger here. There's a lot of good work as well. But that's not something you want to hear if you're going in to be looked after. Of course not, Emma. And if I was pregnant today, I'd be very distressed hearing that. I think they do a fantastic job. And remember that midwives are the core maternity provider. They're the common denominator to every pregnancy. Obstetricians are not always involved.

So I think it's absolutely crucial that we get the midwifery staff in numbers correct. It's estimated that there are at least 2,000 short. And I think that will probably be an understatement because as the expert pounds report has looked at, things that women really want to have when they're pregnant are continuity of care and personalised care, and it's impossible to provide those to a high quality if you haven't got the right numbers of staffing.

And when we look at the obstetricians, every unit I speak to, every time I visit anywhere, they're always talking about rotor gaps, rotor gaps in the consultant level and in the middle grade level. And those always then create problems. So we're thinking we probably need something in the region of 500 or more consultant obstetricians. So 500 more obstetricians, nearly 2,000 more midwives. Why is staffing still such an issue?

Is it to do with funding or is it that when you get in the job, it's not something people want to stay in? What's actually going on with this? I mean, Women's Hour has been covering this for at least a decade. Yeah, you're quite right. And this is not a new problem. But there has been a chronic lack of staffing, of funding for staffing. And I think added to that, there's the attrition amongst staff. This is a specialty which creates burnout. And this has been exaggerated, of course, still further in the last 18 months with the COVID pandemic. You know,

we haven't, you can't shut the labour ward or stop people becoming pregnant because there's a global pandemic. So these staff have worked on and worked through very courageously. And we're really seeing that the staffing shortage has been accelerated, but we need to think about 21st century solutions, not just appointing some more staff and filling up the numbers. We need to think about the right numbers of staff with the right training in the right place at the right time.

So this is not one size fits all. We've actually got to think very intelligently about our maternity services and ensure every unit has got what it needs to provide safe, compassionate care for women. If it's not a new problem, and it's still in this state, and it's very striking, of course, the former Health Secretary is now the chair of the Health and Select Committee that's put this out, the Health and Social Care Select Committee. Do you have faith it's going to change? Well, I think that these two reports come out today are so consistent.

They were developed quite independently, but they are so consistent with the message that we've got to address the staffing. We've got to address maternity safety, we've got to address blame culture and provide women with what they're asking for, which is continuity of care and a personalised service, a wraparound service. I think that because the messages are so consistent, I very much hope that what will be happening over the next few months and possibly with the autumn spending review is that a real focus goes on improving staffing, because I think that that underpins all of the other problems that we've got. The focus from the government, therefore, is money. You're saying give the money to make these things happen, staffing and training and those things that you've just described in detail. But what about the management of the hospitals, of the trusts,

to ensure that it actually goes in the right places and those changes are made? Do you have confidence in the leadership of hospitals where we're hearing lessons are not being learned as they should? Well, I think it's very important that we have, you know, every hospital board has a focus on maternity safety because it really is a very, very serious problem when things go wrong. And I think that my midwifery colleagues would also argue that it's very important that there is a senior midwife on the hospital board, not just a nurse, but a senior midwife as well, in order to keep flagging up the importance and the priority of maternity safety. Do you not think hospitals prioritise this unit, this area of care as much as they should? I think they could do better. I think we could all do better.

And what these two reports have shown is that we, at the present time, we've not got maternity safety right and that we need to work together collaboratively to improve it. But do you think it's been the poor relation because it's to do with women? Well, I don't think it's relation because it's to do with women? Well, I don't think it's been because it's been to do with women, but I would argue that we need more women helping to manage it and to improve it. And indeed, of course, one of the factors that the Royal College of Midwives have flagged up is that they have a predominantly female specialty, and that often staffing levels don't take account of maternity leave, as well as the attrition and things like that. And certainly in obstetrics and gynecology now,

80% of our trainees are women. So we're going to have to factor in that as well. I mean, sorry, just to say on that, you can't get maternity leave right, or it's not being correctly done in the area that produces the care and the skill to bring babies into the world. I mean, if that's not ironic and horribly so, I don't know what is. I would agree with you. Yeah. Well, a lot to take in. Dame Professor Leslie Regan, thank you for your time this morning, Head of Obstetricians and Gynaecology at St Mary's Imperial College and the previous President of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said,

no parent or baby should have to suffer from avoidable harm during childbirth. Maternity safety is an absolute priority for this government and we are on track to surpass our ambition for a 20% reduction in the stillbirth rate and the neonatal mortality rate. We know there's more to be done. The government is backing NHS maternity leaders with investment to help improve workplace culture, while also funding a plan to reduce birth-related brain injuries and better match maternity staffing to local needs.

A strong workplace culture only makes a difference when the NHS has the staff it needs, which is why we're growing the maternity workforce with a £95 million recruitment drive. We will make sure we come back to this. I should say they added at the end of the statement, we will carefully consider the findings and recommendations made by the Health and Social Care Committee

and publish our response in due course. Now, coming back to disappointment, you've been getting in touch with how you've picked yourself up. Excuse me. Did you watch the tennis last night? A lot of support, of course, for the 18-year-old Emma Raducanu. But she had to retire from that match.

We're still not exactly sure why. Wimbledon said it was, has confirmed it was to do with breathing difficulties. We're expecting more detail to come through. But whatever the reason, it is something that we can safely say

will have been a disappointment to her. It was a great opportunity, a lot of build-up, but it didn't work out. So what can we take from it? Us mere mortals who aren't perhaps super fit, don't take part in competitive sport. What are the life lessons?

Well, with me, someone who's got first-hand experience of all of this, of course, Annabel Croft, BBC tennis commentator who was doing the TV analysis after Emma's match last night. Former British number one, of course, started tennis very young as well. By 1985, got a world ranking of 24 she retired when she was 21

Julia Samuel's also on the line a psychotherapist she's written This Too Will Pass stories of crisis, change and hopeful beginnings and I should say your stories are coming in of disappointment and how you've coped with it

I will come to those very shortly but if you wish to contribute and tell us what really got you back up off the floor, 84844 is the number you need to text me here at Woman's Hour or at BBC Woman's Hour on social media. Annabelle Croft, good morning. Good morning, Emma. I feel like I've been with you all evening. I was listening to you last night. We're commentating and now I'm talking to you.

I'm sorry about that. No, no, in a good way. There's continuity here. We're in safe hands. The disappointment will be palpable for her. I mean, I can't quite even imagine it. No, I agree with you. And, you know, what she showed us over the four matches that we saw was somebody so incredibly talented who has, you know, so much future ahead of her, such excitement on the road ahead. What a wonderful talent. And she showed us great strength of character.

We saw somebody who has everything in her game at her disposal to really go the full distance. But as you say, you know, with what happened on such a big stage, with so much build up, so much anticipation, I can't imagine what she went through last night and how she's feeling. We all wish her well and I hope that the breathing difficulties have subsided as you made that announcement, didn't you, that there was some breathing difficulties? Ava, she's going to make an announcement today so we'll find out further details but

we do wish her well. Yes, I mean and again, we will wait for that but it was, as you were actually saying, you could see that she was struggling and that disappointment, not just with what happened in terms of having to give the match, to forfeit the match, but just not being able to do your best as well because you're suffering in some way. Yeah, I mean, that's what professional sport often throws up, doesn't it? And that's what it's all about. It's being able to cope with situations. As a tennis player, you are always

faced with very, very quick decisions, with seconds to make those decisions. And sometimes it's not always the right decision. And I'm talking about stroke making, you know, when you're playing the point. So tennis matches take a player on an incredible emotional journey all the way through. And it's why it makes it such a great spectator sport, because the spectator often rides that emotion with the player. As we saw last night and with all of Emma's matches this week,

you know, when she had so much of the support and the crowd behind her, she can feed off that energy of the crowd as well. But if you're then not giving the crowd what they want, you'll also feel that disappointment with the crowd. So, you know, there's an enormous amount going on. Tennis is a particularly emotional sport, but I'm sure other athletes could speak about their own sports and say the same, but you are always coping with losses as well. That is inevitable. You're never going to win every single match that you walk onto the court and play. And for a lot of

young players, happiness does depend on winning a tennis match. You know, if you don't win and that's all you've done since you were a little child, you know, you feel utter despair when you don't perform at your best. Or if things don't quite go your way, you feel utterly hopeless and defeated. You know, the next day, the morning after, you know, it takes time to get over these losses. But it's a tough, you know, it's tough because that is what you've chosen to do as a living. Did you have a regime for disappointment? You know, I've just noticed we've had a message from someone who says, as an actor, I've spent most of my life facing rejection.

It's a choice to pursue this career, of course, but the regular disappointments, not hearing back, never knowing anything, takes real effort to not let you grind you down. I have to believe everything happens for a reason. I'm trying to make sure I have something that sparks joy lined up afterwards, that I have to believe everything happens for a reason. I'm trying to make sure I have something that sparks joy lined up afterwards that I have a casting. Did you have a regime if you had a loss or some way of calibrating it?

To be honest with you, when I was on the tour, you often spent an enormous amount of time on your own, believe it or not. Or if I could afford my coach to be there, then I would discuss it with my coach. But I did an enormous amount of soul searching. I read an enormous amount of self-help books. And I was always seeking answers as to why things weren't always going my way. Nowadays, a lot of the professional athletes have sports psychologists who they will discuss everything with. And, you know, I find it really fascinating that I know the cycling world uses something called like a performance wheel.

And all of the spokes of that wheel has a little aspect of, say, a one percent where you can look at everything that you're doing. So it might be waking up in the morning. Did I hydrate myself enough? Did I drink enough water? Well, today I'll make sure I did. Did I concentrate for long enough today? How were my tactics today? and you create a spokes of a wheel and anyone could do this for their life actually it doesn't even have to be for athletes but if you can improve every single spoke of that wheel by one degree or one percent it all adds up to a much bigger picture and it makes perfect sense doesn't it it's a lot probably harder to do in reality but I think when we hear Raphael Nadal talking and of course he's

holding the all-time record along with Roger Federer of 20 grand slam titles at the moment that's what Djokovic is trying to to to chase down he always says you know I walk on court and I try to be a better tennis player every single day I don't try to just win the match and I don't try to win the tournament it is sounds a cliche, but it's just little tiny steps each time. And it is analysing everything in great detail. It's being utterly professional at what you do and giving 100% and that is all you can do. Julia Samuel, let's bring you into this. We've got people coming, getting in touch with us with their strategies. What do you say to somebody who comes to you and says, I can't deal with this disappointment, or I'm finding it hard to shift? I think in a way, I slightly counter

Annabelle, I'm sure for sport, this isn't necessarily right. But, you know, failing and losing things is part of life, as Annabelle said, but we need to find ways of dealing with the adversity, not just focusing on how we can be better. That we need to have that we know that if we fail winning a match, it's separate from us as a whole being as a failure. So you don't call yourself a failure. But our emotional system, like Emma's this morning, it has a stress cycle and we need to let it have its natural progression. So you need to, the emotions send us signals about danger, which hers will be sending her, and safety. So you need to allow those emotions to come through your system. And so name what you're feeling, know that the feelings are legitimate.

And as you do that, your system begins to recalibrate and you can kind of slow down a bit. And then you turn your attention to the light of things that you can do to calm you, whether it's sparks of joy from music, whether it's having a hug with a friend. With me, I watch funny comedy on telly. And then if you learn that as you move through both loss and calming, you build your resilience. And what people talk about is post-traumatic growth, that you learn that you survive and you can even thrive through the difficulty.

So it's not blocking the pain of it. It's allowing it and using it to enable you to grow and get onto the court the next time and play with more confidence. I mean, that's fascinating. I think that divorce that you talk about, needing to separate out the failure of that particular moment, that disappointment from your whole being, it makes so much sense the way you say it, but it must be incredibly hard for so many people to do, to actually execute on because you can let it consume you. Exactly. So what I talk about is a shitty committee. You have this horrible little voice in your head that is attacking you and telling you you're doing things wrong.

And actually you need to dial that down and maybe even just write it down. I mean, you would never say to another person the things you say to yourself. You idiot, you fool. Why did you miss that serve? All the things that you say. You know, there are lots of mechanisms you can do to help support you so that you turn to yourself with compassion rather than further threat because often I don't know if Annabelle has an experience of this often we're our own

worst enemy by how we treat ourselves in response to difficulties. Julia completely 100% as you've seen if you've watched tennis matches in between the points there is that short period of time where you walk from one side of the court to the other and that is where you'll see emotion pouring out of tennis players and they will often be chuntering away to themselves and it is the hardest thing is to block out all of those negative thoughts where a player will be telling themselves how useless they were when they just missed that backhand or that forehand or you know berating themselves and you're absolutely spot on that there is this constant chatter inside a player's head which they're trying to block out and try and get rid of and often they are trying to use that time and

it's a very short period of time as efficiently as possible which is what the sports psychologist will do is to enter into their head more positive thoughts so that it takes you to a different place but it is very difficult it's um, you know, we are emotional. Emotion will sometimes get the better of us. And emotion and body are connected. Yes. No, very much so. I mean, Annabelle, if you could say anything to Emma today, I don't know if you'll even see her around Wimbledon. I don't know how it works there. But what would you like to say to her?

Oh, gosh. You know, I'm sure that she has the right people around her who can advise her far better than i can but i would just say to her how wonderfully well she had done in the four matches that we saw her and to to think about the positives rather than you know the negatives of what happened last night which there weren't too many actually because actually she held a great account of herself for a sustained period of time until she had those breathing difficulties. And, you know, I think she should be incredibly, incredibly proud of what she's achieved and to continue with her joyful smile on the court

and to, you know, continue what she's doing, because she's definitely doing something right to have even shown us what she's shown us so far. Indeed. Julia, I'll say the same to you. What would you like to say? And anyone who's struggling right now, I suppose? I'd like to acknowledge both the strengths and her vulnerability and to allow both and that one can support the other, not to only think you have to be strong, but give herself permission for the failures, for the things that she wishes she'd done, but also acknowledge, as Annabelle said,

the strengths and the amazing games that she's played. So you hold them both side by side. You don't knock one out with the other because then you have a more integrated, kind of more balanced approach to yourself and to your game. Julia Samuel, Annabelle Croft, thank you very much for giving us your views on disappointment and how to cope.

Pippa in Sunderland, good morning to you. She says, in times of job losses, redundancy and unemployment, I have always set a running goal and run. Running has got me through some dark times. I bet it has, Pippa. A lot of people say that, don't they? And it has been very important.

Tell us your strategies. And when you've been listening to what Julia and Annabelle had to say, perhaps something spoke to you or made you remember something. And perhaps this is something you want to talk about more with our Listener Week.

If you're a big fan of women's, I'm sure you are. I hope you are. If you're just joining us for the first time, let me tell you about this. This is a special week where you get to choose the stories and the topics we cover on the programme.

And this year, Listener Week will be at the end of August. But let us know now. We can get planning. If there's something you want to hear, tell us. If there's an issue you think we haven't covered, do let us know. Or an untold story about an amazing woman you think everybody would love, everybody should know about. Is there a politician you'd particularly like me to interview

over something you think needs to be held to account? Tell me, tell us. Get in touch with us on the Woman's Hour website with your idea and you can provide your contact details please so the team can get in touch with you. You can text us on 84844 or on social media or at BBC Woman's Hour. But now to the very pressing issues of the maintenance shag, Botox and why you always need a middle-aged Scottish woman called Janet to sort things out. Ten years after her best-selling book, How to Be a Woman, The Times columnist, Catlin Moran, is back with the sequel, More Than a Woman, out in paperback today. Catlin, good morning. Good morning, darling. Hello.

Can we start with Janet? When I read that in your book, I thought, how do I not know that that is so true? It just made me how with recognition. Tell me about the Janet theory. Tell us all. The Janet theory. This is my husband noticed this. So you'll notice it when if you're ringing customer services and you'll be being passed around between David and Raj and they won't know what to do. And you'll be on the phone for an hour. And what you're always waiting for is the moment when David and Raj kick it upstairs to a middle-aged woman, usually Scottish, called Janet, who is the capable one, who can just listen to your problem, go, oh, hen, I see you're having problems here. Let me sort that out straight away. Press these three buttons and it's all solved.

And in life, you are always waiting for the moment where you finally get through to the capable middle-aged woman who can sort things out. Because nine times out of ten, it will be a capable middle-aged woman who can sort things out because nine times out of ten it will be a capable middle-aged woman who can sort things out and she and she doesn't take any nonsense either oh no no nonsense no bad chat from you if you've had a bad time that's what she's brisk she's crisp and she's getting stuff done and that is the code of the middle-aged woman because middle age is a special time it's where you start realizing that you're running out of time you've learned uh not to suffer fools gladly. As you've lost skin elasticity, you've also lost the amount of figs that you give about other people's opinions. And you really are just cracking on with stuff. And those are the human dynamos that I'm trying to celebrate in this book now.

I've gone from talking about the teenage years and your 20s to middle age, which I think is an under-chronicled episode in women's lives. And most dramatic as well. I think we think that middle-aged women are boring. And the middle-aged years, I found, are the ones that are the most full of drama and incident. It's real life and death stuff. You know, you're raising children. You're looking after aging parents.

Your friends are divorcing. And you, usually as a middle-aged woman, if you're halfway sorted, are the one that is holding the threads of society together with your bare hands for no pay or credit at all, while still being a human being. And that is what this book is about. Well, no, because that's the serious point.

You know, us all becoming Janets or trying to become Janets and holding things together, the generations, friends, it's a huge responsibility. Yeah, and so earlier, the woman's air account tweeted uh katlin moran is coming on to talk about the joys of middle age and there are about 30 women just going it's not a joyful time i hope you're going to talk about how difficult it is and how we're just doing everything and no one credits us and they all think we're frumpy and boring yes don't worry i have not secretly found out a way to make being perimenopausal teenage children and aging

parents good like kind of like i've shared all the problems it's very much a howl uh but also with all the tips and advice that I've learned all the way through and hopefully some jokes to get us through it there's some that age-old um thing that people used to say which thankfully in a world sort of post-fleabag we're not saying anymore that women can't be funny women have to be funny everything that happens to us is so dark and awful that we have to make jokes about it or we would simply lay face down on the floor and cry forever. What I also love is you come back to yourself. You imagine a conversation at the beginning of the book, the present you visits the 30-year-old you

to tell you what's on the cards for the next few years. And actually you've got a few things wrong along the way, how you thought things were going to be. I think it's an incredibly important thing if you're a regular communicator, if you are a writer, and I hope to write a book every 10 years now about a woman's, about being me and sort of talking about the sort of problems that you

encounter in each decade. And the very last one will be called how to die. And I will just simply type the last three words and then just die. So I want to look forward to that one. The last thing I ever do. But yeah, no, you should be changing your mind and learning all the time

and I think that's something we don't talk about enough that you need to if you aren't regularly changing at least a third of your opinions every couple of decades you're probably doing life wrong one of the ones just right at the top of the list was around Botox but you've again changed your mind since then is that right I'm flip-flopping all over the place yes so I wanted to write about the fact that I'd had Botox because there's a lot of Botox shame around and we see the most famous women who are naturally beautiful and youthful who claim that it's just a bit of soap and water and a slick of Vaseline on the lips they're all lying uh they all have you know every woman who is uh who is talked about as being you know wonderfully youthful they're all having Botox so I was like I'll take one for the team I

will you know talk about it and you know why we get it done I enjoyed it I'd gone through a previously the five years before I've been quite traumatic my daughter had been very ill I looked very sad all the time and I'd learned that none of these serums and creams work if you want something that works it is incredibly effective it does work it's uh you know if it's you know if you've got someone who's good and they can sort of do it aesthetically pleasingly absolutely go for it but since I wrote about it in the uh when the hardback came out in September, I've changed my mind again. I watched the Friends reunion and there seemed to be a definite divide between the people who would age naturally and the people who had old ladies eyes in the face of a child. And it gives this sort of image of these beings of immortal child gods who can never die and have seen millennia pass by and everyone they love perish.

And yet they are still alive. These old traumatized women's eyes in a young child's face, which is a strong look, but not necessarily the one I'm going for. Yes, it was sort of Phoebe versus, you know, looking along the line versus Monica and Rachel, to put it like that, if people have or have not seen it. But there was one of the debates around that, which was kind of a bigger thing, which people felt perhaps that even Katlin Moran had Botox, the ultimate feminist who didn't think you needed to put your value by your looks. Yeah, it's just one. The thing is that it's sort of like we have to remember that feminism isn't a set of rules.

Like I think when I was younger, I thought there was like a feminist Bible and some feminist rules and a feminist God and maybe a feminist citizen that one day I get to. And feminism is just a set of tools for understanding why it's difficult to be a woman and how you can improve things and how you can talk about it. And I disliked the fact that it's OK as a feminist to whiten your teeth or dye your hair or wear makeup. But suddenly Botox is the one thing that you're not allowed to do. Like, you know, it's been around for years it works I just wanted people to be honest about it to me the feminist issues seem to be that so many women feel that they can't admit they they take it so I was like I can do that my job is to always see if there's something shameful or secret or taboo and just run towards it going let's talk about this let's be brutally honest and amusing well you

you have and you just mentioned it there talked about one of your daughters being very ill, which is chronicled in the book, had an eating disorder, a lot of honesty there. And I wondered if you could talk about that now with us and any advice that you had for parents who are going through a similar time? Yes, well, gosh. Well, first of all, I have to say that she's thankfully completely recovered. And secondly, that me to write about it she pointed out quite rightly that for her generation the teenage generation there isn't this stigma around mental illness that we had when we were growing up in my generation they will talk about it it's on social media and as she pointed out me and my friends can talk about this but you are our parents and you still have this shame around it you still have this stigma you still don't understand it and as anyone who's had a child with mental illness will know even even if you

have finally managed to get to the top of that waiting list which is often a year and a half two years you're only seeing someone for maybe an hour two hours a week the rest of the time you are the carer um for that ill child and you have to become a mental health professional and i learned a great deal about that and it was interesting in your previous conversation talking about sports and the psychology there of failure and divorcing the idea that when you fail at something that it's not that you are a failure, you have failed in something. And from a parenting point of view, that's something that I've learned, that I think it's just the difference when a child is growing up between

when a child makes a mistake going, oh, you've made a mistake, you're always screwing this up or you're not very clever and going oh that was a mistake like kind of that that incident was a mistake what can we learn from it and it's just the tiny little tweaks of language and in the case of my daughter's mental illness the big problem that I had was that I was scared of her sadness I had been raised in a family where we just weren't sad if you had emotions then you didn't experience them as we were talking about before. You just ignored them and cracked on and made a joke. So when she first started becoming sad and anxious, I tried to jolly her out of it. I tried to reason her out of it. I got angry. I tried being sad. I tried everything. And what you need to do is to say what you see. You need to go,

I can see you are sad. I'm so sorry about that. I'm not scared. I'm not freaked out. I'm going to stay with you until you are better. And that took three years to learn. I couldn't find the advice anywhere for actually being a parent and dealing with an ill child, which is why I wanted to write about it. And when we printed an extract of it in the Times,

it had the biggest response of anything that I've ever written. And I once went to a gay club with Lady Gaga. So this was immense. And even now I'm doing sort of two or three Zooms a week with people who've got in contact who are really struggling with it because the help is not there. I'm working with a lot of charities at the moment, and we're trying to come up with proposals for the way

that we change the mental health system in this country because you need to empower the parents to help children. That is how you'll see the quickest results. I think there's something else that you say which is linked to that around us not making womanhood look that attractive to younger women and and how if you like there's there's an in fact yesterday claudia winkleman was talking about this this cult of perfectionism and always having to do everything right look right sound right and and why that hasn't got any better in the ways that it should have done yet. Oh, gosh, hugely.

I mean, this is like kind of, I mean, we don't make being a grown woman look like a job you'd want to apply for as an 11-year-old child, like kind of, which is why I'm aware, and going back to the sort of response that we had on Twitter earlier, like I do want to talk about the joyful things of being a woman as well and getting older because I'm aware children are listening. Like, you it's not all bad you know you do grow into your power you do learn things I'd still rather be a woman than a man but there are certain things that we say to children when we think we're being good parents that are actually incredibly destructive one of

them is saying oh at the end of the day we don't care about your school results or you know how you look or anything me and daddy just want you to be happy and we think that's a kind thing to say but of course a child hears that and goes they want me to be happy okay i'm not allowed to be sad i will hide that i will pretend to be happy in front of my parents i won't share with them when i'm starting to feel anxious and depressed and the other thing we say often after watching the news and seeing what's happening with the environment or the politics or the economy we'll tend to turn to our children and go but don't worry your generation's amazing you're going to sort this out you know you're Greta Thunberg and you're Emma Gonzalez you're an incredible generation and I know you're going to make a difference so don't be scared and of course a child listening to that

just hears mummy and daddy can't sort this out save mummy and daddy so it's just these you know things that we you know no one is ever qualified to be a parent you go into it and you learn on the job and so one of the things I've tried to do all the way through is be very honest about the mistakes that I've made and go I did this it turned out really badly maybe don't do this but well you do you do make us laugh you really do as well and that is important and I think we we should do a good job of advertising the good bits of being a woman and also the very practical bits as well and I did mention the maintenance shag right at the beginning and what I also love about your work and you do include your husband in it a lot and he's also a journalist and he he and you it's a real love story in there and that's also something that we don't talk enough about you know marriages

and those bonds and all of that but the maintenance shag and your anger and frustration with his cough and his general expulsions, I've read aloud to a certain somebody in my life, shall we say, because, you know, it rings true on so many levels. So let's start with the maintenance shag because you do that on a Friday morning still? Yes, yeah, 8.30. So this is an invention of my friend Sally Hughes,

the journalist and broadcaster. She told all of her social group about the maintenance shag. And we were like, yes. So people have misunderstood sometimes what it is. It's not lying back and thinking of England when your husband wants to have sex. It's when a couple who love each other but are very busy, you just don't spontaneously still have sex after 25 years.

There's the dog, there's the kids, the doorbell's ringing. So you have to schedule it. You're often spending a lot of time cleaning the dishwasher. I just want to point that out, of various things, or getting mice out of the bottom of the fridge, all sorts. Because the functionality of a dishwasher is bananas. Why would you have a rotary arm that doesn't have a trapdoor that allows you to remove the lemon pips and bits of rice

that get stuck in the little holes? Like a middle-aged one called Janet needs to to reinvent the dishwasher anyway so the maintenance shag you will forget how good sex is after a while and after a while you forget how you even start doing it you're like we said what and we do what no it's a bit weird so you have to schedule it and for the first five minutes it'll be really awkward and then you get into it and at the end of it you're like oh god this is really relaxing and it's not costing me any money why don't we do this more often and then often you'll have like a bog off rollover shag spontaneously the next day because you've remembered once again how great it is but hang on sorry katlin you know i like to hold people to

account you just said the first five minutes might be a bit awkward i think they are a bit awkward for your other half pete because you're getting in there not in that way you're getting in there to squeeze a blackhead out of his nose before you start because as you say you're grooming him and mating with him yeah exactly i mean david atterman will be able to describe it in a very soothing voiceover the kind of bonding grooming ritual that's going on there but he one of the many reasons i was attracted to him is every so often he will grow a beautiful blackhead on his nose and i can crop it and I get great satisfaction in removing it the other big obstacle for our sex life which I suspect many others may relate to is since we've got a dog the dog likes to be on the bed and the dog is saddened by sex and often in a relationship there will be a disparity between

who is most sympathetic towards the dog I'm very much like I would like to have some sex I don't care if the dog is sad my husband would be be like, I think she's traumatised. Why don't we explain to her what's happening? I'm like, no, throw her out and shut the door. So these are the obstacles for sex in middle age, black heads and dogs. You also talk about there not being a good enough set of words and phrases to describe when women are aroused, which is also true. And if you want to talk about the joy of being a woman, things that are still yet to be created and discovered,

it's certainly some of the language around our feelings, our bodies, all of that. Oh, God, absolutely. And that's one of the things. I mean, social media is still a mixed grill for women, what with the trolls and the death threats. But one of the great things about it is that it's the first time that women have been able to talk to each other without sort of proper platforms that, you know, you would have had to have had before, like a column or a TV show. And so the coining of words since women have been able to get on the Internet and talk to each other. We may remember on Love Island a couple of years ago when Maura came up with the phrase fanny flutters, a genuinely useful way to describe female arousal. Like kind of that, you know, I hope it makes it into the dictionary and Love Island is there.

And, you know, the Blinkies feel proud enough to saw us for years to come. But there is a lot. Yeah, there's a lot of creativity you can have that perhaps still hasn't happened. I love at the end of the book, you talk about women needing to take up more physical space and that you're now in your hag years. Let's conclude our chat with those thoughts perhaps. Yes. So when I first started going on book tours, it was mainly young women because I was writing about the teenage years and they come up and they want pictures and they chat and they're very confident and they'll just talk to you. And then as the years have gone on, I've got older women and as they come towards you, they're like, don't take a picture of me. I'm too old. I'm too fat. I'm too

tall. I look like Hagrid. And you go, well, what do you do? Tell me about your life. And they're like, no, I'm just boring. Don't talk about me. Don't even look at me. Pretend I don't exist. And that was one of the reasons why I wanted to write about middle age, because these middle age women are amazing. They are holding society together with their bare hands. And I just want to say to every one of them, stand up and take your space, take up your space, let your stomach hang out, stand up tall. You have lived an incredible life. And I want to honor you in this book. And the hag years, I'm very into reclaiming words, because so much about sort of defining who you are, and the voice in your head is about the words that you have to access.

And when we talk about getting older, the words tend to be bad. It's all stuff like witch and hag. But then when you go back and read about the lives of witches and hags in medieval times, those girls had it nailed down, man. They're like living in a cottage in the woods. They're away from the rest of the village because they just can't be arsed. They're brewing up their potions. They've got their booze. They're making their whiskey. They've got the millions of dogs and cats and maybe a particularly

charismatic crow. They've got a staff and a hat and a cape. They're stomping around. They meet up with the other witches and cackle late at night. And I was like, that's me. That is my middle-aged life now. I hang out with my coven of witches cackling, brewing up my brew, tending my garden and genuinely trying to tame a crow at the moment. I've got one in the garden that's quite promising. You're fixing the dishwasher, a crow in the garden and a dog on the bed while you're trying to have your maintenance show. Catlin Moran, if that's not selling what being a woman is

as a job advert, I don't know what is. Thank you so much for coming to talk to us and telling us what had changed in your mind about being a woman more than a woman is out in paperback today. Well, I also think Catlin might be interested in our next conversation because there's currently a huge shortage of lorry drivers in the UK. According to the Road Haulage Association, up to 100,000 more road hauliers are needed to transport food, medicines and equipment vital to the UK economy. It's estimated that 95% of all of the products we consume are at some point moved around by road freight.

And as we get to grips with the logistics of Brexit, coronavirus restrictions, more people are urgently needed. But of the half a million licensed lorry drivers, fewer than 5% are women. Why is this? And what would encourage more women to get behind the wheel? I'm joined now by Susie McKenzie, a lorry driver who transports horses around Europe. I'm hoping she's found somewhere to pull over to talk to us.

And Kate Lester, chief executive of Diamond Logistics, a firm that specialises in fulfilment and delivery and a former lorry driver herself. Kate, I'm going to start with you. Good morning. Hello, good morning. On a practical level, if a woman listening to this, or a man, but we're talking about the shortage of women perhaps, what does someone need in order to drive one of these HGVs? When you said I was a former lorry driver, I drove up to seven and a half tonne, but I was more motorcycles than small vans, just to be perfectly frank.

But what do you need? I think you need to have a very no-nonsense attitude. You've obviously got to have the skill set. And you've got to be able to probably not have the sort of engagements that most of us as women have in terms of working hours and our requirements as being that central part that Caitlin was talking about in terms of being carers in the middle of society. Because the hours can be quite onerous. So it's either a young woman's job or a post-children woman's job. Because I don't think it's very flexible for that sort of younger generation. And the culture of it there are stories about

that not being where it should be perhaps or could be off-putting to women? I think that's a grotesque understatement. You tell us. Yeah to say it's pale male and stale is an underestimation I'd say borderline misogynist, and that's the whole of the logistics industry. When you think about the population of women within logistics, it's only about 26% out of our whole employment workforce. And with drivers, I believe it's sub-3%. It's that low.

And you guys know from all the e-commerce stuff that you've had delivered to your homes, et cetera, et cetera, does anyone open the door to a female driver? I don't think they do. And so I think there's a real cultural change that needs to shift there. And do you think that that is happening, though? I mean, what would make that happen? Because is it having more women or are there changes afoot?

Well, it's really interesting, actually. Even though I've been leading my business for the last 30 years, it was only 10 years ago that we looked at it within our own organisation and actually looked at our employment statistics within our business, and they were very low too. So we had to do a very purposeful transformation program in order to make our business more engaging for a female workforce. So we've started it here, and now we've got 60% of our workforce is female. We've got absolute gender parity in terms of pay. But in terms of our drivers, it's, again,

a project that we're yet to be very successful in. So I think there's a PR exercise that needs to happen. I think we've got to look at working hours. We've got to look at access to training and the cost of becoming a lorry driver because that can be very expensive. And then we've got to look at, you know, how people can... Well, also, just practicalities. If we can talk about the practicalities.

You know, I don't know how safe I would feel having to sleep in my truck overnight in a lorry park in the middle of, you know, sort of up a whoop whoop. You know, I think there's security issues and even stuff like bathroom facilities, toilet facilities, et cetera, et cetera. I think it can be quite challenging. Yeah, I imagine it can be. But Susie will know firsthand, Susie McKenzie, who's on the line. Good morning. Morning. What led you into this line of work? The horses, really, is what got me into the job.

So what you're actually transporting? Yeah, so I transport horses. I worked with horses previously to driving and then did my HGV and then got into the transportating of horses. Well, there you go. Thank you for talking to us today. Where are you at the moment? I'm near Osnabrück in Germany, heading to Hanover to collect my first horse. There you go. Busy. Thank you for taking the time. What sort of vehicle are you in? Can you describe it to us? Yeah, it's 26 tonne rigid. So it takes 10 horses or 11 ponies.

That's quite serious. Do you find a lot of women where you work or in the line of work? Do you see women around or are you just the only one? Within the line of horse transport, there would be, in the company I work for, there's actually more women than men. But I think that's because of the horses that get the women into the job you know oh that's interesting and so in terms of the culture that you see is it quite different to what we were just hearing I think so um a lot of the time I'll be parked in private yards overnight and so then I've got facilities on a private and so I'm lucky in

that respect and you how long have you been doing this? Since I was 23, so seven years now. Now 30, okay. And in terms of what you could say to women who are perhaps thinking of doing this and wouldn't think it was for them, what would you say? There's no reason why, you know, a woman can't do this job. It's no two days are the same. You get to meet new people, and especially in my line of work, see new places. And it's good two days are the same you get to meet new people and especially in my line of work see new places and it's it's good fun really did you enjoy the driving do you what what's your what do you do

when you drive are you listening to something are you dancing away what's your what's your routine yeah it depends on the day you know singing singing and dancing along or listening to a podcast or on the radio or i you know on an an app because I'm not in the UK every day. So now we've got all the apps you can download so you can stream the stuff from the UK. So it's great. And when you meet men in your line of work, do they say anything to you about you being a rare woman that they see on the job? Has there been a change over the years you've been doing it? Not so much a change. Some people will say, oh, you know, girl didn't expect it to be a girl. But a lot of the time we don't hear that

too often. But I think, again, because of the horses, people expect it more because even as a private person, if you've got your own horses and you're fortunate enough to have your own lorry you'll be driving it yourself so you do see women driving horses more than just your your average freight well it's it's fascinating to get an insight into that do you sleep in your in your vehicle yes i sleep in the cab and do you feel safe in that respect because that was something that that Kate was just questioning. Depends where you're parked. So, you know, like I said earlier, the majority of the time I am parked in a private yard

because we don't keep the horses on overnight. They've got to go into the stables. So we would park on a private yard. Sometimes you're in services if you haven't got a horse on board the majority of the time I don't feel a problem you know I'll shut the curtains as soon as I get there but I don't I don't feel unsafe. Do you think more women should do this line of work there are a lot of vacancies we've come through a very strange 15 months or so people are going to have lost jobs? Definitely definitely there's no reason why they shouldn't and And it's actually the job security is great because we're essential workers. Kate, that's a very strong

message, isn't it? You know, the job security is there. I suppose it's just while Susie's had a very specific experience with horses, what you've also described could be very off-putting in that blokey sense that you were describing. Yeah, for sure. But I think in terms of stability of income, we've really got to look at logistics. Logistics is like the third biggest industry in the UK. Obviously, we've seen growth over the last 18 months where a lot of other industries have been very challenged. And women are very well set to be very successful within logistics. And certainly in terms of the skill set that's required, there's nothing, you know, we've got enough mechanization and enough automation and enough tools to facilitate some

of the more physical parts of the job. But in terms of a skill set, there's certainly no reason why not. I do think there's an image problem in terms of classic logistics rather than, you know, the horse transport. I've got a lot of girlfriends who've got horses and they all drive horse boxes very confidently. But that sort of has a little bit of that vocational kind of pitch, whereas in the traditional logistics side of things, it's very much a traditional sort of classic sort of industry. So there's probably a little bit of

rebranding that needs to happen, but there is no reason why women cannot be extraordinarily successful in this sector. It must have also been a very difficult time in another way, despite what you just said about other industries struggling because of getting to grips with logistics around Brexit, coronavirus restrictions, the Suez Canal blockage has created further headaches. Those must have presented some interesting, if I can put it like that, interesting times that you're in. Yes, a Confucius definition of interesting, right? So yeah, no, it has been an extraordinarily challenging time. You know, we've been trying to deliver PPE. We're trying to establish chunking networks for the testing

that everybody needs to get going. We're also trying to keep small businesses alive by pivoting them from classic retail onto e-commerce platforms. So, we've been working very, very hard. And, you know, my team are tired. But that that in terms of also the demand, I mean, there are medium term challenges in terms of our supply chain. You know, there's been seeds that have gone off because there's not been sufficient lorry drivers to be able to deliver them in time of planting. I heard of one incidence of seeds taking nearly five months to get from the UK to Ireland because of the new customs rules. And of course, that means, you know, that once you've missed the time for planting, then of course, you're not going to have the product the following year. And I think we're already seeing in the shops, aren't we, these shortages in terms of fresh produce. And that is very much directly orientated around the driver shortage.

Well, all the best. Thank you for talking to us today. Kate Lester, Chief Executive of Diamond Logistics and Susie McKenzie, a lorry driver who transports horses around Europe who will let get on her way. You've been getting in touch about disappointment throughout the programme and how you've picked yourself back up.

I failed to get a job, for example. I've consoled myself, says this message, with the mindset that I want to be a person who tries. In my view, those who try are winners and it's okay to not always get what you want. Another one from Sam. Good morning to you in Surrey. Having experienced the ups and downs of life with sibling deaths, poor work experiences of the recent years and the stresses of teenage kids, I always reflect in darker times on the miracle of just being here. And if I could talk to my younger self, it would be to remind

myself that all things have a beginning, middle, and an end in life, and that things pass and the sun rises. Another one here, thank you for that, from Sally Ann, says, my therapy for stresses and disappointment hit balls really hard across the net, works every time.

And thank you to Julia, our psychotherapist. This comes from Margot, on the importance of giving ourselves permission to feel the hurt and allow our system to heal with compassion and without punishing ourselves. Many more as well. Thank you so much for all of your advice. And just to tell you about something that's coming up on tomorrow's programme

that I don't think you should miss. If you are able to join us, we can catch up later on BBC Sounds. I'll be talking to Lady Lavinia Norse, the 77-year-old widow of former High Court Judge Sir Martin Norse, who just over a month ago was sensationally acquitted of 17 counts of historical child sex abuse. In her first broadcast interview, she's now calling for those accused of child sex abuse to be anonymous until charged. She says that the case has left her life in pieces and describes the experience of being on trial for such abhorrent crimes.

Hell, that's all I can say. I've never been so frightened, lonely and utterly miserable. I didn't, I had my legal team, but that was all. And the press were out there every day photographing me and harassing me. And it was terrifying. And of course, knowing, I suppose, if it hadn't gone that way, I could have gone to prison. Were you prepared for that? Luckily, my legal people were very gentle with me. I asked the question, but they very carefully sort of skirted around it. They didn't say no, but they didn't say, yes, you will go to prison.

But I knew perfectly well that there was a very high chance that if I was found guilty that I would go to jail. And I just find it really frightening that people can tell lies, that actually can send an innocent person to prison. And that's what would have happened. Lady Lavinia Norse, who will be with me, you'll hear that full interview on tomorrow's programme. It's the first time that she's spoken out to her first broadcast interview. And she wants to do so around some of the changes she wants around being anonymous when accused. And we'll have your views on that, I'm sure. Don't miss it. Join me tomorrow at 10 o'clock. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time.

Join us again for the next one. A new fantasy podcast series from BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio Wales. Beyond the forests, beyond the valleys, there's another world. Mabinogi. Lost legends and dark magic. I know how to get there. Where? The other world.

An epic battle across the frontiers of reality. I think this is likely to end in disaster. Step into the other world. Subscribe to Babanogi, Lost Legends and Dark Magic 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 was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody.

Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in.

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