Woman's Hour - General Election 2019, HRT shortages and Patricia Ward Kelly

Episode Date: December 13, 2019

What does the result of the 2019 General Election mean for women? What do we know about how women voted yesterday and what do we know about those women who were elected? We discuss the winners and losers – and how the result will shape the issues that women are affected by in the next parliament with Sarah Childs, Professor of Politics and Gender at Birkbeck, University of London; Alice Thomson, Associate Editor at The Times; Ash Sarkar, Contributing Editor Novara Media and, Dr Rosalind Shorocks, Lecturer in Politics at the University of Manchester. Back in August Woman’s Hour talked about the current shortage of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and what you should you do if your normal supply of HRT tablets, skin patches or gels is unavailable. Investigative journalist, Emma Hartley, decided to find out for Tortoise Media why the shortage existed and why it predominantly affects the UK. She joins Jane to explain what she discovered. And Singin’in The Rain, An American In Paris, On The Town - all those technicolour musicals often on over Christmas, and all starring Gene Kelly. His widow is Patricia Ward Kelly. She talks about why she wants everyone to remember him and his work.Presenter: Jane Garvey Producer: Ruth Watts

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. This is the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello, good morning. You can contact us this morning on social media, at BBC Woman's Hour on Twitter and Instagram if you've got a comment to make about the election. There will be more women in Parliament, up 11 on the last one.

Around the table with me this morning, Sarah Childs, Professor of Politics and Gender at Birkbeck, University of London. Sarah, good morning to you. Alice Thompson's here, Associate Editor at The Times. Good morning, Alice. Hi. And Ash Sarkar, Contributing Editor at Novara Media and hasn't had any sleep. No sleep. No rest for the wicked.

Ash is here too. And in our studio in Salford is Rosalind Shorrocks, Dr. Rosalind Shorrocks, lecturer in politics at the University of Manchester. We'll talk to her in a moment or two. So let's just pick up on the figures then. There is something very significant to say, actually, Sarah, about the fact that in terms of the parties, there are now more female Labour MPs than men and more female SNP MPs than men. And the majority of Lib Dem MPs are female too. I think your SNP figures might be the other way around. I've got women SNP figures at 33%. Oh, forgive me. That's right. Yes. So there's a big party asymmetry. Yes, you're right.

The Lib Dems actually have got, I should be careful here, seven female MPs, four male. So the Labour Party has more women than men. The Liberal Democrats do. And the SNP are about a third female. So, yes, we've had an overall increase, but we are seeing quite significant differences between parties. And the fact that the second and the winning party has 25 percent compared to Labour on 50 percent, 51 percent, is a big difference between those two major parties. Yeah, we look at the Conservative MPs and there are 277 men, just 87 women. Why do you think that might be? Well, it's a historical legacy in many ways that the party was always playing the catch-up from Labour's big increases in the 1990s with the use of the Labour Party's All Women's Shortlist,

which has really proved the means by which the party has carried on. They haven't used them in the last couple of elections because they've been snap quick elections but actually that really created a shift in the Labour Party and I think the Conservative Party has tried through encouraging women to stand providing training women to win has done a lot for them but there is a sense in which it is still harder to get selected in the Conservative Party they have a supply problem too not quite you know not as many women seeking to be candidates. But it's also where they get selected. If you don't select women for your winnable seats,

it's very hard to win them. And on a big win, like we've just seen, we have seen more women coming in that we might not have expected. A big win, but actually, if you look at the figures, the Labour vote went down over 7%. That's right, isn't it? And the Tory vote only went up just over 1%. But because of the way in which the Conservative women

were disproportionately selected for some of their less winnable seats, some of those women coming in would not necessarily have been expected to win. So that would explain some of their increases, I would imagine. Right, we're just going to play a quick clip of something that happened, I think,

in the very, very wee small hours of this morning on the Radio 4 Five Live overnight show. This is Emma Barnett talking to former Prime Minister Theresa May about the fact that actually Boris Johnson has built on what she achieved in 2017. Here we go. So Boris Johnson is going to be able, I believe, to deliver Brexit on the 31st of January and then to deliver a good relationship with the European Union for the future. Just that tiny clip of Theresa May, in a way, illustrates why she wasn't able to do what Boris Johnson has been able to do. Fair? I think she was being modest, I think she was being generous and she was doing what she thought was right for the party there.

But yes, it's that sense of not claiming when you've made big gains that somebody else benefits from. It might be something about not wanting to take up too much space. A terrible delay on the line to Maidenhead and a cough from James Notting as well. Alice Thompson, what would you say about that? Well, my view really with this election is that it was an incredibly blokey election. And it was all about getting your JCB digger and you know smashing your way through a wall and that's not a particularly female kind of thing to do so it was interesting to me that it was so male and yet Boris did win so big and actually the women found him the most difficult whenever you polled them the women were

much less likely to vote for Boris Johnson and more reticent about it and didn't say if they were going to so it's been interesting for me to see how few women came out and how we didn't see Priti Patel and we didn't see, I mean, there were lots, weren't there? There's Trust, Priti Patel, Andrea Leadsom. I mean, there were lots of women who weren't. The top nine Tories who were chosen to come out were all male and then the next one, you know, it's just a very odd pattern.

But on the other hand, Boris has still won with the women. I mean, he has. Well, I'm going to put that to Rosalind Shorrocks, who's a lecturer in politics at the University of Manchester. Is that right? Do we know that Boris won big with women? It's very hard to say much about gender breakdowns from looking at the constituency results. But if we look at the latest polls kind of released just before the election. I'm not sure that's 100% true. So in the latest polls, what we saw was kind of big leads for the Conservatives amongst men, but women were much more evenly divided. So they're much more evenly split between Labour and the Conservatives. And so as a result, women were actually more supportive of Labour than men

were, and men were more supportive of the Conservatives than women. Okay, Ash Sarkar is nodding along to that. What do you want to say, Ash? Well, I think the thing that I want to say is that when you look at the polling with regards to Brexit, women tend to be a lot more worried about the effects of a no deal Brexit, particularly for their own household income and spending power. And so I wonder if one of the stories in this election is that there's a divide in this country between those who see politics as the business of feeling an affinity with something abstract and a connection to the nation, whether that's via Brexit, whether that's via a sense of nativism or indeed other forms of nationalism and those who see politics as competing material interests which is much more firmly within Labour's you know comfort zone. You lost you lost big time this time last time you just lost what are you going to do what should Labour do? So what should Labour do I

think one is have a very good look at where the votes went and why. So in terms of those so-called red wall seats, Labour was turned over by the Brexit party in a very big way. So clearly that pivot to a second referendum had quite negative consequences in those Labour held seats. The other thing I think that they'll need to do is look at this realignment in their vote and the fact that it's not a particularly efficient vote when it comes to the first past the post system. It's concentration in urban centres. And the fact that it's diminishing. You are, forgive me, slightly trotting the John McDonnell line, which we saw on the telly last night at two minutes past 10, that it's all the fault of Brexit. But it can't be, can it?

Well, no, I think there are multiple things at play, but Brexit is a very big one. So you think about what's different between 2017 and 2019. 2017, you have a similar manifesto. You've got the same leader. 2019, what you've got is an electorate which is much more polarised on Brexit than it was even in 2017. And that is what I think did it for Labour. We can also talk about the impact of the you know

unfavourability ratings of Jeremy Corbyn I think that's an important discussion and a legitimate discussion and I also think that we need to look at the fact that Labour since 2010 has been changing in terms of where its vote is being concentrated it's in those urban centres it skews young so mostly 18 to 45 which tends to be the turning point and it means that they've got a cohort of older voters particularly in the midlands particularly in the north who have aged out of voting labour right should Jeremy Corbyn already have resigned well I think in terms of just that disappear into a cloud of smoke never to be seen again is that sometimes that can create more problems than it's okay i'll put another way because this is woman's hour would a woman

who'd lost in this fashion already have quit so i'm putting myself in jeremy corbyn's position right as a woman who's on the left and for me the one thing that would stop me from resigning straight away would be a worry that it would mean the absolute decimation of the policy platform which had been painstakingly built up and when polled individually those policies were popular. Okay who do you think the next leader of the Labour Party is going to be Alice? Well I think you've I mean you've got three or four the one I'd really like would be Jess Phillips to be totally honest I think it needs to be she's not a she's not a member she's not a momentum no but in that well I'm not a momentum person either.

The person I'd most want, I don't think she's the one that's actually going to get it. I think Angela Rayner might get it. I think Rebecca Long-Bailey might get it. I think it would be good to have a woman there because I think actually, I mean, I think it's very difficult to be too gender biased, but I think it would be interesting

now you've got so many Labour women who are MPs to see that coming forward and actually have them in the top positions not just around the edges. But if it were someone like Angela Rayner or Rebecca Long-Bailey they would essentially be selling the same Labour message that hasn't cut through this time and didn't work two years ago. Which is why Jess Phillips would be more interesting as a Labour leader. Ash? Well so here's the thing about Jess Phillips, and she's a very charismatic performer, and there's no doubt about it. However, she was pushing a strong remain position from very early on, and that is not something which is necessarily going to do any better

in those Northern and Midlands seats. I think in terms of Angela Rayner and Becky Long-Bailey and perhaps any other who wants to throw their hat into the ring from the left of the party, the challenge that they face is being able to message that policy platform in a way which is, I think, targeted at rebuilding trust in those communities who've become very disillusioned with Labour. And that will be probably quite a slow process. Just throwing in a sparkly personality is not going to be enough to do it.

Some would argue it would be a good start. Let's just talk about some of the women who were good enough to contribute to our debate on Women's Hour on December 4th. Helen Waitley was the Conservative representative. She is back. You won't be surprised to hear. So too is Deirdre Brock of the SNP. They both won their seats

overnight. Laura Pidcock who was the Labour MP for Northwest Durham, I'm right, aren't I? She lost her seat, which I think, and people were talking of her, Ash, as a potential Labour leader. She's a very skilled operator. She's someone who has her, you know, very deep roots in the union movement, would be able to get the support probably of those big unions. And, and you know she's well liked on the left so probably would have gotten a lot of support from the momentum membership had she gone for either labour leader or deputy leader and I think that one of the things and this is

where I'm wary of looking at things through too much of a gendered lens all the time is that you can kind of exclude other narratives, which I think are really important. I think one of the things which has done it for Labour, which has really done it for Labour, is the decline of union participation in this country, which means that those rare beasts like Laura Pidcock, who have come up through that movement, for her to lose her seat is a real existential crisis for the party. We should say too that Dr Sarah Wollaston of the Lib Dems lost her seat in Totnes as well. So what are we left with then in terms of the make-up of Parliament?

Who are the new names we should know about Sarah and who is still there? I think we should predominantly turn our attention to the government because we have a government with a big majority now that is concentrated on Brexit. We need to know which, from a gender perspective, which women in that party are going to make it into government. So of course, we didn't see much of Priti Patel during the election campaign. Will we still see her in the position that she currently holds? We have lost quite a lot, because they stood down, of that sort of 50-something women in the

Conservative Party who had cabinet careers. they need to be replaced and I suppose there are questions around people like Gillian Keegan those people who came in after Cameron as part of that drive to see where they're going I think there are questions just looking at the numbers where is he going to find enough to have a really good quality in the cabinet so I think there are really big issues for the Conservative Party that we'll need to see. And I also want to make the point that, and I think this probably picks up on something Ash is talking about, if we're thinking about what's good for women, we just we mustn't confuse women's bodies with feminist minds.

I want to see women who are concerned about the kinds of issues that might differentially affect women. I think we also need to look at other aspects of diversity to make sure that what we don't get are women who are no different from the men around them. And I think that's really, really critical. Rosalind Shorrocks, we don't know anything about why women voted in the way they did in terms of the absence, the relative absence of women in the big TV and radio debates

over the course of the campaign, do we? I mean, the absence of women across the campaign might have had an impact on women's interest in the campaign. So we do know that women are more interested in politics when they can see more women being active in politics. So that certainly could have had an effect in that way. But we also do know that the kind of gender of the politician that's kind of standing for office

is not necessarily that influential in terms of whether people ultimately vote for them or not. What would anybody like to say about Jo Swinson, Alice? She has resigned. She lost her seat in East Dunbarton, shown her has quit. Actually, she's the one we haven't really talked about who is one of the biggest losers and was a woman. And she was, you know...

Still is, I think. Yeah, is a woman. And Nic nicola sturgeon has done very well so it's not just a gender issue but she was a young mother she you know she was she should have been at the forefront wanted to be at the forefront of the lib dem campaign and actually what was interesting to me is that though she put herself forward very much and she was on all the buses and on all the literature and i was like a terrible mistake i'm all the literature and I followed her around. Was that all a terrible mistake? I'm not sure that actually worked in the end. I'm not sure that's what people wanted. And I think that was very difficult for her.

And I felt so sorry for her, actually, overnight, because I think she really has lost, she's lost her seat. She failed with her party. She started off pretty well. She wanted this election. She wanted to do really huge things. She started off in quite a

comparable position with the two other main parties and she completely lost it just a word on Nicola Sturgeon who had a great night uh but it's still quite hard to see where the SNP and Nicola Sturgeon go from here yes um they want a second referendum why would Boris Johnson give them one well he is a unionist I mean that's what keeps saying. He's got a real problem with Northern Ireland, so he's going to have to keep Scotland. Because if he doesn't keep Scotland, and Northern Ireland he's got major problems with, it's going to be Wales and England, isn't it?

And nothing else. So it won't happen, will it? So I don't think he'll do it. No, I don't think it will happen. I think he'll make very clear that he does not want another referendum and it won't happen in Scotland. Can we talk about some of the policy issues that did crop up during our debate on December 4th?

What is now going to happen, example about um social care um where are we going to go in terms of i don't know labor was suggesting a national care service i think weren't they but presumably and there was no big conservative idea on social care any thoughts i mean i think the problem for me is that we think that brexit is going to be done now because it was get brexit done that was the slogan that won so you think that's going to consume think that Brexit is going to be done now because it was get Brexit done. That was the slogan that won. So you think that's going to consume the air? It is going to consume a lot of time. We seem to assume that actually it's going to be over.

It's not going to be over. We're going to have a long time trying to sort out Brexit. And things like social care, which are really vital, might get lost while we actually sort out the major issue. Go on, Ash. So the trouble is, is the Conservative manifesto was rather thin on new ideas and the central plank, you're right, was get Brexit done. But with a majority of this size and with an opposition which is going to be, I think, taken up with this business of selecting a new leader, wondering what its political orientation is, so on and so forth, is that there might not be the same standard of parliamentary scrutiny over their domestic policy programme as there should be. And what I worry about is that this majority is essentially a blank check on a whole range of things

that haven't even been spoken about really within the public domain. You've got that bit of the Conservative manifesto, which has got implications for the role of the judiciary in the Supreme Court in terms of being able to constrain government. You've got these plans which don't really have that much substance to them so a billion chucked into social care but god knows where it's going to go but all of which cynics will be saying in the end it didn't matter because people voted conservative in greater numbers it didn't seem to matter we can talk about there are two different kinds of matter. There's what mattered in this short term election. And then there's what matters to the country in the medium and the long term.

And so just because something has gotten over the line and delivered, yes, this absolutely devastating defeat for Labour, a, you know, rousing victory for Boris Johnson, that's not necessarily good for the country in the medium and the long term. Quick word from you. I mean, I think what that does is point to Parliament and just how important parliamentary scrutiny of the executive is. And so therefore, we need to be looking at who's going to become the chairs of committees, who is going to be holding this government to account and the extent

to which they make sure that in the Brexit negotiations, but also on all those other agendas, that women's concerns don't get dropped off. We need to know who the new Women's Equality Minister is. These are the kind of things that need to be filled. How many of those have we had within Living Memory? Too many, and they move around, and we actually need a commitment and an investment in those kind of positions. But I think Parliament matters in terms of the kinds of questions it can pose, and if we keep having these PMQs where people are shouting at each other

and we're not getting down to the kind of policy debate, then what we'll see is a year where actually things will just get pushed through. And I think whatever else people need is a politics that actually interrogates properly the ruling, the rules, the laws, the policies that we adopt. And I think areas like social care are absolutely critical. And I want to make one point about the domestic violence bill. Let's see where that goes. OK, well, unfortunately, some people would say unfortunately, not everybody, obviously. 2020 will be all about Brexit. And where are the women's voices going to be in terms of sorting out trade agreements and everything else, Alice? There's so much work still to be done.

Well, that's what worries me is that actually there was this sense all the way through the election. It was let's get Brexit done. Then you can go and do your Christmas shopping. Then you can get on with your life. And I think that people really felt that. That was the major message and that was a brilliant message for the Tories. And in retrospect, we should have realised

that just one simple idea got them through. But actually, it's not entirely true, as we all know, because we're not going to get Brexit done and it's going to take ages and ages to finalise this. You say that, I mean, we are leaving the European Union. Yes, we will leave and it will happen, but actually it's not just going to happen overnight and we've got to then sort it out.

And I hope that they will get a lot of women in and women will be doing more of the negotiation. But I think it's quite hard because there's so few women at the top of the Tory party now that it's going to be difficult and we could send, in fact, we will send Liz Truss probably and Priti Patel to do various, you know, to negotiate. And my problem is I don't really have total 100% confidence in them. Alice, thank you very much.

Thanks to everybody who's contributed. Ash, I think he's the only one who hasn't had any sleep. Is that right? Yeah, none. Well, you are the youngest. I think you can go home, get your head down. And just, what was I going to say? Oh, there'll be other elections for you, Ash.

Inshallah. Yes. Thank you. Ash Sarkar of Navarra Media. You also heard from Sarah Childs. Thank you from Alice Thompson and from Rosalind Shorrocks. Thanks to everybody who's taken part this morning. I know a lot of people are feeling perhaps not at their finest due to lack of sleep. So we got through as much detail as we could there.

And if you've got any points to make, you can, of course, do so. You can email the programme via the website, bbc.co.uk slash womanshour, or you can use social media, at BBC Women's Hour, on Twitter and Instagram. On Monday's programme,

we're going to be looking at why some parents are trying alternative treatments to medication, including fish oils high in omega-3, to help children with ADHD. Apparently, they are more likely to be deficient in omega-3. But there was conflicting evidence that taking fish oils could help symptoms until now. So there'll be more about that on Monday morning's edition of the programme. Now, you won't have forgotten, certainly if you're me, you won't have forgotten that there were all sorts of headlines in the summer about shortages of HRT. Nobody really knew why it was happening or why it particularly seemed to be affecting the UK. The journalist

Emma Hartley has been trying to investigate the issue for Tortoise, which is, what is Tortoise? I'm never quite sure how to define it Emma Emma. It's a relatively new online platform, which has been started by, amongst other people, James Harding, who used to do the news at the BBC. He's also a former editor of the Times. They had a big raise on Kickstarter. They do things that take time to probe into issues in a more thinking way, they would say. So you were asked, or you decided you would do this for them. Why is there a shortage of HRT in Britain? Well, I have to say that it took me about five weeks before I got to the point where I could answer that question because I started with all of the things that people were already talking about. So shortages of precursors coming from China, issues with individual products. And there was, there turned out to be a grain of truth in most of the theories that had been put forward. But what kept foxing me was that if this stuff was the answer, then why the HRT shortage is so

much worse in the UK than they are everywhere else, according to the British Menopause Society. The mystery, isn't it? Yes. And also, you know, all the anecdotal evidence points towards when women go abroad, they can pick up absolutely everything that they want in quite large quantities. So it does seem to be specific to the UK. And I was sent a document after I'd been looking into this for about five weeks, which was a bit of a revelation, basically, because it was an NHS document to do with the drugs tariff.

And it showed that 15 HRT drugs had been added to the drugs tariff. Can you just define drugs tariff? It's the price that the NHS will pay to pharmacies for individual products. And obviously the NHS is a big, big purchaser of drugs and therefore presumably can get things at pretty decent low prices, some would say. On a good day, that's one of the benefits of it because it does have enormous purchasing power. So it has the capacity to drive prices down slightly and to get a good deal for the NHS. But on this particular occasion, things seem to have gone wrong because it looks as if when they purchased or when they pegged the price of these drugs on their drugs tariff they simply pegged it too low. So there were 15 drugs that went onto the

list starting on the 1st of June last year so 2018 which was about four months before the shortages started. 15 drugs all on the same day and it looks as if they just pegged the price too low so that the invisible hand of the market did the rest. So they did it without thinking through the possible impact of it? Well, they did it according to the Department for Health and Social Care because the price on the international market was volatile. So all of these drugs were actually... They went on a list called Category C,

which is for branded drugs that are no longer under patent. So they're not generic, which is when they're really cheap, you know, when you can buy aspirin for two pence and boots and that kind of thing. But these are all drugs which are still being bought as branded drugs for the UK market. So potentially the manufacturer has the whip hand when it comes to the prices. But they went on and they were pegged at a certain level and four months later the shortages started. Now I think that what has happened is that that four-month period

represents the length of time that it took for the wholesalers' shelves to empty. Right, of stock they already had. We should say the Department of Health and Social Care were not able to give us a response at the moment. They said they will do shortly. Obviously there's been a period called purdah while the election takes place. Yes, you're rolling your eyes, but it's a real thing. And it does mean that decisions aren't made, statements aren't given during this time. But they had two months before that started as well. And then the Conservatives have had, sorry, two weeks before that started. And the Conservatives

have had two weeks since it started to answer this. So your theory is, I mean, are you suggesting there's a conspiracy against middle-aged women? You don't quite go that far, do you? What do you think? Is it just inefficient or thoughtless or is there something more worrying at work here? I think what it shows is that there's a kind of institutional lack of interest in women's issues, basically. It doesn't necessarily show that they did it on purpose, although I'm sure it was somebody's job to keep an eye on these prices and to keep them updated. But that doesn't seem to have happened because I've been told that the price hasn't been changed on the drugs list, on the tariff since last year. So despite having had 14 months of shortages since then, nobody at the Department of Health seems to have looked and thought, oh, maybe we were responsible for that

and who have actually acted on it. So they haven't done that, which suggests just a lack of interest, basically. I would hesitate to go any further, but it's difficult to be sure. Well, don't the brands or the drug companies themselves have a role to play here? They could alter their prices, couldn't they? Well, they do, but ultimately every commercial company is interested in selling their drugs where they can get the highest price for it. And as I say, it looks as if what's happened here is if the NHS has simply said the only price we're prepared to pay is one that is lower than the rest of Europe. And I suppose some people listening, perhaps cynically, will be thinking

if this were a drug that wasn't something that only women took, different sets of decisions may have been taken. Well, yes. I mean, the other serious points we made here is that the second drug on the list of the shortages is contraception. So it does look like there's a pattern there. Right. So are you suggesting there might at some point be a shortage of contraception? Well, there already are shortages of contraception. If you ask the individual pharmacies which drugs they're having trouble getting hold of, contraception is second on the list. Right. You mean tablets? I believe so, yes. So we're talking purely about what we call the pill?

Yes. Right. And when you've obviously spent, I know it's taken you a long, long time to get answers to any of your questions. You sense a real defensiveness, do you here? Well, I couldn't get a response from anybody, you know, in the government. And there's another, well, you see, this decision was made by the Department of Health. And specifically, it says on the document that the minister, the Secretary of State, is responsible for the drugs tariff. So it was Jeremy Hunt when the changes were made and then Matt Hancock when the shortages came in. But there's also another organisation called the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee and they, in tandem with

the Health Department, make this decision. I tried very hard to get a statement out of both of these organisations and neither of them would speak to me. Interesting. Thank you very much Emma. We appreciate it. That is the journalist Emma Hartley who's been investigating the shortage of HRT unexplained thus far in the UK for Tortoise. Thank you very much Emma. We appreciate it. And we are hoping to get some kind of a response from the Department of Health and Social Care on the programme very soon.

Now, you might have seen this woman when she was a guest in the audience of Strictly back in 2016. I have to say it took me by surprise when we were introduced, the viewers, to a woman called Patricia Ward Kelly, the widow of Gene Kelly. Now, he died in 1996 and he'd been married to Patricia, his third wife, for just six years. There was, I should say, a 47-year age gap. But as you're about to hear, this was quite a love story. So Gene Kelly's films, you'll know them. An American in Paris, On the Town, Singing in the Rain, of course.

They're almost certainly going to be on a television somewhere near you over Christmas. Patricia is making it her life's work to make sure that he is not forgotten. She told me how she first met Gene Kelly. I mean, the grand irony is that I probably was the only woman in the room who had never heard of Gene Kelly. And it was very funny. I was a writer on a television special about the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. You were an academic specializing in some of the works of the Moby Dick author.

Herman Melville. Yeah. I was as nerdy as you get. Right. I spent every waking hour in a library and didn't really go to the movies. I kind of, as you're saying, I missed the heyday of the Hollywood musical. And Gene was the host narrator of the show. And so we passed each other.

He was coming out of the men's room and I was going into the ladies room at the Air and Space Museum. Well, it's not the most romantic thing, but hey. But it was, I'll never forget, I really can see that moment because he was in this beautiful blue suit with a red tie and he just sort of, he had a graceful manner about him, just in every way that he moved. And he just kind of bowed very slightly to me and said hello. He was at the time, though, in his early 70s? He was 73, so... I mean, there are 73-year-olds and 73-year-olds.

Yeah, and he was the latter. And it was just... There was nothing old about him. It was funny because at one point, he hated when people would be on television and they would kind of creep across the stage. And he said, I hate it when people play old. And I said, Well, how would you play old? And he said, How would I play old? I mean, I think he was about 80 at that point. But it's just,

his mind was, it went 100 miles an hour. I mean, he was such a bright man. I think a polymath is what your term would be. Ours would be Renaissance man. He spoke Italian, he spoke French, he read Latin, he spoke Yiddish. He really had a great sense of words and language. I want to know how you went from that appreciation of him in that moment to marrying him. And you were, we don't want to over egg this, but you were a young woman in your early 20s. That's right. Well, the romance was never supposed to happen. And we actually bonded initially over words and language that my pet study in graduate school was word origins, was etymology and poetry. And those were Jean's pet studies. And so we were sitting

in this room together to keep all of the other women away from Jean. The director put me in the room with Jean to kind of keep him occupied, and all the other women were just literally scratching at the door. But it was, I mean, just to listen to him. And so I immediately was enchanted with this use of language in the poetry. And we just sat in the room quoting poetry back and forth. And about six months later, I had given him a piece of paper with my phone number on it. And he gave me his phone number on a little piece of paper. It said private. And he called me about six months later and asked me to come out to California. And he asked then if I would stay and write his memoir with him. And I said, yes. And your own friends, your family, what did they make of your burgeoning relationship with this legendary figure?

Well, my parents actually did know who Gene Kelly was, so they were ahead of me on that. But, you know, they understood it. I think I never really had colored within the lines in my entire life. I was always a little bit out of the ordinary, I think. So for my parents, there was nothing exceptional about it, and they really understood the relationship and were extremely supportive. And I think that that made it much easier. They couldn't have stopped anything, but I think it was quite challenging for them because I'd grown up in Colorado, and my mother would go to the checkout stands at the grocery,

and I was always on the cover of all the tabloids, and that was a different world for them. And to see all of the things that are not true that are written about your child, I think it was. And they would get calls from all the tabloids, so they would just post little notes by the phone of how to respond. So it opened up a different world, but they came to visit often, and they really understood that there was a very loving bond there in addition to this kind of intellectual connection. And did you, I just want to know really, whether you sat with him and watched his films? I forced him to watch his films. It was not something he wanted to enjoy doing

because it was hard for him because he would inevitably see things that he could have done better. But I kept a recording going, so I recorded his comments as we went along. For example, the American Paris Ballet, he said, you know, I am proud of that. I think people look at it now and it's so fresh and contemporary. And did he like Singing in the Rain? Did he approve of that?

Well, he did. I think what was interesting is that when Singing in the Rain came out, he said it just didn't have the response that American in Paris had gotten the year before. is really the one that everyone around the world recognizes as kind of the big, iconic piece. I'm singing in the rain Just singing in the rain What a glorious... There's so much mythology about making that particular number, in fact. You know, you'll read things that they put milk in the water so you could see the raindrops. That's not true.

You'll read that he did it all in one take. It's not one take. It's multiple takes, but the takes are long and extended. He died in 1996 and didn't live long enough, obviously, to begin, I don't suppose, to understand the significance of Singing in the Rain, particularly for people with ADHD and similar sorts of conditions. I know this is something that you've done a lot of work about recently. Can you start to explain that? Do you understand it fully?

Well, yes, I think I do, because several of my friends have children who are somewhere on the spectrum, autism, and they watch Singing in the Rain. One friend said she thought her son had probably watched it about 2,000 times. Jean said that the point of the movie was, and particularly that iconic scene, was to bring joy, and it does around the world. And I think that there's the music and the joyfulness of the performance has a very calming effect. And so it's used not only for ADHD kids and people, but also a lot of screenings, relaxed screenings for people with Alzheimer's and dementia. He did not know about that.

That's something that really has emerged since he died. And I think he'd be very, very moved by that. Isn't it intriguing that that film in particular represents a kind of place of safety for people, that they can just be there in that moment? That's a very good word for it, I think, and I may borrow that from you if you don't mind, because I think that's exactly it. It's a kind of cocooning feeling. Of course, because you were so young when you got together with Gene Kelly,

you have been his widow far longer than you were his wife. Would it be really unfair to describe you, and I don't mean this in a derogatory way, as a kind of professional widow, because you are determined to keep his memory alive and to keep people aware of the importance of the work he did. Well, I think, and I had an unusual situation. I don't think most spouses record their husband every day for over 10 years.

Well, you were an academic and actually you made him your life's work, didn't you? That's really it. And so I think when people ponder it and they ask about it and they think there's kind of this long-term preoccupation with him. And I think, well, if I if my subject were, let's say, a president or an American writer, if I had continued with Melville, nobody would think that was different. But I think you don't feel the loss of yourself here. This is you've put yourself to one side to celebrate your late husband. Well, it's an it's an interesting question, and I speak in a lot of schools. Jean grew up in Pittsburgh, and I had spoken, I think, in 34 high schools there. And I always make a provision.

I walk in and I say, okay, within these four walls, you can ask me any question you want. You can ask me how old I am, and And first thing is, how old are you? And, you know, they think you're a dinosaur. One young man said, Thank you, Mrs. Kelly, for all that you do. But what happened to your identity? And I was, I kind of stopped and because I thought, is it that transparent, you know, and I had to really think about it. That was really kind of a turning point for me, because that was really when I began to say, okay, how am I going to be shaped within this going forward mode? How do I maintain my own self and my own integrity? And it was

really kind of in a weird way, sort of a coming out party, because I then decided, okay, I'm going to embrace this and come out. And so when people meet me, and I do these shows, they they see who I am, they know, it's it's about Jean, but they also have a very firm sense of who I am and how my mind and my heart function as well. Is there any doubt in your mind about, did Gene pick you as such a young woman in order for you to pursue this as your life after his death? Does that ever cross your mind?

And I know that does sound a terribly cynical question. No, I don't. Well, I think it's funny because people will say things to me. They'll say, well, you know, you were you were very young and Gene was much older. And I'll say, yes. And he was a very smart man, wasn't he? And I don't I mean, because we didn't set out to have a relationship. I mean, I think had we, you know, gone into it in a normal fashion of dating or something, which we didn't do.

We just started working together. And then this, you know, the magnificence of his mind was just, and he's gorgeous, I mean, and charming and witty. Our love is here to stay Not for a year Love is here to stay. Not for a year, but ever and a day. The radio. You know, your face does change when you talk about him in moments like this.

You know that, don't you, actually? Well, I don't think about it, but I guess it does, yeah. So I think Gene was a very smart man, and I think that he knew that he was entrusting someone with his story who would treat it with care. And the fact that he entrusted me with the archives, I think, says an awful lot, because he knew that I was an archivist and that I would put everything in acid-free folders and that I would care for it and make sure that it, you know, a lot of people say, why don't you sell the things and you can pay your mortgage and things, but I believe that it needs to be maintained as a collection and go forward.

But I think he was very savvy. Nobody can help who they fall for. I mean, that's life. And nobody also thinks at that time, I wonder how long I'll be alone for when they go, because you don't know, do you do you know and it's the funny thing because I mean it was always the joke of Dean Martin who married a much younger woman and the press asked him you know about the age difference and he his response was well if she

dies she dies you know Joan Collins has said that a few times. I know it's the constant thing. And I think when you look at it, too, it's not that unusual. I mean, there's so many people in history who have married much younger people. I mean, let's be honest, it tends to be men who marry much younger women rather than the other way around. Not saying it never happens. It just isn't as common. Well, no, just not in. If you go to France, there's a, it tends to go a little bit more in that other direction. I still move to France is all I can say. That was Jean Kelly's widow, Patricia Ward Kelly, talking about her late husband. Now, to your emails and your thoughts on everything we talked about today, we'll start with politics.

Here's a listener who says, I wanted to vote Labour and I wanted to vote Green and I wanted to vote Lib Dem, but it was their views on self-ID that stopped me from doing so. I believe women were disenfranchised by these parties. From Carol, you said that Jo Swinson lost, but you failed to mention or congratulate an amazing young woman who won East Dunbartonshire. That was Amy Callaghan of the SNP. So we've mentioned her now.

And yes, congratulations to everyone who was elected overnight. From Amy, instead of talking about Brexit, you should be discussing how poverty in the UK should be being solved and how Food Bank Britain is going to end. Many children will be waking up with nothing this Christmas. But no, as long as Brexit gets done, give it a break, ladies. That's Amy. Sharon, I cannot believe Labour Party MPs are still blaming Brexit. Well, we didn't have a Labour Party MP with us. I think you must be talking about Ash Sarkar, who is certainly a Labour supporter. Sharon says, I think it's Corbyn that's the problem.

All my family are Labour supporters, but we couldn't vote Labour. We all voted Conservative. From Cathy, I just cried when I heard the results. I cried for the future of my children. I didn't see a good future for them at all. And I work with people suffering the massive effects of poverty in Bradford. I see the impact and the decline in Bradford over the last decade. From Lizzie, I'm 34 and I voted Conservative and I feel frustrated being told the reason that Boris won is because of Brexit. It was a factor, but Jeremy Corbyn would have ruined the economic stability of our country. A Labour government would have killed any inspiration and aspiration for us to work harder.

Why would anybody study for five plus years to get a higher wage when you can do an unskilled job and still reap all the benefits. From Karen, what about the media representation of Jeremy Corbyn? Most people don't spend time reading manifestos, they pick up the headlines of the tabloids and the highlights from news bulletins. I was gutted when the exit poll was announced. This election has caused heated discussions and arguments even with like-minded people. It all depends on how much you read behind the headlines, says Karen. From Teresa, I'm 76. I've voted Labour for the last 57 years, but not this time. Corbyn was absolutely unelectable. No one could see him being successfully in charge of anything at all, and certainly not our country.

That's the thoughts of a listener called Teresa. From Debbie, I can't believe you didn't mention Emily Thornberry whilst talking about women Labour politicians. She seemed to me to be a woman of principle. I'm not naturally a Labour voter. I've always tended towards the Liberals. However, times, they are a changing. From Kevin, the comment that it was a blokey election is really about masculine energy being displayed. Women and men have it. That masculine energy, which is about drive, solving problems and moving forward, came across very strongly from Boris Johnson.

But it's not the preserve of the men. That's what the country seems to want. Nicola Sturgeon has oodles of it. Thank you, Kevin. HRT. This from Catherine. Just wanted to point out or remind people that it isn't just middle-aged women who take HRT, and this is an important point actually. Many younger women are reliant on it due to gynecological or endocrinological conditions that mean that their bodies don't produce hormones naturally or correctly. Thank you for making that point, Catherine. From Amy said, I can't get hold of Celeste or other contraceptive pills. This is Amy, can't get hold of the stuff. Often have to go to pharmacies on the other side of town. Can't find it there either. From Jane, Emma is so right. Middle-aged women are ignored so much. What would happen if the same thing happened to

heart failure tablets? There'd be uproar because, of course, heart disease affects men. Well, it also affects women, very much so, in fact. But yes, I take your point, Jane. From Roger, I'm a community pharmacist, and this is interesting, and I'm battling with HRT and other drug shortages on a daily basis. The problems with HRT are particularly acute and it impacts on the daily lives of women Thank you. Ulrich, and I've hit the same problem. According to my doctor, the problem is affecting lots of places, not just the UK. I think it is more complicated than price. Something else is going on. And from Laura, I was shocked earlier this year when I wasn't able to get my usual prescription of Lostrin, which is used specifically to control symptoms of endometriosis.

It is very worrying. Right, there we are. Thanks to everybody who's emailed, because there is some, you know, obviously it's a difficult morning in lots of ways, and a joyful morning in others for lots and lots of you, I'm sure. But thank you all for listening,

taking part and giving us your point of view. Please keep doing exactly that. Weekend Woman's House tomorrow afternoon at four, or of course the podcast will be available too, and then we're back live two minutes past 10 on Monday. Henry Akeley disappeared from his home on the edge of Rendlesham Forest somewhere around the end of June 2019.

They come every night now. The police don't believe me. Please, I just need you to get in touch. What we uncovered is a mystery that has sent us deep into England's past, to an area steeped in witchcraft, the occult, secret government operations, and something that might indeed be altogether otherworldly. This is The Whisperer in Darkness.

Available now on BBC Sounds. 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.