Woman's Hour - Glenda Jackson, Coronavirus & Advice for Pregnant Women

Episode Date: March 17, 2020

We consider the latest advice for pregnant women when it comes to coronavirus. Jane speaks to Jess Brammer, editor in chief HuffPost UK, who is currently on maternity leave and Dr Mary Ross-Davie - Director for Scotland, Royal College of Midwives. And in other coronavirus news: many offices, shops, bars, restaurants, schools, are likely to close. Many workers and businesses will see their income collapse, almost overnight. So what if you are laid off? What if you are self-employed? What financial decisions should you be making? What support could you be entitled to?Glenda Jackson plays the poet, writer and critic Edith Sitwell in Radio 4 drama Edith Sitwell in Scarborough. She joins Jane to discuss Edith, as well as being on grandma duty and what books she would recommend during a period of isolation. The Scottish Government is currently consulting on a Bill to reform the Gender Recognition Act. Jane talks to Rhona Hotchkiss, former governor of Cornton Vale prison in Stirling and signatory of SNP women’s pledge and James Morton, Manager of the Scottish Trans Alliance about concerns for protecting trans rights and women’s rights and how any Scottish legislation will sit with the UK Equality Act 2010. Presenter: Jane Garvey Interviewed guest: Dr Mary Ross-Davie Interviewed guest: Jess Brammer Interviewed guest: Jasmine Birtles Interviewed guest: Glenda Jackson Interviewed guest: Rhona Hotchkiss Interviewed guest: James Morton Producer: Lucinda Montefiore

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hi, this is Jane Garvey and thank you for downloading the Woman's Hour podcast from Tuesday 17th March 2020. Good morning to you. I hope you're feeling reasonably well this morning. We're here for you. We want your involvement, your questions. We want really you to tell us what we need to be telling you.

That's what we're all about. So at BBC Women's Hour on Twitter and Instagram. You can email us via the website. We've got the finance journalist Jasmine Bertels with us this morning. Jasmine, good to see you. We'll be asking you some questions. And if you have any questions for Jasmine, and I know a lot of people are feeling, to put it mildly, concerned about their financial status at the moment. At BBC Women's Hour. I've got Twitter open here in front of me.

I can see it. You can get involved. I know Jasmine won't know the answer to everything, but we're really interested in what is worrying you, and she'll do her very best. We're also going to talk to Glenda Jackson, who tells me that her family has put her on lockdown. So we'll hear from Glenda in a moment or two as well. But we are going to start with pregnancy,

what it's like to be pregnant right now. We do know from the advice yesterday that people need to minimise their social contact if they're over 70, regardless of their state of health. And the Prime Minister yesterday also said that applies to anybody with significant health conditions, so they don't fuel the epidemic, don't go to hospital and don't catch the virus. And now at that press conference yesterday,

pregnant women were also referenced. So here's Chris Whitty, the chief medical advisor to the British government. And also as a precautionary measure, because we are early in our understanding of this virus and we want to be sure women who are pregnant and those three groups are the groups we want to take particular care to minimize their social contact which will of course will have very significant risks for them. Right that was Chris Whitty speaking yesterday. Jess Brammer is the editor-in-chief of HuffPost UK. Her baby, it's her first baby, is due on May the 8th. And we're also going to talk to Dr Mary Ross-Davie,

Director for Scotland of the Royal College of Midwives. Jess, you are 32 weeks pregnant. There must be a lot on your mind. Yes, definitely. I'm speaking to you from inside my house, obviously. I did pop out at 7am

for a quick walk around the park before it got too busy. But yeah, it's just an incredibly weird time to be pregnant, to be honest. What advice have you had? So everything changed yesterday. I obviously don't have the luxury that I would advise some of my friends to slightly step away from following the rolling coverage of everything because I have to cover it for my job. So I was watching that press conference live. And it did come as something of a surprise to me, actually, to see pregnant women dragged into that group with people with underlying health conditions and the over 70s.

Because up to that point, we were being told that there was no particular risk to pregnant people. And as we understand it now, there isn't necessarily. They're just being extremely um cautionary so this is about a precaution it doesn't mean that we necessarily are more at risk um but the advice that we had last night um about three hours after the press conference the government put guidelines online which basically said we should be practicing social distancing um and isolation so we should minimising any kind of contact that is not essential. So basically that means staying indoors and not seeing your friends and family,

which for anyone who has been through pregnancy, that's not quite how certainly the final bit of pregnancy is meant to be. This time last week, we were planning for my parents to come up at the weekend and help decorate the baby's room we've had to definitely have a big rethink of our expectations of this final few months I think what about antenatal appointments so I'm not sure about appointments yet um what I can say is I was due to go to my antenatal class um yesterday evening and that was hastily cancelled via email about an hour before we were due to go there um we're not sure about appointments we're still waiting to hear about that i'm now at

the stage in pregnancy where my midwife um will be coming to the house for appointments anyway but obviously we have one final scan left at 35 weeks um i think i'm going to the hospital for that uh the nhs hospital in south london where um i'm i'm a patient for this i'm not sure and i you know the whatsapp group of local pregnant women lit up last night after that press conference lots of rumors about whether partners will be allowed to attend scans and indeed whether partners will be allowed to attend births which is obviously something um that is much much more extreme which is obviously something that is much more extreme a measure and something that I haven't heard any concrete advice on. It's obviously something I'll be asking my midwife as soon as I can. Right, okay. We'll come back to you, Jess,

but thank you very much for that. So Mary Ross Davey, first of all, what about attending appointments? Should women do that? Yes. So what I would advise is that it's really important that pregnant women do continue to have antenatal care and they'll need to phone their midwife if they've got an appointment coming up just to check what the arrangements are for that and as you'll guess we're saying often midwives are able to provide that care in the home and come and visit and that may be what happens increasingly right but of course the midwife does have to be in perfect health yes absolutely and then also if the the current advice as well is if a pregnant woman does have

symptoms um that she thinks could be coronavirus that she also should phone her midwife and GP and not go in to attend an appointment, but discuss whether that appointment should be deferred and what the arrangements are. But we need to be clear that a pregnant woman is at no greater risk if she does indeed get the coronavirus than anybody else. That's what the cases have been showing. Yes, that pregnant women are at greater risk

of becoming seriously ill with the virus. So it's a precautionary measure to just ensure that pregnant women aren't at any greater risk. Right. I think I do need to pin you down on this. Is the truth that you don't actually know whether a pregnant woman is at greater risk if she gets the coronavirus than anybody else? As Chris Whitty was saying yesterday, it's very early in our understanding of this virus. And there aren't a huge number of cases so far of pregnant women with the virus. So there's only a small pool of evidence at the moment that we're working with. And so a lot of the work that's being done is drawing on

the evidence that we do have and we're gathering evidence as it comes in from women who do have the virus. And then we're basing that on clinical expert advice and thinking. And so there's lots of work that's ongoing and there will be more advice that comes out over time later in the week. It's so important to be calm and to offer practical advice to people. So it would seem that women who are pregnant now will be providing valuable information to future pregnant women, but it's not of much consolation to them, particularly if they're going through their first pregnancy, that this is really going to concern people.

Yes, I mean, it will be a hugely unsettling time. Pregnancy in itself and coming up to the time of birth is it's already a time of heightened anxiety uh for women and families and so this virus is really going to add to that so what we would say is is really be kind kind to yourself uh look out for your relatives because we've got so many questions coming in i just want to ping some at you and i understand if you don't know the answer by by the way, I absolutely do. Painkillers, if you're pregnant and you get the coronavirus, are you OK to take paracetamol? Again, I'm not a prescriber and I would always advise a pregnant woman to seek advice on any medication that she's taking from her obstetrician or a GP but so far our advice is that yes to continue to take the painkillers that you wouldn't normally be able

to take during the end. Paracetamol is one of those. Right if you are taking paracetamol or you run or actually sorry if you run out of paracetamol or you can't get hold of it, is it actually okay to be pregnant and to have a fever? Yes, there is evidence that having a very high temperature for a sustained period in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy can have a detrimental impact. And so paracetamol is a good a good way to to try and help bring down a high temperature and also cooling so using cold cool cloth those kind of things a fan to help bring down the temperature a little. What about partners will they be able to attend births or appointments? Again this is is all advice that we're working on currently.

But the advice currently is that visitors should just be around, should be essential people. And our view is that birth partners are essential to women during labour and birth. And we know it's a hugely important time for women and you need to have someone with you who you know and who cares about you. And that's the case for the great majority of women.

But that person must be in perfect health. Yes, that's right. So again, it's really being aware at the time, thinking it through and thinking if your partner is unwell at that point, is that the right person to have with you? Will some midwife-led units at NHS hospitals be given over for emergency care? Contingency plans around units and isolation units and those kind of things and hubs are all being discussed at a national level currently. And that advice will be coming out later this week. What, as soon as, well, only as late? I mean, will it be tomorrow?

People are getting a bit desperate, I think. Yeah, what I would say is that women will have somewhere safe to labour and give birth and that their midwives will be there providing care for them wherever they need to have that care. That's what we do. And I'm so proud of what midwives are doing now and really standing there and working as hard as they can and providing that care. But because, of course, and again, the very nature of all this means that midwives are meeting people all the time. They are themselves at risk. We can't deny that, can we? No, no, we can't. That's absolutely true.

And it's a worrying time for all health care professionals as well. So again, the be kind message. Oh, no, listen i've i've endorsed endorsed that 100 percent um another listener says um much more worrying than running out of pasta is that the shelves in supermarkets are low now on baby formula should it be rationed what the advice around feeding at the moment is that um we would say that you know breastfeeding is the best way to feed your baby um if you're able to that there's no evidence um uh that you're uh that it's a risky thing to do to breastfeed your baby and that you're more likely to provide protection through sharing your antibodies yeah but forgive me again the question

i absolutely agree if you can breastfeed that's wonderful but it doesn't apply to everybody what about people who for a string of good reasons are giving their babies formula yes absolutely and and pharmacists community pharmacies will be um important in this if if you're finding that the supplies are running low in the supermarket. And again, I would call your surgery and call your health visitor if they're now caring for you rather than your midwives and ask for advice about that. Stuart tweets to say he has a newborn, a three-week-old who wasn't actually due until the 24th. Is there anything particular that people should be concerned about looking after a newborn baby who's a little bit premature?

Yes, our advice there would very much be around really being careful with the number of visitors that are coming and around hand hygiene. You know, when visitors, if you are having visitors, not handling the baby too much and kissing the baby, which would actually be normal advice that we would give for people with a newborn baby, particularly a slightly early baby. OK, Mary, thank you very much.

There are so many other questions we could get to. Actually, one listener is just saying, don't mention my name, should I actually be trying for a baby right now? What would you briefly say about that? I think real life can't go on hold. And we don't know how long this period is going to go on for. I think that's a really, really individual decision for people to make. Mary, thank you for making yourself available this morning.

Jess, did that help a little bit, Jess Brammer? Yes, in as much as, to be honest, any information helps, and there's definitely been a lack of it over recent weeks, but we need more info. And, yeah, it needs to be targeted specifically at the pregnant. It's quite simple. It needs to get out there pretty quickly, doesn't it, all that? Absolutely. It really does, yes.

OK, Jess, very best of luck to you and indeed to anyone else who's pregnant at the moment. You can talk to us, through us, using at BBC Women's Hour on Twitter. Please tell us what you think about what was just said there, what you want to know in the future, what we can do for you the rest of this week, the rest of the summer. Let's be honest about what lies ahead.

Finance journalist Jasmine Bertels is here. Right, Jasmine, hospitality was in the hospitality industry, was in the news at 10 o'clock. I know you're particularly concerned about women who work in that part of the business. Yes, and there are a lot of women and they tend to be on zero hours contracts. And I know that, for example, cleaners are already being let go. You've got people, waiters, all of that area. And that's looking like a tough place to be working. So I am concerned really about those ones.

But of course, you know, across the board, you've got a lot of freelancers, people on zero hours contracts who don't have access to sick pay, who don't have access to regular income if they're not working. So that's where the tough side is particularly, I think. We have an email here from Maxine who says,

I run a cleaning business. I keep hearing about plumbers and builders, but what about all of us women out there cleaning private houses? It's just me and my business. My customers are quite wealthy and they've travelled the globe in recent months. Apart from the financial situation, I'm worried sick about catching the virus as I'm in private houses, six days a week cleaning, bathrooms are my particular worry. Interesting. Yes. Well, I can understand that. Although on the other side, I've got a friend who's a cleaner who said that all of her clients have cancelled. So her concern is money.

Well, maybe everyone should keep paying for a start. Well, that would be nice if they're able to, you know, these people who are able to go all abroad, if they could help their cleaner, if they're not going to take them in, that would be something, I think, to do. But I think if you are a cleaner, one of the good things, of course, is that you are surrounded by cleaning fluids. And this is what we're all told to be doing, to clean everything, to wash, to use detergents. So it's quite possible that you're not in such a bad situation because you really can clean everything and use even more detergents than you used to. Amanda says, I'm self-employed and a single parent. All my work has been cancelled. I get working tax credit and child tax credit. I'm only eligible if I work at least 16 hours a week, but I don't have any work. So what do I do? Will I still get the benefit? Well, I would talk to the benefits person that you're dealing with.

And this is something I'm saying to everybody who's concerned that they're not going to get enough work. If you're not already signed up to universal credit, if you're not already signed up to benefits, then do do it. Sign up now. It takes weeks quite often for it to come through. And I think particularly at the moment, it's going to take a lot. But it's definitely worth speaking to your local job centre. Tell them the situation. They will be hearing this from all sorts of people. So I think that it should be all right because in the budget, the Chancellor did say that

they're getting rid of the minimum income floor um so they are bending bending over backwards it seems at least um to people who don't have work or are losing a lot of their work um so i would find out from from your local office what the situation is um and as i say it's likely that they will be understanding because you know they know the situation as well as you do. I mean, they might be understanding, but they'll also be inundated, won't they? Absolutely, yes, yes.

And this is one of the problems. I mean, I am telling people, if you're freelance and you're not getting work, sign on to Universal Credit. And you're going to have a lot of people doing this. And already it takes a long time for Universal Credit to come through at the beginning. And I do think we're all going to have to wait a bit longer even to get it.

But at some point you'll get it. And this is a useful thing if you are freelance. You are considered to be a job seeker because, you know, that's the point of freelancing. You're constantly job seeking. Well, you're always looking for work. Yeah, you are always looking for work. And so at the moment for a lot people, the work isn't coming in. Maybe it's work that they can't do from home or their clients have all cancelled.

So, yeah, absolutely. You do have a right to go for universal credit, to go for benefits. And it's worth signing on because apart from anything else, even though you're going to have to wait for your money, it means that you are potentially able to have other benefits, you know, cheaper eye tests and that sort of thing. There are other things you get with that. Yeah. Now, we know that the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, he's doing the government press conference at five o'clock around that time tonight. There'll be more information there. What would you like to hear from him? Well, you know, some of the things that he offered in the budget,

I'd like to see expanded. So, for example, in the budget, he said that people with mortgages will be allowed... Well, no, actually, this wasn't in the budget. The banks have said that people with mortgages will be allowed to have mortgage holidays. But what I would like to hear from the Chancellor

is that people who rent will have some sort of security because there are 5 million renters. A lot of them are women. A lot of them are freelancers. Not all the young either. No, exactly. And at the moment, there's no protection for them. He also said, he did say that those in small businesses,

so businesses that have fewer than 250 people, those businesses would be helped, they would be helped with their employees, their employees could get extra cash, sick pay, but not the larger companies. Now, you could say, well,

larger companies, alright, but this means big hotel chains, it means the big names on the high street which are already struggling marks and spencers debonams you know they've got lots and lots of of employees so um the the government needs to support those a bit more as well i think yeah i did say that it would probably be hard to get through to get help and this listener has emailed to say i've tried for days to get through to the job center the lines are engaged perpetually um here's another one my daughter and her partner both quit their jobs before the virus they've been working so hard for the past five months and we're just

about to open their cafe they haven't yet opened and it looks like they won't open anytime soon will they be entitled to any support they don't claim benefit and they're just living on the very last of their savings we're pensioners we just can't give them any financial support no quite and i mean there again i think that that means that they are now essentially freelance they can apply for employment support allowance you can you can apply for that even if you're employed, self-employed or unemployed. It's not a lot though. It's £74 a week, which is really not going to help a lot. So again, I would suggest that they join the queue with everybody else and ring up there, trying to get through to their local job centre. It's also worth having a look at gov.uk and that's the government's website.

You can apply for universal credit there. Again, it is a long process. All of this is a long process, I'm afraid. And you'll get people who've never been part of this system trying to navigate it. Absolutely, absolutely. And sometimes, you know, for people who've worked all their lives or they've had maybe white-collar jobs and it hasn't occurred to them to do this. It is a whole different way of thinking and working, yeah. Alison on Twitter says, Universal Credit is a pittance. It doesn't even cover the rent.

That's why we had food banks. It isn't sufficient to even cover food and basic bills. Well, we talked about food banks yesterday. I mean, we can't emphasise enough. If you can, keep on giving to the food bank. I know it's a big if, enough if you can keep on giving to the food bank it's i know it's a big if but if you can please remember to do that um now what else was i going to say we've got about freelance musicians are getting that's a very important point there's all these people are going to have their gigs cancelled they can't do any sort of work at all

no it's it's already happening definitely yes I have some musician friends who've had pretty much everything cancelled. And, you know, I'm sorry to say it's the same advice in terms of benefits. However, it's not just benefits that we can turn to, thankfully, because, you know, as we've said, that takes a long time. I'm also looking at ways that people can make money from home. This is something we do on my website, Money Magpie. We do look into lots of ways that people can make extra cash, side hustles, you know. And it's not easy for everybody, but there are some obvious ones that we can all do. For example, if you're stuck at home, you might as well make the most of

it and do a bit of a spring clean, find things that you don't need anymore and sell them. Put them on eBay, put them on Gumtree, put them on Facebook groups. That's a good start. Also, there's a fair amount that you can do online. So I've talked to people who are, for example, they are psychologists or they're meeting people and they don't want to meet people. So they're starting to do a lot more through Zoom and Skype. People are setting up online courses. Again, I've spoken to a videographer who has had all of his work cancelled. And I suggested to him that he set up online courses on how to do video,

because people are paying for this. So there are ways. But the other thing is we need to help each other. I think people need to share as much as they can, help your neighbours, because really, you know, together, united we'll stand. If you had to prioritise a couple of payments you must make, if you possibly can, what are they, Jasmine? Well, I would say your council tax and certainly your utilities. I mean, again, if you're going to be at home, you're going to be using your gas and electricity rather more. So far, I haven't heard about the utilities companies giving people breaks.

Your mortgage, I would normally say your mortgage, but now because the government, because banks are giving people mortgage holidays, you know, deferring payments. By the way, there's no long term implication for you if you take a mortgage holiday. No, no, that's what they're saying. No, absolutely. It does mean that your interest, it piles up. So it's not like it's not going away. Oh, no, absolutely. And I would like to see more help for people who rent. And I would say at the moment, if you possibly can, do pay your rent. But if it's really, really difficult, speak to your landlord. Not all landlords are the same.

This is the problem. Really, landlords could be getting this mortgage holiday, but not all of them will hand it on. Quick question. I mean, people might think it's insignificant but it isn't if it's your big day. If you've booked a wedding, has that gone? Well, yeah. I mean, if you've got wedding insurance,

I would check your insurance because most wedding insurance has cancellation policy. I mean, you know, people cancel for all sorts of reasons. So do check with it. The ABI, the Association of British Insurers, has a section on their site, which is a coronavirus Q&A. And they've got all different types of insurance there saying, you know, what's going to be happening and what's and it's changing all the time, frankly, particularly with

travel insurance. I'm on Moneybox tomorrow talking about travel insurance, and we'll be seeing today what the new rules are. So it's worth having a look if If you are wondering what's happening with your insurance of any sort, whether it's business insurance, wedding insurance, travel insurance, check with your insurer and also have a look at this Q&A page on the ABI's website. Thank you so much, Jasmine. I appreciate it. Jasmine Bertels, her website is moneymagpie.com. I tell you who will have the last laugh.

All those brilliant crafters that we've featured on Woman's Hour over the years. They'll be making some great stuff. I did say earlier to Jasmine there'll be some terrible novels written over the next couple of weeks. Truly terrible. I hope I don't have to read any of them. Thank you very much, Jasmine.

Moneybox, you're on tomorrow. Yeah, great stuff. Thank you very much. Now let's have a bit of Glenda Jackson. She's on Radio 4 a little later today, quarter past two, in a play about the writer and critic Edith Sitwell. It's called Edith Sitwell in Scarborough.

Glenda was, of course, a Labour MP from 1992 to 2015 and only went back to acting a couple of years ago in a series of Radio 4 plays. Last year, of course, she got rave reviews for her part in a BBC drama, drama elizabeth is missing playing a woman with dementia now i did talk to glenda before the latest government advice was issued i asked her first of all who edith sitwell was she was the eldest child of i don't know how to put this politely um crazy parents he had land I mean he had a title

as did her mother her mother was a drunk Edith when she was a child because she had some kind of curvature of the spine was put in this terrible metal kind of bodice her mother thought her nose should be straightened so she had put

a thing on her nose she desperately wanted to go to university um edith but that was completely out of the question um and yet she turned out to be this wonderful writer and i mean you must have heard of facade which was yes yeah her books i mean i remember reading the queens and the hive when i was doing the telly series. And she was just a remarkable, remarkable woman. She presented herself to be looked at in a most autocratic, individual, innovative way. And she succeeded.

Her parents, were they just classic people of their time or were they uniquely horrible? I couldn't quite make it out. Certainly, as far as she was concerned, they were uniquely horrible. But the boys certainly were treated, it would seem, by their parents in an infinitely more grown-up way than she was. I mean, because the whole ethos, as far as her mother was concerned, was that Edith should be well married off. And she regarded Edith as being not only physically plain but also physically disabled. Well the play is really interesting. You go back as an older woman and meet your younger

self and take on your parents and actually show them your triumph because you are very much somebody and they don't quite know how to take it, do they? Well it's not that they don't know how to take it. They simply discount it because their opinions are, for them,

the only opinions that matter in regard to Edith. What I found particularly interesting about the play was that the young Edith presents a different perspective on what the old Edith regards, in essence, as physical torture visited upon her by her parents. And that throws a whole new light on things. I hardly dare ask this, but I'm going to ask it. I'll take my life in my hands. What do you say to people who, they must say this to you,

why on earth did you waste all that time at Westminster when you could have been doing your brilliant acting? Well, curiously enough, they don't. I mean, that's very curious, but I think it's partly the English. I mean, they do let you do your work and go home. Slightly less if you're actually an MP. They tend to pursue you rather more. But no, I never got that, no. You don't regret it yourself?

Oh, no. I mean, you know, what I saw happening to my country under Thatcher and her regime was simply dreadful. And no, I mean, I valued that opportunity to do my little bit to try and restore the basic morality, not the economy, of this country. Would you go back there now? No, because I really genuinely am now, I think, too old for it. I don't necessarily mean in years,

but when you saw the absolute shambles that they managed to make of our political system during the whole Brexit thing, and I have to say now we have to wait and see, because, of course, everything has been taken off the political register because of this pandemic. Well, I was going to ask you about that, of course, inevitably. Brexit seems a distant dream. And actually, there are many people getting, frankly, nostalgic for those halcyon days when that was all we had to talk about. Well, exactly. nostalgic for those halcyon days when that was all we had to talk about well exactly um in in one way it's that curious mixture of being able to say not again not brexit again to saying oh perhaps we could have a little bit of brexit now because it's all coronavirus 19 now um i've just done a

phone in on women's hour we had a lot of emails and some calls from the over-70s who are, not to put too fine a point on it, livid about the prospect of being isolated for weeks on end. What do you think about that? Well, I think it will be impossible for people to live isolated in that sense for weeks on end. I do think the government is genuinely concerned, not only the government the government is genuinely concerned,

not only the government, but our genuine concern to protect the, certainly my generation. I think it's been very badly presented, not least because, you know, we are in fact all living longer. And the fact that you've got to 70 doesn't mean to say your brain has ceased to work. No, and there are many over 70s, as they pointed out today, doing really important voluntary work.

Absolutely. And also, this again is going to cause another problem, I have no doubt. But if the schools are closed, who's expected to look after the grandkids? Someone who has been on Grandma Patrol more than once, I can assure you that you are expected to do it well past 70. Are you still on Grandma Patrol more than once, I can assure you that you are expected to do it well by 70. Are you still on Grandma Patrol? Not at the moment, no, because this has sort of taken over. And also, my grandson is getting to the age where, you know, he can virtually, well, he can't look after himself, but you know what I mean, he's not a baby anymore. No. What was a Glenda Jackson Grandma Day like?

I always found it interesting. I mean, the best thing, in a way, is there comes a point where you can say, look, I've had enough of this, you go home now, do you know what I mean? Without feeling guilty. Yeah, but have you ever been to a soft play centre? I have indeed, yes, and I like to join in. It takes them time to accommodate you if they don't know you,

but after they know you well enough to be able to ignore you you can join in and they wouldn't go so far as to say they actively welcome you but they'd actually scream at the sight of you. Okay, so you would get involved and get on the equipment would you, if necessary? Well, if I didn't have such a bad leg I would be delighted if I can get on the equipment, I certainly will. Elizabeth is Missing is certainly I watch that. When you get scripts like that, are you somewhat depressed by the storyline or do you acknowledge it as actually something really vital that needs to be on television? much more the latter than the former, because I have been banging on, and nobody listened to a

word I said, for a considerable period of time as to how we as a nation deal with the fact that we as individuals are living longer. Alzheimer's and dementia has risen, and we do not have sufficient care for people who are suffering from it. It's there. It's a big black hole. There was nothing in the budget that was specific about this aspect of the way our population is changing. Well, of course, you really feel at the moment for people with dementia, perhaps in the early stages. Absolutely. And their families.

That I saw not every day in and out, but when I was still the Member of Parliament, I would visit old people's homes and day centres and things like that. And it can be, well, it is. I mean, it's just deeply, deeply shocking when you see people where the parent no longer recognises their children. Yes, no, it's absolutely terrible. You're 83. What about the future?

Do you spend a great deal of time thinking about it? I mean, I'm probably typical of the average middle aged person with elderly parents and young kids at the moment, younger kids. Right. Slightly obsessing about what the next couple of months might hold. What's your mindset? Well, my family have told me that they're going to put me under lockdown and I've taken notice of that at all. I do think it is something that we have to address because it's the possibility of passing on infections, I think, which is the real issue here, without making people feel that they're completely

outside the human family. So what are you planning for the next couple of weeks and months? Do you have any work? I'm planning to do what I always do, which is get up, struggle around, getting washed and dressed because my leg's bad, do a bit of shopping if we're allowed to go to the shops. I'm very fortunate. I mean, my family are very close, so they can do bits of shopping for me.

But I think the last thing one wants to do is to be stuck inside. Is there a book or a series or something you'd recommend for anybody who was holed up for a length of time? Is there something that people might not have thought of that you'd like to draw attention to? I'm working my way through the last part of the Hilary Mantel trilogy, and I can strongly recommend it to everybody. But a book that I always read, I read on a biannual basis.

It tends to be Rebecca West's The Birds Fall Down. I just think it's a wonderful, wonderful book. And of course, there's always war and peace if you really want a good long read. I'm not that desperate, Glenda, I'm really not. You don't know what you've... It's a treat. Dip into it. All right.

And the Labour leadership, have you voted? Well, I'm not a paid-up member anymore, so, I mean, I still vote for Labour, of course. But I have two issues here. I mean, one is the process of getting our new leader has taken far too long, and the actual presentation of our case is in many instances I think lamentable so the sooner it's over the better it'll be. Glenda Jackson still

firing on every available cylinder and you can hear that play it's excellent actually quarter past two this afternoon here on Radio 4. Now the Scottish Government's consultation on reforming the Gender Recognition Act ends today. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon supports the idea that transgender people should be able to self-declare their gender rather than going through a medicalised and quite bureaucratic process. Not everyone agrees. A number of other prominent SNP politicians, including Joanna Cherry MP, are worried that single-sex spaces for women and girls may be lost. Rona Hotchkiss is a former governor of Caunton Vale Prison in Stirling. She's somebody else who's worried.

James Morton is manager of the Scottish Trans Alliance. James, good morning to you. You think the Scottish government has got it right just about. So getting a gender recognition certificate purely changes the sex on your birth certificate. So it would still be the last document that you change. You'd still change everything else first. You've always been able to change those documents when you start living permanently in your gender, rather than requiring any particular medical treatments or diagnoses or medical reports.

So we think it is right and proportionate to make it a little bit simpler to change that last document. Simpler and quicker, crucially. It's mostly about making sure that people aren't held back from getting it by red tape. So, for example, there's a number of trans people who transitioned a number of years back but the psychiatrists who originally diagnosed them aren't on the very small list of about 75 or so specialists that are allowed to write the report for the gender recognition panel. So people would have to go back in the system and get re-diagnosed in order to get their certificate at the moment. So it's about trying to make sure that one document isn't left out of sync for trans people who are living permanently in that sex. Rona, what are you concerned about?

So the way James outlines it there, it sounds perfectly reasonable and quite simple, but if you scrape under the surface, this bill would open up a whole horrible can of worms. Crucially, it would remove the biology-based meaning in law of man and woman, and it would mean the biology-based meaning in law of man and woman. And it would mean that any person who wants to can declare themselves to be the sex opposite to the one that they were born. We have concerns. I mean, I speak for the LGB Alliance and I'm a supporter of For Women Scotland.

And we have concerns around the safeguarding of women and girls because women will no longer be able to challenge anyone they think should not be in their safe spaces. Can I just interrupt? When you were a prison governor, did you deal with exactly that situation? Yes, I did. I did. The prison service, like many other bodies, has already started to behave as though self-declaration of gender is legal. And they regularly put male-bodied people in with female prisoners to their distress. Right. James, what about that? So it's actually not true that the legal definition is purely biological for men and women. Since 2004, there's been recognition that you can be legally female and still have what would be considered typically male body

I'm legally male, I'm a trans man, I transitioned from female to male there's aspects of my body that are not typical for the average man but I'm still recognised in law as male But you'll understand the significance of what Rona said there about male bodied people in settings like a female prison could be extremely intimidating. Many prisoners of both men and women I should say many prisoners are pretty vulnerable people who've been through some tough times themselves. Yeah including some trans prisoners and we support the current process that the Scottish

Prison Service uses which is a really comprehensive risk assessment based process. So they can keep somebody, say somebody was a sex offender, they could keep them in the male estate because they're a sex offender and they would be a risk to women in the female estate. But if someone's a low risk trans person, then they could be in the female estate. You wouldn't force someone to share a cell with them. You wouldn't force people to share with them. them. You wouldn't force people to share it with them. But they could still be in the female estate. Let me put that point to Rona. Most people are low risk.

So why not follow James' idea? So there's two issues there. Firstly, the risk assessment currently doesn't take any cognisance of the emotional impact on women, on their well-being, of having male-bodied people living in quite intimate spaces. And secondly, our concern is that this bill, if it becomes law, would further blur the boundaries there. And the clash between the rights of someone who has a birth certificate says they are female when they were actually born male, and the rights under the 2010 Equality Act to exclude such people have not been tested in law.

Well, can I briefly ask you, James, will it become law? Sorry, what do you mean? Well, is the law likely to change? Bearing in mind there are many, many other things going on and many people doubt that it would actually make it through the Scottish Parliament. OK, so there's no proposal to change the Equality Act that Rona refers to. So there would still be the ability, if it's proportionate, to treat a trans person less favourably and perhaps even exclude them from a single sex service.

That's not what you want, though, James. You want that to change. Can I finish, please? And it's very hard to tell at the moment whether the gender recognition reforms will go through or not, particularly with coronavirus and everything. Absolutely, and I appreciate that both of you have had to be very succinct. And I'm grateful to you both. Thank you. You heard that from James Morton, manager of the Scottish Trans Alliance, and Rona Hotchkiss, who is a former governor of a women's prison in Scotland, Caunton Vale.

And I just want to thank both of them. They were very flexible this morning, very succinct in making their points. And we appreciate that enormously. Now, thanks to you for all the emails and all the contact from you today, because I think I speak on behalf of everybody who works here. We're in very similar positions to you. Let's face it, we've all got families, we're all worried, but we're all determined to keep on going and to support each other. And I just want to read this email from Sheila, who says, I am now 70 and I've looked after one and then two grandchildren for nine years now. They are an integral part of my life. And to drive away from my granddaughter's sixth birthday tea last night,

knowing it would be quite a long time before we could be back, broke my heart. I know there's no choice in order to keep everybody safe and well, but when all this is over, maybe we'll appreciate what we've had and what we have so much more. Never again will I complain about getting wet in the school playground. Oh, Sheila. Woman's ad keeps me going, she says, and I'm going to be relying on you in the weeks ahead more than ever. Well, Sheila, it's just worth saying, of course, that we're relying on you, too. It works both ways, this. Keep in contact and please, please let us know what you want us to talk about on the programme. And this, of course, doesn't, there's no, I don't know whether I'm going to have to go into self-isolation.

The same applies to all of my colleagues, but we are going to do our very best to keep the programme running. Alison says, I'm a retired midwife and I was contacted by a friend yesterday about the need to protect vulnerable families using healthy start vouchers for baby milk. They can only get a limited supply and they haven't got the resources to shop around. So supermarkets do need to be mindful of this particular issue. And please do not stockpile baby milk just because you can afford it. Think of other people.

Rose says, I work as a nurse in the community. We're facing an already busy workload and we're going to struggle to find enough carers to look after the elderly. It is key to keep patients out of hospital and nursing homes and to do this we need more carers than ever before. I urge women who may have been in hospitality or cleaning or any other kind of work to think about caring as a profession. It is rewarding although it isn't highly paid, it is so fulfilling. I'm still passionate about it after 20 years. Yes, that's true. I guess that does offer the possibility of work at the moment. Of course, caring, I mean, how dare anybody describe that as being unskilled? You need very particular skills to be a good carer. So if you think you could be, then why not do it now? A listener says,

I understand the need for us all to help each other at this time, but it annoys me that the onus is on buying for food banks for individuals. What about the supermarkets donating food, or God forbid, the state ensuring that people have enough food to eat? I absolutely take the point, but we are where we are. And I do emphasise the message, if you can, keep giving to the food bank. I'm in my 70s, says Marianne, and I'm thus under house arrest. Thankfully, I think I can take it. But not being able to get to the library is tough. However, I can just recall the

polio epidemic in the 50s, and I'm surprised there's been no reference to how we coped then. I was a child and can only recall crying so much when I had the subsequent vaccination. Didn't get that sweet, by the way, that they promised me. But I do remember the local pool being closed, likewise the local cinema. How did we cope? and was it not as bad as this situation? I'd like to hear more about this. Well, if you're someone who remembers that, as Marianne does, contact us via the website. You know how to do that. It's through bbc.co.uk forward slash woman's hour. This from Ben, who just says, thanks for sticking up for women who can't or

choose not to breastfeed yes um that was only because um our midwife representative from the royal college of midwives did emphasize the the wonderful nature of breastfeeding and it is wonderful but as we always say not possible for everybody for a string of good reasons elizabeth says please please, please, please, if you're a private individual with a cleaner, just remember that this virus is something that we all have to share, quite possibly literally. Particularly if you are non-working, i.e. not salary or wage dependent, it is the lower paid and small businesses that need all our help. I have guaranteed my cleaner her money if she can no longer come to us for whatever reason. None of this is her fault.

Elspeth asks, do you know what happens about funerals? Elspeth, I don't know, but I'm assuming that like every other gathering or social contact, it is probably something that we're going to have to consider doing differently. I wish I did know the answer to that. It's a very good point. Right. Thanks to all of you who've contacted us today. And I know we'll continue to do exactly that. We are here for you.

And as I say, we are going to plough on as best we can over the next couple of weeks. The programme is going to sound a bit different. That is inevitable. Everything is different as I'm sure you know only too well but thank you again and Jenny is here tomorrow with the program and the podcast. I'm Sarah Treleaven and for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. 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.