Woman's Hour - Hadley Freeman, Toni Crews, Christmas appeal

Episode Date: December 5, 2022

We talk to the journalist Hadley Freeman about why she resigned as a columnist at The Guardian newspaper after 22 years in the job. She has accused the publication of “censoring” discussion about gender identity and says she was discouraged from writing about antisemitism. Emma Barnett speaks to Hadley about her concerns and plans for the future. We speak to the parents of Toni Crews, a young mother who died from a rare form of eye cancer back in 2020. Her parents Jo and Jason Crews talk to Woman’s Hour about her life and her decision to waive her anonymity and donate her body to medical science, she is first person in the UK to have done this. Also talking about this ground breaking moment for medical science is Professor Claire Smith who led the team behind the dissection which is shown as part of a documentary that goes out tonight. It's Radio 4’s Christmas Appeal Week. For 96 years, BBC Radio and St Martin-in-the-Fields have been in partnership to raise funds for people who are homeless and urgently need support around the UK. In the last two years, the Radio 4 Christmas Appeal has raised over £9 million for St Martin-in-the-Fields and The Connection at St Martin's benefits from these funds, which help run their resource centre in central London, providing shelter, food, help and advice. This year, the Women’s Development Unit at The Connection has created the first ever census of women who were sleeping rough across London. I’m joined by Eleanor Greenhalgh, the Manager of the Women’s Development Unit & Pam Orchard, CEO of The Connection at St Martins who can share their data exclusively with Woman’s Hour. Presenter: Emma Barnett Producer: Lucinda Montefiore

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

Listen wherever you get your podcasts. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Felicity Finch. You may know me as Ruth in The Archers. I have something important to ask you before you listen to your podcast. This Christmas, thousands of people across the UK will be without a safe place to call home. But you can help change that. A gift to the Radio 4 Christmas Appeal with St Martin-in-the-Fields can help people find a home by providing a much-needed deposit or paying for rent in advance.

Everything starts with home. And this Christmas, home starts with you. Please support the Radio 4 Christmas Appeal by donating online on the Radio 4 Christmas Appeal website. When times are so difficult for so many, thank you for helping people to restart their lives with a home. Now enjoy your podcast. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. As the end of year approaches and people through various streaming services take stock of the songs and albums they've relied on most in the past 12 months,

I wanted to give you the chance to share yours and tell me why. What song or maybe album have you reached for? What have you relied upon and why? What's it given to you? My choice seems to be fitting in with the apparent post-pandemic resurgence in dance music, which is reflected in today's BBC Radio 1 shortlist for Sound of 2023,

which tips new music for the coming year. Previously, the list has predicted the success of Adele and Stormzy, to name a couple. So if you want to stay current, go and have a look at that and see who's on the list today. But when you're thinking about your music choices, perhaps if you are using streaming services, you might be nowhere near those sorts of services. But if you have, maybe you've also seen your children corrupt or pollute your playlist, a decent blast of blur or faithless then interrupted with an algorithm suggesting Thomas's tank engine, or in my case, Encanto. So do get it all out here with me this morning on Woman's Hour. I think that

that leads very nicely to a discussion also which I'll be having with the music journalist and critic Jude Rogers about how the different generations affect each other's music library. Text me here on 84844 that's the number you need. Text will be charged at your standard message rate or on social media we're at BBC Women's Hour, or even send a WhatsApp message, a voice note, even sing me a song if you want, on 03700 100 444. Also on today's programme, coming up, the proud parents of the woman who's made history in death by becoming the first person in the UK to donate her body for public display and dissection for medicine and waived her right to be anonymous, all for the cause of medical science and giving hope of survival for others. And some unique insights coming up about

women sleeping rough in this country as Radio 4's Christmas Appeal Week begins, so do stay with me for that. Now six weeks ago my first guest resigned from The Guardian, a newspaper she has loved and worked for for 22 years, most of her working life. The reason? She claims she was censored about writing on the Labour Party during the Jeremy Corbyn era from her perspective in part as a Jew. And then again about writing about gender and trans issues from her perspective as a woman. Both claims The Guardian paper denies. Her resignation has sparked considerable debate in the media world. After extracts of her resignation letter to the newspaper's editor, Catherine Viner, whom we've also invited onto the programme, were leaked and have appeared in private eye. Hadley Freeman is who I'm talking about.

She's worked as a staff writer, as I say, for a long time, 22 years at The Guardian, but joins The Sunday Times in January and is also an author. She's finishing a book at the moment on girls and anorexia, which comes out next year. Hadley Freeman's just joined me in the studio. Good morning. Hi, Emma. Why did you resign when you did? Well, as you say, I'd been at The Guardian for a long time and it felt like I'd been in a very happy long- term marriage for 15 years. And then about seven years ago, that particular partner started to become a conspiracy theorist,

to be honest, and sort of unrecognizable to me. And it just got to a point where I couldn't take any more. And the specific conspiracy referring to is, of course, the gender identity or gender theory idea and the censorship of women writing on it. And the thing that finally pushed me over the edge was I'd been asking editors across the paper for over six years if I could write or someone could write a long piece about mermaids and Susie Green, the charity that claims to support what it calls gender non-conforming children. And I was always, always told no, but the reasons always changed. It was, you know, this isn't the right time or we don't see the interest, et cetera, et cetera. Even when mermaids was given 500 grand by the National Lottery, I was still told, no, there's no news peg. And then I pitched again in August to an editor and they said, no, it's not relevant or something. And then in September,

the Daily Telegraph ran a big expose about mermaids and it led to the charity commission saying they were going to look into it. And I asked the news desk, you know, are you going to follow up on this? And they told me, no, we don't follow other people's stories. And I just thought, so you don't, you're not going to commission me to do anything or anyone, not necessarily me, a news reporter, it didn't have to be me. And you also won't follow other people's reporting on it. Like, I don't understand. And at that point, I thought, okay, it's time to go. I mean, I should say on Friday evening on that point about mermaids the charity commission has escalated its investigations into mermaids announcing it's responding to newly identified issues about the governments and management of the transgender children's charity. Hadley to come to your your points that there's a few in there you are saying that you specifically

were not allowed to write about this are you saying others were and you weren't? who asked if they could interview, for example, Maya Forstater during her case, Alison Bailey, Jester Walls. I asked about interviewing J.K. Rowling and Martina Navratilova, and we were all told no. Meanwhile, you know, the paper ran these long-glowing profiles of trans activists such as Monroe Bergdorf and Paris Lees and Fred McConnell, and I'm proud to have worked at a paper that spotlit marginalized people like that. I just don't understand. Well, I do understand, but it infuriated me that feminist

campaigners such as Julie Bindle, who I also pitched to interview when her book came out, and J.K. Rowling were basically shut out from the paper. When you go on The Guardian's website, there uh interviews with uh those who are described as having so-called some people don't even agree with this way of describing it but if we could just use this phrase for a moment gender critical views such as Kathleen Stock who I remember interviewing here on on the program uh after she was was put in a position as she said that she felt she had to leave Sussex University and Maya Forstater who talks about who won that uh particular case they're on the Guardian website, but are they under The Observer?

I believe Maya Forstater was interviewed in The Observer. I'm sure someone can correct me if that's wrong. Kathleen Stock was interviewed in The Guardian, which was amazing. And we were all, you know, those of us who'd been trying to get interviews with these women, you know, cheered about it. But as far as I know, her book was not reviewed by The Guardian, and nor was Abigail Shryers, who wrote about the effect of trans activism on girls, and nor was Helen Joyce's very, you know, huge bestseller about gender ideology. But we did

review and extract, it seems to me, every single trans memoir that came out. So there was always this imbalance. And I know that upper management, you know, say, well, both sides are equally passionate, you know, it's very hard to balance both the gender activists and, you know, what people call gender critical feminists, I call reality based feminists. But the fact is, only one side in that argument demands censorship. I have no problem and never had any problem with The Guardian interviewing and spotlighting trans activists, trans activist books. But I was not allowed and nor was anyone else allowed to interview gender critical feminists or, you know, feature gender critical.

There are some. I suppose that's the point. Kathleen is Kathleen. And I did read an interview with Maya, but I think in The Observer. And we should say just again, if you're not familiar with the media world, The Observer is edited by a different editor. Yeah, it is. That's right. It's edited by a different editor.

Okay. So because part of your resignation letter I mentioned was leaked to Private Eye, which was to Kath Viner, who we haven't invited on. We didn't get Kath Viner. The invitation is still open. But we did get this statement from The Guardian, which said, The Guardian has always been committed to representing a wide range of views on many topics in our coverage.

There will always be debate on the issues we cover. The issues around trans people's rights and gender-critical feminism are complex and can be polarised. As such, The Guardian aims to feature a wide range of reporting and multiple perspectives on this topic. All writers work with their editors to decide the topics on which they write. This is a completely standard practice across the media. That is not censorship. It is editing. I understand what they're saying. And I'm,

you know, I'm not an idiot. You know, I've been I was there for 22 years. I had a column for most of those 22 years. Of course, you're not allowed. You know, you discuss with the editor what you're writing beforehand. But on no other subject had I ever been told you are not allowed to write about this wholesale. Who said that? It was someone quite high up in the paper. So it was actually said to you? Yes, you are not allowed to write about gender. And also they said to me at the same time, I don't want any women to be writing about gender because it gets too much of a kickback on social media.

It should be done by the male specialist reporters such as the health reporters. So that was said to you by an individual? It was said to me in a meeting with three other people who can all back me up on that. And I'm asking because I also was interested if it had been said to you by the editor herself as well. I don't want to be naming and pointing direct fingers. It was said by upper management it was clear that was the policy. Because there are a couple of pieces, which I know we're also going to come to because of what then happened with those pieces,

where you have written and shared your views. Were you saying there was a policy change? Because they're about four years old, those pieces. Yeah, so that was a policy change. So I wrote, I think, two columns in my magazine column, which I had at the time. One was about Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, about the interview she gave. And one was about sort of progressive men using gender activism as a sort of guise to be incredibly misogynistic and to shout at women, not mainly online, but also in life.

And I wrote those and there was a huge backlash online and also within the office. And then I went to America for work and was there for a bit, I think, covering the Oscars or something and came back. You did have quite a broad range, you say, of people who were fashion through to politics. Yeah. I mean, I like to write about most things, really. I'm not myopic in that sense. And I came back and that's when I was told that I wasn't right about gender and actually women shouldn't worry about gender, etc., etc. And suddenly things became very, very tricky for me. And, you know, I asked if I could interview Martina Navratilova after she wrote a column in the Sunday Times about why she didn't think trans women should compete against female athletes. And I was told that my point of view and Navratilova's point of view were mean.

You know, I would. You were told your point of view was mean? Yeah, that was the quote I was told. Sorry, okay. Yeah, and, you know, other people, Jester Walls and, you know, other women who've had trouble with gender activists. And it was always no, no, no. And then I was told a few months after this began that while I was away,

a group called All About Trans, which is, I believe, the best way to describe them would be a lobby group who go around to different companies and media groups and talk about how trans people should be discussed or written about, had come to The Guardian and they'd held up two of my articles as examples of transphobia. And this had happened when I was told it had happened about eight months previously while I was away. And when I went to HR and some of the editors and asked, you know, could this, could they send out some message to my section editors who'd been at this

event? And also I should say all about trans, you know, consisted of people from mermaids and mermaids had been at this event too, I was told. So when I said, can you, can you let my section editors know and my colleagues know that this isn't fair, that, you know, you don't believe this. And I was told they couldn't because it would draw more attention to the claim. So you found out months afterwards that while you were away, your place of work had had a session on by an external group. Yeah. Welcomed by, I believe, the Guardian Pride group, which is a group of staffers within the place. And your two articles were held up as transphobic. Yeah. And you weren't told about that in advance?

Oh, God, no. And I wasn't told about it immediately afterwards. I just found out when a friend and colleague happened to mention it to me saying she thought I should know, as it was clear no one had told me because I kept saying, I don't understand what's changed. And there did suddenly become this atmosphere of real fear in the paper. And there were various morning conferences to which all people who work at The Guardian are invited to at the beginning of the day. We don't really have those anymore. But pre-pandemic, it would be everybody gathering, talking about the news. And there was one of those conferences where the paper had run an editorial defending the Gender Recognition Act and why it shouldn't be made easier for people to change gender. And I was defending the editorial, which had run in the paper.

And various colleagues and people I considered friends were being quite personally abusive and, you know, saying it was transphobic. This is like a teacher saying a gay teacher shouldn't, this is like people saying a gay teacher shouldn't teach children. And I got very upset. And I've never gotten upset in the office before. And I just very upset and I've never gotten upset in the office before and I just walked out. And meanwhile, the top editors were all at the meeting.

No one said anything. No one intervened. I understand it's a subject that gets very heated. But in my memory and as far as I know and I've looked back on all my correspondence because I saved all my emails, I've tried to be very calm and measured and look at, you know, both sides of it. Of course I do. And what you get from the other side, if you're just trying to defend what is literally the law in this country, is being told you're killing children, you know, you're a bigot, you're this, this very, you know, violent sort of way of talking. And it's not that that upsets me. I can take that. What I don't understand is why upper management are scared to deal with it. And it seems to me that it's not just The Guardian.

I don't want to just be focusing on The Guardian, although obviously it's where I worked. This has happened at a lot of progressive places, this feeling of fear that we can't stand up against some of the claims that gender activists made. You know, it's happened at The New York Times. It happened at The Washington Post. You know, even on Women's Hour. I'm not'm not like trying to make anything awkward for you, Emma. But I remember a few years ago, when Jenny Murray was still here, and she wrote a piece in the Sunday Times that some people got upset about, she then wasn't allowed to talk about this issue, as far as I know, on the program. I remember another time here when there was going to be a debate in the studio, and Stonewall said they wouldn't come in

if the journalist Helen Lewis was here. And in the end, Women's Hour capitulated to them and allowed them to do a pre-record, which is therefore then not a discussion. You make character. A, I don't know about that particular one. That's not while I was here. I've done a lot of interviews with the CEO of Stonewall, Kathleen Stark.

We've done many items on this. Nor can I speak to any of the previous decisions before I join. No, no, no, of course. I mean, I'm not... The issue about what you discussed about Jenny Murray, though, I think it is fair to say, it's quite clear that BBC presenters are not meant to have opinions. So we could debate that. But that is your take on it. And I think we could also just talk about processes as well. But again, I wasn't here for that.

Yeah, of course. No, I'm not trying to get at Woman's Hour. I'm saying that this is something that is happening across... I also would reject we're a bastion of left-leaning journalists at the BBC, like The Guardian wants to be. But your bigger point is that you feel on this, that there is on the left side, what? I think what there is, is a real feeling of fear. Because what Stonewall and other organisations like that have been very successful at is saying that gender rights are the same as gay rights, and anyone who objects to any element of the gender activism is basically a homophobe. And so there's this fear on the left, particularly in progressive circles, of getting it wrong, because that would be the worst thing to be, would be to be a bigot. My personal feeling is,

if you have fear, if you're scared of saying what is literally in front of you, if you're scared of voicing doubts because of what people in the office might say, because of what strangers online might say, then you probably shouldn't be a journalist. You know, a journalist is about... So do you think the editor of The Guardian is scared? And do you think she shouldn't be in her job? Oh my, I mean, I'm not going to... Well, you're busy saying, you know, various programmes have capitulated without knowing the background. You do know the background of your newspaper.

I do know the background of my newspaper. I do know the background of my newspaper. And you're not short of opinions. And unlike Jenny Murray when she was at the BBC, you're allowed to say them, you're paid for them. So do you think she should be in her job? It's a very serious allegation to say the editor of the biggest left-leaning newspaper in this country is censoring women from writing about gender. Should she be in the job? I didn't say that the editor had censored. All right, sorry.

She pres... Sorry, but management is management. And when you say upper management, she's pres... I'll rephrase. She's presiding over management, which told you, with witnesses, on several occasions,

and your articles were used within the organisation's hosting of groups, that you're not allowed to write about certain things. That's a very serious allegation. Yeah, and it's happened at other places too. I mean, it's, you know... Do you think she's fit to be the editor? I'm sure she's fit to be the editor.

What I'm saying is it's not right for any newspaper to censor on any specific subject. Why is she then fit to be the editor? I'm not going to try to push her out of her job, Emma. No, no, but it's a question that some of our listeners will read The Guardian. They want to know. They're being shown a full range of views. Some of them may push back. I mean, I was just looking at The Mermaid's articles from the last few days.

Those articles have been written up as straight news articles on The Guardian website. After I left. After you left. You have left already. Yes. You've not started yet um but but i suppose uh that some would also say other parts of the paper maybe the sports section do you think that has been better yes uh at writing about some of the issues and trans there

it has because okay fine because it's interesting to try and compare if there's a difference you and i both in our newspapers work again i'm trying to reveal there's a difference with the news desk the comment desk the sports desk different editors yeah and this is why I'm not trying to target Kath Weiner in particular I mean there are different section editors all around the paper and sport has been um good at this there's a columnist Sean Ingle has been very good at writing about the science behind this and but I do know as well that there have been lobby groups that have come in to talk to the sports desks of arguing the case for trans athletes, trans women athletes to be competing against female athletes. As far as I know, there hasn't been a group like Fair Play

to Women, you know, defending why women's sport needs to be, you know, female sex only. You know, and I'm not here. I understand why I'm sure people at The Guardian will think I'm just here slamming The Guardian. And to be honest, that breaks my heart because I loved The Guardian and, you know, it was my whole life for my entire adult life. The Guardian is representative of so many other progressive spheres, academia, publishing, exactly the same. Do you think something is changing? Well, I think this year, this coming year is going to be very interesting because obviously GIDS, the clinic run by the Tavistock Trust, is shutting down and no longer will children be funneled there. Gender non-conforming, whatever that even means, children will not be funneled there. There will be various regional hubs. Mermaids is under investigation. I think more and more people are looking at what this

gender ideology actually means in practice rather than theory, rather than the be kind theory. What does this actually mean for children and for women and for gay people? I mean, I really do see this idea that gender, the idea that gender nonconforming is problematic, which is what gender ideology is based on, as a backlash against both feminism and gay rights. And I think there are increasing numbers of gay people who are speaking up against it too. We will talk again, I'm sure, about these issues, of which there are many and there are different views, as you well know, and you've said, you want the other views there. You just want your views as well and the ability to have it.

Of course. I didn't mention this and I just want to make sure I go back to it. The other concern in your resignation letter wasn't just about this, was about your ability or being allowed to write about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party with a Jewish background, a Jewish identity. Again, I presume within this statement we've got from The Guardian that is also refuted, but what do you say about that? Well, what happened there was I was given the column

at the front of the magazine in, I believe, 2015, and no one said you can't write about any subject. In fact, when I started at The Guardian and the magazine was edited by Kath Fine, who's now the editor of the magazine in, I believe, 2015. And no one said you can't write about any subject. And in fact, when I started at The Guardian, and the magazine was edited by Kath Fein, who's now the editor of the paper, that column was done by Julie Birchall. And certainly no one would ever dare tell Julie Birchall, she's not allowed to write about a certain subject. And then Corbyn got in, and I wanted to look at his, you know, this feeling that he had a blind spot, as they say, when it comes to antisemitism. And I was told that, you know, that that column was not for politics. It wasn't a political space.

It should be more softer, more cheery-uppy, which no one had told me when I started. And I thought, OK, you know, I'm a grown-up. Fine, I'll do my job. OK, carry on. And then the gender ideology started to take off a lot. And I thought, well, this seems a more generalized subject, you know, writing about women, you know, what does being a woman mean? And then I was told, no, I couldn't write about that either. That was too, you know, punchy, it was too something. And then, I mean, we saw what happened. I'm sure some of your viewers or listeners saw what

happened when Suzanne Moore wrote a column in the Guardian feature section, writing about her experience of being a woman through her biology. it then resulted in 330 staff members signing a letter objecting to the pattern of transphobic content in the paper, none of which was specified. So it's not... It stemmed, you would say, from your experience of being told no about the Jeremy Corbyn side of things through into this. That was the journey.

Yeah, I feel like there was a through line. Yeah, I mean, of course, Sikhi, Dharma's talked a lot about, for instance, accepting the findings of the report, the EHRC report, which looked into the Labour Party and this, saying it had committed unlawful acts, saying we've closed the door on a shameful chapter in our history about anti-Semitism

for those who also want to respond to that. Just finally, because you mentioned Chimamanda, fantastic, Mngo Tse Adichie, had her on the programme. I've spoken to her a number of times about her and her response around this particular topic around gender. She's just given one of the Reith lectures here at the BBC, and she's talked about self-censorship. She worries that society, just broadening this right out, which I know interests you, is suffering from an epidemic of self-censorship.

Young people growing up afraid to ask questions for fear of asking the wrong questions. And she's worried about the death of curiosity. What would you say to that? Well, I know that's true. You know, when I stood up for Suzanne Moore in a morning conference after this column came out, you know, I had various staff members, not necessarily young people, people my age and older,

coming up to me, you know, whispering or sending me an email saying, you know, you know, I back you. I just can't speak up. It's just too difficult in the office or it's too difficult with my teenagers at home. Of course there is. We know this. You know, it's very hard to go against what you're told is the mantra for your political tribe. And that is what I think is happening. And the fact is, as much as The Guardian or The New York Times or whoever would want to make this argument as gender-critical women

on the right, gender activists on the left, we know it's not that simple. It's not. That's a lie. Women are just trying to protect their existing rights. Hadley, thank you very much. I hope you feel you were not censored in any way during that conversation. You got it out and gave us a window into perhaps what people don't really know about newspapers as well as anything else. Good luck with the new post at the Sunday Times and the book.

Perhaps we'll also talk about that. And I read aloud the Guardian statement and I mentioned we've invited the editor of the Guardian, different to the editor of The Observer, onto the programme, Catherine Viner. So I do hope she'll take us up on that. We shall see. While we've been talking, you have been sending some messages about what Hadley's got to say,

and I hope to come to those. You've also been sending in songs, the ones that have got you through this year. Have you got one, Hadley? Yes, so my most listened to song was All Too Well, the 10-minute version by Taylor Swift, which I listened to almost as many times as you listen to yours. I've not listened to it, so I will take it down.

Thank you for that. And Tony said, my ears pricked up when I heard Sylvan Esso's radio at the start of the programme. It's been one of my top years plays after hearing it in the film Ali and Eva. That's where I found it too. I stayed to the final credits so I could see who the artist was and then promptly forgot about them on the drive home. Fortunately, Google's compensated for my short termterm memory loss here and allowed me to eventually find the song later that evening. I did very much a similar thing. Let's talk then about how we get our music, what we reach for, why we reach for it. Jude Rogers is here, the music journalist and

author of The Sound of Being Human, How Music Shapes Our Lives. Jude, have you got a song you've reached for this year? Good morning. Yes, it's been hard to find my own songs um differently to my son's songs um most of my top 100 songs on um the streaming service that has been generating all these various um algorithmic playlists last week about 95 96 of them are his. The song I've probably played most is actually a song from late 2021, which is You Forever by Self Esteem. And I have to say, a song from this year that I've played the most is probably You Forever, the acoustic version by Self Esteem.

We had Self Esteem in a few weeks ago and it was amazing. No, she was in. Thankfully, my son came to her completely separately to me so he she is the artist that we play most together and i play with myself as well it's a funny development this isn't it because i mean there are other streaming services available the one that people have been talking about most has been um recently just because they just

released it is this thing called spotify unwrapped which shows you your year in in plays and what you've been playing but it's a funny thing thing because we share the space in our car now, we share in the home, and that means other family members' music comes into it and gets injected. What's that been like as a music journalist to watch that? Oh, yeah, my playlist is very weird. Obviously, I listen to a lot of stuff for work as well, which isn't necessarily the stuff I listen to for fun.

Yeah, basically, there's one playlist that my son has that has the thing that we always listen to all the time. There's 148 songs on it. And it's a combination of things he's heard on the radio, heard randomly on television and film, like we all do. But also... Jude, I we all do. But also Scott... Jude, I'm so sorry...

Your favourite song at the moment is Come On Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners. I'm so sorry to cut across to you. Your line is glitching a little bit in and out, which we really want to hear what you have to say. Perhaps we'll turn off the video, or maybe you can, just to see if we can improve that. But I'm getting the sense that you've got this big shared list, it's in the car, and you were saying...

Say again, Jude, Come On Eileen. Yeah, my son's favourite song is Come On Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners. And he heard it randomly on Radio 2 on the school bus. And he loves it. And I love that because it was a song I loved at school, you know, in the 80s when it came out. But this is the generation of kids these days you know they can hear anything from anywhere and just put it on a playlist and I find that I keep telling him in my old mum way you know if I when I was eight if somebody told me I could do

this I'd have been uh you know or do something out of um you know space age or something but um it is amazing they can kind of soundcheck their lives with songs from all kinds of different eras and bring them all together. I'm greatly looking forward to when my four-year-old picks up on that level of music and we move away. Not that there's anything wrong with the Disney classics and some of the Fireman Sam ones, which are still on the playlist. He has his own playlist and I have tried to influence it slightly.

I think I think the one I did very well with was um Hit the Road Jack so we got a bit of Ray Charles in between Encanto and Fireman Sam so that was a personal high it's uh it's an interesting thing to think back as well and think of why you listen to what you listen to and I was also thinking about it because of Christmas that I love the Dean Martin Christmas album because my godmother, who I adored, loved the kind of crooning sound at Christmas. And it's interesting to think about what your parents give you as well, which I know you've looked at. Yeah, absolutely.

And I think when there are songs that my son likes that, say, my late dad liked or that my mum and my stepdad and my siblings listened to when I was a child, it's just an extra layer of emotion put onto the experience of listening to that song. And then again, there are songs like that I didn't like. Like Bon Jovi's Living on a Prayer. I was not a fan back then, but Evan has sung it so much this year

and demanded it so much that I now do actually really love it and the bombasticness of it and you know part of the experience of that now is going to be me and him trying to sing it and me singing the bit where the key change goes and you know I can't reach any of the notes um but yeah it's the experience of how you listen to that music as well you know I will happily listen to really lovely calming ambient music when I'm working to give myself a bit of space. But when I'm in the car driving from here to Cub Scouts or here to wherever, putting something together, it's part of that sharing of things from different parts of your lives

and it's lovely. Is it also normal to listen, when you find a song like I did at the start of the year, the one I played, Radio, is it normal to listen to it a lot? That's what I do. I binge again and again and again and then I'm done with it. Is that something you see with people? Is that regular?

Yeah, it's something I looked into a bit in my book because I still do it. I thought maybe it was something that just teenagers did. But, you know, a song that, you know, through which a song might articulate a set of emotions or it might be something that takes you away from your mundane everyday experiences and puts you somewhere else. You know, and that song is the same thing. It's the same comforting three and a half minutes of, you know, sound and key changes. And, you know, I love thinking, you know, songs, you know, the structure of that chorus. You know, the chorus is coming. This is really fascinating stuff about you listen to songs that you know, because you're anticipating the next bit coming or when it comes, you almost put it, which sounds quite mad. But every time you listen to it, the song for me that always does that is freedom by wham

you know um and you know every time george michael hits a top note i'm still delighted for him even though i've probably heard it about 3 000 times well jude you brought a smile to to our faces and many people getting in touch with us i i find music i've said this before on the program is is survival and uh it's it's a good survival, it's sad survival, it's all of those things in between. I even made an unofficial sort of miscarriage playlist for me and a friend who'd gone through that earlier this year. And I know we spoke actually about music and your own experience of that

when we talked about your very good book, The Sound of Being Human, how music shapes our lives. But I just had to have something to drown out thoughts, which is what it can do. Jude I just had to have something to drown out thoughts, which is what it can do. Jude, it's lovely to talk to you. When you get there, have a good festive time, whatever you do. Jude Rogers there.

Thank you. Music journalist and author. A lovely message from Agnes here, who's listening in Norfolk. Good morning. I do use streaming services, but over the course of the last year, I've been listening to vinyl records more than ever. My four-year-old daughter seems to have caught the bug as she enjoys the tactile nature of listening to vinyl LPs, looking at the artwork and asking

what the writing says. Yeah, good reading exercise. Of course, I still have to suffer the barrages of Disney soundtracks like Moana and Encanto. I've not done Moana yet, but I take this as some small victory. My playlist is strongly influenced by my daughters. We both love K-pop,

particularly the group SHINee. I hope I've said that right. For a mood lift, we would reach for their song and video Sing Your Song, Gently Energising. Right, I'm going to write some of these down. This is good. I'm making a new playlist from the Women's Hour listeners. Absolutely always play any Elvis.

Whatever Alexa chooses, you're talking about the smart speaker, other ones available I should say, I just love the effect the song has on me. Rock has me dancing around the kitchen and the ballads give me a time to reflect on my life. So only CDs in my car are the king

and nothing can put me, are the king, excuse me, and nothing can put me down when Elvis is singing to me, says Linda who builds herself as a lifelong fan. And according to your streaming service, this message here, my most played this year was JJ Cale's Call Me The Breeze. Can listen to it over and over again. It's like a comfort blanket.

Again, I don't know that. So I'm writing these down from my guests today and from you, our listeners. Maybe we'll compile a bit of a playlist and we'll put it out on our social media later, if we can, if we can. Thank you for that. Keep them coming in. Now, donating your body to medical science, is this something you have ever considered? Often referred to as doctors' silent teachers, donors form an important part of understanding

disease and our anatomy. My next guests are the parents of a young woman who, in death, has made UK history, after she was diagnosed with a rare form of eye cancer when she was in her 20s. Toni Cruz started documenting her illness via social media, using her experience to form an online community support network as she posted videos to talk about her condition and what it was like living with her cancer. Sadly she passed away in 2020 at the age of 30 but her dying wish was to allow her body to be dissected and used for medical research but she's also become the first person in the UK, the very first, to donate her body for public display and dissection for medicine and waived her right to be anonymous,

all for the cause of medical science and giving hope of survival for others. Tonight, you can watch the landmark procedure as part of a documentary, My Dead Body, on Channel 4. I'm now joined by Jo and Jason Cruz, Tony's mum and dad, and I'll also in a moment be talking to Professor Claire Smith, who's Head of Anatomy at Brighton and Sussex Medical School who led the team who dissected Tony's body but first to you Joe and Jason good morning. Morning. Thanks so much for for being with us. Jason

and or Joe I mean I don't know who wants to answer this first but but just so we have a bit of a picture of of Tony what was she like what type type of woman was she? What type of mother, daughter, friend? Bold, fun. Strong, independent. And obviously someone who knew her own mind signing up to do this. Yes, definitely. She was like, when she had her diagnosis, she just wanted to teach, get the message out there.

And did she talk to you about it, Jo, before making these decisions, that she wanted to do this? Not really. No, she just did it. She said, this is what I want to do. Can you countersign my forms, please? Jason, what was your reaction to it? I just thought it was a typical Tony thing to do, to be honest. It didn't surprise me.

I didn't second-guess it at all. In the documentary, which I've been privileged to see in advance, she did say, because you've got a mixture of social media and some stuff from her diaries which you've given permission to be used, that she had dreamt of doing something gory or perhaps with medicine when she was younger, which was an interesting insight, Jo. Yes.

She started, when she left school, she started doing health and social care. She started at university to do occupational therapy um she soon dropped out but um in the last she before she died she'd actually signed up in the last year before she died um to go back to university university and do criminology right so so there you know she she also had an understanding of this, Jason. She wanted to help and see if she could take things forward for people. Yeah, definitely.

I think when she first got diagnosed, she found there was a lack of information out there for her to find. And that's why she started all the social media stuff. And I think the body donation and the public display was just an extension of that. She just wanted to get as much information out there as possible. And for you, Jo, just going back to when she was diagnosed, it was a rare form of cancer, wasn't it? Yes. Yeah. And I think the cancer wasn't necessarily rare, but the place it was first located was very rare.

They thought it was a secondary cancer, but they couldn't find it anywhere else. And we're talking about in her eye? It was her tear gland, just above the eye. And she ended up having her eye removed, didn't she, one of her eyes? Yes, she had her right eye removed and all the tissue surrounding her eye. So she was left with just like an empty socket. And she was very creative as well, wasn't she, with her eye patches, which were really beautiful. They're also in the film tonight.

Yeah, she could only find medical black patches. And Tony B and Tony didn't like them. She wanted to make them nicer, so she bought some Diamante beads and started to create. She made herself the purple and the green skull and crossbone one because people were calling her a pirate with her patch. Well they look beautiful and she looked fabulous in them so it was a real success doing that but there was also another element to this jason when she when she was diagnosed she did sign up i believe initially to be part of a clinical trial but due to covid that also had to be postponed is that right that's

correct yeah they were trying to get her up to royal marsden um to get on a trial but obviously they they all got um postponed because of the coronavirus. How, in terms of her last few weeks and months, she also has children, which I should say you're now the legal guardians for. Jo, how was she and how were you coping as a family? She was just her normal self. She would do what she could to help out with the children. During lockdown, Jason and Tony were homeschool with the children um during lockdown they were jason and tony were homeschooling the

children but it was mainly jason and tony was kind of watching but she'd make their dinners make breakfast she'd hang around the house even right up until a few days before she died she was still um trying to make the kids breakfasts. How are they at the moment? They're good. They're good. They carry on with their schoolwork. They're integrated back into school well. Do they know what their mum's done in terms of this first that we're talking about?

Yeah, I think so. Right. They know the film's made. They know they're in it. They know mum's done an incredible thing and what she has done is groundbreaking and for you as her parents I mean I'm sure you're incredibly proud

I don't want to put words in your mouth about this but also has it been hard knowing that this is what's going to happen to what has happened to her body, Jo? I think it has, but it's a kind of double edged sword because although we know what they've done and we've seen what they've done and we've had communication with Claire throughout right from start knowing that what she's done has made us proud knowing the amount of people she's taught and will continue to teach has made it a good ending to a really bad story yes I mean it's it's a wonderful phrase that donors are doctors silent teachers in that way and a very important way to to think about this

are you hoping for you jason what are you hoping people will take away from this documentary this evening i think that the cancer awareness message obviously um but i think also a message of positivity tony was positive throughout the whole of her cancer journey. And also I think we've spoken about a positive body image. The last year of her life, she was walking around without an eye patch and she was quite happy to walk around. She used to say that the scars were just... they made her who she was. She comes across so wonderfully in this film.

It's a real sense of her and her personality and how warm she was. It was lovely to feel like you could know her as well as what was going on medically. Jo, have you watched it? Have you been able to watch it? Yes, we've watched it a couple of times now. We actually got invited down to the university on last thursday and they did a premiere with a lot

of the students um and some faculty and it was amazing the reactions from the students just kept coming up to us and saying thank you and we're so sorry but thank you And we've learned so much and we wouldn't have had these opportunities if it was just a normal donor. Well, there you go. Joe, Jason, thank you so much for talking to us this morning. Thank you. Thank you. Let me turn now, you mentioned Claire.

The Claire is Professor Claire Smith, Head of Anatomy at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. Good morning. Good morning. Donors are doctors, silent teachers. Tell me about that. They very much are silent teachers. So across the UK, we need around 1,300 silent teachers per year. And the process is really about enabling education of medical students and doctors. And as you've mentioned, Tony was the first to also select consent for public display and to waive her anonymity.

So that means we've been able to educate over 1,000 doctors, surgeons that really rarely see the type of condition Tony had, but also a wider range of students paramedic students future cancer scientists neuroscientists to help them understand about about the cancer and how it affected the body. Was it emotional for you knowing more about the donor this time for the first time in this way? think it's very similar to as jay said a double edged sword it's been fantastic having that insight but it has it has been emotional but jay and jason have been incredibly supportive throughout the journey um and so i feel very

privileged to be to have yeah to have been through this do we know uh the number of women versus men who who do this with their bodies i know not in this way, it's a first with the name and being public like this, but is it similar amounts of women and men? The research that I've undertaken has shown that the average age of our donors tends to be about 70, so the age is very unique. And the percentage between males and females roughly represents that of the wider population um so we do we do see we do see a mixture of both of both biological sexes you do and but what was rarer was where the cancer was how it then

affected her body the number of tumors that you then find uh in the body i'm also minded to mention last week there was a study out which showed poorer women in Britain have some of the highest death rates from cancer in Europe. It's an in-depth New World Health Organization study. More likely to die from the disease compared with better off women in the UK and women in poverty. There's a lot written about some of the hope as well with what's being discovered but this this for you is is a really rare insight isn't it to to try and help others yeah so the the cancer that tony had really is a one in a million um type of cancer um but as jay said the that's because of its location and

the way it presents the actual cell type um is is shares a common with bowel cancer and with breast cancer um and that one in two of us will will get cancer um so this this donation enabled us to look at something that was really really rare and how it affected but actually in tracing the journey of that cancer through the body um and understanding where the metastases were understanding how those tumors affected the surrounding arteries veins and nerves etc how that presented to Tony with regard to her symptoms it's it shows us both both education for that really rarity but also more common common understanding of cancer. Now nothing to do with Tony here but if you are

squeamish if you are if you find these sorts of things very difficult um you know you can't even perhaps have a needle in your arm and look do you think you can watch this evening what's what what's the importance do you think of people trying to watch this? I think it's really important that this is this is a very inspirational story it's a story about life it's I think people will be able to watch it because it beautifully integrates the the science side um with a personal story um so I don't think there are bits that people might think oh I'm not too sure about um but it's sensitively put on at a time where younger audiences wouldn't see it um I don't think it's it's gory or gruesome

and that's not been the reaction when joe and jason have seen it no no i'm just saying you know for people who are listening and want to see it they they may also want to hear why you think it's important to see it and i'm very struck by a message we've just had in uh which i'll share with you which says good morning my daughter's studying medicine and is in her fifth year in her first she was able to learn using bodies of people who donated themselves to medical science i decided that then this is what i would do as it had been so valuable and the bodies are treated with the utmost respect with an annual memorial service dedicated to the donors i did i'd urge anyone to do this if they feel they are able to so there you go listening to to that is one of ours

our listeners who's already made this decision it's of course a very personal decision uh professor claire smith thank you to you again joe and jason cruise tony's parents thank you very much for your time and insights and memories of your daughter this morning the program if you're interested my dead body is on channel four this evening at 10 o'clock. Now, it is Radio 4's Christmas Appeal Week, and for 96 years, I'm told, BBC Radio and St Martin in the Fields have worked in partnership to raise funds for people who are homeless and urgently need support around the UK. In the last two years, the Radio 4 Christmas Appeal has raised over £9 million for St Martins in the Fields. They in turn fund an organisation called The Connection, which provides shelter, food, help and advice to those in need. This year, the Women's Development Unit at the charities created its first census of women who were

sleeping rough across London. The aim is to better understand the experiences and risks associated with being homeless and a woman to better then design services that support them. The Women's Development Unit can now exclusively share the results of what they found today. And I'm joined by Eleanor Greenhalgh, the manager of the Women's Development Unit, and Pamela Orchard, the chief executive of The Connection at St. Martin's. Welcome to you both. Can we go first to the census? Eleanor, what have we found? Yeah, so like you said, it's new. It's the first of its kind and on this scale in England.

So it was really great to be able to do that so collaboratively with a lot of partners. And what we found, the main headline that we've got is that we got 154 responses from women across London telling us in depth about their experiences of homelessness through our survey which isn't data we've had like this at all before. And what can we learn from that do you think because the aim is to provide better services and design things with women in mind? Yeah absolutely so what's amazing about this is that we have that information that actually we're recording that they're present which is something in itself because often women are kind of missing from rough sleeping data that we have but also it shows us a bit more about their experience for example we know from this data

we can see that actually intermittent rough sleeping for women is a really difficult issue and that it's a really common issue and it keeps them it seems to keep them more isolated from services which is really dangerous in itself. In what sort of services? So from any support services so 21 women in our census weren't accessing support from any services at all which is obviously really risky. Right, so that now will inform what services are deployed, designed? Yeah, we hope so. We hope it can inform future data collection and also it can hopefully show there are women here,

their experiences have been counted and seen and therefore we need to provide better services for them because we've got a better understanding now than we've had before. What sort of age are the women? Are they all across the ages? So the most common response in terms of the census results was between, so over half of the respondents were between the ages of 30 and 44, which is really striking to me because last year the average age of death for a woman experiencing homelessness was 43 and I think that really brings home the risk that rough sleeping brings to women and how urgent it

is that we make sure we're reaching them and get them support. Let me bring in Pamela at this point good morning. Good morning. Why are women missing from the data a lot? I think women tend to hide away a lot more from sight when they're sleeping rough. As I'm sure you can imagine, it's a really dangerous, frightening thing for anybody to do. But if you are a woman, I'm sure lots of people listening to this will think about walking home late at night or something like that and how risky that might feel for them so if you're actually out with with nowhere to go at all um you might be feeling very concerned about your personal safety and so women will hide in all sorts of places that you might not necessarily look and the rough sleeping um counts that take place quite regularly in central london um don't they have a very particular way of

counting people so you find someone bedded down in a doorway and many women sleeping rough just wouldn't be there. And the services that you then try and provide with this trickiness of actually finding the women and the women coming to you, tell us about those. So when somebody is sleeping rough they will normally also have some kind of mental health problem that may not be diagnosed. And they might also be self-medicating with alcohol or street drugs or both, which means that people have got quite a high complexity of things that are going on in their lives. And if you go up to them as a health and social care professional and say, hello, I'd like to help you, here's a big list of things to do. It's highly unlikely that someone straight off would say, brilliant, yes, I'd like to do all those things. So job one is to create a relationship of trust with somebody who may feel very let down by health and social care services due to previous experiences of those.

So we would take a harm minimisation approach initially. So we might make suggestions to people about things that we can do to bring them inside and into some safety and into accommodation. But a first intervention might be something like offering people food or some water, asking someone what their name is, just starting to build up some rapport so that we can start to draw people into services over a period of time. And have you seen, maybe too early, I don't know, have you seen the cost of living crisis impact women and homelessness yet, all the services being asked for? Not yet, not yet specifically. So our numbers have steadily increased since the last of the hotel provision

was shut in March of this year after the pandemic. So prior to the pandemic, numbers in Westminster might be 350 to 380 people found on any one night. After the pandemic, it was down to about 170. And now we're seeing about 230, 250, something like that. So numbers are creeping up. So it's a bit difficult to tell whether that's a return to the streets of people who were there before or whether it's new people. And the reason, Eleanor, that women are homeless, what did you find out about that? So we had a fairly limited survey because we wanted to try and get as many people engaged with this as possible. So we didn't ask too many details.

But we know that many women who are homeless and rough sleeping, it's often talked about their experiences of domestic violence and abuse and other forms of violence as well. But of course, that's one part of the picture. And actually, people who are rough sleeping might have fled violence a really long time ago and they've had all sorts of situations in between or they might have been subject to all sorts of the pressures that such as in the cost of living crisis that we'll see difficult issues around rent and insecure housing and lack of job security and so on that will really push people into homelessness so there's a range of reasons, but unfortunately, women who are rough sleeping,

almost all of them will have experienced violence at some point. Well, thank you for coming to talk to us today. That was Eleanor Greenhalgh, Manager of the Women's Development Unit, and Pamela Orchard, Chief Executive of The Connection at St Martins. It is the beginning of Radio 4's Christmas Appeal Week. Many of you have experienced that before, have donated, which has been very kind. If you wish to do the same,

if you wish to donate to the Christmas Appeal, you can call 0800 082 8284 now. That's 0800 082 8284 now. Calls are free from landlines and mobiles. And for more information, please go to the Radio 4 Christmas Appeal website. You've been getting in touch, I have to say, so many messages about music this morning. Duncan's quite annoyed. He says, so Woman's Hour capitulates to the spreading of being a Philistine

on Radio 4, equating music and songs merely with pop or popular music. Haven't you heard of classical music? Yes, at no point I excluded that. I suggest there is more music and more song in, say, Schubert and Brahms than all your playlists. Have you never listened to them? Again, at no point did I say that, Duncan, but thanks for the supposition. And yes, I have an entire playlist which is interspersed with classical and pop. I don't know what you make of that. I'm very happy to share it with you. Another one here, Georgina

says, I'm just listening to your conversation, your articles. She puts it on musical playlists. I know that I may not be the norm, but I don't listen to any music. It's not that I dislike it. I know many songs and tunes. I prefer the spoken word. Georgina, I also. Amen. And her albums have always released content in parallel to the events of my life. I love it when that happens. And tuned in to what I'm feeling, there's everything about being female, the remnants of girlhood, reading English literature, and the connection with the natural world. A song that this woman's work has got me through periods of great grief. When my husband died at 40 40 I played it on repeat in the car returning nightly from the hospital as it enabled a rhythmic wailing type of singing I

needed to hide from the children but felt deeply as I've aged I'm now 61 I still use that song in terms of impending loss of someone I love this year seen two losses in my life two lifelong friends after long illnesses battled hard those lyrics and tones of singing along to real screaming and grief have got me through again i'd like to thank kate bush and i was 61 year old single woman looking to the finer quartile of my life so kate if you are listening and working up music reflecting music reflecting this stage i'd love to hear it lynn you and me both you know she was on the program earlier this year so maybe she she is listening. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one.

Hello, I'm Anita Arnand and I'm hosting this year's BBC Reef Lectures, which are on the subject of freedom. The lectures are inspired by Franklin D. Roosevelt's famous Four Freedoms speech. And this year, we have not one, but four speakers. We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way. The third is freedom from want.

The fourth is freedom from fear. A quartet of speakers examine what freedom means today, beginning with the best-selling author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Freedom of speech is, I think, essential to being human. You can hear all the lectures on Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. Just search for The Reith Lectures. 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.