Woman's Hour - Harry Dunn's Mum, Broken Hearts, TikTok Twins

Episode Date: February 18, 2021

Harry Dunn was 19 years old when he was killed on his motorbike by an American woman driving the wrong way. His parents have been fighting for justice for their son since it happened in 2019. It happened near RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire. The suspect, Anne Sacoolas returned to the States claiming diplomatic immunity. Now Harry's family has been told Anne Sacoolas will face a civil claim and it'll be held in the States. Charlotte Charles joins us on Woman's Hour.There's a consultation going on about whether or not the mini-pill should be sold over the counter in UK pharmacies. The public are being asked for their views. We speak to Dr Sonia Adesara, who's a doctor with a special interest in reproductive health.Kiran and Nivi are American twin sisters who've become a TikTok sensation. They've become famous for their harmonies, emotion-filled lyrics plus doing versions of songs with an Indian twist. One track has had more than 15 million views. They join Emma to talk about the surprising way they discovered their voice and talent.When Rosie Green’s husband walked out after 25 years, he declined to leave a forwarding address. She was devastated. She says "heartbreak happens every day, but it doesn’t happen to YOU every day." As a writer for Red magazine, she was able to describe her heartbreak in articles and get advice from experts. That's all come together in her book How to Heal a Broken Heart. Rosie joins Emma to describe her journey from rock bottom to reinvention.

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning. You can now contribute to a government consultation which may see pharmacies dispense two types of contraceptive pill without a doctor's appointment for the first time. Do you agree with that? What's your take on it? What's your experience?

Some people say this should have happened years ago, decades ago even, but that the pandemic has brought the issue into sharper focus. What's your view on that? Is it a strike for equality? Is it a moment where women perhaps are going to be trusted? Or perhaps it's something that makes you feel uneasy. Maybe you always think a doctor should be in the room when making these decisions for you and about your body. And there should be a review process always in place. No one's saying, by the way, that those things are going to go away. We will get into all of the detail of how this will work very shortly with a doctor and someone who's very familiar with this. But I wanted to ask you, if you like, as part of a Women's Hour informal consultation today, get in touch with your view and your experience on this.

You can text Women's Hour on 84844. Text will your view and your experience on this. You can text Woman's Hour on 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. Social media, we're over at BBC Woman's Hour. Email us your view, your take over on our website. TikTok, let's talk about that for a moment. You may not have been on there. You may have started to go on there. You may be dipping a toe, but it is creating the next generation of stars you will soon hear about. Today, we're going to speak to two of them. Well, they're twins, American twins, whose Indian-inspired pop music is earning them millions of fans,

both famous and everyone else in between. And we're going to talk to Rosie Green today on the programme. Her husband walked out on her after 25 years together, declining to leave a forwarding address. It nearly broke her. But how does a broken heart feel and how do you mend it properly? She's been finding out and wants to share some of her learnings with you. But first today I can talk to Harry Dunn's mum, Charlotte Charles, who's fighting for justice for her 19-year-old son who was killed on his motorbike in Northamptonshire in 2019

when an American woman was driving the wrong way. That woman, Anne Sekulis, returned to America, claiming diplomatic immunity and an extradition request was blocked. Now, a civil claim for damages against Harry's alleged killer has been allowed to go ahead in America due to her refusal to return to the UK. A judge has just made this ruling. Charlotte Charles, Harry's mum, joins us now. Good morning, Charlotte. Morning, Emma. Thank you for having me.

Thank you for talking to us. And I know that since this has happened, it's only just happened, this judgment. You actually haven't spoken out yet publicly about it and I know that you wanted to do so and you've chosen to do it with us today what do you want to say about this ruling basically that it just means an awful lot to me personally and obviously the rest of our family just being able to have the opportunity to hear some truths. You know, it means that Anzacoulis has to sit in a room with lawyers and answer questions under oath. So it means that I get the opportunity to present questions to her and I have to have truthful answers. Having that, I can't even begin to put into words how much that means to be able to perhaps try to find out parts of the jigsaw

puzzle that I still don't have because we haven't yet had our inquest. So to find out a little bit about Harry's last hours is enormous, absolutely enormous. And that's what's chased you around this, hasn't it? That is what you're doing all of this for. Yes. Yeah. We never wanted to bring a civil claim in the first place. It wasn't anything that we were. It wasn't in our remit. We weren't thinking about anything to do with the money side of things. But U.S. lawyers were approaching us. Many of them were approaching us a long, long time ago, advising that this may well be the way to go for us to find out extra information. So after lots of talking, lots of chatting and rad traveling over many parts of the united states i'm sorry we i'm sorry to interrupt but we should say that's the the family spokesperson who who i've also

spoken to in the past but just in case for our listeners yeah absolutely and he he traveled halfway around the world on many occasions to try and find the correct lawyers for us you know because it's it was just highly important for us that we found the right ones that would be able to enable us obtaining information and bring it on now. There's lots of questions I have. Anne Sekulis has admitted she was negligent and that her negligence did cause Harry's death. She has also said now in the latest statements that she wants to bring peace to Harry's family, to you, and that was after the judge rejected her bid

to have that damages claim moved to this country. Is there anything that you want to say in response to that? To just, you know, if that's what she wants to do, if she wants to find a resolution, then she needs to just do the obvious thing, like we've been urging right from the beginning, which is to just get herself on a plane and get back over to the UK to face that justice system. You know, Rad, again, you know, our spokesperson, he's working so very, very hard. There's dialogue going on all the time, almost daily between officials in Washington and in London. And we are on the right route to her facing the UK justice system. But she could make that happen an awful lot sooner if she wants to find that resolution and she wants to maybe think about rebuilding her own life, if not for her own sake, but for her children's sake, then the obvious answer is there to just come back and get it done.

And that would be your message to her, woman to woman, mother to mother? Absolutely. Yeah. Do it for her kids, if not for herself. The judge has said that she expressed a concern she would never receive fair treatment, both within the press and the local community, if she returned to the UK. Do you have any truck with that? No. I mean, all of our supporters are very, very vocal. They've been amazing. Literally around the world, they have been amazing. but they're good people and I do feel that she would and Sekoulis would definitely have a safe passage in and out of the UK um we we don't wish her any harm um this isn't about vengeance or retribution it's just about getting justice that my boy deserves I want to talk about Harry in just a moment, if I can, because he is at the heart of this. And he's the reason you're talking to all of us today.

The decision to go for a civil case, which has now been successful and will go ahead, you described in the past as a last resort. And you've explained that to us just now. How important or helpful would you say the British government, in particular the Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, was in supporting that case? Raab generally deals with all of those types of questions, but I can certainly be quite open about the fact that, of course, we are grateful for every bit of help that they have been giving us over recent months. I think everyone knows that we had a very, very rocky first year or so, to be honest, with the FCDO.

But there are many things that they've been working on with us since then. You know, the anomaly that we had amended in July to make sure that the loophole was filled so that we could be rest assured that this would never happen to any other family ever again. We were very vocal in thanking Dominic Robb and his team for that. And Rad has been very vocal the last couple of days in thanking the same team for helping us go ahead with this civil claim. You know, they are supporting us in every which way possible with that.

So onwards and upwards, hopefully with them. Can I ask about that badge you're wearing? Because I know this is radio, but we are in these times doing it over video conferencing. So I have the pleasure of seeing you, which is very nice for the purpose of being able to talk like this. And again, I know how hard or I know how hard you've told me it is at times to talk about Harry, but you're wearing a badge of a motorbike. Yeah. He was one hell of an enthusiast with motorbikes.

His whole life revolved around motorbikes. He had one from the age of seven. He's always been a bit of a petrol head. And I wore this badge to his funeral. And I've barely taken it off since. I try to wear it in nearly every interview I do, whether it's radio or whether it's TV. It's just part of part of him that I can feel that I can carry with me all the time and the other little badge is

obviously our little green ribbon which I think is quite significant we chose green because of Kawasaki green and he had his favorite motorbike was Kawasaki and it was a beautiful bright line green um but green green ribbons also represent mental health and I think it's very poignant because without having embarked on this campaign I don't think any of our mental health would be quite as intact as it is now you know it's it is it's not by any means perfect we are uh fragile for one word that can describe how we're um still living with the pain every day you know every fiber of your body still hurts um you miss him with every everything you've got everything you feel you miss you miss your child um but I think our mental health would have been

far far worse if we hadn't had the campaign to really focus some of our anger and some of our grief you know we've been able to channel some of that and for that I'll always be thankful um to to everyone around us that's that's helped us continue this campaign so yeah both of my badges are really really important to me I'm so happy you felt you could you could share that with us because I think it's important to to hear what are the things that get you through these times and campaigning is a massive part of that for you but those those smaller things that are almost part of your armor aren't they that you you put them on and also it keeps harry at the at the center and just before we came on air you said it was okay to ask you about this but i know you also have another part of harry

that you you keep in your with you in your rucksack yeah yeah a lock of his hair um thankfully it's something that the funeral directors are happy to do for you um they done it for my dad uh just the year before we lost Harry um and I put my dad's little heart with a load of white feathers and it just hangs in the house but I've not been able to bring myself to remove Harrah's lock of hair from the little jewellery pouch that the funeral directors put it in for me but it's in my rucksack everywhere I go it goes with me and I just hold it in my hand and give it a squeeze before I'm doing anything like this and I just it just helps give me the strength you know that's part that's literally part of him uh that I can that I can hold um you know a living part of

him that I can hold so it's um it's irreplaceable. Charlotte thank you so much for talking to us today. Thanks for having me it's lovely to talk to you again. Charlotte Charles thank you so much for talking to us today. Thanks for having me. It's lovely to talk to you again. Charlotte Charles, Harry Dunn's mum on the latest of that case, but also talking to us very candidly and for which I'm very grateful about Harry and putting him back in our minds and our thoughts. Now, some contraceptive pills could be dispensed over the counter in UK pharmacies for the first time without a doctor's appointment, the government said. The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, the MHRA, which we've been hearing about, of course, to do with vaccine approval, have launched a consultation asking the public for their views on whether two progesterone-only pills, also known as the mini pills, should be available to buy in some cases. And we'll talk

about all of the logistics of this without prescription. What do you think? Many messages have come in around this. Harriet says, I'm in my mid-twenties. I suffer from endometriosis. I was prescribed the pill by my doctor. I had a very bad reaction to the various pills I've been prescribed. Not even my doctors understand why I react the way I do to the pill. Had I bought it over the counter, had the reaction I did, I would have felt even more concern and confusion about my reaction than I already do and did. Whereas another one here,

the pill should be on sale without a prescription. The surprising question is, why hasn't it happened previously? So different views on this. Dr Sonia Adesera is a doctor and an activist with a specialist interest in reproductive health. We should also say the woman's our consultation. Well, we're always in consultation with you every day at 10 o'clock or on BBC Sounds. But this particular consultation is open on the government website until the 5th of March, the beginning of next month.

Good morning, Sonia. Morning, Emma. Thanks for joining us today. Let's just take this to the basics. What could this mean if it goes ahead? Yeah, so we're talking about the progesterone-only pill, that's the mini pill. So it's one type of contraceptive pill that's available. And they are suggesting that it's going to be available to buy over the counter. So you can just go into the shops in the way that

you would maybe buy paracetamol. You can still have a discussion with the pharmacist about it and you can just buy it, take it home and use it. So I think this is a really positive and long overdue step in the right direction. You know, three quarters of women of reproductive age use contraception, but we know that one in five women find it extremely or very difficult to get access

to the contraception that they want. And the progesterone only pill is extremely safe. It's widely used. And, you know, it can be for many women. It's brilliant. Is it one of the most popular ones? Is that why it's been put forward, if you like, to be the tester here? It's one of the pills which has the least contraindication so for some other contraceptions like the um some pills that contain oestrogen we can't give it to all women and whereas the progesterone only pill for the majority of women they will be able to use it the other thing about the progesterone only pill is that you can use it

for as long as you want so there isn't a time restriction so you can use it from you know the age of age of 16 up until menopause um so it's a very very safe um medication and actually i think there are you know many other medications that you can get over the counter that have are more unsafe um so i i think you know i think we we if this was a pill that men were using i don't think we'd even be having this conversation right now. It's an extremely safe, widely used pill. We should be thinking about how we can make it more easy for women to get access to this. Let's come back to that point in just a moment. I wanted to ask about your view as a doctor on how the pandemic has potentially impacted or expedited this decision in any way?

Yeah, so I think, you know, actually, I guess, you know, pre-pandemic, we know that women were already struggling to get access to contraception. And then this has become worse during the pandemic. We know for many health conditions that people are finding it difficult to get access to the medications that they need. And so I guess the pandemic has made us rethink about what we can do to make sure that people get access to what they need with not just contraception but with abortion care this is becoming sort of acute because people can't have consultations and with abortion care we've been thinking of we've introduced policies that allow women to have consultations via via zoom calls and via online and then having pills posted to them. So we are thinking about trying to, I guess, think about and be a bit more modern in how women can get

access to the medications that they need. There are a range of views coming in on this informal consultation I've just launched here at Women's Hour. And what's striking is quite a few women are getting in touch, not with the view that I'm sure is also out there, that perhaps this is outrageous, that maybe young people have easy access to contraception, although perhaps you can come to that in a minute. But one of those views I just read around, will this mean that some women who are perhaps bad at going to the doctor anyway to talk about hormonal impact of the pill or how they're feeling, or maybe even just link the two, that perhaps they've started taking a pill and it's not making them feel very good in themselves, that they're worried about this move because they want to still be able to talk to a doctor?

What do you say about that? And I agree, this shouldn't be a substitute for having access to a doctor or a sexual health professional or a pharmacist to discuss your contraception or any other health needs. So we need to have both. And so I think we need to be doing more to improve access to GP surgeries and also sexual health services. We know in this country, sexual health services have experienced really severe funding cuts over the past five to ten years and we know that many women and many men as well are really struggling to get access to sexual health advice and to family planning advice so we do need to improve that but I think we can be doing both we can be improving people's access to speak to their doctor and speak to their healthcare professional and also putting in things to make it easier for women to get access to the medication that they want or that

they need. I think my criticism with this proposal, I think my only criticism is the cost element. So these pills are going to be available to buy. And we know when the morning after pill became available to buy over the counter, some pharmacies are charging 20, 30 pounds for the morning after pill, which was just outrageous. And then that means there's certain groups of women so you know young women women on you know low incomes women struggling to support their families who will then struggle to get the contraception that they need and you know I think contraception is is not a luxury item it is a necessity for many women so we need to ensure that it's free and that it's easily accessible for everyone and the information is out there for everyone so they can decide what contraception is

best for them. Because yes, there are side effects to different types of contraception. So people need to have the information available. So just to be clear, the way it's framed at the moment, if this was to go ahead, it would be to charge for those two particular types of pill. So if people want to make their voices heard about any of this, they can go and feed it into the consultation that is publicly available. Yes, definitely. And that would be my main criticism,

that it should be free and it should be available for everyone. On the feminism point, a very brief word, if I can, because I am struck that we introduced you also as an activist in all of this. But, you know, some people saying, why hasn't this happened sooner? What's your take on that? Could you do it in a sentence for me? It's been 60 years since contraception was introduced.

And initially it was introduced for married women only. So I think we have made some progress in that area. However, these sort of paternalistic, out of date and quite patronising views towards women and their bodies and their sexuality still persists in women's healthcare. So we need to be, still, we still have work to do in that area. A good sentence that you put it into there.

Thank you very much, Dr Sonia Adesera, a doctor and activist with this specialist interest in reproductive health. Hopefully some of the questions that came in have been answered there. I'll come back to your messages on this because a lot of you with different views coming in. If you want to contribute, the number you need is 84844

or on social media, we are at BBC Women's Hour. I'm going to bring you an update on a case we've been following. The charity Pregnant Then Screwed has lost its legal challenge against the government for indirect sexual discrimination over the amount of support self-employed mothers received. The self-employed income support scheme was announced in March last year as we began lockdown along with the furlough scheme. It helps salaried employees hit by the pandemic and lockdown restrictions. The charity argued that the women who had taken maternity leave at a particular

time had ended up with less money. The scheme bases your payments on your earnings over the past three years, paying you 80% of what you would have earned during that time. In her judgment, Mrs Justice Whipple said the Treasury had, quote, good reason for adopting an approach that was simple and which used one rule, one approach applicable to all. Joining me now, Chief Executive and Founder of Pregnant and Screwed, Jolie Brearley. Jolie, your reaction to the judge? We're extremely disappointed and actually think some of it is completely inaccurate. The Treasury's argument was that the eligibility criteria was the same for everybody, so therefore it wasn't discriminatory. Our argument is that the discrimination occurs in the eligibility

criteria. Sorry, our argument is that the discrimination occurs in the eligibility criteria. Sorry, our argument is that the discrimination occurs in the calculation method. So if you've taken maternity leave in the last three years, your payment will be much below that of your childless or male colleagues. So essentially 70,000 vulnerable new mothers are financially penalised twice because firstly, they take maternity leave. maternity allowance is £151 a week which is one of the lowest payments in Europe and it's certainly not enough to live on so many families end up in debt and now they're being financially penalised again for doing the most important and the most challenging job that there is raising the next generation.

The Treasury have given us a statement. The spokesperson said, our package of support for the self-employed is one of the most generous in the world, part of a £280 billion investment to protect jobs and businesses during the pandemic. We always try and support as many people as possible through our schemes and will continue to do so. We welcome the court's ruling.

You obviously have a very different view of that. What do you make of the idea that it's a pandemic, one calculation, it's never going to be perfect. But of course, the government would say they have been generous in this instance. The government have been generous, we wouldn't deny that. And we know that they've had to pull this scheme together incredibly quickly. And of course, it's complicated. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't do it. If the government shied away from everything important because it was complicated, what sort of mess would we be in? So ultimately, all we conclude is that the government don't consider gender equality important. Well, if they were here, I'm sure they would add on to

that statement that they do and their equalities ministers would say that as well. I wanted to ask about what is your next plan? You know, do you have a next step to this? Will you appeal? We're very keen to appeal. We really do feel that we have a high chance of success if we do appeal. It's costly to do. So at the moment, we're looking at our options for raising the finance to be able to do it. Is that going to be potentially crowdfunding or something around that? Potentially. We're talking to lots of different organisations in the hope that we can raise some of the capital and then do the rest by crowdfunding. Well, perhaps we'll talk again if you do make that step or not.

I'm sure your other work, you're busy with Pregnant Than Screwed in lots of other ways at the moment. But thank you very much for talking to us and giving us an update on that court case. The chief executive and founder of Pregnant Then Screwed, Jolie Brearley. Now, social media is responsible for a lot of pain and discomfort, but it is still a place that can create people, give them access to a world or an industry that was previously off limits or at least very hard to get into and certainly this is true for american twin sisters chiron and nivi saishanka who have become tiktok musical sensations in lockdown known for their harmonies emotion-filled lyrics and classical indian inspired covers of songs such as never enough from the greatest showman see as elastic

heart and their most popular one so far, TikTok, hopelessly devoted their TikTok version of that. They'll be playing a little bit of that for us in this interview here in just a moment. They're followed by famous artists from Shawn Mendes to Meghan Trainor, and they've collaborated now with Jason Derula, a hugely popular music star who hails from America as well.

They're now creating their own music, and they joined me earlier on the line from San Diego. And I asked them, how did it all start? Basically, like I found the TikTok app like two years back and it was actually by Fluke. I just found it, you know, on the app store. And I'm like, OK, wait, I just asked her on like, hey, why can't we just post some videos? And so so we just like started posting like our first video um in our dorm so our first song that we covered was if i can have you by sean medes so that was the first video that we put out on tiktok and overnight it got like a thousand likes and we were really like shocked and surprised to see that because like a thousand likes so big for us especially at that time so

we were like okay maybe we should just do more and more. So that's how we kind of just posted more and more. And that's how we grew. And how are you finding doing this in lockdown? Because you did begin, as you say before, but it's for a lot of people, it's their entertainment and it's also what they do right now. Yeah, definitely. This year has been really important to us we got the most viral especially in this year so I think um even though COVID hit all of us like posting on TikTok kind of helped us as much as it helps other people for entertainment it actually helped us to build our careers I mean it's it's gone up a bit since a thousand likes, right? Yeah. Where are we now? Come on, do a bit of boasting. I mean, we're currently like at 1.2 million followers on TikTok.

And our most liked video is 3.4 million. And which one's that? That one's... That was the Hopelessly Devoted. That is Hopelessly Devoted. Should we hear a little bit of it? Because you very kindly, despite it being, you know, midnight or something where you are in California, you have said you would sing for us and we'd be so happy to hear it.

Yeah, sure. But now there's nowhere to hide since you push my love aside. My love is tight, I'm out of my head Hopelessly devoted to you I mean, we've only just met, but it feels so deep between us. Obviously, you were serenading me there. No, that was absolutely beautiful I felt like I should get my lighter out I think what's so fascinating about you apart from the fact that you're twins and maybe that kind of feeds into this and you could tell

us about that is that actually you took a while to talk as youngsters didn't you yeah so we were like three years of age and like we weren't speaking like a normal baby. I mean, like, they would make sounds, right? And we weren't doing that. And this worried our parents, and they, like, took us to a speech therapist. But the situation didn't improve much. So we were at New York at this time. And, like, every Sunday mornings, our parents would go to, like, an Indian church. And the host of that church, like, asked our parents one random week, like,

you should probably like have your kids come and, you know, teach them like a Indian song. That was like, my mom was like, we can't even make sounds. So, but, but our mom just had faith and, um, you know, taught us our first like Indian devotional hymn. And to their surprise, like we, like next week we sang it in perfect pitching rhythm and it shocked everyone there. The next week? Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

And has anyone ever thought about why it had taken so long? Because obviously music was a massive key to unlock you both. I don't know. I don't know. Like we know the story from our parents. Obviously, we didn't remember about it. But I mean, hearing about it, I feel like, you know, music is, has been a miracle for us. Cause like after months after this, like we could speak fluently and I think that's the shock. I mean, it's a shock even to us when we heard about it.

It's incredible. I love stories like that. Even if you can't understand them, I think they're just so powerful. And you both study music, is that right? And you play instruments? Yeah. So I play the piano and I also play like an Indian instrument called harmonium, where you pump air to make sounds and make the notes. Yeah. And what's the other instrument going on on there have you got a different one or do you play the same yeah um actually i play the ganchira it's an indian instrument it's like a drum percussion instrument um basically just it's like a tambourine um but you just hold it and you you play um like using your your your right hand okay so there's there's a small semblance of an orchestra here but others could join in I suppose to fill it out. It's been described your sound as a very unique one the sound of Indian

classical music combined with pop. How important is it to have that Indian element? Yeah so I mean at the age of five we started actually our first genre of music we learned was Indian classical music called Carnatic music. So we've been like performing this music in India, in US, in UK, you know, and all around the world. And it's just, you know, it kind of represents us. It's our cultural identity. And, you know, we just thought like, why can't we just, you know, mix it with pop and kind of make it our sound as that's not been heard in the industry today. So just you know mix it with pop and kind of make it our sound um as that's not been heard in the industry today um so you know we actually just posted um a small clip on instagram on instagram reels what we did we just took um the song overwhelmed by royal royal and the serpent and um we added this segment called suaram uh it's basically indian solfege so basically like

in american solfege it's story me fossil atido but in indian solfege. So basically like in American solfege, it's Dori Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do, but in Indian solfege, it's Seri Ga Ma Pa Da Ni Sa. So you use those notes and you create your own rhythmic patterns or whatever fits with the song. So we posted that on Instagram Reels and overnight it got viral. And we posted on TikTok like a week later and it also got viral overnight. So we were like really shocked to see that people were, you know, the comments were like saying that, oh, wow, I really like that segment, that part that you you're doing. It's so cool. And that that's like really it was really shocking to us because people who don't even know what that is really love that. And they started to really connect with that and

we started doing more and more of that and that's how we started to imbibe the Indian classical music with pop. And it is brilliant. Kaya and Anivi, thank you for that and in case a little burst of song that they gave us just in that conversation wasn't enough, here's a clip of their latest single You Got It All Wrong. Two seconds I lose Could forever be of no use Working at six past four dreams Could make the whole world stay Hear me say

You got it wrong You got it wrong and you've heard about them now, so check them out. But let's talk to Rosie Green because she wants to talk about what she's learned on an incredibly difficult journey. Her husband walked out after 25 years together, declining to leave a forwarding address. She was devastated. Turned into someone she says she barely recognised, unable to eat or sleep. She lost two stone in weight.

And so desperate to keep the family together, they have two children, she felt like she was sacrificing her sense of self and dignity. She says heartbreak happens every day, but it doesn't happen to you every day. And she thought she'd never get over it. But she did. And in her position as a contributing editor at Red Magazine, she was able to write out some of her heartbreak, seek advice from experts, which has culminated in her book, How to Heal a Broken Heart. Rosie Green joins me now. Good morning.

Good morning. Rosie, can you describe heartbreak? Well, I mean, I think anyone that's been through it, and I think that's the majority of us, know that it is the most horrific pain. And even though no one can see it, you know, you're walking around and you're having a cup of coffee or you're going into work and you just feel so unutterably awful. But, you know, nobody else is aware of that. And I mean, you're saying this to me with a big smile on your face now, but I've read your book and, you know, it reduced me to tears,

especially the bit where you talked about, you know, pawing at the sheets lying in your bed. Absolutely. I mean, I remember waking up in the morning with kind of, you know, my face kind of crunchy with tears and, you know, that horrible, and I know other people have said to me, they felt this as well. You know, you kind of wake up and you have that blissful like second where you don't remember and then you suddenly it comes crashing in. How did you find out and what was the reason your husband left? Well, so as I say, I think, you know, it had always been the most kind of, you know, strong, stable marriage. I think, you know, we'd win the awards for least likely to, you know. And so I just kind of,

you know, in the last few months, even just before I found these messages on his phone, I kind of, I just got a sort of uneasy sense. And he, you know, he was responding to me differently. But still, you know, I might, I sort of said a few things to a few friends, and they were like, no, no, don't be ridiculous. You know, this is just absolutely, you know, he totally loves you. He's always adored you. You know, I think I said in the book, you know, he'd always looked at me in the same way that Harry does Meghan Meghan that kind of love you know people would you know comment on that and so um you know I just didn't see it coming and I think that was the kind of for me that was the most shocking thing I like to think of myself as quite an emotionally

intelligent person so so to not have sort of even anticipated this was on its way it's not like I felt we were arguing or, you know, it wasn't like we stopped having sex. It wasn't like we kind of, you know, we stopped going on holiday, any of those things. And you did find out because of his phone? Yeah, which I think is now why most people, you know, I think it's probably phones that, you know,

reveal these things to most people. And it was because he usually has a code or had a code that you knew, a sort of security code he would use. We've all had, you know, we were sort of so open in our communications that, you know, we kind of knew each other's codes. Of course, you know, we know each other's bank codes. You know, we knew everything about our phones were even linked, in that kind of weird iphone way that they do um so yeah but also i think because you know i think now people are so you know they're aware of these messages flashing up on their screens but but you know actually all our messages would just flash up with the words you know we weren't hiding anything from each other and i just thought oh that's a bit you you know, first, the first few messages I thought, that's just a bit odd. It's not a way that I would think of him communicating with someone.

And, and then, yeah, I mean, I can't go into the absolute nuts and bolts of it for legal reasons. But yes, then eventually I, you know, I saw the messages. And you knew that. I knew. That he had been, he'd been cheating and this was, well, you didn't know necessarily it was the end then. And I think that's what's striking, isn't it? You say it's not like Hollywood where it's over and they just walk out and then that's it. You had to live together for some time afterwards.

Yeah. And I think, you know, I think most couples will go through that stage where they're trying to save it. And for me, that was the most damaging time because I was're trying to save it and and for me that was the most damaging time because I I was desperately trying to save it and I think you know quite often often with men or ex-partners you know they they've come to the conclusion a long time ago that they're not happy and they're not in the relationship but they might not have the words to say that or they might not oh they're too fearful to say it they might not have the balls to say you know any of those things and so actually they've made their peace with it but for me it was such a shock and so I was just sort of I felt like a kind of car skidding on ice just trying to get it back you know back on on the straight and narrow but really I knew in my heart I was fighting a losing battle so that was

just so destructive to my self-esteem I think think. It also sounds like, especially the idea that he didn't leave a forwarding address, that he could be quite brutal at times with his finality and you were struggling to get to the same place. Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, it's hard, isn't it? Because what I tried to do with the book was make it less about him and more about me. And in a sense, that's the message that I want to give to everyone book was make it less about him and more about me. And in a sense, that's the message that I want to give to everyone who's going through a split is that actually the longer, you know, the longer you take to detach,

the more you spend time obsessing what they're doing or where they're going or who they're with, then, you know, you're not healing yourself, but absolutely, you know, he, he was, well, you know, actually that's untrue. He did waver a bit, you know, he obviously knew what he was, he obviously knew what he was leaving, but he, but, you know, really, he checked out. And so for me, it was coming to terms with that. And then, you know, working out in the there's a woman that you went to go and talk to and you wish you'd spoken to her earlier and you list some of her pieces of advice quite early on in the book. But is there a piece of advice that you could give our listeners who might be going through this right now that you want to share? Well, I would say if they're at the very start of that journey, I would say, you know, what I've just said about the detaching. But also, I think, you know, a lot of the pain of heartbreak is actually uncertainty. You know, you've kind of lost that safety net. You've lost your vision of the future.

So if you can create certainties today, tomorrow, those certainties might be my family loves me. My children are here for me. You know, all those all those small things just get through one day at a time when you're at the very worst of your suffering. So keep an eye on what's always there and going to be there. I also like the fact you talked about one of, you know, your friends who've just seen you and I'm not laughing, I'm laughing at almost the thought of, you know, like you howling on the floor and, you know, and one girlfriend stayed in your bed with you. Oh, she did. You know, she, and actually, I mean that there are, you know, when I look back on it, there are such amazing things. I've taken amazing riches for

this journey, which is, and a lot of that is the power of my girlfriend, you know? And yes, she, you know, she made that decision. She drove two hours in the middle of the night, you know, she came, you know, he just wasn't coming home. And home and I was as you say clawing at the bed sheets devastated and she came you know she got up in the morning she made my kids breakfast and you realize the the power of women at that point I would like to say there are lots of things you should do but I always think there's one thing you shouldn't do which is embark on a major drastic haircut I got that I got that advice from Alexa Chung. She was like, don't get a bulb. And I thought, yeah, that is essential. Are you, we've had a question, are you in a relationship

now? Have you been able to take that step? Yes, I am. And I write about that in the book, actually. I kind of, there's a massive thing of like when you should embark on dating, when you should, you know, when, whether you need to heal before or whether you can heal within a relationship. But for me, I, you know, I, I love heal before or whether you can heal within a relationship. But for me, you know, I love loving and I love being loved. And actually I knew, you know, I knew it would be great and healing and fun and all those things. So now I feel like I've got kind of another shot, you know, Rosie 2.0. Could you have imagined being in another relationship

at the beginning of this when you were starting to try and cope with a broken heart? Absolutely not. And I kind of, I remember I went on this divorce retreat with this woman called Sarah Davison. And she, you know, she asked us to write our worst fears. And mine was, I just wrote, you know, I will never be loved again.

And I, you know, I just absolutely thought that was me done over. You know, I was going to kind of die in alone in a flat with lots of newspapers being mauled by my association I could never believe that there there would be love out there it's quite a strong vision that yeah exactly so that was what I was thinking and actually you know in a way you know my husband and I got together when I was so young so in a way to have a kind of grown-up relationship where we can talk about feelings and you know what's what certain triggers are you know and really enjoy a kind of you know a sort of

second chance well rosie thank you so much for talking to us rosie green's written it all in a book called how to heal a broken heart arthur says this also happens to men i was similarly abandoned after 27 years of marriage but there is hope i found new life i've got a very happy loving second marriage i was able to forgive my ex-wife for the sake of our children and now grandchildren. 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 Greg Jenner, the host of the You're Dead to Me podcast, and I have some good news. Now that we're all stuck at home, again, we are bringing back Homeschool History.

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