Woman's Hour - Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny, HPV kits, Aspire to adventure

Episode Date: October 22, 2021

The former presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton has a new book out, “State of Terror”, a political thriller written with the award winning author Louise Penny. The two women were already friends before deciding to pen the novel which features a President who “smells of meat” and appears to resemble Donald Trump and a British Prime Minister who’s “a twit” and seems to have a more than a passing resemblance to Boris Johnson. Anita Rani talks to the duo about their collaboration and some of the uncanny parallels between “State of Terror” and global politics today. Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a very common virus – Cancer Research UK estimates around 8 out of 10 people will be infected at some point in their lives. HPV spreads through sexual activity. In most people, it doesn’t cause any problems and goes away on its own, but HPV can increase a woman’s chance of developing cervical cancer. Gynaecological charity The Eve Appeal have found a ‘worrying’ trend in HPV kits being sold online by private companies, advertised alongside misleading information. Tracie Miles is a gynaecologist cancer specialist nurse at The Eve Appeal. Mercedes Gleeson is someone who has been open about her own experience with HPV.Anita is joined by two guests who are trying to encourage women to get outside and go on adventures. Army Officer Preet Chandi is preparing for a solo, unsupported trek across Antarctica to the South Pole in November. She will be the first Asian woman to do this. Dr Geeta Ludhra set up a walking group in the Chilterns to encourage women from diverse backgrounds to get out on smaller scale adventures in the UK to connect with nature and feel the health benefits.Presenter: Anita Rani 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 Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning. Oh, have I got a line-up of amazing women on the show today. I'm going to tease you with a big name drop. Hillary Rodham Clinton, on her way. Now, I'm on a bit of a mission today. By the end of the show, I hope to have convinced a few of you who might not already do it to get out into the great outdoors. Lots of us love to go for long walks, particularly in this perfect autumn weather,

but there are still communities who don't see the countryside as a space for them. Later, I'll be chatting to two adventurous women who want to get more women of colour to get their walking boots on and defy what might be expected of them. And that is a theme for the show today. We are all about breaking boundaries and smashing glass ceilings. So I want to hear from you this morning about your own breaking boundaries moment. What have you done that went beyond what anyone thought you could do? Were you just carried on rather than stopping? Were you did something no one expected you to do or no one thought you could do?

Whether that's a physical challenge or a job promotion or a choice about living your life in an unconventional way or bringing up your children on your own terms. At what points in your life were you able to turn down the noise of the outside world? All those voices saying you shouldn't do it and your own internal negative dialogue to just go and do what the heck you like. Breaking boundaries. I would love to be inspired by you all this morning.

Text me on 84844. You can also email by going to our website. And of course, you can contact us on social media. It's at BBC Woman's Hour. Now, it's always a treat to have guests in the studio, but it doesn't get much better than this. Today, I'm joined by two exceptional women. You could say they've broken a few boundaries between them, just a few,

both at the top of their game and both with a global reputation. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former presidential candidate, Secretary of State and First Lady of the United States, and Louise Penny, the award-winning author known for her Chief Inspector Amand Gamache thrillers, which sell around the world. Together, they've written a new book. It's Secretary Clinton's first novel and Louise's 18th. State of Terror is a fast-paced political thriller spanning the UK,

Europe, America, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Canada. Have I missed anywhere? It is a cracker. Welcome to Woman's Hour, both of you, Hillary and Louise. Thank you, Anita. Congratulations on this book. It's absolutely brilliant. A real page turner. I couldn't put it down. Firstly, for our listeners, we would love to talk about women breaking boundaries and asking your listeners to let you know what they're doing. I love that. This book really came out of our friendship. And our friendship started because of my lifelong friend, a woman named Betsy,

who I met in the sixth grade, which meant in the U.S. I was like 10 or 11 when we met. And during the 2016 presidential campaign, she was doing interviews about me, about growing up and all. And a reporter asked her, well, what do you do together? How do you spend your time? And she talked about, you know, how we spend time together and our families and all of that. And she then said, and we also love to read, which we have ever since we were little girls, and we like to recommend books to each other. And the reporter followed up and said, well, so like, what are you reading now? And she said, well, we're reading the latest Louise Penny

Gamache books. And thank goodness she did, as you'll hear in a minute, because it led to where we are today, sitting with you. So the article was published, and then Louise's publisher reached out to Betsy, and I'm going to let Louise take it from there. Well, it really is the most extraordinary thing, because Hillary, like most of us probably listening, but specific to you, you read Small C Catholicly. I mean, you read everything all the time. So I had the question being asked almost literally an hour earlier, an hour later. I mean, it could have been James Patterson sitting here for an hour, but anyone sitting here.

And it wasn't. And so my publicist saw it, got in touch with me and said, Hillary Rodham Clinton reads your books. Would you like to meet her best friend? And when I regained consciousness, I said, yes, I think that would be nice. So my latest book was being launched in Chicago, which is Hillary's hometown and Betsy's hometown. And so we met. We became immediate friends, which is an extraordinary thing to be of a certain age. When I thought my dance card was full, I'd met everyone who would be important in my life already. And that was so wrong. I can't tell you.

We describe Betsy as the taproot because so much changed in my life from that encounter, including, of course, meeting Hillary. What happened, though, two weeks after I came back from tour was that my husband, who had had dementia, passed away, which, of course, was a devastating experience. And I was going through the letters of condolence and there was one from Hillary. I mean, she'd written, she was at the end in the last days of the most brutal political campaign probably ever. And she took time out to write to a Canadian, a woman she'd never met, about a man she'd never met, and I can't even vote. It was an act of pure altruism, a private act, that she never knew any I would ever talk about.

It was such kindness. And then after the election we met, and I think the common ground we had immediately was that we were two women who had nothing to give each other except friendship. You know, I had nothing to offer you. You had nothing to offer me except we understood each other because we'd just been through hell and we knew what loss was. We knew what grief was. And that's where we started. And oddly enough, out of that morass came such joy. So whose decision was it to sit and write a book together?

You know, Anita, we had so much fun. And for, you know, about next two plus years, we vacationed together along with our friend, my lifetime friend and Louise's new friend, Betsy. We just had a really good time. Louise came to our family Thanksgiving, which is in the U.S. in November. We just spent time together. You came to Quebec, of course, a few times. Came to Canada to see you. And then in July of 2019, Betsy passed away from breast cancer, which she had been fighting for 10 years. And we both spoke at her memorial service at the invitation of her husband. And so our friendship really started because of Betsy. It deepened because of Betsy. It deepened because of Betsy.

And then with Betsy's passing, we obviously continued our friendship, stayed in touch. And then out of really nowhere, toward the fall end of 2019, our agents reached out to us and said, have you ever thought about writing a thriller and writing it with the other? And I have to confess, I've never written fiction. I was somewhat apprehensive. I didn't want to do anything that was beyond my capacity to do. And I didn't want to in any way endanger my friendship with Louise. And she had a different set of issues, one of which is that she'd written these amazing books,

but always on her own, never with a collaborator. No, no, no, exactly. It was completely, I had no idea how to write with a collaborator. And generally when I write, nobody sees it except me until it gets like the five or sixth, because my first drafts are soft and smelly they are soft and smelly they are really bad so I thought now Hillary is going to see how awful I am and I often think of it as like a tennis you know you go from playing singles to suddenly having to play doubles and I thought I am going to hit Hillary Clinton on the back of the head with tennis balls

for like six months and even worse she's going to be hitting me. But we wrote, what happened was, because our publishers, of course, quite rightly had no faith that we could do it either. And they suggested, demanded that we write a synopsis. And that was really the turning point, wasn't it? It was, you know, it was so important because we didn't have a plot. We didn't have characters. We were just sort of casting about. And the discipline of working on an outline and the pandemic hit. So we were not even able to get together to work on it.

Do you remember? We had dreams fueled by you. So you weren't in the same room as all different countries? No, no. Our border was closed. So she was in Canada. I was in the U.S. So it was all FaceTime and phone calls and everything. Actually, though, being locked down made it possible for us to do this because we both had the time to really concentrate on it. And doing the outline, which ended up being 19 pages, single space, as I remember, it was so dense, you know, got us going. And we then began having fun with it, Ania, because, okay, what about this? And what about that?

And no, I don't like that so much, but hey, maybe this. It was great. And we knew we could then that proved that we could work together. Exactly. At least it certainly proved to me and I think to you as well that we could not only come up with an idea, but that we could, we were safe together. We could be creative, we could take risks together. And you can trust each other. That's exactly. And interestingly enough, trust became a leitmotif through the book as well who do you trust so once you've come up with the plots and the outline which we will go discuss in a moment how was it received did you then write your first draft and then did you receive these soft and smelly first drafts

read through Hillary worse than getting a tennis ball isn't it well you know once we once we had the plot and we knew that we wanted the protagonist to be a woman secretary of state, because I could contribute a lot on that. And we also knew that we wanted to honor our friend Betsy. So we wanted a character not only named Betsy, but someone who exhibited the genius for friendship that our Betsy did. And then we were off to the races. And it was, you know, I found the process exhilarating and, frankly, liberating. Yeah. Because having written, you know, seven prior nonfiction books where, you know, you have a story you want to tell, but you also have a point you want to make.

I feel like it's kind of telling people to eat their spinach, like learn about this or worry about that, or here's what I think happened. And it's really important. I'm not in any way undermining that. But being in the fiction realm, especially with someone as skilled and gifted as Louise is, gave me a chance to sort of go much further and say, well, you know, Louise, there's this problem or maybe what about this? And it was so exciting. It really gave you permission. Thank you.

Gave you permission. What was incredible to me is that I knew, because I knew Hillary, of course, and I've gotten to know her much better through this but I knew that you would be able to contribute you know, it's called mahogany row where the thing is, this is what it's like to be on a military jet going all over the world and to be judged

what I didn't realise you would contribute and you're so good, you're so creative, just all of the plot points and the idea. Let's talk about the plot. You can tell you're having a lot of fun, by the way. There's lots of laugh out loud moments. So the plot centers around Ellen, who is secretary of state, which is equivalent of our foreign secretary and her best friend, Betsy, who is her counselor and how there is a terrorist threat to America. And they go on this global adventure to try and find who's behind it.

Right. Right? Right. Oh, it's good. It's a female buddy. Oh. And how often do you get that in a political thriller? You've already broken a boundary right there.

I mean, on top of all the other boundaries you've broken between you. Right there, you've got two women, middle-aged, at the center of a political thriller. You've mentioned Betsy so many times that we have to just go straight to this female friendship that's at the center of a political thriller. You've mentioned Betsy so many times that we have to just go straight to this female friendship that's at the core of it. I fell in love with Betsy. If you wrote Betsy to honor your best friend, Hilary, and your friend, Louise, you did a phenomenal job because I want a Betsy in my life. Every woman needs a sweary, Chardonnay-drinking,

cake-loving woman who's got your back. And this theme of friendship between the two of them is a core, isn't it? It is. And that was very important to us. I mean, I think we made explicit what we felt implicitly. You know, we were brought together as friends. We also had the opportunity to expand our circle of friends together. I met really good friends of Louise. She met very good friends of mine. And friendship is at the core of

the story. And that was what drove the character development. And for any of your listeners who've read Louise's Gamache series, it's the characters that you keep coming back to. Yes, there are murders and all kinds of terrible things that happen, but it's the characters who grab your heart. And that's one of the things that both Louise and I were so determined to do. We've read a lot of thrillers. I've read many, many hundreds of them, and I love them. But at the end of it, it's the action. It's not the character so much that one remembers at the end. And so we wanted people to come to this. And yes, there's terrorists getting a hold of, you know, nuclear weapons and all kinds of other

really scary things happening. But at the core, are these two women? Yes. And their friendship. And Ellen. And Ellen, and I have to say, I read the acknowledgements at the back of the book, which are so moving and beautiful. And Ellen, who plays the secretary, is the secretary of state, you say, is based on your friend, Senator Ellen Tauscher, who also passed away in 2019. Right.

But there must be a bit of you in there as well, Hilary. Well, there certainly are a lot of my experiences. And Louise never got to meet my friend Ellen Tauscher. And it was quite a terrible three months because we were writing, like, you know, how would she deal with this? And one of the many things I loved about her is how her a bit to have somebody say, well, I want to, you know, I think, well, let's go get coffee. And she said, no, I'll do that. But when I get back, we're going to make a very positive attitude toward whatever was thrown at her in the high stakes world of politics and diplomacy. And that is our Ellen in the book as well. You know, she does have incredible composure. The opening scene of the book, which is phenomenal,

she's just on her way back. She flies back in Air Force Three from North Korea. It's not going very well. She's covered in mud. She has to get to what is a State of the Union address, but it's not. So she's going to be in full show, TV cameras there. She's covered in mud. Let me just repeat that. Takes her heels off.

What I'm struck by is that inner dialogue of hers where she says, right, I've just got to hold it together. And it just made me think of you, Hillary, in situations where you have had President Trump looming over you. You've had people chanting, lock her up. How do you keep your composure? What do you tell yourself to make sure that you hold it down in that situation? Well, Anita, that's absolutely right. I mean, you have to keep focused on what your purpose, your mission is, and not constant travel. And, you know, lots of times you would get off the plane at the crack of dawn, you'd get back on at midnight, you'd get off the next day at the crack of dawn, and I was landing in a European country that shall remain nameless. And I went to this meeting, and I'm on the plane. I'd been on the plane for literally like four days, stopping and going. So I pulled

my hair back. I thought it looked fine, you know, got a little height on it and pulled it back. I go to the meeting and I get ushered into the room and the prime minister is sitting on the other side of the table. And he's staring at me, not saying anything. And I'm wondering, what is going on? And finally, I said, prime minister, is there something you want to raise before we start the formal meeting? He goes, well, I was told if your hair is pulled back, you're in a bad mood. I said, no, Prime Minister, it's a bad hair day. There's a difference. But it's that kind of constant incoming information and distractions that you have to keep powering through.

And scrutiny that you get that the men don't. Yes. And it's made me think about the characters in this and the amount of fun you must have had writing the characters and the British Prime Minister, Prime Minister Bellington, who you describe as having unruly hair. Complete fiction. Yeah, and complete fiction.

Yeah, and the Latin phrases. I don't know where that comes from. Can I read that bit out, actually? And no one's scrutinizing his hair, by the way. No one's saying anything. It says, and to be fair, Prime Minister Bellington had been a favorite target of her media outlet. That's because Ellen used to be she's not come up through politics. She owns right. She's a big media mogul and painting him as woefully inadequate, a hollow man, an upper class twit with any guts he might have. He might have had replaced by entitlement and random Latin phrases.

But, you know, go on, Sonia. No, the amount, just the fun that you had writing these characters. What was important to us, though, is that none of them be caricaturish because every character evolves. And we see as the story goes on, he evolves as well, or at least our understanding of him. And he becomes actually quite pivotal in the resolution. Yes, he does. Yeah, we do try to, it's interesting, you know, there are some characters who, you know, our view of them is that they don't evolve. They have a persona that is rooted in their particular view of the world, but most others do evolve. So even with Ellen, she's appointed to become Secretary of State by the new president, who she had opposed through her media empire. They do not trust each other. They do not like each other. He actually wants her to fail. They have a prior history as to why they really don't like each other. And so during the course of the plot, in order to deal with this horrendous threat of potential nuclear weapons being in the hands of terrorists, they have to learn to trust each other. So it was important for us to

take most of our major characters and show they're not perfect people. They don't get it always right. You know, the women are not, you know, kicking down doors and throwing hand grenades. They are using their wits, but they're also learning as they go. And that was really part of the, you know, development we wanted. Yeah, it was really important to us that we have women who are recognizable, that women who are reading this can say, you know what, I think that's how I might react. Our women have doubts. They have insecurities. God knows, as you said, Hilary, they're diminished and underestimated as any woman, whether in the public eye or just breathing. But they use those assumptions that the men around them are making about them to their advantage.

Yes, yes. I'm thinking about one situation where Ellen Adams has gone to Iran to see the Ayatollah. I don't want to give the whole plot away. But she uses her pragmatism. She does something that's unexpected that all the men around her would never think of doing. In fact, they actually gasp when she does it. Yes. Betsy does the same.

She's pretending to play Candy Crush. Yes, you're nodding. And, you know, how much fun did you have writing that? On the plane on the way over. I'm sitting there after three hours hoping Hillary's asleep. No, no, no. She comes sort of knocking on the door and says, are you playing Candy Crush? And I was. But this is about men underestimating women.

Even in the highest political office, when you have earned your right to be right there up against them, still, you're traveling the world. You know, Anita, just a few weeks ago, I saw an article in The New York Times talking about Angela Merkel, who, as we all know, was chancellor of Germany for, I think, 16 years. And the article said her secret weapon was being underestimated and knowing how best to try to use that, not only to her personal advantage, but also to getting the things done that she thought she should as the leader. So it's a theme that runs through it. But we also have fun with the characters. I mean, I don't think you will find any other book, let alone any other thriller, in which both Spanx and flannel pajamas with moose figures are on them. Because, you know, we wanted to get people smiling, maybe even laughing a little bit. They're Easter eggs, aren't they?

Yeah, they're little Easter eggs all the way through the book. Through the book. And do you know what I find interesting, too, as we've been, since the book has been out and we've had reviews, which, thank God, are superb, and hearing from readers, is that you and I have been underestimated. Oh, well. As our collaboration, I think people didn't, and perhaps understandably, expect the book to be any good. Well, little did they know. Little did they know.

Yes. But, you know, the fact is, you're not going to allow a book to get out there that isn't any good, and I sure am not. No, no. And it's all about the levels of scrutiny that women are put under, the harsh scrutiny that, including right now, we look at Kamala Harris. Yes. And as vice president, the first woman to be vice president, the first woman of color. How much of the criticism that's faced that she gets is to do with the fact that she's a woman of color? And how much is it because of the job that she's doing? You know, it's truly clear to me that a lot of the criticism is

motivated by her being our first woman vice president and a woman of color and the daughter of immigrants. So it's all rolled up into a kind of view of our vice president that is motivated by all kinds of, you know, concerns that have little to do with the job she's doing. And it's really something that you just have to power through. We were talking about how do you deal with it. And for all of the people listening, you know, women have to become experts in dealing with unfair criticism or double standards or implicit bias. Because sadly, that's still part of the world in which we live. And, you know, she continues to, you know, just do her job and show up and be gracious and incredibly, you know, focused on what she is being asked to take responsibility for. And you just have to hope that at the end of the day, there are enough fair minded people who say, wait a minute, that's good. I like that.

But it's incredibly difficult. We've had debates on this program about the levels of criticism, particularly women in positions of power the 2016 election, what happened, I have a whole chapter called Women in Politics. And I really try to analyze how difficult it is for a woman to seek the highest position and what comes with it in terms of the criticism. And the more we talk about it, the more we kind of put it out there in the light of day, then it's not just the individual woman's burden to bear. You know, we have a better understanding that this kind of goes with the territory and we all have to, you know, hold each other accountable for making judgments that are not rooted in whether she's a woman of color or whether she's a woman at all. So I'm hoping that we're making progress on that. I'm sort of hoping that the book might also help. You talk about, you know, that it's so different writing fiction and it gives you, again, permission to make things more palatable and more approachable in fiction than it is in nonfiction. And one of the big themes in the book is identity and the so-called culture wars that we've discussed.

I'm going to quote something else from the book, if I may. There are those who hate America's diversity and changes it has brought. They see it as a threat to their livelihoods, to their way of life. They see themselves as patriots. They're as radicalized as Al-Qaeda domestic terrorists. And you talk about this. You know, we are having similar conversations in the UK about identity. I'd like to say debates, but you know, sometimes you think it's more than a debate. This is almost like a fracturing of society. The debate has become so polarized. And it's uncivil. Yeah.

But you know, Anita, this is one of the biggest challenges facing democracies like yours here in the UK are certainly in the US because there are very powerful forces at work who are weaponizing identity and culture to further their own interests. Some of it might be their own personal political interests, as we saw with our former president. Some of it might be ideological, that they want to, in their words, kind of purge society of its diversity so that it can be more pure. So there's a lot that is swirling around as people are trying to come to grips with diversity. And I have said for many years, I think our diversity in the United States is one of our strengths. And I think the same for the UK.

But it does take a civil conversation where people are actually listening to one another to get through the fears, the insecurities and anxieties that difference often brings. I think we are seeing back in America, a concerted effort to really undermine our democracy by those who fear the diversity. And so part of what we were trying to get across in the book is there are people who, if they were sitting here in front of you, would consider themselves great patriots, you know, great, you know, people of, you know, conscience, who believe and believe wrongly, and I think dangerously, that they are doing the right thing by, you know, trying to prevent people of color from voting by being not just strong against mass migration, but inhumane using, you know, all kinds of tactics. So I think the book is a cautionary tale about both threats from without foreign adversaries and threats from without, foreign adversaries, and threats from within.

And we all watched the news in horror. I'm sure nobody more shocked than America itself when Capitol Hill, the riot on Capitol Hill took place, you know, and it just exposed the fragility of democracy. It was so unbelievable that I stood in front of the television set. A friend of mine called and said, turn on your TV. Look at what's happening at the Capitol. I mean, I worked there for eight years. I've been there, you know, my entire adult life in and out of the chambers. And it was horrifying. And a lot of those people with the flags they were wearing and the signs they were carrying, they wanted to overturn an election because it didn't turn out the way they preferred because their candidate, the former

president, who stands for white supremacy and nationalism and authoritarianism, wasn't the victor. And it was such a direct assault on our democracy. And it was made worse by the way the Republican Party just collapsed. They owe their allegiance only to this terrible idea and to the former president in a way that I never would have expected. Having served with some of them, knowing many of them, they really have shelved their conscience, their ethics, their values in the pursuit of power at almost any cost, I guess. So I fear that we're in a quite difficult struggle to make sure that the diversity of voices, and that includes women, because if you look at what happens in authoritarian societies, women are often the first victims. Well, look at what's happening in some states like Texas. Yes, indeed. Where abortions are being made, it's being made almost impossible

for women to gain access to abortion. But even worse than that, Anita, for your listeners, the bill that was passed in Texas to basically eliminate abortion, the way it's enforced is not through government power, but through vigilantes,

people who inform on their neighbors who say, I think that woman down the street looked pregnant last week. She doesn't look pregnant this week. I mean, it could be the clothes she's wearing for all that person knows. And I want to collect my $10,000 reward if she had an abortion. This is like communism. This is like totalitarianism.

It's unbelievable. You see, you have the Canadian shaking her head in disbelief. Unbelief, yeah. But what can be done about it? Well, we have to be speaking out against it. That's another one of the hopes from our book. We talked in the book about the vast silence. You talked about the politicians, the people in power and influence who know what's right, who know what the truth is, and still continue to lie and to

prop up the big lie. And that's, I mean, terrible things come out of great silences. I have to ask you, because there's something else in the book that's incredibly prescient. The former president, President Dunn, pulls out of Afghanistan. But of course, in real life, it's happened under President Biden. And I just wonder, Hillary, as somebody who has consistently and relentlessly fought for women's rights, when you hear the stories, and you see what is happening, and the pullback from the 20 years of good work for women who are in education, who are in the judiciary, who now have to go into hiding. I wonder what your thoughts are. Well, I'm heartbroken. But I just want to make clear that we wrote this book before the election.

We didn't know who the president would be. We certainly wrote it before anything actually happened in Afghanistan. The decision to leave was made by Trump. And he actually signed an agreement with the Taliban. So when Biden came in, and Biden wanted to wind the war down too, he clearly thought that we needed to get out. But he inherited a deadline, not a plan, but a deadline. And it was, you know, incredibly difficult to watch because the Taliban under Trump had been told American troops would leave May 1st. Biden said, I can't do it by then. Understandably, it's hard to make all that

happen. And we will get out by September because there was this agreement. And the Taliban basically said, OK, we won't start killing people again until you're out. I mean, that was the threat. So, yes, the evacuation happened. And it turned out to be quite an amazing achievement in terms of the numbers of people evacuated. But the sites were so difficult to watch. And the aftermath is so hard. I believed all that was happening. I told Louise that when we were writing the book, because once Trump signed the agreement, I knew the Taliban would be back in power. There was no getting around it, whether it was going to be as quickly as it turned out or a little bit longer, and this is the U.S., U.K., everyone who responded after 9-11, we cannot let Afghanistan become a launching pad for terrorist attacks again. And we were going to see a lot of heart an incredible group of people to help evacuate women who were at to overlook Al Qaeda's back, ISIS's back. You just

had this horrible murder of one of your MPs by someone who allegedly is inspired by ISIS. You know, we've had a bit of a lull, and we've kept a lot of that worst terrorism away from the UK, away from the US and other places. but we can't relax our vigilance. And if you read the, and I know you have, the acknowledgements at the end, and Hillary's acknowledgements, which are just beautiful, but we end the book with that, with you saying, it's up to all of us to make sure that this fiction that we write about, the nuclear bombs in the hands of terrorists, doesn't become fact. And it is. It's up to all of us. It's not just up to the people in power.

It behooves all of us to stand up for what we believe in. As we are back to the book, will there be a part two of State of Terror? I mean, I'm asking for myself here because I need to read the second part. Well, I mean, it sort of left a little open-ended at the end. But the fact is, I think, you know, Hilary and I are just having a blast right now. And, you know, I think we've sort of, you know, gosh, it was stressful and it was through the pandemic and we took a lot of chances and now it's out. It's number one in North America, thank God. And we're just taking a breath and having fun. And you know, someone has just got in touch to say, interesting to hear a powerful woman talking about the issues we all face and experience, the bad hair day. Yes. I'm quite an expert on that. Now, obviously, this will be turned into a movie.

Oh, well, we don't know yet. No, we don't. We don't know. Oh, so who should be playing the part? Who should be playing the part? What do you think? Well, there's so many good actresses. I think Julie Walters would be great as Betsy, great British actress.

Frances McDormand, Julianne Moore. Who would you have? They're amazing roles for actors. Susan Sarandon. You know, there's a lot of, you know, what's interesting, I mean, people have started to approach us. We've made no decisions, but I want to put a plug in. Louise's

Gamache series, for all of you who've been lucky enough to discover it, that is now being produced, right? Thank you. Yes, it is, by Left Bank, who does The Crown, but lovely to mention that. Yeah. So, yeah, I don't I don't think we've actually cast. Yeah, well, we haven't made any decisions. But if you want to play the Secretary of State, I'll play Betsy. I think you should play them yourself. We could play ourselves. Wonderful. Hilary Louise, it has been so wonderful to have

you in the Woman's Hour HQ. Come back and talk to us when the second book comes out. Thank you. Thank you so much, Anita. Thank you. Now, you have been getting in touch to talk about how you are breaking your own boundaries. Ten years ago, my daughter, a biologist, and I, a beekeeper, started a sustainable and ethical natural skincare company. People laughed at our dreams, saying that beauty was saturated and we would never sell products by saving the planet.

It turns out that we were pioneers. Good on you. 84844 is the number to text. Now, how much do you know about HPV? Human papillomavirus, a very common virus. Around 8 out of 10 of us will be infected at some point in our lives. But it's an STI that is notorious for misconceptions and myths. Now, the gynecological charity Eve Appeal have found what they're calling a worrying trend in HPV kits being sold online by private companies.

Advertised alongside misleading information. Tracy Miles is a gynecologist, cancer specialist nurse at the Eve Appeal. Mercedes Gleason is someone who's been open about her own experience with HPV. And they both join me now. A very good morning to you both. Tracy, if I can come to you her own experience with HPV, and they both join me now. Very good morning to you both. Tracey, if I can come to you first. What is HPV? Because so many people still don't know the answer.

Oh, I think you might be on mute. Oh, we're having problems with Tracey. Let me try to come to you first, Mercedes, whilst we try and fix up whatever's happening with Tr Tracy's mic. Tell me about your experience, Mercedes. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Thank you for having me, Anita. So I was first diagnosed with HPV when I was 24 years old. And this diagnosis came following my first smear. And to be honest with you, I didn't know anything about the virus at all. I knew that it was sexually transmitted and I knew that there was a correlation with HPV and cervical cancer.

But apart from that, I was really in the dark. And I think that this is hugely part of the fact that we don't really talk about HPV as a society and what it is. So that was my first experience with it. I was very afraid, as I know that lots of women are when they get that diagnosis. How old were you? I was 24 years old when I found out. And the weird thing about HPV is that although it's sexually transmitted, you can't protect yourself from it. So even if you use protection condoms, you can still get HPV. And astonishingly, 80% of us will have HPV at some point in our life. And for the majority of us, it will do absolutely nothing.

But there are a few unlucky people like myself where the HPV will mutate the cells in our cervix. I'm going to bring Tracy back in. Let's hope we can hear you this time, Tracy. Hello, can you hear me? You can hear me, but we can't hear you. Oh, the technology is failing us. Mercedes, I will come back to you. So what happened then once you got your diagnosis?

What was your reaction? How did you feel about it? And what did you know about it? I didn't know very much. I felt very ashamed. Nobody wants to be told that they have something like an SDI. It's quite terrifying. And I actually think that we as

a society have got quite a lot of work to do when we talk about HPV, because I think that it's brandishing around things like STI. When we talk about it, as I say, 80% of us will have it. So it can make us feel quite dirty, quite ashamed. I certainly had those emotions. So there is a concern because these testing kits are now being available for women to be able to purchase to test themselves. Can you understand why somebody might do that and what the concern might be? Oh, absolutely. So we know from research that embarrassment is often a key reason that people won't go for their annual or three yearly smear test. So I think the reason that the testing kits appeal to young women is because it completely removes any shame or anxiety that they might have about going to see a health care professional.

So I can absolutely see their appeal. But at the same time, I totally appreciate that there is a real problem with this because I know that a lot of these companies that are marketing them are talking about, you know, every time you change sexual partner, you should be testing at home. And again, this language, this STI language is really unhelpful. There's actually no test for men to find out whether or not they have HPV. So we can't look at it the same way as we do with things like chlamydia and gonorrhea because it's completely untraceable, completely undetectable.

So there's a lot of work, I think, that needs to happen around this. And the NHS actually did a pilot at the beginning of this year where they started to issue these testing kits for women. I think they sort of were 15 minutes overdue their checkup. So again, it's young women who they suspect are probably embarrassed or whatever. There's some barrier that's stopping them from coming into their local GP. So things are happening, but I

think that a lot more work needs to be done. Let me now try and bring in Tracey and see, fingers crossed, if we've got you loud and clear, Tracey. Have you got me back, Anita? Thank goodness you are there. Tell us, please, what is HPV and welcome. Bless you. Thank you. So just a little bit of context on this. Yeah, the HPV is the virus that we know

that if it's not naturally cleared from the body can develop into cervix cancer. But that's only one or two of the hpv viruses there are many it's super normal to come into contact and acquire hpv as part of a healthy sex life 80 that's eight out of ten of us will um and this is why boys and girls are offered the vaccine that's around 12 to 30 years free on the nhs and this is why why the NHS has a free evidence-based accredited service screening program available for every woman as Mercedes has said aged between 24, 25 and 64 who's registered with her GP. If it's so common why do we know so little about her?

You've nailed it Anita. HPV has no gender. HPV also doesn't have a lot of value and interest in our learning at the moment. And that's the thing that we found at the HPV. And in fact, we get a huge volume of questions that come into our information support line. And there are tons of myths and stigma around HPV. And we actually launched a guide, HPV has no gender, because people just don't understand it. So tell me what your concerns are about these tests that are available for women to buy. All right. We do think that self-testing could play a vital part

in increasing screening uptake today. And actually, your topic, breaking boundaries, you know, some women are frightened to go to the GPs, all sorts of different reasons. But the worry with these tests is they are being sold without their results being discussed by text or email or letter, no consult. Some tests are being advertised

to be done after sex with each new partner. In other words, after you've had a sexual encounter. Some are advertising the purchase of an HPV vaccine. That's a free vaccine up to the age of 25. And they're being offered around £500. And some, would you believe, websites, are even having a subscribe and save scheme. Really worrying.

Some do acknowledge, OK, that a test won't, a positive HPV test won't lead to a smear, but they don't tell women what to do with the results. So if there are young women listening who are sexually active and for whatever reason want to keep that to themselves or don't want to go to their GP or for cultural reasons or shame, whatever. And for them, this is an alternative. They can just walk in, purchase something. It's discreet. No one would know. And they can test themselves. Why shouldn't they be doing that? Well, the reason they shouldn't be doing that is because if she gets a test back that HPV positive and we don't know what lab that has gone to so all of our tests go to an accredited

lab that's really key so we can keep an eye on every woman's health in our NHS screening labs then she will then go to her GP she'll be worried and she'll say can I have a smear now please her GP won't be able to provide that smear for her if she's not due on the programme. So therefore, this poor woman who was already vulnerable and anxiety-ridden about having a test now has anxiety of a positive test, can't regain trust in her GP, who won't be able to provide the smear for her. So if you see, it becomes a negative sort of feedback loop, which is why we have a um a superb it started

in february finishes in december um actual trial looking to see whether or not we can provide self-testing for patients through a gp so the gp starts the conversation with a woman she still does the test on her own okay um tracy and mercedes thank you very much for speaking to us this morning now we've been talking about breaking boundaries all morning on the programme, but what about those who want to, but just can't do it? What are the external or internal voices holding us back? Joining me now is behavioural psychologist Jo Hemmings. Very good morning, Jo. What is it? Why can't we, if we know we want to do something, what holds us back? What is stopping us from going outside our comfort zone well there's a number of reasons and in a way actually having a slightly critical voice in your head isn't a terrible thing because it allows you to weigh up um what you might be able to achieve as long as the positive voice comes out at the other end and says i can do it it's okay to have that sense of questioning if you like it's only when the critical voice takes over or the self-doubts prevent you from doing something is it a bad thing I mean there

are all sorts of reasons why we have it some people feel they've got imposter syndrome some people are just prone to self-sabotage things it can be indecision. Sometimes it's wanting to please other people more than yourself. And sort of actually going back to something you were talking about earlier in your first interview, this idea of surrounding yourself with people who are positive, who support you, is very important. People who encourage you and reassure you rather than those that say, oh, you know, you sure you can do this? I'm not sure it's possible. You know, you've got to set yourself a realistic goal. And it's in, as far as I'm concerned, prepping, planning and purpose. Those three key motives, stick with them and the self-doubts will start to evaporate.

Prepping, planning and purpose. I love the three Ps. Well, the two women who've definitely got all of those are Preet Chandi, who's an army officer and physiotherapist, who's preparing for a solo unsupported trek across the Antarctic to the South Pole in November. The first Asian woman who'll be doing this. And Dr. Geet Lundra, who's set up a walking group in the Chilterns to encourage women from diverse backgrounds to connect with nature and feel the health benefits. So they are on a mission to help women break boundaries let me come to you first Preet planning going to the Antarctic in November it's going to be minus 50 degrees C you're going to be walking 10 to 12 hours

not whatever walking skiing and pulling your own sled you'll be on your own for 45 days why? Good question well when I first decided to do this, I didn't know anything about Antarctica. And I thought, if I do something that I don't know much about, hopefully it will inspire others to push their boundaries and push themselves out of their comfort zone. And that's why I decided on Antarctica. I've been told many times that I don't look like a polar explorer, because I'm not the image that people expect to see but that's what I want to show I want to show that it doesn't matter what you look like it doesn't matter where you're from or where your start line is everybody starts

somewhere so the reason I'm going to do this solo unsupported expedition in Antarctica is because I want to show the world that it doesn't matter what you look like, you know, you can do anything you want. I mean, Pri, I have to say I'm 100% behind you. You are literally going to be flying the flag for Punjabi women. The theme is breaking boundaries. And as a South Asian Punjabi woman, I'm presuming you'd had to, you had to break a few yourself to convince people around you that this is what you wanted to do. How did you do that? 100%. I think a lot of the things I've done, I just get on with it. And I don't really tell people that much what I'm doing. The other day, I actually went to the temple and I was trying to explain that I'm going to the South Pole and people kept saying, you're going to South Pole.

And I was like, no, it's the South Pole. So, you know, it's just something so out of the norm. Do you know what I it's it's so different that people just explaining where Antarctica is and the kind of conditions that you're going to I'm going to be in and on my own and you know my um my niece is someone that inspires me a lot Simran and we we do a lot of our adventures whether that's you know camping in the garden or roller skating or ice skating horse riding And hopefully now that becomes her norm. And that for me is, you know, hopefully helping break more boundaries. So don't get me wrong.

It's been tough to get here. You know, it's now I think it's easier as people understand a little bit more what I'm about to do. But it's always hard at the start. And I hope by doing this, you know it more women see it and it becomes easier for people to to push those boundaries there's definitely light at the end of that tunnel. I'm still laughing at going to South Pole so that's going to tickle me all weekend let me bring Geeta in here I mean you're not quite going to the South Pole but you are spurred on to encourage more women from Asian backgrounds from ethnically diverse backgrounds to get out into the countryside.

Because traditionally, we're not out there walking, are we? No, thank you, Anita. We're not traditionally out there walking. And that's one of the reasons that I set up my walking group for not only women of colour, but men of colour, children of colour. But I'm championing families' intergenerational walks as well. And it's not something I saw growing up with my own family. We probably had one or two picnics in a local park once a year. But beyond that, connections with nature and the countryside were far and few lived and I think the catalyst

for me was when I got married at 19 and it was our first holiday to the Lake District and I thought the world is really beautiful Britain is beautiful and there are more beautiful places out there and I want to explore them. You know as as a country file presenter, I get asked a lot why we don't see people from South Asian backgrounds in the countryside. Why do you think it is? I think there's a whole range of reasons that we don't see. Well, I don't. So when I moved into the Chilterns, I'd walk for hours alone with my husband, with my daughters, and I wouldn't see a brown or black person out there. So I couldn't co-identify. And, you know, there's a whole range of discourses, whether we feel uncomfortable, whether we feel othered, we feel like it's not a space that belongs to us.

You know, we don't see ourselves on social media platforms in these kind of spaces, whether it's country files, whether it's on national DEFRA boards and spaces like that. The narrative needs to change, Anita. And one of the things I'm trying to do is change the narrative and say the countryside belongs to us all. Have you taken your mum out? I took my mum out sad it was quite sad but it's a love story as well my mum had um a terrible fall during covid so we ended up bringing her to stay with us and my mum doesn't do nature walks and it was just lovely how my daughter put her trainers on my mum and held her hand and walked her through Cowleys Park in the Chilterns. And there was emotion. There was joy. And I saw my mum looking at the snow-topped trees in Cowleys Park.

Oh, I'm moved by that. Preet, have you taken your family out? I'm sure that story moved you as well. Yeah, it really did. I take my niece out to the Peak District when I can. And I'm actually from Derby. My family live in Derby. And the Peak District isn't very far at all yet. It wasn't the norm for us to go and do that. So I took my mum for her 55th birthday. And we went to Dovedale, walked up Thought Cloud and she was so proud of herself for going up and I was just so proud of her as well you know to go up and I'm like you've done that you know now that you've done that you know you know it's not that scary you know you can we can do more we can go out so I think it's yeah it's it's it's really inspiring what you're doing Geeta and I think encouraging more and more people to get out is yeah 100%

what I want to do as well. So very quickly because we are going to run out of time pre um how do you because as Gita said sometimes you don't feel those spaces are for you if you don't see anybody like you in the countryside then how do you take that first step it's hard to take the first step so I you know going into the polar world I didn't know anything about it I started looking on google I started following loads of different polar explorers and there are so many different outdoor groups now as well there's you know that you can get involved in and I think going with a community it's so helpful because you're then just not on your own. Brilliant and Jo very quickly what were the three p's again just leave us with a good old motto for the weekend.

Preparation, planning and purpose. Preparation, planning and purpose. Right, woman's our motto. Preet, Geeta, Jo, thank you so much. Lots of you getting in touch via the text. Let me get a few of them out there. 10 years ago, my daughter, oh no, I've read that one.

My moment of breaking boundaries came when my daughter suggested doing the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge. My husband said, don't be ridiculous. You're 47. Red rag to a bull. I trained and successfully completed the challenge a few months ago, but still angry at the suggestion of being too old. You're 47.

You're young. And I went and did the National Three Peak Challenge in 22 hours. Good on you. And good luck, Preet. Come back and tell us all about it. Have a lovely weekend. That's it from me. Join me tomorrow for Weekend Woman's Hour. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next

time. That's the moment it hit me. I'm like, oh my gosh, I think I'm in a cult. I used to think to myself, these people are mad, but until I realised that I'm mad as well. I'm Paris Lees and this is The Flipside in each episode I tell two stories from opposite sides of the coin and use science to ask questions about elements of the human experience that we sometimes take for granted I know that we're genetically related but in my mind I don't have the feeling that we are necessarily kin my dad said you know that we love you and I am your father, but...

Subscribe to The Flipside with me, Paris Lees, on BBC Sounds. been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's 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.