Woman's Hour - Holocaust Survivors, Mary Nighy, Dementia and Menopause

Episode Date: January 27, 2023

During World War Two, a house in Tynemouth was used as a sanctuary for more than 20 Jewish girls fleeing Nazi persecution. They had come to the UK on the Kindertransport. After a BBC investigation, a blue plaque will be unveiled there today, Holocaust Memorial Day, celebrating the house's forgotten past and those that found sanctuary there. Two of the Girls who lived in the house were Ruth David and Elfi Jonas. Anita speaks to their daughters - Margaret Finch and Helen Strange about their mothers and their visit to the house.Mary Nighy began her acting career at the age of 17, starring in films such as Marie Antoinette and Tormented. The daughter of actors Bill Nighy and Diana Quick, she has since turned director, of TV shows like Industry and Traces but she has just released her directorial debut Alice Darling. The film, starring Anna Kendrick, explores what it might feel like to be trapped inside a coercive, controlling and psychologically abusive relationship. Mary joins Anita Rani to talk about the themes of the film, female friendship and working behind the camera.Big employers including Tesco, Asda, Natwest and the country's most senior family judge are supporting a scheme that gives time off to parents who are splitting up. A survey of 200 workers by the Positive Parenting Alliance showed that 90 per cent of respondents said that their work was adversely affected. Anita speaks to XY and Sara Davison a divorce coach and author. How do you differentiate between symptoms of menopause and dementia and when should you be worried? A new brain check-up tool kit from Alzheimer’s Research UK is encouraging people to do more to look after their brains to try to reduce their dementia risk. Research shows that women are generally at a greater risk of dementia - outnumbering the number of men who get the disease by 2:1 worldwide. But as women get older and experience the menopause, they may notice a decline in their memory, feel confused and get brain fog. We also hear about an early study which suggests that HRT may reduce the risk of some women developing Alzheimer's disease.

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. How do you feel about your memory? As women get older and experience the menopause, you may notice a decline in your memory or feel confused or get brain fog. Is this you? Can you relate? Is it something you've been through? It doesn't matter

how many almonds you eat your brain recall function seems to be slowing down but how do you differentiate between the symptoms of menopause and dementia and when should you be worried i'll be discussing this in the program and would love to hear from you about your experiences you can get in touch in the usual way text number 848. You can also email me through the website or you can send me a WhatsApp or even leave me a voice note on 03700 100 444. Also this morning, taking time off work for a divorce. There's a new scheme to support parents splitting up, enabling them to take time off work, treating separation like a death in the family or a serious illness. Quite a few employers are supporting the

scheme, Tesco, Asda, NatWest, Metro Bank, but I'd love to hear your experiences of going through a separation. How did it affect you at work? Your mental health? Did you cope with the life admin and major life adjustments? Moving out of home, dealing with the children, your wider family, and would time off from work have helped you? if you're an employer would you sign up to a scheme like this again the text number 84844 also i'll be talking to actress turned director mary nighy about her new film alice darling starring anna kendrick who plays alice a woman trapped inside a controlling relationship and today is holoca Day. I'll be sharing the story of a house in Tynemouth that housed 20 Jewish girls who arrived on the kinder transport when I speak to two of their

daughters. That text number once again 84844 is the number to text. Now you might have seen in the news this morning that big employers including Tesco, Asda, NatWest and the country's most senior family judge are supporting a scheme that gives time off to parents who are splitting up. A survey published yesterday by the Positive Parenting Alliance showed that out of 200 workers, 90% said that their work was adversely affected when going through a separation. Four in 10 respondents felt they had to take time off work because of their separation. Now, under the scheme, employers will amend human resources policies to state that separation is similar to a family death or serious illness. Joining me to discuss this is Rebecca Giroux, one of the co-founders of the Positive Parenting Alliance and co-director of the social enterprise Only Mums and Dads.

And Sarah Davisonison who's a divorce coach, author and podcaster and of course we would like to hear from you that text number once again 84844. Rebecca I'm going to come to you first because you are one of the co-founders of Positive Parenting and you are pushing for this. What made you want to form the group and push for more employment support for parents splitting up? Thank you, Anita. It's great to be here. So we are part of a group of organisations that have been working with parents for many years now. And we wanted to get together to look at how we can make changes in terms of how, as a society,

how the impact of divorce and separation affects children massively and that we need to make that better for them. And so we got together as a group to look at how we could do that. So is this only supporting people with children, whether you're married or co-reacting? The whole drive behind the organisation was looking at the impact of children and recognising that it is a huge, that the impact is massive

and we need to do more as a society to make it easier and better. So how did you come to the conclusion that actually you've got to start with the workplace and putting this as a priority alongside serious illness or a death in the family is going to help? I think what we recognise is that it is a serious health issue.

The impact on children is huge. And from our own experience and our own organisation is we hear daily and have done for years the impact of separation on families and how that impacts in the workplace because it is so multi-layered, divorce and separation, and work and finance are a big part of that, and that impacts on children. And we wanted to look at how employers could better support their employees who were going through separation and divorce. And how can they do that? What do more family-friendly HR policies look like?

I think, well, what we've encouraged them to do and what this group have signed up so far is to actually have as part of their HR policy support for families going through separation so that they can steer them to better support, looking at access to more flexible work and early intervention. So making sure that people aren't going to the wrong place. So offering really good signposting for parents. I'm going to bring Sarah in. Sarah, what do you think of this? Well, I think it's a great idea, Anita, and it's long overdue. Divorce is known as the second most traumatic life experience we go through after death of a loved one. And I think a lot of people who haven't been through it don't actually realize the impact until it happens. I know it happened to me 13 years ago. I did all the ugly crying on the bathroom floor. And I thought, gosh, I'm strong. Yeah, I'm a career woman. I've got my business. But this

hit me like a freight train. And it really does impact your ability to work, but not just work. Your whole life falls apart. So a lot of people think it's just your relationship, but it's everything. It's your ability to parent. it's the impact on the kids, as Rebecca said, just to function minute to minute, it puts so much pressure on you. And I think there's been a lot of research recently, Harvard Business Journal said that a divorce will reduce productivity for employees up to 40% for three years, the year before the breakup, the year during and the year after, which is huge and a huge financial cost to businesses and employers as well. So I think that there is a, it makes a lot of sense to have support for this. And it's

long overdue. We have support for going through the menopause and a lot of these big brands, these big companies that join up or transitioning and everything has its role, but very little for heartbreak, which all of us unfortunately go through in life. So it's long overdue and much, much needed. I mean, you bring up a very serious point there, you know, just how it impacts people's lives in such a huge, huge way. And Sarah, you work as a divorce coach. What kinds of things do people go through? How does it impact them? Hugely. I mean, for some people, relationships fizzle out over a long period of time. And when you can come to terms with it over time, I think you can manage that process. And as well, if it's amicable and you can sort of,

it fizzles out over time, that's a little bit more manageable, but it still has a big impact and a big life adjustment. The people that I find in my coaching clinic that really struggle are the people who have the rug pulled from under them. They didn't know it was coming. They find out it wasn't their choice. Maybe their partners had an affair. So those kinds of situations can be absolutely life-changing and devastating. So for a while, you don't know what's going on around you. You can't function. You can't even get out of bed in a lot of cases. So to have to go to work, to have to perform, if you're leading a team

or you're making critical decisions for a business, that can be very, very difficult. Again, it impacts mental health, which can impact physical health. There are so many repercussions to this. Becoming a single parent means your lifestyle is going to change. You may have to move house. There's so many other things that are consequences of a breakup. So Rebecca, what you'd like to see is a culture shift in the way we look at divorce and separation.

Absolutely. I think putting children at the centre of everything, all our policies, everything, so we become much more child focused and on a much bigger scale that the society just sees separation and recognises it as a life event and that we are more supportive, kinder, more thoughtful, less judgmental. And ultimately, there are better resources. So, for example, we might have, I know that we've been looking at um uh hubs family hubs so that people know where to go so one of the things we find is that parents often just don't know where to start when they first start whenever when a relationship breaks down is where do you go and the moment we still have a culture which is a bit of a knee jerk reaction is i'll get a solicitor or go to court you know we know that that for many many parents is not the right thing to do it's not helpful and

it certainly impacts very negatively on children very often. So what needs to change? How have you been approaching these employers? What have you been saying to them? So we've, you know, basically, what we've done as the Alliance is put together a pack now, which is at least a starting point. So when they do have parents who are separating, they can at least signpost them to this pack, which will signpost them on to really good resources so that hopefully they can make really good decisions at the beginning of their journey. So employers help people,

they help their employees who are going through this? Yes. So it's also asking them as employers to recognise that it is a huge event and it will impact on the work that they're doing. But if they can also then signpost someone to really good support and recognising some of those issues that will come up if someone is going through separation and divorce. Could this be a practical matter for smaller companies signing up to a scheme like this? No, I don't think so because it doesn't matter really on size because ultimately it's about getting parents to the right place at the right time and giving the best information. So I don't think it doesn't matter how big an

organisation is. So what we really hope is that with these larger organisations leading by saying we're going to put these into our policies and we're going to take this as a serious issue that it will trickle down we'll encourage more people and give other organizations the confidence also to to sign up and we'd love your your experiences of this is this something you've been through would it have been useful if your employer had helped you we've just had a message here from Angie says my husband left me and went missing I was shocked and alone for five months until we found him I was fired from my job as I couldn't concentrate 100%. My employer had no sympathy.

I had two children, a house I couldn't afford and two dogs. I couldn't sell the house as it had damage due to a burst pipe in the kitchen. It was a huge shock and I needed to hold things together for everyone. I had a call one day to say, we don't need you getting upset at work.

Truly awful treatment. It was hugely traumatic and had the added trauma of money, home, loss of family. Angie says we need support. You're shaking and nodding your head there, Rebecca. Have you heard stories like this? Well, yeah, and I'm sure Sarah has too. I mean, you know,

one of the things about separation divorce, as I'm sure Sarah would agree, it is so complex and there are so many different layers to it. It has so many impacts, doesn't it, finances emotional health mental health children and I do think for lots of parents when it first happens and I'm sure again Sarah will see this is is where do you go with that all initially and and I'm often friends and family are really great because they say go and do this go and do that but actually it can be a really isolating frightening place to be I think think, for many people.

And sometimes friends and family aren't great. Sometimes you are isolated, bearing in mind what culture you might come from or the culture of your family or whatever it is. So, Sarah, do you think taking time off when you're going through something like this is essential? Yeah, I think it's going to be a huge positive benefit. I think people look at it from an employer's perspective. They're not qualified to help with the emotional side. So giving people time off to get that help that they need, as Rebecca said, you know, whether that's coaching or some specific help to guide them through that. There are things you can do

to dial down those negative emotions, to start to help you take your control back and move through this and it doesn't happen yeah and in the meantime because this is a scheme that you're pushing through and i named some of the companies that have already signed up for it but if someone's listening right now and they're going through the most traumatic breakup and they're feeling quite isolated and everything is upside down and they really don't know what to do should they talk to their employer what what mean, what approach should they take? Absolutely. I think that talking and getting this out in the open is important.

Obviously, the parenting promise, they can mention that to their employer, tell them that it exists, there is help out there, there are guidelines now and places that you can signpost your employees to. So it is really important. And we're really grateful that Siobhan Bailey was championing this and we've got the government backing because it needs to be known we need to raise awareness that the support is there there are things you can do divorce is traumatic but it doesn't have to be devastating you can get through it and come out stronger and happier at the other end of it and so it's about signposting people so the right people can help who are best placed to give that advice.

I think it's also just just to add to that, if I can, it's also a culture shift in the way, you know, it's still very adversarial and it's still very much, you know, let's go to court and have the battle. And, you know, we really, really need to move away from that because it is so damaging. And for so many families, they don't need to go down that route. I think that's also really important. Well, tell them. There might be somebody who's on the brink of going to court. How do you prevent them from doing it? Well, I mean, ideally, if you can get in touch with the right professional,

they would be able to suggest other alternatives. And we're working hard with the legal profession as well and other professionals to just make sure we understand what the options are, because there are many, many more options now. So many more alternatives than actually taking that route. And there are lots of amazing professionals like Sarah and other people who can be part of that journey now. And so where are you with this scheme? Is it at the minute, is it voluntary that people sign up to it?

It is absolutely voluntary, yes. And what we're hoping is that with the um publicity that we've had so far is that we will it will encourage other organizations to come on board and we will have that trickle-down effect and lots more people will join and sign up um thank you both for speaking to me this morning sarah and rebecca and uh your thoughts please keep your texts coming through we've had a message here from someone saying my workplace supported me brilliantly they helped me recognize i was in an abusive relationship directing me to staff support services and domestic abuse services they wrote statements for course and allowed me to be in work on

days off to avoid further abuse in the family home i couldn't have managed without them but i'm not aware of any policy i work in mental health with compassionate understanding colleagues dread to think what might have happened if i'd worked in another setting well it certainly sounds very interesting doesn't it what um rebecca and the positive parenting alliance um are trying to push through would love to hear your thoughts on that keep them coming through if you'd like to send me an email go to our website now if you're listening to yesterday's program you will know that we launched the woman's hour power list you can listen back on bbc sounds if you missed it we're looking for 30 women in the UK who are making a big impact on sport, building on the momentum of an incredible year for women's sports across the board.

And we want your suggestions, whether it's on or off the field at the elite or, very importantly, local level. Who do you think should feature on the list? We've got an incredible set of judges who'll be considering your suggestions the chair is our very own just jessica crichton um ebony rainford brent who was the first black woman to play cricket for england baroness tanny gray thompson is on the judging panel as is um sam quek uh sam is part of the squad who won britain's first ever hockey gold medal at the rio olympics and she's now a team captain on question of sports if you do want's first ever hockey gold medal at the Rio Olympics. And she's now a team captain on Question of Sport. If you do want to suggest someone, you can find all the information you need on our website.

Look out for the image which says Woman's Hour Powerless 2023 and click on it for everything you need to make your suggestion. Now, Mary Nighy. Hello. Hello. Welcome. I'm going to say a bit about you first. It's lovely that you're in the studio, by the way. She began her acting career at the age of 17. You may remember her starring in Marie Antoinette alongside Kirsten Dunst or as Helena in the film Tormented. She's the daughter of actors Bill Nighy and Diana Quick, and she's since turned director of TV shows like Industry and Traces and has just released her directorial debut, Alice Darling.

The film explores what it might feel like to be trapped inside a coercive, controlling and psychologically abusive relationship. It stars Anna Kendrick as Alice, who goes on holiday with two of her friends but doesn't tell her partner Simon where she's going, instead saying, it's a work trip. Before we speak to Mary, here's a clip. Why do you let him pull this shit with you?

He's not pulling anything. I lied to him. He has every right to be angry. You lied? About what? Just about being here. Alice, you can't tell your supposed life partner that you're going to go on a trip with your best friends and somehow that's your fault. I can't think of a bigger red flag than that hey can we just approach this without

judgment are you seriously telling me that you have no opinions about this of course i do but alice is a grown woman yes and i don't know how any of this is your business when you're friends with somebody it means you care about the other person but i guess that's a concept simon managed to erase from your brain along with the rest of your personality stop maybe this is my personality and i'm changing and you're the shitty friend for not like letting me change we're not all content to like flit between projects some of us have real adult lives oh i feel tense just hearing that clip the first of all congratulations thank you it's um it's moving it's powerful it's dramatic it's beautiful as well to watch the shots um how do you feel about it coming out your directorial debut

first feature it's really exciting and it's um it's also just been incredible to be making a film with this subject matter because um even during the editing when we were screening it to select a few people to get feedback on the cut and then even more so when we were screening it to a select few people to get feedback on the cut and then even more so when we premiered it at Toronto Film Festival in September I've been quite overwhelmed and impressed by the numbers of people who've wanted to talk to me about it even just last weekend it was screening at the Rio Cinema in Dalston and two different people on two different nights came up to me to talk about their experiences or the experience of one of their family members. And it really does seem to be a film

that's stimulating a conversation about emotional abuse, which I knew would happen to an extent. I just didn't think I would... It's amazing to me how common it has turned out to be. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it in a film because normally we see the abuse is so overt, but here it's so subtle and it gets under your skin because you don't really see it at the beginning

and you slowly see it develop. I don't want to give too much of the film away. Why did you want to tell this story? Well, I think because it felt, as you say, it felt quite new in cinema to talk about this kind of abuse. And also because I think sometimes any kind of abuse when it's put on screen can end up being quite sensationalised. And you end up watching the violence or the mechanisms of the control. And both myself and Alana Francis, who wrote it,

the producers, Katie Baird-Nolan and Lindsay Tapscott, and also Anna Kendrick, who stars in it, we all really wanted to try to do something else. It's a bit like when you're staging a fight between actors. It's the reaction of the actor who's being hit that sells how hard the punch is. So this film really focuses on the experience for Alice, the main character, of what it's like to be emotionally abused rather than looking at what the abuse looks like per se. You see snatches of it,

but really what we're interested in is trying to talk about Alice. And I found that to be quite challenging because a lot of what's happening to her is inside her, but also really interesting. And Anna Kendrick just is, I mean, she's magnificent anyway, but really this role is another level.

It's extraordinary. I think she's really extraordinary in the film and I'm so proud of her work because I don't think it was easy for her to do this either and I think she's done an amazing job. And when I was watching it, I was wondering what the experience of making it must have been like because you're directing,

you've got these three incredible actresses and you filmed during lockdown and you went off to a cabin in the woods. Just how emotional was it bringing this film together? Well, the stakes were very high. As you say, it's my directorial debut. It's in another country in the middle of lockdown. I had had a baby eight months before.

So I was bringing my two young children over to Canada, which was still in the grip of a very strict lockdown just as we were emerging in May 2021. And I didn't have very much time on the ground to be able to look at the locations because I had to stay in quarantine inside a house. And at the same time, I was also aware that Anna Kendrick had spoken publicly about the fact that the subject matter in the film

has a particular resonance for her. It's something that is not exactly what she's experienced, but she's experienced this kind of abuse in one of her relationships. And so I was also wanting to create an environment that would be aware of that for her, be sensitive to her. And what I was also not expecting is that so many of the heads of department,

the crew members, and also some of the other actors would also have experienced it. And that I would then, there's a sense of responsibility, certainly, for all those people. And what you do brilliantly in the film is she's questioning herself. She knows she's unhappy and you can see that she's unhappy because she does this really painful torturing of herself by pulling out her own hair, which is so difficult to watch. But you need to feel difficult watching something like this

um but she still makes excuses for him because it's confusing isn't it he's confusing completely and also i think she's deeply in denial and i think she has to have a narrative about her life and i think between her and simon her boyfriend they've created a narrative that in a way she's his project yeah that she's a bit of a messed up person. And he's there supporting her, helping her. One of the things that we discovered when we were making the film in the edit, in fact, was that an aspect of this kind of abuse is that you're often gaslit. And that one of the people we spoke to in our research said that her boyfriend had always said to her your friends are useless they don't really know you they don't really care about you why would you hang out with these people so

one of the aspects of what simon does to alice is try to separate her from her friends and the friendship aspect of the film is really important because through spending this time away with her friends she actually kind of remembers who she is and they remind her of that identity that she's lost we'll come to the friends oh we'll come to the friends the amazing friends we all wish we had friends like that we have you should if you've got friends like that in life you're all right um but but a bit more about the the control you know he does it through food as well you know telling her that sugar is terrible and that she'll put weight on and you know it's sort of on the surface you know this is factual information but it's so insidious isn't it yeah, you know, it's sort of on the surface, you know, this is factual information, but it's so insidious, isn't it?

Yeah, I think it's sort of the dark side of wellness in a way that I think people are just starting to explore now. And this idea also that one is a constant improvement project rather than a person. And I think one thing that Anna Kendrick said to me when we were talking about the script before we started shooting was that she spoke about Simon's language and how in what's quite contemporary and unusual I think in the film

is that he sees himself as the victim and he weaponises the language of therapy so it's all about his own feelings of shame his own feelings of being let down by her, that she's extremely selfish, when actually what she wants to do are quite ordinary, understandable things like spend time with her friends or enjoy a great cinnamon bun.

But I think what he does is he makes it seem as though she's letting everyone down if she enjoys and lets herself go in those ways. And then you see her, she goes and spends a week with her friends for her 30th birthday and her friends don't give up. They chip away because they conceive that there is something very clearly wrong, as we heard in the first clip. Yeah, exactly. And I think one of the things that was important is that you have to spend that time with Alice at the beginning of the film to see what she's in so that they can start to understand gradually, as the audience does, that something's really wrong with her. And then, then as you say they don't give up and they have different

approaches one of the friends is sort of silent and supportive but when it comes to the crunch later on in the film she's the one who intervenes in a very physical way I won't say what that is and that's Sophie but then the other friend Tess is much more blunt and direct and more confrontational and one of the things that was fun about working on the film and also showing the film to to other women is that they often identify as one of the women so people will say oh well I'm definitely more of a Sophie or I mean I can see aspects of Alice in me or my friend is definitely a Tess oh yeah there was that lovely scene where they they tell Tess that she's a bully and she's like me a bully and they both kind of laugh like, yeah, you basically she's the straight talking mate.

I love that at the heart of this film, it's about female friendship. And, you know, that must have been joyful to get to the point at that point in the film where there is the bonding between the three friends. Yeah, I think it's when you watch the film, as you say, it's very tense. And I think when you get to those moments where the friends have finally found each other and having a great time, whether it's dancing in the club or eating cinema buns or just talking by the side of the lake, it's such a relief because those are the moments of pleasure. But I think in a way you have to get there because one of the aspects of friendship that can be quite challenging is when you have to speak the truth to your friends. And they question what the right approach is because they both have very different approaches. At what point do you intervene when you suspect something is happening? Yeah, because of course, if you intervene, I think that's something that perhaps

audiences can relate to. Certainly it's something that's happened in my own life is that if you say the wrong thing at the wrong time, you've lost that person. And whether or not we're talking about emotional abuse or other kinds of destructive behaviours, you've got to know the timing is everything. Well, it's really powerful and everyone should watch it, Alice Darling, and watch it with your friends. And I'm sure for some women it will be triggering to watch, but there are places that you can go and have conversations. And, you know, what will be interesting is the conversation that happens off the back of a film like this, because, as you say, people are already wanting to talk to you about it, about their own experiences. But what about your moving from being in front of the camera to directing?

What made you want to make that shift? Well, I've always wanted to tell stories and I think one of the things that I found when I was even at school and university directing plays was I love working with a full team. I really love collaborating with people. And I think when you're acting, often, you know, you have to do a very, you take direction, you work with the costume and the makeup departments, but you're kind of much more of a solo player, really. And you're not able to take part in, unless you're also an executive producer, you're not also able

to take part in every aspect of the filmmaking. And I think what I really wanted to do was be able to be across the whole story and work with the sound department work with the editing department work with the color grading department and have that range and also just be a collaborator rather than a solo player I'm like the word collaborator in my mind I was going to say because you want to be the boss yes I'm also very bossy that is definitely nothing wrong with that we own the word bossy here on woman's hour yeah it's only used to describe women right yeah well I think also it's interesting because um I've spoken a bit about this before but as a teenager because I started acting as you said when I was about 17 I was getting scripts which

um felt quite outside of the world as I knew it you know and often involved a lot were a lot about how I looked um and kind of monetising that, really. And I think as a director, it's where you do think, actually, I do want to be in charge because I would rather tell a different story. And this story about this teenage girl who is sort of abducted and killed isn't really resonant for me.

And I feel like I know there's an audience out there for different kinds of stories and maybe I could be the person to tell them. Hear, hear. And you were able to watch an absolute master at work in Sofia Coppola when you worked with her on Marie Antoinette. What was that like? It was very, very exciting.

I mean, I was a huge fan of The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation and this was her movie after Lost in Translation. And it was kind of overwhelming. And obviously Kirsten Dunst, who was in Mary Internet, was also in The Virgin Suicides. And the film also featured Jason Schwartzman, who's in one of my favourite Wes Anderson movies, Rushmore. Oh, yeah, brilliant. Amazing. So it was kind of like working with all my favourite people. But what I really appreciated about Sophia, one of the things was how gentle she is. She's very kind and very gentle and very clear.

And I think learning about leadership from her was definitely really important. And wasn't it Autumn DeWild who directed Emma, who also gave you some advice as well? What did she say? Yes, she talks about the Mary Poppins approach to directing. So rather than trying to have authority by being really aggressive and a big ego in the room, you sort of lay out the house rules a bit like you would were you to be Mary Poppins or a mother and say, you know, this is what this is. We don't do this in our house. It's a bit like when you're trying to, you know, I have young children and when

you're trying to discipline your kids rather than shouting and screaming and throwing everything up in the air, which I also do, by the way by the way I'm not perfect mother but I think sometimes you say no we don't do that here that's not something we do and it's about trying to find a different kind of authority across the board because I think also channeling Mary Poppins we like this yeah this is good yeah it's not trying to be patronizing but I think sometimes as a woman having authority is difficult, and especially when you're dealing with, as you often are with a crew, with lots and lots of men. Yeah.

You have to find a way to speak what's true without being aggressive, and I think Mary Poppins is a great role model for that. Yeah, because you've got, you know, it doesn't matter, even if you are reacting in exactly the same way as a man, you will be judged differently. Exactly, and I've heard that from male directors, actually, who've worked on shows where there are multiple directors and they will say things to me like, everybody's been describing that woman as a monster,

that fellow director. One of my friends told me this, I've been behaving exactly in the same way as her and no one says that about me. Yeah, the playing field is not the same. No. Talking about playing fields not being the same, I mentioned your parents and your mum

had a very different experience of going through the film acting world to yours. And she told you these stories about sexism and misogyny. Yes, she did. And I think very much raised me to be aware that the world is uneven in that way. And thought about that even when I was a teenager. I remember that there was a fear from one of my teachers at my school

when I was moving schools, I was going to a school that was quite tough and that there would be some sexism there. My mum just said, well, the world's sexist. It's better that she learns it now. But I think it's really helpful having a parent who recognises the inequality of things and helps you work your way through it. I've got to ask you about your dad.

Yeah. I mean, I also have a very cool dad. So your dad is Bill Nighy. He's just been Oscar nominated for Living. Your film's coming out at the same time. What's that been like? It's been so exciting. Apart from anything else, I really admire his performance in Living

and I love that film. I think it's a beautiful film and it's got a great message, which is, you know, seize the moment and do what you can in your life now really don't wait are you going to work together we are yes we have a project that I'm developing right now um you're going to direct your dad I would love to yeah how do you think that's going to play out what's the dynamic going to be there I think how is it going to be Mary Poppins or what approach are you going to take into that um well it's a good question actually can you marry Poppins or what approach are you going to take into that? Well, it's a good question, actually. Can you marry Poppins, your own father?

I don't know. But I think what's great about my dad and what I think a lot of directors appreciate about him is that he always says, I just do what the director tells me. Excellent. Which is helpful. Good. I want to wish you all the best of luck. It's a very powerful film and congratulations. Directorial debut.

You've bossed. You are. You are a boss. You've bossed it. And good luck with it. Thank you so much mary nye really nice to speak to you thank you so much lots of your messages coming through about various things that we're talking about and on to the next subject actually which we're discussing which will be menopause and dementia and the kind of symptoms that come from menopause and worrying about whether it's dementia. Laura says, I'm in the final stages of menopause at age 45 and finding the symptoms of fatigue and brain fog quite debilitating. As an academic, my forgetfulness

and loss of sharpness of thought is really problematic for my work. I feel like I'm slogging through mud for much of the time. My writing is suffering. Well, are you worried about your memory? a new brain check check-up tool from alzheimer's research uk is encouraging people to do more to look after their brains to try to reduce their dementia risk and is particularly aimed towards people aged 40 to 50 research shows that women are generally at greater risk of dementia outnumbering the number of men um aims um outnumbering the number of men who get the disease by two to one worldwide. But as women get older and experience the menopause, they may notice a decline in their memory, feel confused and get

brain fog. So how do you differentiate between the symptoms of menopause and dementia? And when should you be worried? Well, Jules Knight is a consultant admiral nurse at Dementia UK. Welcome to Woman's Hour, Jules. Thank you. Nice to be here, Anita. It's good to have you here. What symptoms might dementia and menopause or perimenopause seem to share? Let's get straight into this. I think women do worry about dementia. Absolutely. I've certainly had that fear myself, now being a menopausal woman. I would say the issues that women face is memory. Obviously, we've spoken about that. It's concentration issues, word finding difficulties.

And actually, as women, we're very, you know, we're used to saying that we multitask really well. And actually, that element can also be affected. We find it much more difficult around the time of perimenopause and menopause to do those things. Not every woman is affected, but it can really be an issue. And then women are naturally concerned that the symptoms that they're experiencing could be dementia. Dementia symptoms are very similar in that respect. What I would say though is that dementia in younger people is much rarer and actually the symptoms that are presented when people are younger are usually different to memory problems. Memory problems aren't usually the first issue that people worry about or concerned about. There's other symptoms that are at play, particularly with the rarer dementias.

Such as? For example, visuospatial awareness problems, language problems can be an issue, but they're quite marked. There can be changes in personality, changes in behaviour. Often the person may not have full insight into the changes they're experiencing. It may be family and friends that are noticing those changes and actually colleagues in the workplace picking up on those changes as well. So it's a kind of different experience for somebody who has dementia,

even in terms of even before pre-diagnosis. Lots of people getting in touch. I'm going to read some of the messages out as well. Someone says, I always struggled with memory, but got worse with menopause. HRT improved it somewhat, but was scared I had dementia. Eventually diagnosed with adult ADHD at 49 through the NHS. Cannot express the depth of relief and ability

to throw off feelings of lifelong guilt for not succeeding in meeting other people's expectations. And someone else says i'm 56 and i've been concerned about my memory for some time it's quite subtle although with my long-term memory has been very poor and has improved slightly with hrt i'm very reluctant to investigate and see if it could be the start of dementia as it doesn't seem like much can be done to slow the progress i don't want a diagnosis hanging over me if there's nothing if nothing can be done to slow the progress. I don't want a diagnosis hanging over me if nothing can be done. Am I right in thinking there's not any treatment that would prevent worsening of symptoms if it's dementia? I'm already following all the lifestyle diet exercise and advice.

Jules, what would you say to that? I think, I guess a bit of a theme today, actually, is just thinking about how we look and support each other holistically. I think it's important that we as women talk to our friends our colleagues our families about their experience of living with perimenopause and menopause so that we can normalize the symptoms actually that we're experiencing and understand that often we share we share symptoms as I mentioned earlier it's really unusual for somebody of under 65 to be diagnosed with dementia.

What I would advise women to do if they are concerned is to go to their GP and have those initial conversations about what their concerns are. The GP can do some initial tests. For women who are going through perimenopause, menopause, we're at an age where other things can go wrong with our bodies. So they're looking at things like thyroid functions, vitamin deficiencies, infections. So it's important to have those tests to make sure that we can rule all of those things out and treat them if necessary. The other thing that GPs can look

at are things like depression and sometimes there is confusion between depression and menopause um actually GP you know my GP diagnosed me with depression lots of we know anecdotally because lots of our listeners get in touch to say the same thing that they've got they had menopause but actually were prescribed antidepressants or were told they had depression yeah I mean my my prescription was about 10 years ago anita but my gp told me i was depressed and i was adamant that i wasn't i said there's a very happy person in here who's really struggling to get out um and i decided to take my gp's advice try the antidepressants and actually um it they made me happier absolutely but it just it I knew I wasn't depressed, so I stopped them.

I knew it was something else. I think we're at a position now where we're talking about menopause much more as a society. I think women are taking control over their symptoms and there are things that they can do to support themselves. I want to bring in my next guest as well, because it's not only symptoms that menopause and dementia may seem to share, but there are many potential overlaps in terms of treatments.

New research by the UEA's Norwich Medical School and the University of Edinburgh suggests that HRT, hormone replacement therapy, could reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease for some women. We should mention that it is an early study and was an observational study rather than a clinical trial. To discuss this, I'm joined by the lead author of the study, Professor Anne-Marie Minahane from UEA's Norwich Medical School. Welcome, Anne-Marie. How did this study come about? Yeah, good morning. Good morning, Anita. Yeah, we've been working for a while on the APOE4 gene, which is a major risk factor for Alzheimer's disease. And we've also been quite interested in why there's twice as many Alzheimer's patients who are female rather than male. And our research started to show that actually being E4 and female seems to be more consequential for brain health than being E4 and male. And lots of the overlap between the effects

of the E4 gene and the benefits of estrogen. There seems to be a lot of overlap between their physiological mechanisms, which made us think, could HRT be a useful intervention to reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease in people who carry this E4 gene. So as you said, we conducted this observational study in the European Prevention of Alzheimer's and Dementia cohort, and we found very nice associations between HRT use and improved memory, improved overall cognition, and larger brain volumes in women who carry the E4 gene. So what's the difference between an observational study and a clinical study? Yeah, really good question. So in an observational study, you collect data on

the participants. So in the EPAD study, we collected health data, health behavioural data, medication data, and we looked at patterns in that data. Now, we concluded that HRT was beneficial for brain health, but of course, there could be other differences between the HRT users and non-users. So there could be differences in socioeconomic status and health behavior in education attainment and HRT users versus non-users. Why was that? Sorry, sorry. Just why was the HRT helpful? So that's the next stage of the research. So we do know what oestrogen does in the brain.

So oestrogen seems to help the brain metabolize glucose. Oestrogen helps blood flow to the brain. Oestrogen reduces the buildup of the beta amyloid plaques. It helps the overall health of the neurons. And these are particular defects in E4 carriers. So we think estrogen might be working through those particular mechanisms of action. But there's a lot of research to be done to really tease those out. And it showed that women who had HRT earlier received the most benefit.

Absolutely. So again, it's an observational setting, but it seems to be that the benefit was stronger the earlier you started HRT. And it seems to be that kind of the perimenopause, early postmenopausal period seems to be a real window of opportunity for intervention where if us women take care of our health behaviours it can really have long-term benefits for our overall health but particularly for our brain health. And what type of HRT was most effective? Well we didn't have the numbers in this study to tease that out to be honest so it was a combination it was likely that most people were on the combination of oestrogen and progesterone which is the most commonly consumed combination for people who've got who haven't had a hysterectomy so we weren't able to tell with the numbers was it a particular type of oestrogen or progesterone or whether it was oestrogen or progesterone in isolation so

that's something that remains to be established. So what needs to happen next? So we need to do the clinical trials, to be honest. Observational studies are really useful in that they really sort of tease out potentially useful interventions. But the next thing we're planning to do now is to recruit a group of women in a really controlled fashion and assign half of those women to a placebo half to HRT and then the only differences between your group will be the HRT and then follow women up for a period of time and look at cognition and brain function using MRI so it's to go ahead now and to do those really well controlled trials where we're looking at response to intervention

according to APOE genotype. And what's the timeframe on that? Well, we've got a nice pot of money, which we're starting a new bit of research in April. Hopefully the clinical trials will be starting within a year. That's the plan. Well, we will stay in touch to find out how that progresses. In the meantime

jules anyone listening who is concerned who might be you know worried about their brain fog and loss of memory and just recall and all the rest of it and are right in it worried about anxiety depression whether or not they've got dementia because what what advice would you give them right now i mean i think it's important to know that not every woman can take HRT. Not every woman wants to. So it should be a considered choice, an informed choice. Other areas that we can support ourselves with is, again, looking at ourselves holistically, thinking about our sleep, our stress, reducing alcohol, looking at our diet,

all of the things that we can actually improve our overall general health with which impacts on our risk factors in association with dementia actually but if someone is concerned and they feel they need additional support then we would ask them to contact our helpline we've worked very hard with the menopause charity over the past year to develop some information so that's on our website we have a leaflet that you can download and you can also speak to our abnormal nurses if you have those concerns and they can advise you on next steps about how you can get some support. Jules Knight thank you very much for joining me and Professor Anne-Marie Minahayne thank you too. Another message

here although I'm still able to deliver at work I now make a lot of low-level errors which are trivial and embarrassing these cause panic and i end up checking everything multiple times some days i have complete clarity but on brain fog days it's like my brain is full of treacle well hopefully that conversation might have helped a little bit um we obviously it will be a subject we'll be coming back to again on woman's hour but keep your thoughts coming in and if you would like to send us an email and tell us about your experience then do so go to our website uh talking about so getting in touch with us about your experience one of the subjects we'll be discussing later uh maybe possibly next week or the week after we'd like to hear from you about whether or not you want children and why it can be tricky to talk to a partner about wanting or

not wanting children when should you bring it up and what do you do if you have different opinions walk away from an otherwise happy relationship we're going to be discussing this on the program and we would love to hear your experiences get in touch on social media it's at bbc woman's hour or as i said you can email us by going to our website now number 55 percy park looks like any other townhouse in Tynemouth, but more than 80 years ago it was used as a sanctuary for more than 20 Jewish girls fleeing Nazi persecution who'd come to the UK on the Kindertransport. After a BBC investigation, a blue plaque will be unveiled there today, Holocaust Memorial Day, celebrating the house's forgotten past and those that found sanctuary there.

The girls were looked after by two women from Vienna, themselves fleeing Nazi persecution. One was the famous cook Alice Urbach, Alice's granddaughter. Karina has actually been on this programme. She came on to talk about her story, The Nazis Stole My Grandmother's Cookbook. And two of the girls who lived in the house were Ruth David and Elfie Jonas. We'll hear some clips from them shortly. They very sadly passed away during lockdown. But I'm delighted to say I'm joined by their daughters.

Ruth's daughter, Margaret Finch, and Elfie's daughter, Helen Strange. Welcome to Woman's Hour, both of you. Margaret, your mother was Ruth David, one of the girls in the house. Tell us her story. What led her there? So mum was one of six children who lived in a very happy family, I think, in a part of Germany called the Odenwald, which was like a miniature black forest. And I think it was very happy until Hitler came to power when she was four years old. And then everything changed all of a sudden. And all the talk as far back as she can remember was of Auswanderung, which is emigration from Germany.

But she had siblings she adored. 1935, she went to school, just the little village school because they'd been integrated there for two centuries. And then in that school, the teacher wore brown. The children had to jump up and say Heil Hitler when he came in. Mum wanted to do that because she wanted to be like the others, but she wasn't allowed to. And then soon after that, the Jewish children were thrown out of that school. And at that point, they lost all their non-Jewish friends in the village.

Things got very dangerous for them. Stones were thrown at them. There was then Kristallnacht, which is now called Pogromnacht, when local communities in Germany ransacked Jewish homes, burned Jewish synagogues, mum's house ransacked, her brother and her father were beaten up and an aunt, and the brother and father arrested, and mum cowered in a car in in the yard and remembered that all her life um but then she came here on the kindertransport that's what pushed the parents who'd been trying to emigrate as a family to decide they had to get the children out if they could

we've actually got a clip of your mother talking to the listening Project in 2013. This is Ruth David describing preparing for the Kindertransport. I can remember that mother said no books because that would be too heavy and I wanted to bring books with me, knowing I could never learn English or read English. I was convinced of that for a long time. And she packed too much underwear, I thought. I didn't appreciate what was going on at all. I had a small suitcase and a larger one.

The kinder, the children who were chosen, were those in need. It was hit and miss. Some got out, some didn't, some survived and some didn't. Many didn't. And the kinder transport saved nearly 10,000 children. And when you compare that with the one and a half million European Jewish children who were murdered, we were very fortunate.

Incredibly moving to hear your mother's voice. I've never heard that bit before. Have you not? The detail of the underwear. Yes, that's right um and i also know that shortly the night before mum left and they gave her less than a week's notice she was leaving and she was very angry because her older sister wasn't leaving and she didn't know why she should be going first um her mother came to her and mum was expecting words of comfort how they

would come and get her as soon as they could. And her mother just talked about blood dripping and mum didn't know what she was talking about. This kind of ties in with the underwear because years later she realised she was being told about menstruation. She was only 10. And she was giving her the advice before she left. Yes.

Helen, I want to bring you in to talk about your mum Elfie Jonas she came from Austria yes tell us a bit about her story yeah she was born in a small place called Leoben in the mountains again a very happy childhood an only child um very very happy memories of that area. And then she, her parents after the... Sorry. Okay. She was put on the Kindertransport. She was put on the list for the Kindertransport and was then, had no idea where she was going.

Her parents were very young and didn't know even which country she was coming to. So she arrived late at night in Liverpool Street Station and then taken by two strangers who didn't speak any Austrian or German on the train to Newcastle where she arrived at night. They played games with her on the train to Newcastle where she arrived at night. They played games with her on the train,

but they couldn't speak with each other, but she said they were very nice to her. Arrived late at night in the dark and told to go to bed and arrived in a room full of, I think, three other girls and just sort of went to bed in this sort of haze of what on earth is going on here. I think we should hear from your mum as well. We have a clip.

This is Elfie, recorded by Vivian Sieber in 2019, granddaughter of Paul Sieber, who was one of the matrons in the home, and this was recorded in 2019. Let's have a listen. I came in March, and the war started in September. I remember clearly war being declared. And in Tynemouth, in front of the hostel was a huge field,

and we used to walk across the field to school. And I remember Mr Chamberlain, wasn't it, who declared war and I was thinking, war? You know, what does it mean? Are they going to fight on the field with bows and arrows? I had no idea what war meant, you know. It's very moving to hear that clip. What did they tell you, both of you,

Margaret and Helen, about their time in Tynemouth? Because after Tynemouth, did they both move to Windermere as well? So they were in very beautiful parts of the world. They were, yeah. But what did they tell you? My mum loved the view from the window in Tynemouth because she looked out to the sea

and they went across, before war was declared, they were allowed to go across the road to the beach and play on the beach and swim in the sea, although she said it was very cold. What age were you when they actually started telling you about the history? Well, when I was little, I don't think I knew the word Jew. I knew mum was German because she said nursery rhymes in German to me. She counted German when she was knitting. And I knew she had siblings in France she spoke French to.

And in New York she spoke English too. That was very confusing because she was German. But then I think she'd repressed it for so long. When I was nine, so I was coming up to the age at which she had been put on the Kindertransport, one night when she was putting me to bed, she was in tears. And I asked her what the matter was. And she suddenly told me that her parents had been killed by being shoved in an oven. And I had no context for that.

So that was and then after that, I began to be more aware. But I realized then that I needed to protect her. Of course. Yeah, I felt the protection for my mother very strongly too. I assumed that it was a sort of normal family. My mum started to tell me things when I was about nine too. And I think it was because she was trying to imagine what her parents had been through, putting a 10 year old on a train. So when I was sort of coming up to 10, she started to explain to me about what her parents had done and then very gently, sort of not as horrifically as you'd experienced,

but very gently started to tell me about her family and her life and what they'd been through. And did they ever go back to Germany or Austria? Did they go and visit? Yeah, my dad took my mum back. Not us, my brother and myself, but when I was about 12, he thought it was good that she would revisit, but she said most of it had gone. And my mum started going back in about 1980. and that turned out to be one of the best things she ever did and then she eventually that sparked memories she wrote a book about her experiences which was published in Germany in 1996 and in English in 2003 and she worked for 20 years

talking in schools in Germany. Amazing and how important is it that this plaque is being put on this house? Because the owners of the house didn't even realise what it was used for. Yeah, I think it's really important. I'm so pleased. I think mum would have been really pleased too because we went up and visited the house many times and my mum told me all about the house and showed me the house but there was nothing there at all. So, you know, everybody, nobody would know except my mum and your mum.

And I think it's so brilliant that BBC Radio Newcastle have picked up the story. Absolutely, absolutely brilliant. And are making it known because it mustn't be forgotten. It's a really important part of local history. Country's history. Yeah. Everybody needs to know. Exactly. It mustn't be forgotten i

think that's yeah the key point really and and i guess the i mean it's a huge conversation about how you carry that trauma within yourselves and process it at the two of you it must be important for the two of you to be able to talk about their stories now it is yeah talk to one another for lunch and keep up the conversation. Absolutely. There's so much to be told. It's important. It's very fortunate that we do have each other.

And we're very fortunate that you came to speak to me this morning, Margaret and Helen. Thank you so much. And thanks to all of you for all your messages coming in. Actually, Deborah has messaged to say, the girl in the photo with Inge and Ruth at Liverpool Seastration so much and thanks to all of you for all your messages uh coming in um actually deborah has messaged to say the girl in the photo with inge and ruth at liverpool sea station is my mother hannah singer nee cohen my sister and i delighted to know who the girls are at last thanks to bbc woman's hour everybody is smiling uh join me tomorrow for weekend woman's hour that's all

for today's woman's hour. Join us again next time. One, two, one, back. That's work. What would happen if you tried to dig up all the bad things you've ever buried? Anything I tell you is a ghost of truth. This is a deathbed tape from a man who witnessed a crime so appalling that he wants us to dig it up.

You do all you usually have to do. Put a ticker, he wants us to dig it up. We're Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor, and from BBC Radio 4, this is Buried, the story of the secret dumping of a million tonnes of waste near a UK city. We're sitting on a ticking time bomb. All he kept saying to me was, there's cover-ups, there's cover-ups. Subscribe now to Buried on BBC Sounds. 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.