Woman's Hour - How friends help you live longer, Asbestos exposure, Women's cricket, Effie Millais

Episode Date: October 16, 2019

In a new three-part series on longevity, we look at how we can shape our health and vitality in old age. Today we focus on the role of our social lives. We all know that meeting up with friends can feel good, but does it actually make any difference to our health? Jenni speaks to psychologist Julianne Holt-Lundstad about how a good social life can be as important to living longer as giving up smoking. Fibres, a new play, explores the legacy of asbestos in the Glasgow shipyards and the women and families affected by the exposure. Jenni is joined by the playwright Frances Poet, and Phyllis Craig from the charity Action on Asbestos. The future of women's cricket is looking rosy. Last week the Women’s and Girls' Cricket Plan announced a £20m boost in funding, and the ICC will award the winners of the Women’s T20 World Cup in Australia in 2020 a million dollar prize. We look at the state of the women’s game with Clare Connor, Managing Director of Women’s Cricket at the ECB. What’s being done to make it more attractive for women and girls to play and watch it, and to work within the game too?We hear the untold stories of five women of Pre-Raphaelite art whose contribution has been overlooked. Today, we hear about Effie Millais whose personal life has always distracted from her achievements as a manager, muse and creative partner to her husband John Everett Millais.Presenter: Jenni Murray Interviewed guest: Frances Poet Interviewed guest: Phyllis Craig Interviewed guest: Clare Connor Interviewed guest: Alison Smith Interviewed guest: Jan Marsh Interviewed guest: Julianne Holt-Lundstad Producer: Anna Lacey

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to Wednesday's edition of the Woman's Hour podcast. In today's programme, the plan to make cricket a gender-balanced sport. What does it mean and will women and girls be keen to play? Now, the England and Wales Cricket Board is making a £20 million investment in the women's game. In our series about the women associated with the pre-Raphaelite movement, what was the contribution

of Effie Millet? And how to live a longer life? Why is research showing that a good social life can be as important as giving up smoking if you want to live to a fit old age? Now tomorrow a new play will open at the Barrowfield Community Centre in the east end of Glasgow and will then tour

communities across Scotland until the 2nd of November. It's called Fibres and explores the legacy of the extensive use of asbestos in the Glasgow shipyards. During the 20th century, Glasgow and the west of Scotland were the centre of the production and consumption of asbestos. Mesothelioma, the deadly lung cancer caused by exposure, has caused thousands of deaths, and Scotland is one of the most affected parts of the world. While Phyllis Craig is a director and welfare rights advisor for Action on Asbestos.

Frances Poet is the playwright, and they both join us from Glasgow. Frances, what inspired you to write this play? Well, I went to a music class with my daughter a few years ago, and after the class they used to have a sort of coffee and we'd talk to other parents, and there was a woman there who was taking her godson to the class they used to have a sort of coffee and we talked to other parents and there was a woman there who was taking her godson to the class and we got to know each other over a few weeks and she um one day she told me that she'd lost her parents six months apart her father had

been a ship's draftsman and had done an apprenticeship on the ships and the exposure to asbestos dust that he encountered there meant that all those years later he died of mesothelioma. And her mother, who hadn't worked there but had washed his overalls, died six months later. So I was just shocked and moved to hear this story and went home and did a bit of research. I knew about asbestos but I knew about it as something from the past. And when I spoke to a geriatric doctor friend of mine,

she was all too aware of it because she was seeing so many cases. And she told me at that point, this is a few years ago now, that the deaths from asbestos weren't set to peak till 2020. So every year more people are dying from asbestos-related diseases than died the year before. Now, Beanie and Jack are a couple in their mid-60s in the play. Jack, of course, is dying of mesothelioma. In the play, he's warned about asbestos dust.

How aware were people of the danger at the time they were working there? I mean, not aware that that's the problem. I think there was some awareness around the fact that some types of asbestos dust could be harmful. So I think there was a voluntary ban on Crosser Delight around the time that Jack would have been working there.

But the sense was that the white stuff was much less dangerous than the blue. That, I mean, there was... I read that the doctor at Turner & Newell, the asbestos factory, actually told people that they should breathe in the dust because it was full of magnesia, which was good for you. So there was so much misinformation around it at that time. Phyllis, from the work that you do, how conscious would you say employers and employees were at the time of the danger?

I think that the employees were not aware of the danger. I think it was, there was some anecdotal evidence that there might be something or some issue with asbestos exposure, but there was no evidence. These men went to work and they worked because they had to feed families and so forth. They were not aware and that's why today when they're pursuing civil damages they're able to do that because they weren't aware. I can't really say that that's the same case for the employers. A lot of these men were working with different types of asbestos all of which were deadly because the World Health Organisation have also stated that

chrysidolite, which is white asbestos, is still dangerous and they banned it in 1999. So these men went to work not truly knowing. There was always something there that someone would speak of about asbestos but the men were told by the employers, the men were told daily that there was nothing wrong. And actually, from the evidence that we've gathered from a lot of our insulating engineers, was that if they actually took a pint of milk, then this would help. And so they continued to work.

Frances, as you mentioned, you've turned the focus to Beanie, Jack's wife, who got mesothelioma after washing her husband's overalls. How did that happen? I mean, because these overalls would come home, because the workers didn't know how dangerous it was, it would come home and they'd be covered with dust and the dust would be shaken off before being washed. And at different periods of time, these are being washed without a washing machine. These are being washed in a big tub, old style. So that dust is in the air when they're being washed.

I mean, I read heartbreaking cases of children pulling the asbestos out of their daddy's hair when they came home from work who then have gone on to contract mesothelioma. Now, Frances, a family won a half million compensation case last year as a result of this kind of secondhand asbestos death. How common do you reckon it was for people to be exposed in such a way? Well, it's hard to focus down on a sort of specific statistic because asbestos was so widely used. So there were so many places that you might have encountered it um but but there there have

people have said that they feel that you know the majority of cases in men um have been direct exposure but the the majority of cases in women and children have been secondary phyllis how common have you found that secondary well i think that there are always women who have never worked and the exposure to asbestos came from washing their husband's overalls because at a time there was no particular good hygiene within the companies so they would bring the overalls home but what would happen is that it was often assumed that it was always a husband's overalls that would mean that the women's mesothelioma was caused by this or contracted by this. But that's not that's a bit of a myth because nobody ever thought to say to women, where did you work? So a lot of women actually did work at that time. And so their exposure to asbestos was actually in their own right.

And it's detrimental in the pursuit of civil damages if you record that the husband's overalls was the main source of that exposure to asbestos. So there are differences. You can't say it's all people's overalls that were washed because people did work. But maybe a combination of both. Why, Phyllis, are the numbers of ill people rising now when asbestos was fully banned in 1999? Well I think that you've got to realise that the latency period between being diagnosed with a condition and being exposed to asbestos was between 20 and 50 years so people who were exposed maybe 40 or 30 years ago are only being diagnosed now.

There is Frances humour in your play, which obviously you're touring around communities who may well have been affected by all of this. How easy was it to introduce anything that was funny in such a tragedy? I mean, I think the best theatre makes us childlike, really. It allows us to feel things more keenly, so it's always really important to me. I think there's so much pain and anger in the subject matter here,

and we, as an audience, are, you know, adults are very good at bringing up the shutters and making sure we don't feel, and I think humour and connecting with characters is the way to make sure an audience drop those shutters, connect with the characters and feel. And so I think audiences feel the pain more keenly if they've been laughing the moment before. I mean, in the case of specifically this play, the character that's played by the brilliant Jonathan Watson, who's such an amazing comedic actor, he worked the ships like Billy Connolly

and wished he could have been a comic like Billy Connolly. So he has a sort of desire to be a stand-up, which brings both a sort of humour and pathos with it. And then... Oh, yeah, sorry. I just wondered what you're hoping this play will achieve, being played in community centres in the way that it's going to be. I mean, I think it'll be a good night out. I think audiences will have a good time.

But I think for people... I joke with the director, says, I'm not allowed to call this my health and safety play because she says no one will turn up, Frances. But actually, I think there is a passionate cry in the play to say you have to, the bare minimum is that people are protected in their places of work. And I want audiences who,

I think audiences who've been affected by the issues in the play can find the play a cathartic experience because we're carrying that anger for them and I think audiences that haven't been and don't know about it will carry that anger out with them into the world. Frances Poet and Phyllis Craig, thank you both very much indeed for being with us and if you've been affected by this, we would like to hear from you.

Do send us an email or even a tweet and tell us what's happened to you or to your family. Now tomorrow, an exhibition, Pre-Raphaelite Sisters, is opening at the National Portrait Gallery in London. The image we tend to have of the women who were closely associated with the group of 19th century artists known as the Pre-Raphaelite Brothers is that they were beautiful, had long flowing hair and of course the most powerful and well-known picture is the one of Elizabeth Siddle modelling Ophelia drowning in a stream. We discussed her on Monday. The exhibition hopes to demonstrate the work the women contributed

to the artistic movement normally associated with the men. Dr Alison Smith was the curator of the Tate's Burne-Jones exhibition last year. Dr Jan Marsh is the curator of the new exhibition and described Effie Millet to Jane. What most people know about Effie Millet is her unhappy first marriage to John Ruskin that was unconsummated and then what one would prefer to focus on actually is her very happy second marriage to John Millet that she managed to extricate herself from Ruskin and marry Millais and become his artistic partner.

And that's one of the things we wanted to celebrate because the portrait by Millais of Effie in Middle Life is a homage to their partnership. And I'm looking at it now. It is very beautiful. She's a very Victorian bourgeois, but that's a tribute to the success that she and her husband achieved together. Yes, you're right. It is interesting. The focus is on the unconsummated first marriage. I can't remember now, forgive me, why John Ruskin, was he gay? Well, his argument was that he didn't want children because he was always travelling in Europe and so on, but everyone thinks he was horrified by actual nakedness and the actual physical action because he seems to have been entirely celibate, wouldn't you say, Alison?

That's right, and he did have a predilection for young girls, so prepubescent girls, so before they developed into mature adults. So he was a beautiful... They called them pets, the little girls, the pets. And obviously when he first met Effie, he saw her as being a pet. But obviously she blossomed into a beautiful young woman and that he probably couldn't cope with. I think we will focus on her successful, happy second marriage.

And it is interesting that this portrait, she is looking, this is painted by the husband who adored her, she's quite stern. Am I being unfair? She's being presented as a matron. So she's probably about 35. She's in her 40s, but she's in the autumn of her life and you will notice that she's pointing at a magazine,

which is the Cornhill magazine, and she's pointing at the figure of the thresher who brings the harvest in. So it's the idea of a woman in her full bloom. Millais, a painter, was obsessed with autumn, and he thought autumn was the most elegiac, the most beautiful season. And here's a woman who's lived this rich, fulfilling life.

And the idea is she's content and happy. Round her neck she's wearing this beautiful necklace made of agates and at the bottom of each agate is a little gold clasp which holds a lock of hair of each of her sons. This image, by the way, is on the Woman's Hour website, so bbc.co.uk slash womanshour if you'd like to see it. I'm always really attracted to colour, actually,

and it's a gorgeous velvety burgundy dress. It is lovely. Millais was absolutely brilliant at painting textures and colours, sensuous, without being sensual. So was this woman more than a muse? Was she his genuine professional partner? She was a brilliant musician. She was fluent in French and German, did all his translation for him, all his correspondence. She helped choose subjects for his paintings. She often selected the models, helped create the costumes. So she was like a producer, really. As well as running the studio and managing the household and having eight children. So

she had a very busy life in many ways, and one's hopes that it was fulfilling and rewarding. It does seem that that was what gave her satisfaction. There's also a lot of sadness in her life because having had these eight children, she had one stillbirth child as well. So that's a real sadness, isn't it? She came from a family, eight surviving children, siblings, seven died, all buried in the same churchyard at Canule.

Her siblings, all seven died? Yes buried in the same churchyard at Canoole. How are siblings? All seven died? Yes, so the point about the picture, it's tinged with sadness. Having a stillborn child, lost seven of her siblings, this disastrous first marriage, terrible insomnia, and your feature earlier in the week about faecal incontinence, she had all these internal problems as a result of all these pregnancies as well. And Effie might have suffered from something similar. Isn't it interesting that we never associate these women

with the very real problems that exist naturally through women's life experience? But I would never have thought that, because it's obvious when you say it. It must have happened to... Childbirth was brutal in those days. Elizabeth Siddle died from postnatal depression. Joanna Boyce, another artist we've been considering, she died from postnatal complications. It was highly risky for women. Anything you want to add to that, Jan? In these circumstances, one endorses Rossetti's alleged remark that these were women sacrificed to bringing more kids into the world.

I think the implication is that the husbands were too demanding. It was at a moment just before contraception became available for middle-class people. And so many of these women who were quite competent and so on in their ordinary lives nevertheless had child after child after child. Effie had to spend quite a few months of the year separate from her husband because she didn't want to have any more children. So she had to keep away from him because she didn't want to have sex with him. Do you know what? I get quite cross with men in these circumstances. I'm sure he had his strengths.

Would the women we've been discussing, would they know each other? Was there any kind of sisterly collective where they could, I mean you talk about the men being demanding, would they have told each other about all this and discussed it? Some of them did know each other but they didn't form a sisterhood in the sense that there was a brotherhood.

We've chosen a group, 12 women, and they knew each other, they drew each other, they socialised together, but not all and every one of them. So it wasn't a homogenous group, but the network connections are definitely there. And that's whether they liked each other or not. Some of them detested each other.

Who detested who? So obviously Georgiana Byrne-Jones would have loathed Maria Zambaco because Maria Zambaco, who was this aspiring artist, had a very intense, passionate affair with her husband. Dr. Alison Smith and Dr. Jan Marsh. And there'll be more pre-Raphaelite women in the next few days. And the image of Effie Miller is on the Women's Hour website and also on Twitter.

And you can hear Monday's discussion of Elizabeth Siddle on BBC Sound, of course. Still to come in today's programme, How to Live a Longer Life. We begin a three-part series on longevity. Today, how important is a social life to keeping fit and well? And the serial, the third episode of Edna O'Brien's The Country Girls.

Now, earlier in the week, as you heard just a moment ago, we discussed faecal incontinence after childbirth. More common than any of us thought, and lots of you got in touch about it, go to BBC Sounds and find the first discussion, which was in Monday's programme, and then yesterday, Tuesday, there's some professional advice

about what can be done about it. Now, there's been big news this month for women's cricket. The England and Wales Cricket Board is investing £20 million. The International Cricket Council is investing £2.6 million into women. And in Australia, there's a promise of equal prize money for men and women in the next T20 World Cup. So what does it mean for women and cricket? Will better investment make standing at the wicket a more attractive proposition for girls?

Well, Claire Connor is the Managing Director of Women's Cricket at the ECB. Claire, what did you mean when you said you want to make cricket a gender balanced sport. Oh, good morning. It's good to talk to you about this. Yeah, I think what we're saying there is that we're trying to spread a different in the sport at whatever level or in whatever role they would like to participate. And so we're striving for a gender balanced sport because women and girls deserve every opportunity in the game. to kind of permeate across the sport and across the organisation and across cricket everywhere, cricket clubs, across the counties, across schools, so that women and girls feel that they've got a right and that they're included in the game. But that gender-balanced idea, you're not talking mixed male and female teams, are you?

No, no, we're not. No, we're not. We're talking about a little girl or a woman uh picking up a bat or a ball for the first time or wanting to work in cricket or coach or volunteer or be part of a cricket club we're we want cricket to be a gender balanced sport so that every decision we take we ask ourselves as a national governing body at the ECB are we are we creating a brighter more inclusive future for our sport are we making it more more modern more inclusive and are we showing women and girls that they are as welcome as men and boys now I know you've got plans for men's and women's teams to have the same kit the same branding, the same sponsorship, which is really important.

Why is the whole package so important? Well, what you're referring to there is that the new competition next year, which is the 100, which is a new short format competition. It'll be the first time that our sport has launched a professional competition from the outset for men and women. So there'll be eight teams and each team will have a men's team and a women's team. And that's really important for us because that competition will have huge profile and reach across Sky and the BBC. And it will show men and women and boys and girls that that gender balanced ambition is that we're taking that very seriously. But the plan that we launched last week, which you referred to, will receive 20 million over the next two years, with an ambition for that to become 50 million over the next five years.

And that's a very holistic joined up plan for grassroots participation, for girls picking up bats and balls for the first time at the age of five or six to show them that there is a um a pathway or a journey through the game for them at every stage whether that's secondary schools within clubs um within talent programs local talent programs within counties and ultimately that there is a route for them to make a career out of the game by becoming a professional cricketer how is this idea of speeding the game up and saying all right we'll have 100 tournament where only 100 balls are bowled how's that going to go down with the fans the fans who just want a five-day test that goes slowly and beautifully?

Well, we're not taking that away from anybody. In fact, the test format is receiving a significant boost as well in men's cricket because of the World Test Championship, which has just started this summer. So test cricket is vibrant and healthy in this country and has got the backing of the international community through that Test Championship. But the 100 is about reaching a wider audience that perhaps haven't yet engaged with cricket. We know that we've got a long way to go to reach young people and more diverse communities that haven't necessarily been exposed to test cricket or even had much cricket in their community before. So the 100 is really about a faster format that will represent cricket in a new way and attract that wider audience, particularly the family audience what about access to playing fields now

so many schools don't have them where are these young girls going to find their place well a lot of what we're doing across the country for boys and girls is about modifying the game making it shorter making it more flexible so that it can be played in playgrounds, it can be played in car parks, it can be played in school halls. So that we know we're very aware that not every community, particularly in our high density urban communities, have got those lovely green playing fields that perhaps, you know, I was lucky to grow up on. So, you know, it's about making it work wherever we can so short formats non-stop cricket countdown cricket will be introducing a format of the game for children in line with the

hundred which will be um a kind of format which is about countdown cricket which you can play with however many minutes you've got in the day even if you're in quite a confined space with with not necessarily your full complement of players and presumably not with a classic cricket ball if you're playing in a car park exactly yeah you don't want one of those hard balls spinning around do you that's right and also that wouldn't be appropriate for young children anyway so we're looking at softball festivals we've seen um 20 000 women last year taking up the game by playing in softball festivals, in cricket clubs. So we'll be looking to grow those. And another big area of that, a big chunk of that 20 million pounds will be going into club facilities.

So, you know, we know that cricket clubs have long, you know, in many parts of the country have long been the domain of, know of men's sections and male male players and so we'll be investing a significant amount of money to circa eight eight million over the next couple of years in making sure that those cricket clubs are are welcoming that they've got coaches available to women taking up the game for the first time so how different is it going to be now for a new young female player from when you played your first test in 1995? Well, it's unrecognisable. It's already unrecognisable, actually. And what we've said in this new plan is that we want to transform women's and girls cricket further so you know the game that's played now with professional players with you know over 800 clubs now offering the game to women and girls is is already unrecognizable from the game that I started playing as a youngster where I had to play with just with

boys in boys teams. What passion for the sport would you pass on to a young girl who might be interested what would you tell her is so great about playing cricket? I would tell her that it's a wonderful team sport. It's sociable. It teaches you good lessons for life. You know, it can be quite a cruel game, but it teaches you good lessons. It teaches good, good things about leadership and teamwork and about being resilient. And it can be the most unbelievable fun. You know, I've had an amazing lifetime in the game already. I've traveled the world. I didn't earn a profit. It wasn't my job, you know, whereas now it can be. And one of the

investments is that we will be tripling the number of professional players in this country from next year. So I would say to a girl now that if you like this game and you've got a bit of skill and you enjoy the sociable element of it, give it a go and now you can see a pathway right the way through the game where you can play to the highest level or you can just play and have lots of fun in a cricket club. Claire Connor, thank you very much indeed for joining us this morning. Now I remember my parents saying that if they got to 80, they would have done well. And that's pretty much exactly what they did. 13 years on, if you manage to survive beyond your 50s, it's likely you will live into your late 80s.

But how do you make sure your old age is fit and healthy? Well, today we begin a series linked to the BBC World Service Crowd Science programme, How Can I Live a Longer Life, that tackles the science behind ageing well. In the first part, we look at the impact of our social lives on our health. We met a group of women at an event in Bishop's Stortford in Hertfordshire. Hi, I'm Zara. I'm here at Age Concern and we run a community day centre for our older people in our community. It's important to us to be able to offer a facility

where people can get a chance to socialise together and come together within a community. Otherwise, the alternative is that they'd be sat home alone. For the majority of people, what we find is that they come here, they're quite quiet, they're shy, and over a course of time we see them getting more integrated within the community. We find in general that their health and wellbeing starts to improve.

Good morning! Morning! We're going to have a little chat this morning and then we have a movement to music class. We've got a new lady coming in to deliver that today. There should be some fun movements and dancing involved. This helps to keep us more active and in touch with people and knowing what's going on.

If you stay at home, you sometimes just don't know what's going on out in the outside world. It's very comforting to be here, yes. Otherwise, you'd stay at home and you wouldn't know. There could be a war on and you wouldn't even know you'd just be stuck in the house by yourself so you need company, you need to talk, you need to mix every time I come there's somebody else I get to know

so it's ongoing, it's ongoing because it makes me get up, it makes me in the morning get up and get showering, get myself ready so it's forcing me to do things. It's good to be with other people and get on with it. I live on my own. I come four days a week because I enjoy coming here, you see. Otherwise, I'm just at home on my own.

Each day is different. We do different things, you know. And usually on a Friday we have someone come in to sing to us and I just love that. Until I came here, I could go days without speaking to anyone. And so you come here and there's chat going on all the time and different things. All sorts of things go on, you know, and it's interesting and enjoyable. And that's what you've got to have as you get older. You need to be with people and do things and enjoy

it. G-I-M-A-N-D-E. Sheila? Diamond. D-I. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D.

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D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. and mind in good working order. Being lonely and isolated can be as bad for you as smoking 16 cigarettes a day. According to research done by Professor Julianne Holt-Lunstad from Brigham Young University in Utah in the USA, she explained what she'd found.

What we found was that across 148 studies with over 300,000 participants, people who had greater social connection were at a 50% reduced risk for premature mortality. So what this showed was a significant protective effect of our relationships on our risk for mortality, we benchmarked this relative to other kinds of risk factors that we take very seriously, including things like smoking, alcohol consumption, physical inactivity. And what we found was that the effect that this has on our risk for mortality was comparable and in many cases exceeded these other kinds of risk factors, suggesting that this has a really important sizable effect on our mortality and that we should be taking this seriously for our health. But why does socializing, having a good social life, improve your health

and make you live longer? One of the most obvious ways that I think is clear to many people is how our relationships influence other kinds of health behaviors. So from the time we're very little, we have others who are encouraging us to eat our vegetables or to look both ways before we cross the street and to eat better, to go see a doctor when needed, reminding us to take our medications. But the research linking relationships to risk for mortality statistically controlled for all of these. This was really important because we needed to make sure that there was an effect of relationships over and above any effect that it might have on other kinds of behaviors. So we also have a sizable body of evidence that shows that our relationships can help buffer some of those negative health effects of stress, which is associated with better blood pressure and better kinds of outcomes in terms of

neuroendocrine and immune functioning. We have less of this heightened threat response that can have an impact on a variety of physiological outcomes, including cardiovascular, immune, and even studies have shown that this impacts cellular aging. How different are the experiences of men and women? Because there is probably a myth that men have fewer friends than women do and not such active social life? Well, you know, there is some evidence to suggest that women have wider social networks than men. But what's interesting is while prevalence may differ, we don't find any kind of gender difference when it comes to the health risks. And this makes sense given that most social and of that desire or how that is manifest,

the overall effect that it has on our biology and ultimately our health and longevity is equivalent for both men and women. What would be the effect of a relationship which is maybe full of conflict, but people stay together to kind of avoid loneliness. We can't assume that all relationships are positive. There's evidence that suggests that conflict or negativity in relationships is actually associated with worse health outcomes. And in fact, there are several studies that have shown that this increases risk for mortality. And so in essence, it's having more and better relationships that is protective while having fewer and poorer quality relationships that put us at risk. How long would you anticipate a woman could expect to live a healthy life if she has a good social life?

Oh, gosh, I wish I had an exact number for that. In fact, we wanted to try and establish what the number of added years might be associated with this. But unfortunately, because we included data from multiple countries and the life expectancy differs from country to country, some of the statistical aspects of finding the standard deviation, all of that differed. So unfortunately, that wasn't something that we were able to accurately calculate. But nonetheless, the data does suggest that those who are more socially connected live longer on average. Finally, let me just ask you a couple of tips that you would give to live a longer life. Well, of course, we have to acknowledge that while social relationships is just one component,

of course, other aspects of a healthy lifestyle are going to be important. And so, you know, I cannot diminish those other components. I've had people ask me, so if I have a lot of friends, does that mean I can still smoke or that I don't have to exercise? Does it mean you can still smoke and don't have to exercise? No, these all contribute to health. And so we need to make sure that overall. But I think this also is important to recognize that our relationships need to be considered part of that healthy lifestyle. So I think we often think of diet, exercise, smoking, sleep, that these have an impact on our health, but we need to add our social relationships to that list. It's just as,

if not more important than many of these in terms of predicting our overall health and longevity, and importantly, can also influence very positively our quality of life as well. I was talking to Julianne Holt-Lundstad. Now, lots of you responded to our discussion about asbestos exposure in Scotland. Amanda said, thank you for this. My dad died from mesothelioma in 2007 after exposure in a ship's engine room in the 1950s. I struggle with the fact that he must have had it before I was born, yet it killed him when I was 51. Sue said, I was diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma four years ago through washing my ex-husband's clothes back in the early 70s in a twin tub. I'm about to take part in an immunotherapy trial for which we are keeping everything crossed. Someone who didn't want us to use a name said my father-in-law suffered from the disease from asbestos.

He was a plasterer doing restorations. My husband was recently diagnosed with asbestos on the lung, which must have been through his father. He's 65. It came as a shock. The last years of my father-in-law's life were terrible for him. He had oxygen and could hardly breathe. His doctor told him not to bother with compensation as he would get hardly anything. It is a terrible illness. My husband is being

monitored yearly. Someone else who didn't want us to use a name said my husband died of asbestosis in June 2017. He was ill for several years before then and the side effects of an experimental drug given to him during the last year made his last few months ghastly. How do you refuse a drug that might lengthen your life? We've been unable to find out where he contracted the disease. The government compensation payment just covered the bill for the headstone on his grave. And Jill said, I trained as a doctor in Glasgow. Near the Royal Infirmary was a set of flats. The men who worked on them were known as white mice because they spent the days covered in asbestos.

In those days, it was a joke, unknowing that it was in fact a death sentence. Sadly, most are dead now, a lot from mesothelioma. Good to see this issue recognised in a play. And then on women's cricket, Harriet said, I was the only girl who went to after-school cricket in the 80s, but I gave it up because I was never allowed to play matches. I did rounders and netball instead. And Yvette said, 10-plus years ago, our daughter played for the boys' jersey team to under-17 when the ICC deemed it too dangerous to continue playing with the boys.

She was talented and was the first girl playing for a boys' team to take an international wicket. However, at the time, She was talented and was the first girl playing for a boys team to take an international wicket. However, at the time there was no alternative and she was lost to other sports. So good to hear that plans are afoot to nurture these women. Now in tomorrow's programme I'll be talking to Yeung Chang, the author of Wild Swans. Her new biography, Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister, is about the Three Song Sisters, whose lives helped shape the course of 20th century China. And you can hear the second part of How to Live a Longer Life,

when we'll explore the importance of exercise and why we should try to keep physically active long into old age. Join me tomorrow, two minutes past ten, if you can. Bye-bye. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody.

Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby.

It's a long story, settle in. Available now.