Woman's Hour - How to age well: A Woman's Hour special

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

We are all ageing, if we're lucky, so in this Woman's Hour special programme, we're exploring how women can age well. Anita Rani is joined by a panel of women of different ages to talk about the possibility of re-invention and the wisdom of age, as well as the difficulties and barriers women face as they get older. What we can learn from each other and how can women of different generations support each other? Author and psychologist, Dr Sharon Blackie’s book, Hagitude: Reimagining the Second Half of Life, explores stories of little-known but powerful elder women in European myth and folklore – with the hope of inspiring women now. She joins Anita to discuss what we can learn from these stories and the power she feels we can gain if we embrace getting older. NHS GP Dr Radha Modgil is often to be found on BBC Radio 1’s Life Hacks. Radha joins the discussion to explain the things we can do specifically to age well. She highlights exercise and nutrition, as well as the real need for women to have purpose in their lives, no matter what age they are and how that can impact our ageing both physically and mentally. Our reporter Martha Owen meets Lindi, Sue & Celia in the British Library in London, at a meeting for the Older Peoples Advisory Group – a forum for older community members – hosted by Age UK Camden. They give their thoughts on ageing, what they’ve enjoyed most about getting older and why dancing trumps housework. Cally Beaton was formerly a top TV exec, then she swapped the boardroom for the stage and became a comedian at the age of 45. Ten years later, she now refuses to make self-deprecating jokes in her sets. She joins Anita to discuss what it's like ageing in the public eye, defying her age and the importance of advice from older – and younger – women. The writer and content creator Pippa Stacey's perceptions of ageing have changed because of her experience of a chronic illness. Pippa was diagnosed with ME, also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, while she was at university. She joins Anita to reflect on the impact of the physical changes she has experienced, the pressures young women are under and why she wants to listen to older, and wiser, women. Presenter: Anita Rani Guest: Sharon Blackie Guest: Dr Radha Modgil Guest: Cally Beaton Guest: Pippa Stacey Reporter: Martha Owen Producer: Claire Fox Editor: Erin Riley Studio Engineer: Giles Aspen

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. Hello and welcome to Woman's Hour. I'm Anita Rani and this is our very special programme on Bank Holiday Monday, all about ageing, an undeniable truth of life which will happen to us all if we're lucky, we'll get older. So to get into this huge subject, I've got a brilliant panel of guests with me in the studio to discuss all the things we think about and perhaps worry about when it comes to aging. The highs and the lows, the positive attitudes and the creaking bones.

But before I introduce them, have a listen to this. I'm definitely the cliche of saying I'm miles happier than I was younger. I don't want to ever go back there. I mean, every single magazine, Instagram, anything, it's all about thou shalt not age. You know, it's a dirty word, isn't it? I think we're all obsessed by it. It's sort of pathological. You know, it's almost a crime, the shame attached.

The older you get sometimes, particularly women, we can become invisible. But actually, we still have so much to give in knowledge and experience. And what we want to still provide to our friends, our community, there are so many things that we can do. If you just forget what age someone is and just look at a person and take them for who they are. I think women come into their 40s, certainly mid 40s, thinking, oh, well, you know, this is the beginning of the decline. Things start to change and fade and kind of slide in directions that I don't want them to go in anymore. And, you know, I've just decided, no, we become more women, more powerful, more sexy. We grow into ourselves more. We have opportunity to

speak and speak our mind and, you know, not be afraid of what people think of us, not care what we look like quite so much. I think it's amazing. And we, you know, let's go girls. Let's just be in our power. Why not? Life's too flipping short, you know. 40 was important. 50 was important, even 60. But I think in my imagination, I never got beyond that because just in terms of averages, one can't be confident about it. And also, I didn't see enough women who were this age that I am now to have examples to follow. Heard the voices of the glorious feminist activist Gloria Steinem, still blazing at 90. Also actor Kate Winslet, broadcaster Angela Rippon and actor Helena Bonham Carter telling us how they all feel about ageing. A smattering of stardust to kick us off. And now to my crew in the studio. Dr Sharon Blackie, who invented the word haggitude.

She's here to tell me why and what being an older woman should be all about. Pippa Stacey, a young woman whose perceptions of ageing have changed because of her experience of a chronic illness. Dr Radha Modgill, resident expert on BBC Radio One, will be speaking to us about how to age healthily. And Callie Beaton, she was a top TV exec who

swapped the boardroom for the stage and became a comedian who now refuses to make self-deprecating jokes, but will happily take down mansplaining the menopause. That's how you actually came onto my radar. Praise be the algorithm. Welcome, all of you. Thank you. Lovely to be here. It's very nice to have you here. I've got a quick fire question for all of you.

I'm going to start with you, Sharon. What's your age and how do you feel about it? And what age do you feel? I am 62. I do finally age and how do you feel about it? And what age do you feel? I am 62. I do finally feel my age. I feel 62. I think ageing is absolutely brilliant. These have been the best decade, I would say, best years of my life. The best decade. That's nice to hear.

Kelly? Well, I'm 55. And the way I feel and the age I feel oscillates from about 14 to probably at the most 55. So it depends on the day, depends what I'm doing. I would definitely say that my 50s has been my best decade so far, but there are multiple sides to it. But overall, I'm going to go best decade so far. Interesting. We will get into that. Pippa? I'm 29. I'm often told that I look like a 16-year-old, but I have a body that often feels like a 50-year-old.

So I feel like I have the best of both worlds and my age seems to oscillate the age I feel as well. I want to appreciate where I'm at now and I'm holding on to the hope that better days are ahead as well. Wonderful. And Radha? So I'm 44, going to be 45 in August. I still think I'm 17. I sometimes act like it. I actually really have enjoyed my 40s. I think I feel much more confident. I feel a little bit more like I know who I am. We've kicked things off. Brilliant way to start the conversation about ageing. But first, I'm going to come to you, Sharon. Dr. Sharon Blackie, author and psychologist, wrote her book

Haggitude, Reimagining the Second Half of Life in 2022, where she explored stories of little known but powerful elder women in European myth and folklore with the hope of inspiring women now. Sharon, welcome to the programme. Women being elders, not elderly is a big part of your book and your thinking around ageing. So what does that mean? What does it look like? Well, we have a culture that tells us that we are elderly by the time we get through menopause and everything begins to sag a little bit. And really what the old stories tell us is how older women back in the day used to be elders. And so they used to have a particular form of wisdom that it hasn't got any good stories to tell about aging as women, maybe we could go back and look at some of the older stories because our ancestors were very wise about some things,

about the environment and about women. And it's not to say that, you know, there was social equality back in the day, but there was a respect for certain ways of being a woman and certain characteristics. And so those old stories have been a really great source of inspiration to me. So what changed? It's a very, very good question. I think men really were the ones who were driving the narrative, certainly in the past two, three hundred years.

And it's got to a stage where women are just not seen as being useful to the culture. Whereas back in the day, you know, the wisdom of elder women was really, really very important. So we had women, older women who were mentors to the young. We had older women who were truth tellers when the culture needed to hear some difficult truths about itself. We had older women who literally wove the world into being. We had a great group of older women in ancient Greece called the Furies, whose job it was to be furious about anything they thought they should be furious about. Can hard relate. Exactly. So that's the kind of story that we have. And I think it's, they can give us a lot of inspiration for how we could be more useful and more authentic as we grow

older. And you also look into fairy tales. Can we find inspiration in them for women now? I don't see why we can't. I mean, really, the beauty of these stories is that they're very simple, but the images in them and the characters in them are very, very vivid. And so they're very, very memorable. And if you look at, you know, old folklore, say, from the Slavic countries, like Baba Yaga, who's an old witch-like character who rides around the woods in a mortar, wielding a pestle instead of a broomstick and lives in a house with chicken legs. And if you go to her wanting, say, her fire, you either pass her tests or you'll get put into her man-sized oven and eaten up. And that sense of the older women trying to bring out the best in younger people, testing them, you know, to the absolute brink of who they could be, that's something that we don't find kind of acceptable in the culture today. But these old stories tell us very different. So very positive. So you say, I would have thought of Baba Yaga

and thought it was a negative telling of an older woman. Well, she's ambiguous. And you know what's interesting about a lot of these older characters is they're not all love and light. There is a sense of strength, of feistiness, of telling unpleasant or difficult truths when they need to be told. And I think that that's something that women can do and they can do it kindly.

You don't have to be rude to everybody. And it's something that older women, I think, have a particular gift for, because we have seen a lot as we've got to this age, and we have a lot of wisdom to share. So where did the word haggitude come from? It's a great word. Yeah, well, I literally woke up one night, in the middle of the night, I sat up in bed, I said haggitude to the bedroom at large, and then I went back to sleep again. And then the next morning, I woke up and I thought, yeah, that would be a really good title for a book. What's interesting about the word hag in fairy tales is all of the older women who are presented as hags

are in that story, not because they're somebody's mother, not because they're somebody's wife or somebody's grandmother or somebody's daughter. They might be, but they're in that story for themselves, for their own particular unique gifts and everything that they have to share with the world around them. So to me, the word hag is a really strong word. And you've looked into Native American thinking around aging. How is that different to our Western understanding? Well, certainly, and I've spoken to a number of people from the Lakota tradition, and they seem

to suggest that when you stop bleeding, the power stays inside you. You know, the power of the blood actually stays inside you and the creativity stays inside you rather than being put out into the world with your children and what have you. And so that power gives you an extra strength, gives you an extra wisdom that otherwise you wouldn't have. In the South African traditions that I have heard of, there is a particular sense that older women who have never had children have a particular sense of wisdom and have a particular kind of way of being in the world that is valued. So I think all of these other cultures do it. We do it as well. If you go back to the old stories, it's just that we've forgotten. And how do you feel? You said that you feel better now this last decade has been the best yet for you. Yeah, I don't mind invisibility. You know, I think it's I think it's quite a good

thing. A lot of women, a lot of women say as they get older, they become less visible. And a lot of women find that difficult. I think a lot of my friends actually find it very, very easy to become invisible. It takes the pressure off you. You don't have to please all the time as you did when you were younger. I think that whole narrative about getting older, being able to tell your own truth, being able to be authentic, not having to please all of the people around you, again, not to be unpleasant to people. That's a really important thing. And that can make for many of us this kind of second half of our lives, really very,

very revelatory. I wonder what class does to this story, you know, what impact that has on how women age and their power? It's interesting. I grew up in a profoundly poor environment in a northeastern England council estate. And when I was a kid, all of the older women on that council estate were basically the moral arbiters of the whole culture. So I had a great aunt, Aunt Meg, who would stand on her doorstep with her voluminous breasts and her apron, and she would, you know, cross her arms and stand on the street, basically telling all of the people who went past what she thought of them. And it wasn't to be wicked. It wasn't to insult them. It was because they were not conforming to the morals and the customs of that time. And so I grew up with a strong sense of old women being sometimes quite difficult but actually powerful in a social and cultural sense.

Within their community. Within their community. Power within the wider society not so much. Absolutely but it's interesting if you have enough older women in different cultures that are doing that then it eventually seeps out I think in some ways. Oh it's getting good already isn't it? We've only just kicked off. Today's program I must tell our listeners has been pre-recorded so we can't include your messages but lots of you have oh it's getting good already isn't it we've only just kicked off uh today's program i must tell our listeners has been pre-recorded so we can't include your messages but lots of you have been

in touch via social media so i'm gonna read a few out now joanna says i'm probably like many of my 43 year old peers a little conflicted i love the fact i'm far more secure in who i am and don't feel any need to people please or care what others think of me i've come to a place where i'm settled in my spiritual beliefs, all wonderful. They're not so wonderful. Fatigue, mood swings, unexplained weight gain, night sweats and not recognising my own face in the car window reflection.

Mercedes says, I've noticed I'm ageing recently, not because I feel old, but because people stop acknowledging you. That's what you were talking about, their invisibility. I slide off you in the shop. Conversations ignore your contribution. Employers want younger women rather than experience then complain about their family commitments with children in contrast being past 50 i am less tolerant of bad office behavior i don't want locker room language said to me at work or to female colleagues and jade says

at the age of 21 i thought i was invincible until I fell from my bike on holiday, fracturing my skull and leaving me hospitalized in critical condition. Now, as I approach my 30th, it feels like such an achievement. Every birthday feels that way. But to make it to 30, wow, I'm overwhelmed with joy. What a gift it is to be alive and to age. I'm going to be reading more of your messages out throughout the program. But on to our next guest NHS doctor Radha Modgill. Radha you might have heard her on Life Hacks on Radio 1. One of the

things we want to talk to you about is how we all age better as women. I want to focus on physical and mental well-being here not necessarily looks we will get there but not top priority just yet. How much of aging is in priority just yet how much of aging is in our head and how much is in our body rather i suppose obviously there's an undeniable truth that as we age our bodies age too and there are limitations there are sometimes we see those as restrictions but actually it's interesting about how we approach aging because i think as a society and also in the health system we tend to just approach aging or kind of older people's health conditions when they reach a crisis level so when they become

a problem or when they become a diagnosis but what I'm much more keen on talking about is how we actually talk about healthy aging so how can we talk about promoting getting older and not necessarily seeing those physical kind of changes in our body as restrictions or limitations but rather just that our bodies are different you know the population is aging we're having you know more people living longer which is great in one way but it's only great if we're actually supporting people to live in a healthy way I think what you said about mental health particularly we never really talk about as we age we tend to focus on physical kind of health but mental health we don't really talk about very much at all until today until today we're gonna cover it all shall we let's start

with exercising because i know people will be really leaning in right now going then come on tell us what can we do what can women do so as we get older one of the the main things we have to think about is our bone health and our muscle and our muscle strength basically and that muscle strength as well so one of the most important things is think about weight training or strength training. So about twice a week, for example. Again, that can be external weights. It can be body weights. But I think sometimes as we get older, we think, oh, we can't do that.

You know, we can't go into a gym. We can't lift heavy weights. But actually, it's really important. Can you lift tins of beans at home? Yes, well, absolutely. Does that work? You know, if you don't want to go to the biscuits. Yeah, we might need quite a few packets of biscuits but we call the beans wait but um absolutely i think again we you know gardening digging you know lifting cans of beans in your kitchen hoovering all those kind

of things all kind of adds add to that but then we also need to think about things like flexibility so things like yoga yoga is really great for our connective tissue, our joints, for example, and also for our minds as well. And then you want to balance that with things like Tai Chi. So we know as we get older, our balance deteriorates. So things like Tai Chi has been shown to improve balance by about 40% in some cases. So there are just a couple of things about mixing it up, I think. I think variety and mixing up up making it enjoyable is one of the most important things as we get older. What about people with restrictions in their movement or their energy levels or their health generally? Yes it's about working out what works for you really and I think this is where you know again society's attitude

to ageing and sort of health tends to kind of take a stamp and sort of template people you know we must all do these things but actually you know aging is not uniform we all age differently according to genetics our circumstances what's happened in our lives for example so you know how can we make exercise bespoke and how can we make things individual well i mentioned beans kelly mentioned biscuits uh read into that what you want uh what about nutrition yeah so again talking about bone health really important to think about calcium, vitamin D, for example, for that and to prevent osteoporosis. Also things like vitamin B12, which we tend to absorb less of as we get older. So making sure we're getting a lot of that more of that in our diets is really important. But it's not just kind of what we eat, it's also how we eat, I think. So we know that as you get older you know appetite and and thirst change so we tend to kind of lose appetite we tend to not notice when we're when we need something to drink and that's for different changes in the brain for example there's an area in the in the brain called

the laminate terminus which is to do with our thirst sensation which is affected as we get older and we think that appetite changes because our sense of smell is also affected in taste. So, you know, all of that part of how we eat, that social side of it, eating with other people is all part of appetite. And we talked about class, but what about women of different ethnicities? I think it's really important to discuss how people from different backgrounds can age in different ways, too. Yeah, so I think it's really interesting to think about in different cultures how do they approach ageing and we touched on a little bit earlier on didn't we about different cultures about societal kind of narratives about kind of how older women are seen within family structures within community structures so we know in some cultures I mean my dad is of Indian descent

and you know older women are very much revered and respected in that culture. So I've grown up with that. So it's just interesting to think about your own experiences and how that actually has reflected on your behaviours. And if you haven't had a great experience with that, then actually, can you step out of that? How can you change that for yourself? I think it's really important to say that, you know, those things and how you move forward in your life doesn't have to be dictated by what you've seen and by your past. We're on Women's Hour and we talk a lot about HRT, contraception, pelvic floor all the time. And it still feels like there's a lot of guesswork in treating women's health issues at different ages and stages.

And all of that impacts on our quality of life, doesn't it? In fact, on our social media, a lot of women got in touch to say, well, it's all well and good to say I feel really positive about my aging experience when you're in your 40s but get to your 70s when everything's creaking and you might not be able to get access to the things that you need as easily as you want. You know the last few years we've had you know much more conversation about the menopause which has been great but I still think you know if you think about the medical kind of world that's been orchestrated by men for decades that's been designed by men and lots of products for example lots of medicines lots of health research has been very male dominated so you know we are very behind with that and I think it's really important that we

start to talk about issues more we start to empower women with knowledge and actually kind of what they can do but but more to the point I think we also need to give people the opportunity to have choices to be able to make choices for themselves to actually look at people as an individual we've had a message from our listener Catherine she says I don't mind aging at all but perimenopause has completely ruined the journey into my second spring I'm up to my eyes in HRT but still struggling after four years I'll be so happy when this is over as it's robbed me of my late 40s and god knows for how much longer I do feel lucky to be here and love my friends and family, but feel like I'm just existing rather than living at the moment.

Really hard. And again, it's such a shame, isn't it, that the experience of that natural transition, that natural period that we're all going to face has caused so much distress. And I suppose one of the main things is to talk about actually, you know, if one form of HRT doesn't work, if things are not right for you, then going back to to chat to your doctor going to get some support and some help we're very behind with that and we're not good as a society to talk about that but we absolutely need to get better because again this impacts not just you know that individual but their friends their family all the people around them and also society in terms of ability to work and to function and basically to create the sort of society that we want. And this is a big question which I'm going to bring all of you in on actually

and it's about identity and how our identity can change as we move through the world and we get older and we move to different places and meet different people and a lot of that might be wrapped up in a kind of purpose. It doesn't have to be a job. How important is that as we get older? Yeah so again we don't talk enough about purpose about oh why, why do we get out. Yeah, so again, we don't talk enough about purpose, about our why. Why do we get out of bed? Why are we here? What are we here to do? And actually research has shown that, you know, if you have a clear sense of purpose, you're going to live longer, but you're also going to have a healthier and a happier life. It's so important.

And purpose, you know, throughout our lives, every single day, our purpose is going to change, but we don't always catch up with ourselves. Often, if we've been, you know, in a role we've been in a caregiving role for example and that then ends you find people getting very lost and disorientated who am I now you know I'm not I'm not someone who goes to the office every day I'm not someone who's got teenage children at home for example you know who am I and that can make you know your mental health very very challenging very difficult so yeah purpose is everything so sitting back and saying right who am I, you know, your mental health very, very challenging, very difficult. So, yeah, purpose is everything. So sitting back and saying, right, who am I now?

You know, what situation am I in right now? And what do I want to do? What do I want to bring to the world? And actually translating that into activities, hobbies, you know, keeping busy, keeping motivated. It's really, I think, purpose and identity of who you are in the world. And we've touched on it a little bit with invisibility is everything as we get older you were nodding sharon yeah i think you know one of those psychologists who's influenced a lot of my work is carl jung who was a you know an elderly man by the time he he died but he wrote a lot about the difference between the first half of

life and the second half of life and for him the first half of life was very much about building about an external perspective on the world about you know building a home building a family building a career whatever it might be it's about your your persona it's finding your perspective on the world, about, you know, building a home, building a family, building a career, whatever it might be. It's about your persona. It's finding your place in the world. But he said that the second half of life, true, both for men and for women, but I think women have it in a much bigger way with a menopause and all the hormones going awry. The second half of life is time for turning inwards and thinking about meaning. And he saw the second half of life as a spiritual transition. Well, we're a culture that doesn't talk very comfortably about spirituality, meaning and purpose. And I think it really is time to change because the other elephant in the room when we're talking about purpose and about the second half of our lives is that it ends by design with death.

And we're also a culture that doesn't talk about death. And if we can't talk about death, we can never talk about healthy aging. We're always wanting to cling on to youth at all costs. And I think that is something that would be really interesting to open up more conversations. Yeah, Kelly, you found your purpose. Well, I think it's a combination of pleasure and purpose. That's what I think. I think if about 80% of what you do ticks the box of pleasure or purpose, and sometimes if you're really lucky, both, I think we can all tolerate the 20%. And it's definitely one thing I have really noticed as you get older is money.

You know, I'm the sole breadwinner. I need to earn money. But money can't be the motivator. And I think a lot of your strategies reach their sell-by dates. So things that we would have done that are maybe about external validation, about making a quick bit of money, about really letting things people say to you kind of blow your skirt up. I think those kind of shift. And actually it is about, yeah, I've only really discovered who I think I am since I was 45. And Pippa you really it was it was thrust on you you had no choice to figure out your identity from a young age.

Absolutely yeah when I acquired my disability I went from feeling like a typical active young person to feeling like a patient and it was very difficult to reconnect with who I was outside of my chronic illness and recalibrate that balance of my chronic illness does influence my identity but it isn't everything and I think as well having a condition like mine that kind of affects your ability to reach those traditional milestones of aging I think that reconnecting with that purpose and thinking right what do I want do? What can I do with what I have? That has been one of the things that has helped me get through that and not feel so isolated by that. We're now going to hear from three fantastic women. Women's Hour went along to meet Lindy, Sue and Celia at the British Library in London,

where they were attending a meeting for the Older People's Advisory Group, a forum for older community members organised by Age UK Camden. We asked them about their reflections on ageing, what they've enjoyed most about getting older and what's important to them now. Hello, I'm Celia and I am 71, very soon. I'm Sue and I'm in my 86th year and very content to be there. I'm Lindy and I'm just in my eighth decade. I wanted to ask because sometimes it's considered a little bit taboo or a bit rude to ask someone's age. Do you mind saying how old you are? No never. I never mind ageing or being my age. No not in the least. All I am is surprised that I've got my 86th year.

I'm completely different. I don't like saying what my age is because I don't feel my age. I was going to ask, how old do you feel? Do you feel... 25, with a more sensible head. How do you feel about the word old? I most often feel that it doesn't really mean me. Unlike Lindy, most often I feel as though mentally I'm 12. So for me, the age isn't the thing. It isn't old. It is, okay, I am now almost 71 and that's fine. And I just try to keep going as much as I can and enjoy myself as much as I can. You know, there's that saying, act your age, not your shoe size. Do you think that you act your age? I think that probably I do a lot of the time. I have always been fairly mature. So, you know,

when I was 12, I was probably that, as I am now, picky, you know, grammatically correct whenever I could be person. So in a lot of ways, it's a continuum. It is not that, you know, suddenly I am old. I noticed age when I got my first grey eyebrow lash, and that was it. You know, age 41, I suddenly had a grey hair, and that was it. But I never thought of it as, oh, I'm old. I'm going to be looking out for a grey eyelash

a grey eyebrow hair now I'm going to go back and look in the mirror have there been any positives or things you've really loved about getting older in my case retirement to be perfectly honest with you I've had for decades problems with musculoskeletal issues, etc., etc. I started the disability service at King's College London. So for 26 years, basically, I worried about other people all of the time. So the amount of stress, etc., you know, if you're a certain sort of person, that's what happens to you. So you might wear yourself out. Whereas retirement, I volunteer all of the time. I'm very busy,

but I'm choosing what I do, when I do it, how short or long those bits are, etc. And it's great fun. So I'm very active. I'm really enjoying it. And I have a lot less stress than I did when I was younger and when I worried more about other people than myself. Well, Lindy Sue, are there any stereotypes that frustrate you people have about what an old person should be like, what they think older age is like? That you should behave yourself. Do you behave yourself? Not all the time, no. So eighth decade, what did you think being this age would be like when you were younger? Did you have ideas about what it would be like? Yes, I did because I was very, very close to my great-grandmother who was Victorian, believe it or not. She was born in 1876.

She was the closest thing in my family. I I loved her I can honestly say more than my parents she was a real example of somebody who I would like to be and I think that was mostly because she had a great sense of humor and we used to do silly things like she had a big collection of hats and when I went to her house which was every Friday on my way home from school she would give me an orange and then we'd get the hats out and put the hats on and then we'd sort of take on a persona relevant to the hat and have silly conversations with about you know oh I've put my washing out today and it's been freezing cold as it's as stiff as a board and things like that and I always wanted to be her really and I think I have turned into her in some ways she was such a great role model do you feel

like she was a role model for for aging and that you channeled it a bit yeah because she was a bit crazy at times you know even when she was old that word we don't like to use. She was, she'd put some music on, we'd dance around the room and things. And this was when she was, yes, in her 70s, 80s, 90s. Yeah. I certainly don't feel my real numerical age. It largely, I think, depends around your health. If you've got failing health and you've got issues that debilitate you, that limits what you can actually physically do and it limits whether you can go out a lot. And I think that staying young is all about being with other people, feeding, energy, passing stuff about, which is why we do a lot of volunteering.

That keeps us young. I think it's keeping active as well. Picking up from what Lindy was saying, we're incredibly fortunate in this area particularly because there's a lot for older people and it's giving as well as taking. I don't like those organisations that people say, oh, well, you can come to the Memory Cafe and you can play Scrabble

or you can play Ludo or Snakes and Ladders. I'd much rather come to Age UK, come to things like OPAC, the Older People's Advisory Group, and it's a forum in which we can talk about issues that matter to older people, but also matter to other people, and the social aspect, the getting together with people who you may have shared work experiences with, or you may have interests in common. Maybe interests you couldn't foster when you were working because you were too darn busy. And if you have family, which I have, too many commitments.

If you could give some advice to your younger self, looking back, what would you say now? I think I stood by my own it's not exactly beliefs but my own sense of direction of where I was going to go. I did a lot of very unconventional things I had a very happy marriage I had a large family and I wouldn't change it, not for anything in the world. I think I would say take more risks. That's something I've learned through my life is you don't get anywhere if you're sort of worrying about things and what will happen if. You don't know what's going to happen? So go and find out. Well, to be honest, I took a lot of those risks. You know, I'm originally from Panama. We moved to the US, but I've lived here over 43 years now. So I've taken a lot of those risks. And it's worth doing what you can when you

want to. I'm at the stage of revolting. I'm not going to do the housework today because I'm going to go out and do something else. I'll go dancing or I'll go to an art exhibition or I'll go and meet some people for lunch. It's wonderful because it gives you that great freedom to go out and enjoy life. You know, get out there, do it whilst you've still got time. You know, I hope I've got another 25 or 30 years, but it might end tomorrow. And I want to go to the pearly gates knowing that I've had a go at all sorts of things in life. And this association with Camden Age UK is giving us the opportunities to do this sort of thing. So we can play again, you know, we can play. It's great. How lovely to keep playing. We heard from Lindy, Sue and Celia there,

they were talking to our reporter, Martha Owen. You might just be tuning in and are wondering, what are we discussing here on Woman's Hour? I'm Anita Rani and I've got a brilliant panel of guests in front of me. Pippa Stacey, Dr Sharon Blackie, Callie Beaton and Dr Radha Modgill. And we're all talking about women and ageing and how to do it well. Here are some more of your messages. Binnie says, I love the ageing process. I'm just shy of 69. Started running, you'll like this rather, at 63. Amazing. Not getting faster or better, but I just feel better. I wear my pigtail and space buns and Miss Havisham hair with pride and indifference all at the same time. Cheers to all of you women of all ages. And Rachel says, and this is a real reality check.

She says, my best friend died this week after a long and difficult battle with lung cancer. She held my hand recently when I was moaning about my fine lines and wrinkles. And she looked me square in the eyes and said, aging is a gift will never take it for granted thank you for those messages now on to my next guest comedian and podcaster Callie Beaton had a high-flying career as a tv executive working with brands like Nickelodeon and MTV but at 45 she swapped the boardroom for the comedy club after receiving career advice from one very famous female comedian. Who was she and what was the advice? Well, I used to work with some big sort of on-screen talent names, not because I had a sort of sexy showbiz career, but I was on the revenue generating side. I sat on the board of some big companies.

And one of the people I had the enormous pleasure of working with on a few occasions was the late, great Joan Rivers. And we got to know each other very well. I didn't realise until I started sort of hanging out with her what a feminist icon she actually was, you know, when she was doing what she was doing, busting through the glass ceilings of Hollywood in the 60s and 70s. And she said a couple of things to me. The very last time I saw her, we had dinner together, just the two of us, not long before she died. Lucky you. Yeah. Wow.

Yeah, and you may remember she died very unexpectedly from complications in surgery, and she said two things to me. One of them was I was online dating at the time, and so was her daughter, Melissa, and she said, Callie, the thing about online dating is, she said, the odds are good, but the goods are odd. I thought I'd share that and the other thing she said was she said you should think about taking up stand-up I think

you could do it um and I said you know at the time and I said I'm 45 I'm a single parent I've got two kids one of them's got um special needs and I've got a boardroom job. It's too late. The ship has sailed and she just looked me in the eye and she said, I'm 81. What's stopping you? You're in the thick of it. And the combination of that and her untimely death a couple of weeks later, I've thought back on it and I've thought it's a much better story because it was Joan Rivers, lovely dinner party story. But if any 81 year old woman had got to know me and had seen something in me and had looked me in the eye and told me I was young which it was young she said you're in the thick of it and at 55 I look back at my 45 year old self I mean I did lots of things that

year around my first marathon that year I did lots of things that year and people now say to me isn't it amazing you did this amazing kind of pivot in your career and it's so great but, but this won't be my last reinvention, so why would it have been my last one? So that also is quite limiting for people to say, good for you, you did that at 45. Well, at the moment, I'm learning classical piano again and playing in recitals. That'll be part of my next reinvention. I'm writing my first book. All of us can have ambition in our reinvention as we age, but that does not mean it's redemptive or perfect. So I'm not saying to you, isn't it amazing? I did this life pivot and look at me now. You know, my life's

a hot mess. I'm fitting the wheels as I fly the plane, for sure. But it's my hot mess. And I'm telling my story my way. And if I fall down, which I do a lot, I'll stand up again, literally quite often on stage. Yes, sister. I took so much from what you just said. But one thing that at the very beginning is that just the joy and the wisdom that can come from spending time with women from different ages, particularly older women. One of the joys, I think, of what I do now is how big your world gets. So I think one of the things that can be aging, and this has nothing to be ageing, and this has nothing to do with looks and it has nothing to do with what society tells us,

but when your world gets smaller and smaller and your world becomes your sofa or you self-limit, and some people obviously it has to become that way, but for some of us it doesn't. And if your world keeps getting bigger, I'm lucky enough that every working day is different and I meet hundreds and hundreds of people every month, probably. And they're not like me.

Very rarely am I with a woman who is like me in a working environment. It's usually somebody who's very different to me. And that is so powerful. I think you just you get because we don't know what we don't know. And if we sort of socialize in our own image we're never gonna the whole will never be greater than the sum of the parts so all that you know we can underestimate and ignore any demographic if we want but why would we yeah why would we and we used to do reverse mentoring when i was at mtv where we would have people who were closer to the age of the demographic who

watched having meaningful casting votes on editorial decisions because they were watching that kind of stuff and people my age weren't going so yeah so wicked means good right yeah and we were and those were but we knew it was working when we stopped calling it reverse mentoring we just took the word reverse out because you why would somebody of another age not mentor you so I think it's it's about taking wisdom from whatever source it may come, which often isn't the one you might be expecting it to come from. Pippa, do you have older women in your life? Does your generation look to older women for advice?

You are the voice of your generation here on Woman's Hour now. Oh, gosh, the pressure. I think my generation, the paths tend to cross less with people from older generations. And I definitely would like more of that in my life because even just from sitting here today I've learned so much and I think there's so much we can gain from hearing those experiences but where do you go to find that if you're not crossing it in your daily life how do we create that sense of community and give people the opportunity to share those experiences together My situation probably isn't that unique

in that I've lost all my grandparents and I've lost a parent. So when that happens, where do people in that situation go to find that source of advice and that comfort as well? I think that's a really big point. I think so as well. And if it doesn't exist in the workplace either,

I want to talk to you, Kelly, about when you were a boardroom exec. In my mind, all of a sudden, you've got shoulder pads on by that point. I did actually used to have them sometimes back a long time ago how was it how did women treat each other then and was there a pressure to remain a certain way and to stay young and to deny your age and all the rest of it what was this what was going on a couple of things struck me in those days one was that people often wouldn't think I was a board member so they would sort of ask me where the loo's were or could they have the biscuits or whatever so I got a lot of

that the first time I ever went to a board meeting for Carlton television they were on the top floor of I think it was number one Knightsbridge back then I was on the executive floor and I needed a wee and I was told I could either use the disabled loo or go downstairs to the next floor where the secretary or pool were because there was no ladies loo on the downstairs to the next floor where the secretary or pool were because there was no ladies loo on the executive floor and I think the thing that I I remember I used to notice a lot because I've worked mainly for US companies big US studios and I noticed a lot the expectation on women to look impeccable so I'd go to meetings in LA and you'd go to the big networks there and the women would look incredible and have incredible

CVs and the men would not always have to look in any way incredible. I thought it's interesting that there's a double standard here that we've got to maintain. But I would also say that there was, I don't know if this is still the case, but sometimes people taking on behaviours, it's not always the case that women were my biggest allies and some men have been really good allies to me. So it's really hard to gender that across the piece because everybody's obviously individual but I would not say that it was a question of men silencing me and holding me back and women carrying me up on their shoulders at all and I think when I was first in boardrooms which was 25 years ago because we sold a production company to ITV so I unexpectedly found myself in that environment

in those days there were so few women and some of them were not helpful to me because it was almost like well I've got that role what are you doing here yeah there's only one space at the table and they're often and on comedy bills you know it's very frequent you're the only female we always joke if there are two women my age on the bill we always joke they've probably made a sort of clerical error um and they sometimes say oh well you know ask us what we're going to talk about like it must be the same thing i think it's this is the kind of nuanced situation of where we're at in regard to gender in regard to age for every story i tell there'll be somebody listening now going well i've had the opposite experience and even being aware of that i think is really

important yeah absolutely i'm going to bring in a question for everybody. And this is about gendered ageism. This is an issue at play for many women. One female office manager, Karen Farquharson, in Peathead in Scotland last September won £37,000 after her boss dismissed her menopause symptoms when she called in sick for work, calling her an old biddy with aches and pains.

Sharon, you're all about power of the menopause and how we harness it, but some women have faced discrimination because of it. I think it's absolutely true, and I think you see that all the way through history. I mean, if you look at Snow White, the story of Snow White, you know, the so-called wicked stepmother who wants to be the most beautiful while her young stepdaughter is growing up to be even more beautiful, and that's because women, even up to today, are living in a culture where our utility is valued by how beautiful we are and how fertile

we are. So the stepmother in Snow White is just as much of a, you know, a product of that environment as the woman that you're talking about. And I think it's really incumbent upon us to try to change that narrative. It's wonderful today that there are more conversations about menopause, but almost all of the conversations that I hear are about clinging on to youth at all costs. And that's what Snow White's stepmother did, and it didn't end well. So I think it's finding ways to move the story on. How often, Kelly, do you get told that you don't look your age? Because whatever people's perception of 55 is, you're not it. Exactly. I get told that all the time.

And I do look my age. I look like a 55-year-old woman. And what I often think is when people say that to me, I say to them, well, then you're not meeting many 55-year-old women. Because among my peer group, I do not look exceptionally young, wonderful around this table I don't stand out as somebody young glowing and wonderful in how I look it's people's perception of what that would be I do however know that looks really matter in breaking into particularly on screen and

on stage I would say 80% of my work involves people seeing me and I and as you know even the work we're doing now you know actually it's all about being seen it's all about social media there's always a visual element to even audio things nowadays and it does matter how you look there's no question that you get you know you get booked as well if you look sort of nice in a line up on something and you you know unpopular as it may be to say it the fact of the matter matter is, if I decided to go really, you know, let my hair go, well, my hair is sort of brown, not grey, but it's not as red as it looks because I enhance it, you know, that's what I do. Yeah, it's a fact of what I do. Would I care as much

about how I look if this isn't what I did for a living? I can't say, because this is what I do. But unfortunately, it has a big impact. And it's partly how you look, and it's partly creating a brand. You know, the reason I have this hair, still this haircut is and it's partly how you look and it's partly creating a brand you know the reason I have this hair still this haircut is because it's really easily identifiable and it helps people find me on social media and on screen which isn't vanity that's for my career I need people I need to be able to sell tickets I need people to read my book you know I've got to get the word out yeah it's just a reality we've um another message here from one of our listeners alice got in touch to say i'm 35 and i generally feel comfortable with aging and the changes my

body will go through i want to embrace it fully and live life at each stage naturally but it's difficult when so many of my friends are starting to get botox to look younger it makes me feel even older and it's tough keeping up the resistance not to use it too i'm not against cosmetic treatments but i just wish everyone could feel comfortable in their own skin without it because if you're some of the only people who don't, you feel like you're less beautiful. I'm intrigued that our youngest person here, Pippa, you are nodding as though you can relate to this.

You're only 29. Yep, there are conversations among people my age about what they might like done, what they're planning to get done. And I always just think, I mean, I don't think I would ever do that myself because I don't think I would once undergo a medical procedure just for cosmetic purposes given my own background and my condition and my health but when people are all going for these same things like lip fillers and Botox I always just end up thinking are we all going to have the same face one day? Is everyone going to look exactly the same? And it makes me sad that people are so willing to cast that individuality aside. I definitely understand where the need and the want comes from, given the pressure that we are fed by social media and the world around us to

appear young and youthful for as long as possible. But yeah, I don't like it. And even as somebody who has no interest in that, I don't like it and even as somebody who has no interest in that I am feeling the pressure and thinking am I going to be the only one who doesn't do it so it's a weird one there are lots of people younger than you though who have done it aren't there I know a couple of my daughters 24 and a couple of her friends were more than a couple of her friends from school have had lots of work done um I want to introduce Pippa we've heard her voice Pippa Stacey she's a writer and content creator and her book, How to Do Life with a Chronic Illness, was just released a few weeks ago. Congratulations, you.

Thank you. Pippa was diagnosed with ME, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome, while she was at university. And lots of her writing focuses on how to help others facing the same thing. So, Pippa, you've had to think about things that a lot of 29-year-olds don't. What's that been like? Yeah, it's a strange one. I think nobody expects to go through something like that at such a young age. So I was around 14, 15 when the symptoms started.

I didn't get my diagnosis until four years later because I would constantly go to the GP and they'd see me as just this young teenager and they'd say, oh, it's just hormones, it's all in your head, It's not that serious. And I think having that experience really carries through as well. But as much as I would have loved for this not to happen to me, it's not ideal and it makes life very tricky. I think having to contend with losing your mobility at a young age means I'm less afraid of that happening in later life now because I know that it's possible to have that loss of mobility and to have a body that can't keep up with your mind and what you want out of life and to start using mobility aids in a wheelchair and I've learned that it's not a

bad thing. In my case using a wheelchair has been one of the most compassionate decisions I've ever made for myself because it means I can do more of the things I want to do at less cost to my body. So from a physical perspective, I think a lot of people in my generation have that fear about how ageing is going to impact them physically. But having to deal with that at such a young age, I know that as humans, we are so much more adaptable than we think we are. So what advice then would you give people who are decades older than you, but who might be dealing with physical health issues for the very first time? I think you don't have to play down how you're feeling because it is a big adjustment and the world we live in isn't accessible and there are going to be difficult things you face but it's always worth looking into the mobility aids and the support

that exists to help you. There is a lot of it out there there well there's some of it out there and it's just a case of looking for it and a lot of people I speak with now my generation and older actually have this fear about using a wheelchair and like the stigma that comes with that and yes there is stigma around that especially in somebody in my situation who uses a wheelchair part-time but ultimately I think you have to think about will doing this allow me to live a life that feels more like mine again and if doing that is a compassionate decision and if it is going to benefit you not just from a physical health perspective but also from a mental health perspective that is absolutely a good enough reason to consider it and you don't need anybody's

permission to do that. I wonder how your friendships and relationships with your peers changed when this happened to you and their thoughts on aging and yours and can they relate? They can't relate. A lot of people can't relate and it took them by surprise just as much as it took me so they've definitely learned a lot and they've learned it alongside me which is brilliant and there are often cases now where they're going about their life and they'll text me and they'll say I saw this access barrier today and I would never have noticed that if it wasn't for the experiences I've had with you but I think for anybody going through something like what I went through it's absolutely vital that you have people that you can relate to so finding the chronic illness community on social media I don't know

what I would have done without it and I think no matter what age you are you have to have people who have some idea of what you're going through as well and just people that help to normalize that experience as well. Community Sharon, finding a community. Yeah and finding a community of others I think who are not so much in denial because I mean I don't want to sound uncompassionate but I think one of the problems that we face with this constant clinging onto youth is we're not really experiencing this part of our life to the full. In the beginning of the pandemic, I was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of lymphoma and almost died, but didn't happily end him in remission. But that experience for me was very much about looking at my body and really appreciating everything that, you know, my crunky wrists had done for me and my crunky knees and all of the times that that had served me.

And I think if we don't look at our bodies and find a way to be in our bodies at each of these ages and we're constantly either living in the past or worrying about the future, then that's not really healthy for our mental health, let alone our physical health. We are going to hear from some younger people, though, because we got in touch with the BBC Radio 1 Life Hacks team, the presenters, Shaniqua and Lauren, and they chucked a couple of questions our way, especially for you. Have a listen. This is Shaniqua.

Hey, Woman's Hour. It's Shaniqua Paris here from Radio 1's Life Hacks. Now, when it comes to getting older, I've noticed that I need with a capital N my sleep. And I remember before I would go away like on holiday and I would be partying all day, partying all night and then have two, three hours sleep. And that's absolutely fine. And I've got all the energy for the next day and the next day and the next day. And then I come home and I'm straight back to work like nothing even happened yet now if I like if I don't get my full nine hours sleep then I am struggling and it's hard for me to concentrate and then I know it's like I'll start to get sick or even like I'll get colds and stuff. So my question is, as we get older, do we actually need to get

more sleep? Who's partying? I party more and I need less sleep. Definitely. And I work nights. I'm like, I've become nocturnal. And I definitely, I used to need eight hours of sleep a night and I do not anymore. Well, is there a pattern? Because I don't think my mum ever sleeps. She's always just awake. Do teenagers need more more sleep do we need like what what happens rather what happens to our bodies yeah so well first of all we don't pay enough attention to sleep and it's super important just as much as exercise and what we eat um but yeah there are changes as we kind of go through our lives i mean i think teenagers get a really bad deal because everyone's always moaning about teenagers oh they can't get out of bed in the morning but actually that's what is

supposed to happen to them so they definitely need much more sleep um and i think actually in kind of older age sort of very older age actually we need less sleep so it's showing that we need less sort of hours of sleep but also the quality of sleep is not necessarily as good so in in the middle there's kind of seems to be a bit of a variation having said that you know sleep is also defined by our individual um kind of chronotype we call it so um you know we have our own individual kind of setting in terms of body clock how are your sleep patterns not great not the best but that comes hand in hand with my condition but while you were talking I was thinking about all the teenagers who go off to uni and have that lifestyle and that was how it was for me pre-disability like you study all day

you're always with your friends the night out starts at 11 p.m and even though I'm the youngest one here I absolutely could not do that now no way I've got no interest in doing it and we are hearing a lot more about the value of sleep now which I think is really good I think it's one of those things like the menopause where there does need to be more conversations about it. Let's hear Lauren's question. The question that I would love to ask you about ageing is about friendships. My friends and I have been friends since school and we continue to have a really strong friendship. Obviously making friends becomes harder as the years go by. There seems to be less and less opportunity to meet people. And me and my best friends,

we always say, oh yeah, we're definitely going to be friends in our 50s and 60s. So I would love to know about your friendships. Have you got those lifelong friends? Have you made more friends as you've gotten older? And have you found anywhere different to make friends? Sharon? I think as you grow older, it can be more difficult to make friends, partly because it's just so hard to reveal yourself. And there's so much of life to reveal. So I think you never get, or very rarely, I shouldn't say never, it's very rare to get the depth of friendship, I think, when you're making

them late in life, compared to young friends, when you've grown up together, they already know all about you. But sometimes when you get to like 60, you know, where do you start to explain who you are and how you've got to be that person? Do you need to know? I find that I've met some of the most amazing friends, honestly, lifelong friends, who I've met at this point in my life. And we've just clicked because who I am now is true to and who I was 20 years ago kind of doesn't matter. I mean, this is just my experience. To me, I remember someone saying, one of my oldest friends saying to me that friends are for a reason, for a season or for life. Yeah.

Which is a lovely saying. And I've definitely found that as well, that I've had much more meaningful female friendships, certainly since my 30s. That's when I went to a boys' school and was very sort of male-orientated for a long time. Weren't you the only girl? Yeah, in a boys' school. Just in case you're wondering why I'm a comedian. Explains everything. Yeah, to develop a sense of humour.

But yes, I think you can make meaningful friends and actually maybe more of a diverse group of friends, I would say. Now when I look at my friends, I think friendship, female friendship I think is probably the biggest gift in my life. Yes, and if you're lucky, intergenerational female friendship from all walks, younger, older. Pippa, as a younger woman, you've heard this conversation. How do you feel about

getting old are you feeling positive have we scared the life out of you you've not scared the life out of me I'm just sat here soaking it all in and it's just so lovely to have the opportunity to have these kinds of conversations because we just don't access them enough and it's definitely reassured me like I would like to know what I'm in for I would always rather have the information than not have it and it's just so great to hear different life experiences and just to know that I think the phrase you said was you always have the opportunity to regenerate yeah reinvent reinvent yeah and I love that and that's the thing that I'm really taking away from this well just to give you a little bit of hope the gender pay gap does still exist but it's better

for your generation than it is for my generation. So it's getting better. Not there yet. Final questions to all of us. What can we do to help each other, different generations of women, Sharon? I think really by providing inspiration. So when I do book events about Haggitude or hopefully my forthcoming book, I find a lot of younger women in the crowds and sometimes teenagers that are there with their parents or whatever. And really, it's about providing for them some reason to grow older,

you know, some reason to actually stick it out and get to the end and some idea that there is joy in that as well. So for me, it's about convincing younger people that there is something to really, really hope for and to live for as you grow older. Oh, yeah, definitely. Kelly? For me, it's about debunking the having it all, having to be it all, having to look, you know, beware of comparing your insides with other people's outsides. I think that's good advice for all of us.

Radha? I think if, you know, all generations of women can be honest and be authentic, then I think, you know, a lot of suffering, distress and confusion would be saved. So that would be my one thing is honesty and Pippa I think my generation has a lot of privileges because of the women who fought that fought for them before us but I also think that there is a lot of pressure on my generation to still hit those societal norms whereas I really want a society that glorifies the idea of walking your own unique path and empowering the women who choose to do that as well. Wonderful. Oh, it's been great.

It's flown by. Thank you to all my guests, to Callie Beaton, Dr. Sharon Blackie, Pippa Stacey and Dr. Radha Modgill. And let's continue the conversation because I know those of you listening have got your thoughts and opinions. You can email us via the website or get in touch with us at BBC Women's Hour on social media. Thank you for joining us for this Women's Hour special programme on ageing. We hope we've inspired you to have your own conversation with the women in your lives, old and young. Join Hayley Hassell on Women's Hour tomorrow. Until then, have a lovely bank holiday Monday. That's all for today's Women's Hour. Join us again next time.

I'm Alex Kretosky. And I'm Kevin Fong. How do you feel about AI? holiday Monday. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. about how it'll change your life, your job, your kids. AI is built into many of the software applications that we now use in schools every day. In every episode of The Artificial Human from BBC Radio 4, Kevin and I are here to help. We will chart a course through the world of AI and we will answer your questions. It doesn't just lie, but it lies in an incredibly enthusiastic, convincing way.

That ability to be able to kind of think critically is just going to be so important as we move forward. The Artificial Human with me, Alex Kretosky. And me, Kevin Fong. Listen on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Trelevan, 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'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.