Woman's Hour - How to be on Time, Report on the Impact of Covid-19 on Maternity and Paternal leave, Daughters of Objects, Shere Hite

Episode Date: September 11, 2020

Are you always just a bit late to everything – even when there isn’t an actual reason? Is your time-keeping a source of stress for you and others? Help is at hand. In the latest of our How To series, Jenni discusses how to be on time with Grace Pacie, author of LATE! A Time-bender’s guide to why we are late and how we can change, and therapist and writer Philippa Perry.On Wednesday this week the Government outlined their response to a landmark report from the Petitions Committee on the impact of COVID-19 on maternity and parental leave. Jenni is joined by the Chair of the Committee, Catherine McKinnell MP to discuss the issues.We remember the author of the Shere Hite report on women and sex. In 1976 she published her report on female sexuality and told us most women can easily reach orgasm through clitoral stimulation but only 30% claim to achieve it during intercourse. Jenni met her in May 2006. In 2011, a Bronze Age burial chamber was excavated on Whitehorse Hill on Dartmoor. Inside were astonishingly rare remains of cremated human bone, animal pelts and jewellery. The 3500-year-old remains are thought to belong to a high ranking female, and her story has now inspired a new play being performed this week. ‘Daughters of Sunset’ tells the story of two queens leading matriarchal societies on Dartmoor and Exmoor in 1100BC, and explores the way women lead communities in times of crisis. Florrie Taylor is the play’s co-producer and Jane Marchand is an archaeologist who oversaw the remarkable excavation of the ‘Whitehorse lady’. The writer and broadcaster Sali Hughes has been talking to women about objects in their lives that are important to them. Today it’s the turn of the violinist Eos Counsell.Producer: Louise Corley Editor: Karen Dalziel

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, Jenny Murray welcoming you to the Woman's Hour podcast for Friday the 11th of September. Good morning. In today's programme, the next in our summer series of how to do things better. Today it's how to be on time. Daughters of Sunset is a play inspired by the discovery in 2011 of a Bronze Age burial chamber on Dartmoor thought to contain the remains of a

high-ranking woman. Might there have been a matriarchy in 1100 BC. We remember the author of the Shearhite Report on Women and Sex. She died earlier this week. And another in our series of beloved objects. What might the violinist Eos Council have chosen? In July, the Petitions Committee published what was called a landmark report on the impact of COVID-19 on maternity and parental leave. It followed an e-petition in which a quarter of a million people voted for a three-month extension to maternity, parental and adoption leave. As a result, the committee prepared its report, presented it to the government,

but the chair of the committee is disappointed at the government's response. She's Catherine McKinnell, Labour MP for Newcastle upon time. Catherine, why are you disappointed at the government's response? Thanks, Jenny. Well, I mean, my heart really goes out to new mums and dads affected by this pandemic. And I know they are devastated by the government's response to their petition. I mean I'm a mum of three and I know how challenging having a baby can be and the support that you need at that time whether it's informal help and advice from family and friends,

health visits, GPs, dentists, hospital specialists for those facing some real challenges and some significant challenges. There are such a range of issues you can face as a new parent and your baby can face many challenges too and there's a reason why there's a well-established principle that new parents get paid time off and are wrapped in a blanket of support because it's not only vital for them to come through this time not only surviving but thriving but it's vital for their baby too and all of that support has been affected by the current crisis. You see the government says the UK has one of the most generous maternity offers in the world and believes the current arrangements are sufficiently generous to support most parents through the

pandemic. Why do you think they're wrong? So the evidence that we took as part of our inquiry, and we spoke to parents, experts, childcare specialists, you know, professors of psychiatry and perinatal care, and they were all very clear. And we presented the evidence that we received that on a whole range of levels. So there's been no physical baby classes for parents to go to for information support and friendship. Health visitors haven't been able to make the same calls round. GPs are operating online. Older family members are often shielding. And so that informal and crucial support advice and guidance hasn't been there in the same way that it normally would. But the big issue here

as well is at the end of parental leave when many people haven't even barely seen any other people they have to go back to work and but for many that is practically just not because we know getting the right child care can be challenging at the best of times. But at the moment, these parents are trying to enter a system that's already facing big challenges. And we know many families rely on grandparents and family members for childcare support. But with the lockdown restrictions and shielding requirements, those possibilities for many families are just not there. So we risk significantly turning the clock back for women in the workplace on top of the other challenges that many of these families face.

Now, as you said, it was a quarter of a million petitioners that raised concerns. What exactly were they saying to you in their responses? So the key question of the petition was to extend maternity leave by three months in light of the issues I've just outlined to enable parents to readjust and have a bit longer to seek the medical support and often as well mental health and support associated with having a new baby. But in reality, the evidence that we then received pointed to a whole range of issues that these families are facing. And I think underlying all of this is that sense of anxiety that I know many people are feeling at the moment, just generally in society, living through this crisis together. But if you put that anxiety that everybody is feeling and add into that bringing a new life into the world and all the

change that comes with that it's pretty obvious to me that this group of people need that extra support support that will make a difference to them now but crucially it'll make a big difference to their baby and their life chances in the future as well now the government has said that it does agree to continue discussions with groups in this sector. How welcome is that offer? Well, the offer is very welcome. We need to see the government deliver on that because there are, I mean, we suggested as part of our report, and most of these recommendations were just pretty much outright rejected. We asked for guidance for employers and employees to make it clear what their requirements are towards pregnant and new mums. We asked for that guidance to be put in a clearer way because many people don't understand how to respond to pregnancy and new parenthood during this COVID crisis. The government said the guidance is fine as it is, even though the evidence we took

said the opposite. We asked for a dentist provision to be extended because, you know, you may be aware new mums get a period of dentistry made available to them because of the additional physical strains that are put on your body as a result of pregnancy and having a baby and breastfeeding. But we asked for it to be extended to take into account lockdown and the inability to actually get to a dentist during that period. That was outright rejected. We asked for them to bring forward support for neonatal leave and pay so that many of the families facing really serious challenges with their baby in hospital and born prematurely for example and they they um many of them both parents can't even visit the baby due to covid restrictions we asked for them to bring forward that support for this particular group of parents

they said it's all coming in the future. They didn't agree to prioritise it. So there are many things that the government could do to indicate that it recognises the particular needs of this group of people, which are well established, and bring forward some of these suggestions. Most of them were outright rejected, which I think came as a real hammer blow to parents. So briefly, where will you go with this next? So we believe the government does need to continue listening and it needs to meet with this group of people particularly the providers of for example baby classes who have gone to tremendous efforts to make sure these classes become available within the new restrictions

and then have been delivered the hammer blow of the recent, which we understand we have to control the virus, but to then shut down all the effort that's gone into reopening these classes for this very vulnerable group of people that need support. They need to listen to how that can happen. They should listen to the childcare sector and how that can better support this group of people. But most of all, they need to listen to MPs who are speaking on behalf of their constituents, many of whom are facing these challenges. So we're going to have a debate

in Parliament as soon as we get access to our Westminster Hall debates again, which we very much hope will be October. Catherine McKinnell, thank you very much indeed for joining us. And we would like to hear from you. If you've been going through any of the problems that Catherine has mentioned this morning, do send us a tweet or, of course, an email. We'd like to hear from you. Now, many, many years ago, I was given a very important piece of advice by an older, experienced broadcaster. Jenny, you must always be on time. If you're late in this job, it means you've missed it.

Well, it's meant a lifetime of obsession about timekeeping for me, which has often created irritation for friends and family. I have to be early to make sure I don't miss anything. And so often I've been asked, oh, why do we have to leave so early and have to hang about for so long so today's how-to guide is how to be on time not too early and not too late i'm joined by the therapist philip perry and grace pacey the author of late a time bender's guide to why we are late and how we can change grace i know you've used a nonder plume for this book but this expression time bender i hadn't come across before what is it well jenny um a time bender is actually somebody we all know very well they are the people who arrive last at any meeting or class

or the mums whose children have to run into school at the last minute. They're the people who don't want to be late but they have a strange resistance to being early like you and they don't allow enough time. They are the ones that assume that lights will always be on green and the roads will be empty and they'll get there in the in the shortest time so it's not surprising they're often a little bit late. Now clearly this is something you suffer from. Why does being a bit late matter to you? Well, it matters because I've been what I'd call a time bender all my life. But when I tried to improve my timekeeping, I couldn't find anything about it. I mean, I'm aware that my behaviour is not like yours or not like most

people. I'm one of those people who tends to be busy right up to the last minute. I'm not good at measuring how long things take. I try to fit an awful lot in. It's not all bad news. I'm adaptable. I don't mind being interrupted. I'll drop what I'm doing if you ask for my help. And actually, I can be on time if it really matters. I'm quite good at hitting deadlines, but only when it's a real deadline with consequences. For example, this interview now or an important meeting, or if I was a teacher, I could get to work on time or if I had to open up an office. But it's the social events, the events without the deadlines that are the ones I tend to be late for. Yeah, you see, if you've been late for this one, you would have missed it. Let's bring in Philippa.

Philippa, where do you fall on this scale from time bending to time keeping? I'd say neurotically punctual um i'm always early i don't mind being early um i prefer it to sitting on the edge of a taxi trying to get the car to go faster um i don't understand why uh time benders find it so hard hard to mooch about at the airport looking at the shops rather than you know rushing to the end of the carriage of the of the tube to try and try and make the deadline I mean why give yourself that stress why grace are you prepared to give yourself that stress of i know exactly what philippa means by sitting in the car wishing it would go faster because you're worried and you know i've usually left in plenty of time but i still get that anxiety well jenny i envy you

because i know logically that it's exactly the right thing to do. But there's a little demon in my brain that doesn't want me to be early. And that's really the secret behind what's going on in my head. And therefore, I aim to be on time, but not before time. Not logical. And I'd really like to know why I do it or how I can change. But what seems amazing to me is that I can't find any information about why people are late. There doesn't seem to have been research done into it. And yet I have got data that says 20% of the population can be late for work once a week, you know, struggle to be on time.

There is definitely a psychology going on. What is the psychology? Why are people late? Well, there are many reasons why people are late. And there's probably as many reasons there are people that are late. But underlying it all, there is this fear of being early. And the fear could be a fear of being conspicuous appear a fear of you know standing out in a strange place of having no one to talk to feeling a bit alone and awkward um so that's one reason a sort of inchoate fear that um you just

need to feel the fear and do it anyway, be early anyway, because you'll find that nothing terrible happens. The other reason people are always late is because they're optimistic that all the traffic lights will be green. And they generally sort of stretch the time somehow in their minds and just think there's time to do absolutely everything they've packed in. People also have a horror of changing gears. What I mean by this is that, you know, when you know you should go to bed, but you're still just flicking through your phone on the sofa and you can't be bothered to get up. And then when you're in bed, you know you should get up, but you just think you'll have

five more minutes so that's the sort of thing about not wanting to stop what you're doing to do something else because it feels like it takes a bit of effort so so philippa if it's so entrenched how do you break the habit i mean we've had emails from people somebody said sterling moss was the most prompt person she'd ever come across and he always made sure that his his watch was set in advance that he scared himself um and you know you could tell somebody who's always late oh well it starts at seven when actually it starts at half past seven are those good ways of doing it well they're a little bit like a plaster aren't they because if you don't take a plaster off and as a measure

you'll get gangrene underneath it so it's a temporary mend but it's not going to do anything permanently the only way the only way to become a person who's slightly early for everything, because you're allowing for yourself to get a flat tyre, is not to try to be on time, make the decision to be early you have to leave like half an hour earlier than you would if you're being your normal self but if you try to be early that's just leaning forward in in the bus it's not it's not actually doing anything. So, Grace, you have to make the decision. You have to say, right, I'm going to leave half an hour early and I will be on time and not worry if I'm early. Well, I think it's interesting to say that deep aversion to being early is not unlike the deeper version that maybe people who really are anxious to be early would feel about being late it's not a it's very deep down and it's hard to control but i would like to say that the idea of lying about starting times is a very slippery slope and actually i would suggest

it's the wrong thing to do because it only makes us worse. The reason is that it'll work the first time and maybe the first few times. But if you make a habit of it, because we need a real deadline, we'll stop believing you and we'll assume you do it all the time. So unfortunately, that could just make us later. The answer is just the opposite. You have to make the deadline real for us. So if you say that you're leaving or that we need to leave at 7.30, you have to leave at 7.30. If you say dinner is at eight o'clock, you need to start dinner at eight o'clock. It's cruel to be kind. But although I can tell you, we'll be really upset that you didn't wait for us. The next time we will take the deadline seriously. And there is another important tip I'd like to give, which is,

please try not to get angry, though, you know, it is understandable. Because if you start shouting when you want somebody to hurry up, they'll start to take this as their starting signal to get a move on. I'd like to suggest that there are other ways to do it. Now, my husband is not a time bender. And so once he's ready and waiting for me, he plays, well, he is a guitarist, he plays the bass guitar, and he starts to practice once he's ready and waiting for me. Now, that's a great signal. When I hear that sound, I know it's time to jolly well get a move on, but he doesn't have to shout. There are other ideas that people can come up with to do that sort of thing. Well, Grace Pacey, Philippa Perry, thank you both very much

indeed for joining us on this How To Be On Time. And again, we would love to hear from you. How do you do it if you are pathologically early or pathologically late? How do you persuade yourself just to get there on time? Send us an email or a tweet and thank you both. Icon's Dame Diana Rigg, who so impressed us in the 1960s as Emma Peel in The Avengers and subsequently, of course, playing so many great roles in the theatre. Then there was Shear Height, who died on Wednesday. In 1976, she published her report on female sexuality and told us most women can easily reach orgasm through clitoral stimulation, but only 30% claim to achieve it during intercourse. Well, I met her in May 2006 when she had two books out, Oedipus Revisited, subtitled Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male Today, and The Sheer Height Reader,

a collection of new and selected writings on sex, globalisation and private life. How much did she anticipate the fuss that the first Hype report would create when she gave us the results of her survey of 3,500 women who revealed that clitoris gave them more pleasure than penetration? Yes, I didn't really, I mean at that time I was a graduate student and I didn't come from a family that had ever endured such a thing. So I had no idea what to expect and I didn't have great expectations altogether. What was the impact on you?

Neither did the publisher, by the way, because the publisher said everybody's tired of feminism and sex. And what was the impact on you? Because it was huge, wasn't it? Well, I was very tired. And I remember that I used to take my cues from a certain person that my editor had hired. And then I was sent around the country. And even talking about it, you can hear my voice going tired. It still makes you go tense to think about it. Yes, a little bit. Yes, but that wasn't so controversial. The controversial book of mine was The Third Hyde Report.

Why was that more controversial even than the first two? Nobody knows. At that point I was married and my husband and I were concerned that maybe it would be seen as too conservative because it wasn't about sex. It was about women's feelings during relationships. So we thought, well, maybe nobody will be interested in this and so on. Instead, there were many attacks, including a Time magazine cover.

The whole thing finally wound up with a group of women defending me, trying to. This was women and love. And I think part of the storm was caused because some people thought your conclusion was that marriage was a wonderful institution for men and not so great an institution for women. What had you intended to say about marriage? No, I wasn't talking about marriage, basically. I was talking about what is love.

That was the basic question of the book. Because in the first height report, many women said that they still liked intercourse without orgasm if they were in love with the man. And so there was a footnote there saying, well, okay, fine, but what do they mean exactly? And then this third height report really looked into that in depth on the basis of asking many, many women. If both men and women, which they seem to in the reports that you've had, say that they enjoy full intercourse, whether they orgasm or not, is that not okay? Well, yes, except for the fact that as a human rights advocate, I would suggest that if men have orgasm every time, more or less,

and women have orgasm only one third of the time, that somehow there is an issue of equality there. And I think that we should just not be afraid to say that. I'm not afraid to say that. How representative are your samples? I mean, this is something that is a constant criticism that seems to come up through the years. But the questionnaires will tend to be returned by the dissatisfied. and that's the best test of science that there is. Many men are concerned with the fact that women don't have orgasm like they do, and many men will say when asked that if they didn't expect to have orgasm, they wouldn't do it, have sex.

So therefore, why do women? And they begin to think that women are from a different planet than they are, and how can they understand women? At the same time, women are under a lot planet than they are, and how can they understand women? At the same time, women are under a lot of pressure, as you know, economically and from the society and in many, many ways, to conform to the system as it is. One of the systems that we have is the sexual system. People constantly say that sex is a biological matter, that it's dictated by people's bodies. But I do think that we've made it also into a cultural institution. So things like so-called foreplay, we've manicured to such an extent that now it's kind of ridiculed as a girl's thing.

So I think that we can design many kinds of physical interactions, and we don't have to stick with the scenario as prescribed. This is why it's a human rights issue. We have to think about this. Why return to men's sexuality in the book called Oedipus Revisited? Because with the first height report, which was published a long time ago now, I was reporting everything that men said, but I really needed to think about what they said. It took me, can you believe, 20 years to begin to understand a little more deeply what the meaning

was of what they said. I developed over many years some other ideas and I finally wanted to present them together and that's the reason for Oedipus. What sort of things have they said that you felt you couldn't explain at the time but now can? Well the part for example when they said that they didn't marry, generally, the woman that they had most passionately loved, they didn't like the idea. They considered passionate love to be a kind of, as one said, well, many said, dis-ease. And then one said, wrote to me, yeah, disease. It's a disease. So why did men feel so differently about love than women did in my study?

That was something that I wanted to try to understand. And it took me many years of thinking about it to try and put together ideas that men had come up with in part of my findings and then ideas men had come up with in other parts. Shia Haidt, who died earlier this week. Now still to come in today's programme, another in our series of precious objects, and I think you can guess what might be the choice

of the violinist Eos Council, and of course the final episode of the serial Prostrate. Now last night, a new play was performed outside by a community theatre on Dartmoor. It's called Daughters of Sunset and was inspired by the discovery in 2011 of a Bronze Age burial chamber on the moor's Whitehorse Hill. It contained the remains of cremated human bone, animal pelts and jewellery. The 3,500-year-old remains are thought to have belonged to a high-ranking female,

begging the question, might there have been societies that were matriarchal, led by women? Well, Florey Taylor is one of the producers of the play for the Med Theatre. Jane Martind is a retired senior archaeologist for Dartmoor National Park. Jane, how sure are you that this person was a woman when the remains had obviously been cremated? Well, we're probably about 98% sure. First of all, the remains were described by the person who looked at the cremated bone as being very very slight somebody of a very gracile build somebody who's aged between 18 and 25 but it was also it was the grave goods that certainly seemed to indicate that this was a female they were a composite necklace of 200 beads there was a beautiful bracelet of tin studs woven with animal hair.

There was two pairs of ear studs, what we call labrets. And there was another garment made from nettle and lined with cattle skin, which we don't really know what it was. We think it was probably a sash or a band. And they were all wrapped up in a bear pelt. How rare, Jane, was this discovery? Oh, very rare. I mean, things on Dartmoor never usually survive

because of the pink, because it's so acidic. So this was an extraordinarily exciting find. And we've got about 200 burial kits on dartmoor um and most of them were examined in sort of antiquity and the only finds recorded were flint and bits of pottery nothing else but obviously everything had probably just disappeared just rotted away so to find this was it was. And being 98% certain that she was female, what made you think she was a powerful woman? I think because of what she was buried with, really. One of the archaeologists described it as supernatural power dressing.

Because of the beads, she had amber beads um she had which have got you know supernatural qualities um she had shell beads as well in her necklace her necklace was over 200 beads which must it must have been very very smart when it was worn and what was interesting was the amber beads looked like they were heirloom items they'd actually been used before and replaced into the burial with her. Florey, how did this find inspire the play Daughters of Sunset? So it came about, we had a production that originally was called White Horse Hill which is all about this burial kist and then we wanted to take it that one step further and try and integrate some

sort of more greek myth um as well as elaine morgan's aquatic ape hypothesis so the production itself sorry what what is that i haven't heard of that before oh so it's it's the idea it was originally put forward by alistair hardy then championed by Elaine Morgan and it's the suggestion that for a period of time early humans were marginalized on the shores of the sea and that they were essentially kind of growing in the in the waters so that there's this idea that we share a lot of features with creatures of the sea like seals. So we've got tear ducts, we're relatively hairless, and we've got fat under our skin. So it's this idea that women are somewhat connected to the sea

and the animals that live within it. So the play sort of looks at this connection between women on the land and women on the sea. So we've got goddesses and kind of interweaving Greek myth with Inuit myth, as well as Celtic myth as well. So it's really trying to bring together this idea of the grave that was found on the land and then seeing what that would mean otherwise for kind of myths and connection to the sea as well. Jane, what do we actually know about the societies of the Bronze Age?

Well, unfortunately, we know very little. I mean, we know more about them through their burials than actually from their living settlements. We know that Dartmoor was obviously very important in the Bronze Age. In fact, we still have got the best preserved Bronze Age landscape in Europe. And they seemed to be fairly democratic, they lived in settlements there's no evidence that there was any kind of hostility or warfare

but what the position of females was we really don't know because obviously there's no written record and as I said most of our information comes from the burials So does this finding suggest, really, that a matriarchy could have existed?

Oh, I think so. Very much so. The quality of the finds are absolutely extraordinary. She was obviously someone that was held in very high regard by her community. And most of the finds were actually in a beautiful basket which had a lid and it was made from lime, lime baths which is part of a lime tree and again beautifully made there. The stitching was just out of this world and there was only one flint tool found which is unusual. As I said most of the kits that wereated earlier, the only things that were found were lots of flint tools. This was one flint tool

and we think probably it had been used it had got indications of being having used and possibly it had been used for personal grooming. And Jane, what about the play's emphasis on the sea which Florey was just mentioning?

Would the people of Dartmoor have travelled so far? They certainly were travelling. There was a lot of exchanging of goods going on because the fact the amber beads would originally have come from the Baltic, but the Dartmoor community had probably got them from Wessex. And the shell beads came from Kimmeridge,

which is in Dorset. So it certainly suggests that it wasn't an isolated moorland. It was the people were actually trading both ways. And Jane, how did the people of Dartmoor respond to the White House lady when she was found? Oh, the locals. Oh, I think everyone was very excited and all I know they were. And it was, I mean, it was very good because it actually made everybody realise how important Dartmoor was. And also

the fact that it wasn't this isolated community, that they were living and working, but also it was the skill of the handicraft that had gone in with some of her grave goods way beyond anything we had imagined that they were capable of doing. Now, Florian, I know you've taken parts of this story into schools. What did the young people make of the idea of women being in charge?

I think they thought it was pretty cool, to be honest. It was amazing because we took the workshops into both primary and secondary school so we worked with a huge kind of age range and I think something that really struck us as we were delivering the workshop was actually how engaged and aware of this ongoing debate young people are and actually that they are almost slightly more in in the know about it than us i i think that there's a huge uh understanding that they have of this under of this kind of separation between male and female and and actually how that can come together and some of the conversations we had with them was just phenomenal and and so unprompted as well

it was almost like it was on the tip of their tongue and they wanted to engage in this debate and this idea of sort of female rule versus male rule and what the differences in that are. I think we were just joined there by your dog. I don't know whether it's yours or James. It's my dog and I'm just going to put her out. No, no, no, it's fine, honestly.

We love it when dogs and children come into things. I think it's because there are pussycats in the garden. No, I know that MED is a community theatre group. What have you had to change to make performances happen in this time? Yeah, quite a lot. Obviously, we've had to engage in ensuring that all of the COVID-19 safety procedures are in place. We've had to limit our audience. So we've got a maximum of 50 tickets per performance on sale. And within that, we've also got social distancing in place.

Everyone that enters the performance area has to be sanitized and ensuring that everyone's obviously queuing. So we've got a lot of additional help from volunteers to get this thing on the ground or off the ground, I should say. Well, Flory Taylor, I know it was the first night last night. I know that Daughters of Sunset will be performed until Sunday when it will be live streamed. And I think tickets can be obtained from the Med Theatre website. Very best of luck with the rest of your performances. So thanks to you, Flory Taylor and Jane Marchand, the archaeologist. Thank you very much too.

You can put the dog out now. Thank you for being with us. Now, the writer and broadcaster Sally Hughes has been talking to women about objects in their lives that are important to them. The things we cherish are not necessarily vintage or even antique or even expensive. Instead, we often treasure the stuff that reminds us of people or particular times in our lives which stand for something important. Today, it's the turn of the violinist, Eos Council. When I was a student in college, I had a violin,

and in my first year it was stolen from my halls, and I was obviously bereft and I had nothing to play. And I was loaned one for a while, but as I was coming to leave college I didn't have a violin, and they couldn't carry on the loan after I had left. And I had no way of buying one, and it was hugely expensive. How expensive? I had no idea. I suppose I could imagine a couple of grand or something.

Yes, well, the one that I had before, it was a new violin. And the guy had said it cost 500 and he said insure it for 700. So he did. But then when I was looking at other violins to replace that one, it wasn't until I got into the tens of thousands that anything was anywhere near it. It was just very difficult thinking, how am I going to carry on? And then a series of events, kind of bad events, I suppose, led up to me being able to afford to get one.

I think, before you go on to that, I think there's perhaps an assumption that classical musicians probably come from super posh families with lots of money who could just pop out and buy a violin. That wasn't your situation at home, was it wasn't um we weren't you know we weren't poor my mum was a teacher my dad worked you know for the nhs um so you know he also had jobs and everything but they weren't super rich or anything so how did you go about obtaining the funds um well it was just a series of events really um My dad had just started riding a motorbike again

and he had an accident which is obviously really awful and there was an insurance payout from that and he put that towards me getting a violin My great auntie and great uncle went into a home they sold their car and gave me the money and my gran as well, she'd sold her car and i think she wasn't allowed to drive anymore and the money went towards me getting a violin so i mean it was all things that were kind of not great you know but actually it was so helpful to me and it meant so much to me

that they'd all given up those things to be able to help me get a violin at a time when i just hugely needed one you know to continue with my career. And so we're looking at the violin now. You have it on your lap. Yes. I mean, this is still the violin that you use for work after all these years, yeah? Yes. We all need to tune, but hey. Yeah, it was made in 1850.

Wow. And even that, to me, I just think, this used to be a tree and someone decided to make it into a violin rather than, say, pencils or toilet paper or something. And it's just bizarre because you think the things it survived, you know, wars and the history it's seen and different people who've played it I would love to kind of find out

trace it back to when it was made really and see the whole story behind it and aside from all of that just that you get so close to an instrument well literally I suppose but when you're playing a lot I was doing like nine hour days of just orchestral playing

and then also practising. And it becomes so familiar because you tend to do things like lean on your face and you just get really familiar with all the different smells of it and the shape. I do really love it. And a lot of the time I play on an electric violin, but I always love coming back to the acoustic violin.

It just sings, really. There are very few objects in life that you are touching for nine hours a day yeah I mean that's that's really quite that's probably your kind of longest lasting relationship in a way you probably spend more time with this violin than with anything else but violins get better with age is that right it's an object that will become more of value. When they're brand new, they're quite harsh sounding and you do have to play them in for a while. But as time goes on, they mature and they get more and more beautiful,

which is not the same case for a piano, say. Interesting. What happens to the sound as the violin gets older? It just kind of mellows and actually it changes a bit depending on who's playing it. If they aren't played and they're just kind of in a cupboard they're almost dead in a way because there's something about, someone was explaining it to me, about the

molecular structure and that it needs to be vibrated a lot to kind of keep a certain I don't know, like a certain kind of sound to develop from it and if a violin has been in a cupboard for a long time, for example, ones that I was borrowing while I was at college, they take playing in as well because they just feel a bit dead,

like they just need some oxygen or something. It's a strange thing. That's interesting, though, isn't it? Because it's such a beautiful antique object, but actually, from what you're saying, it's a mundane object that needs to be used every day. It's a functional object, isn't it? Like a kettle or, you know, it's used every day.

Yes. Much like any other object. Yeah, yeah. But so much more beautiful. And also there's something where you're just very careful. You know, you feel quite precious about it. Like, you know, if I'm standing in a queue and there's lots of people going past,

I kind of protect it like I would a baby, I suppose. Like a pregnant woman is. Yes, exactly. Yes, like finding on board. There's something quite sort of noble and lovely, isn't there, about an object that's been doing its job for well over 100 years in different hands, in different rooms, in different theatres and orchestral pits. Yes. Yeah, and actually when I first got this violin, I was playing in a session for a film

and the person I was sitting next to said, hang on, I recognise that violin. Didn't that used to be, and I can't remember the name of the guy, but he was a violinist in the LSO, I think. But it was really interesting that he recognised the violin itself. He said it used to be darker, they must have cleaned it up, but there's a mark on the back there, which I also love because my mum has a mark on her back in the Sooner Place.

Wow. Yeah, I think part of that made me feel quite nostalgic even about my mum. It's so strange. MUSIC PLAYS Eos Council was talking to Sally Hughes about her violin. Lots of response from you to that interview with Shear Height, who died earlier this week. Dan Ely said, It's an interesting interview with Shear Height.

If only women and men were taught the true physical anatomy of a woman where exactly is the clitoris it's not just the visible tip vaginal penetration is also clitoral stimulation when you look at the full anatomy penny said the impression was given that the clitoris is just that little button. Not so. We have a clitoris which extends much further into the body and so penetration can stimulate and please. It would help if girls were helped and encouraged to learn about their fannies, look at them with mirrors and discover what gives pleasure. And then the lateness question and how to be on time. Andrew said, may I suggest that you're pussyfooting around the issue. People who are late and think it doesn't matter

are being rude and selfish. They don't care about those who are on time and need some old-fashioned self-discipline. Lindsay said, I felt anxious and uncomfortable even when Jenny talked about wanting the car to go faster. I come from a family of time benders, but I'm not. I felt a victim of it all my life because they don't understand the stress it causes. They suggest it's me that has the problem, in which case, why have we got the clocks? My enduring memory is of being taken to school late every day and having to go through some large curtains to join assembly late and between hymns. The condemnation in the looks, the whole school turning around to see it was me again, has had a lasting effect. The anxiety has persisted and the pattern of those blooming curtains

is tattooed in my mind, as is that feeling of powerlessness. Nicola Humphreys tweeted, I despise lateness. We all get the same number of hours in the day as each other. That's the only thing in life that we all share. Being deliberately late through poor planning or choice is not acceptable and I will tell you as much if you do it to me. Sophia Bromfitt said,

I'm absolutely permanently late but seem to around a task and feel guilty if there's time spent waiting around, thinking about the extra tasks I could have squeezed in. Jane B said, laughing out loud at the item on time bending. My children used to tell me and their dad that events at school started half an hour earlier than they really did. We both always said we were waiting for each other, just doing one more thing before leaving the house. I once read a book about etiquette which said that being early was bad manners as it found your host

unprepared. On time shows the best manners but being late is better than arriving early. I really took that to heart. Natalie said, Janice Tai tweeted, that I can squeeze one more task in before I need to leave the house. Janice Tai tweeted, I'm so paranoid about being late that I'm horribly early for everything and I even worry about other people being late. It's a real anxiety. Blanche said, Yesterday, my partner called me five minutes

before picking up our daughter from school to check I was going to be on time. Annoyingly, he was right to check up on me as I was running late. For some reason, getting to school on time can be so stressful. And then on COVID-19 and maternity leave, Layla said, my experience of maternity leave with my first baby has certainly been a bittersweet one. She was a long awaited baby. It took us three years and she was three and a half months when we went into lockdown. I'd only just started to become confident in taking her out and breastfeeding in public.

The lockdown was a massive blow. It had a very negative impact on my mental health. I felt I had nowhere to turn. I was very lucky in that I was able to access CBT via Zoom with a trainee therapist, otherwise I'd have been completely unsupported. No contact from health visitors at all from January to August. Kirsty Pearce tweeted, I campaigned for this for months. I struggled to get childcare and was supposed to return to work in June. I couldn't get any. I work in a school. I was unable to be furloughed. This forced me to take unpaid leave for three months until it was available. And now it's only half my hours. And someone who didn't want us to use a name said,

my daughter had her second baby 30 months ago and has been back at part-time work for a month. She's found it very difficult with two children during all the lockdown without the normal informal support of toddler groups, playgrounds, socialising with friends and their children and even us as grandparents living 50 miles away. support of toddler groups, playgrounds, socialising with friends and their children, and even us as grandparents living 50 miles away. Settling children back or new into nursery is more difficult as they've had much less interaction with other children and adults. She also feels she's missed out on so much of a normal maternity leave. Dentistry was mentioned.

She has a dental problem too and hasn't been able to get an appointment. Well, thank you for all your responses to the discussions in this morning's Woman's Hour. Do join me tomorrow for Weekend when you can hear the founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, Laura Bates, discussing her new book, Men Who Hate Women. She traces the roots of extreme misogyny across a complex network of online groups. And the blogger and body positivity campaigner, Stephanie Yeboah, reveals the discrimination she's faced because of being plus size.

Join me tomorrow for weekend, four o'clock. Until then, bye-bye. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. A new podcast drama series on BBC Sounds. No place but the water. The story of a hotel at the end of the world, where there's no place else to run to. But there's just one thing, one thing I try not to remember. When I first saw the hotel, when it dived out the water, so big, so strange, I couldn't help looking at its reflection. And when I did that, it was so weird. I think I saw, I mean I know I didn't, like an optical illusion in the water, in the reflection. I saw someone standing there, waiting for us to arrive. No Place But The Water, a new drama podcast series from BBC Radio 4 set in a future flooded world.

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