Woman's Hour - Illegal weight-loss drugs, Actor Jackie Clune, Birth scrolls

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

The UK's medicines watchdog has said criminal gangs in the UK have started making their own weight-loss drugs, with packaging and branding designed to look like legitimate products. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has warned that the new trend poses a significant threat. Presenter Clare McDonnell is joined by Sukhi Basra, vice chair of the National Pharmacy Association who also runs a weight loss practice, to dicuss the risks. 'Buy now, pay later' credit schemes are increasingly being used to pay for everyday items like food, bus passes and school uniforms. Leading debt advisors have told the BBC that more women are juggling these debts as they struggle to cope with the cost of living. BBC Yorkshire investigations reporter, Stephanie Miskin, and Rebecca Routledge from debt advice organisation Money Wellness talk to Clare. Jackie Clune is an actor, writer and performer whose eclectic career has included a Karen Carpenter tribute act, Shakespeare, Mamma Mia! and most recently the narrator in a UK tour of The Rocky Horror Show. On screen, she’s familiar to many as Motherland's school secretary Mrs Lamb, but she’s also written novels and a memoir about unexpectedly becoming a mum to triplets at 39 and finding herself with four children under 19 months. She’s now on stage in The Meat Kings! (Inc.) of Brooklyn Heights at London’s Park Theatre, playing a tough, no-nonsense boss fighting to keep the family business afloat. She joins Clare to discuss the play, parenting and grief. A rare 500-year-old English parchment birth scroll is to be shown in the UK for the first time following recent pioneering analysis that confirmed its use during pregnancy and childbirth. The medieval scroll is central to Expecting: Birth, Belief and Protection at the Wellcome Collection exploring the protective practices and beliefs around pregnancy, childbirth and infertility that existed in medieval times. Dr Elma Brenner, Research Development Lead at Wellcome Collection and Professor Valerie Worth, Fellow of Trinity college oxford who holds a research grant from the Leverhulme Trust talk to Clare.Presented by: Clare McDonnell Produced by: Dianne McGregor

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Claire Macdonnell and you're listening to The Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to Woman's Hour. Buy Now pay later schemes, once used for bigger ticket items and are being increasingly lent on for day-to-day essentials, such as groceries and school uniforms. That's according to leading debt charities who say they are seeing a rise in the number of families needing help

to clear debt racked up on these apps. We're going to hear from one of those charities on the program today and a woman who ended up owing £3,000 to buy now pay later funds. There is an absolutely fascinating exhibition that has just opened at the Welcome Collection about the rituals and practices of childbirth through the Middle Ages. It draws parallels with certain practices that have sustained to this day, like hypno-birthing, for example, and others

like tying an eagle's feather to your right foot during labour, that I've not. We're going to hear it from the lead researcher at that exhibition. Now you may know her as Mrs Lamb, the school receptionist in Motherland, or even the narrator in the recent tour of Mamma Mia, or anything from Shakespeare to Karen Carpenter, for that matter. She is the inimitable Jackie Clune and her latest role in the Meat Kings Inc. Of Brooklyn Heights, at London's Park Theatre, she is playing Paula. a tough, no-nonsense boss fighting to keep the family business afloat

with staff battling one another and immigration officials. It's a very contemporary play. Jackie also manages a woman's rugby team in her real life. She hated the sport as a child when her dad would drag her along to matches with the promise of chips at the end that sometimes didn't materialise. So I'd love to know from you this morning. Is there anything that you were taken to initially or introduced to under duress that you're now maybe secretly a convert to?

I'll throw mine in classic sci-fi. My other half is a massive fan. And I am now partial to a bit of Quatermas and the pit on a rainy Saturday afternoon. And I never thought I'd say that. You can text the programme. The number is 84844. texts will be charged at your standard message rate. On social media, we are at BBC Women's Hour.

You can email us through our website, or you can send a WhatsApp message or a voice note using this number, 0,700-100-444. Looking forward to hearing from you this morning. But let's start with this. The UK's Medicines Watchdog has said criminal gangs in the UK have started making their own weight-loss drugs with packaging and branding designed to look like legitimate products.

After conducting the largest single seizure of traffic weight loss drugs ever recorded, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, that is known as MHRA, has warned that the new trend poses a significant threat. The head of the MHRA's Criminal Enforcement Unit, Andy Morling, told the Guardian, and we have not seen that level of investment and sophistication before. This is global organised crime. Well, let's talk now to Suki Basra, vice chair of the National Pharmacy Association, who joins us now.

Suki, welcome to Womenzah. You're a pharmacist and you run a weight loss practice. Let's just start with the current demand for these weight loss drugs. Hi, Claire, and thank you for having me today. I would say I'm a community pharmacist who's a prescriber that's trying to meet the needs of my general population in my locality and the reason I started the weight loss clinic was because I had lots of my patients that regularly see me asking me questions about the drug

and I thought actually rather than them going to illegitimate sources where they've heard about it on a Facebook site or their salon or someone someone that they know through somebody else gives them something that's not safe. I started my own practice in weight loss and that's been over a year now. And I find that actually it's a really good, reliable source if a patient goes to a registered healthcare professional, which is what I am. So this story today must be incredibly worrying, alarming for you. The MHRA has described this new business model for criminal gangs, organised crime,

genuine investment into making realistic-looking products. How concerned are you about this? I mean, I'm really concerned. Back in September, I gave evidence at the London Assembly trying to address this and let the London Assembly know that this is a genuine problem that needs to be tackled with. There needs to be better awareness with our general public. I had a patient that actually,

I tried to really inform my patients on one, is the right way to do this. I will talk to them about the fact that they wouldn't go to their hairdresser or a salon or their PT, their personal trainer to go and get blood pressure medicines. That weight loss medicine is a medicine and it should be supplied by somebody that you would normally get your medicine from, which is usually your doctor and your pharmacist. Those are the only two legitimate sources from which you should be getting any medicine. they are MHRA regulated.

Each professional that supplies you that medicine has a GPHC license to register to supply that medicine or a GMC license as a GP. You should check the legitimacy of that person that's prescribing your medicine. If your personal trainer or your salon or a friend of a friend is offering it to you, on the cheap, you should have red flags, you should have alarm bells thinking that perhaps, you know, this isn't how I should be sourcing that medicine. Is it the medicine that they said it is? And by highlighting that they are finding really highly skilled people making fake medicines, it's even more imperative that our general public understands where they should be sourcing

their medicines. They should be checking. Is the person giving me this medicine a prescriber? Are they a legitimate prescriber? Can I check their legitimacy? Can I check their license? Can I check their licensing. If you cannot tick any of those boxes, you shouldn't be getting that medicine from that person. We'll get on to the risks associated with that shortly. But what do you think is fueling this demand? Why are people turning to unregulated, unproven sources? Is it cost? Are they being turned away from legitimate sources, maybe? There's a combination of reasons. It's desperation, people wanting to have access to these medicines who perhaps wouldn't be eligible for those medicines. There are particular criteria and those criteria are put in place

for the patient's safety. So if you've been turned away by a clinician, there's a reason you've been turned away. It's not safe for you to take it. It's not within the indications. The prescriber doesn't think it's appropriate for you. Equally, if it's a cost issue, it's not worth the risk you buying something from an illegitimate source just because it's £10 cheaper, £20 cheaper from where you would normally get your medicines. You wouldn't get your diabetes medicines on the cheap just because you could get access from somewhere else.

You would always go to your pharmacy because you trust that the medicine coming out of that dispensary is from a legitimate source. It's a cold chain. They've checked. It's safe. it has a license. Those are the only places you should be getting any medicine. And I also think our narrative around weight loss treatments has made it so commonplace that even our general

public don't see it as a medicine. And that's perhaps where that gray area has come. Because we have lots of supplements and we have lots of diets and we have lots of narratives around how you could lose weight, there's been a graying of that education. And therefore, if a patient does go or a person does go to a personal trainer, which I know of, that there are, my own patients that told me that they have been approached by their personal trainers who've opened up boxes of drugs that are for weight loss that are the same as that I give them. They've taken a picture and they've said, I've brought it to you to show you, this is what they're offering, but you've educated me and told me I should never buy anything

like that, it just shows that for that person that wouldn't have been empowered with that knowledge, they perhaps would have thought, well, it must be okay. And I think that's a public awareness. Coming on to programs like this, it's really important for me to let your public know, people that are listening to you, think before you get any medicine. If it doesn't come from your pharmacy, a registered bricks and mortar pharmacy, or an online pharmacy where you can check the registration of that pharmacy where you know that medicines are being supplied, not just weight loss medicines, all of the medicines, they are all being prescribed from bricks and water online sites that are legitimate. If you're not getting them from a registered GPHC site, then you are not

covered. You don't know if there's insulin in that medicine that says it's a weight loss medicine, which is going to cause you much more harm and potentially fatal side effects. Well, Let's get on to that now, because obviously this is a relatively new development in this field. But do we know the kind of risks that people would be putting themselves under if they go for these unregulated sources? Absolutely. There is no guarantee that what you're injecting, and that's really important, you are physically injecting some liquid into your body that you cannot confirm with certainty is the medicine that it says on the label. It could be insulin. It could be water for injection. be a mixture of a powder that hasn't been regulated, reconstituted with some water, that's

not sterile, that could increase your risk of an infection, could give you sepsis, could give you sort of an insulin drop where you're going to hypo and then you're collapsing. There are so many risks. And also, whoever's prescribing or selling you this, have they done the legitimate checks and monitored you? Have they given you the wraparound care? Have they told you what the side effects are and how to mitigate those. Have they treated you like a patient? My consultation with every patient in my clinic is about an hour before I even give them the medicine. Because I want to empower that patient first to make an informed decision about whether that medicine is appropriate for them. Final question. You recently called for

stronger regulation and enforcement during an appearance at the London Assembly. What do you want to see happen? I really want our population, our general public, to be really well-informed and empowered to know why it's important to get your medicines from a legitimate source. If they are being approached by somebody that is not a legitimate source, notify the authorities, let people know, let the police know, let people that at the MHRA know. There are raids that are happening trying to stop this black market happening. There are gangs that are benefiting and they're making a lot of money

on the back of risking people's lives. You have a whole sector that can help you get those medicines legitimately and you know what you're paying for. I know it's expensive, but it is not worth the risk of your life to buy something on the cheap and you're going to inject it

and you have no idea what it is. And the other impact is on the A&E. You know, If you take something that isn't legitimate, how is the clinician and the A&E able to understand what you've been given? If you say it's a weight loss medicine, but it's not what it says on the label, then that clinician cannot make an informed decision on how to help you when we're risking the whole system collapsing. Suki, thank you so much for joining us on Women's Hour this morning. That is Suki Basra, Vice Chair of the National Pharmacy Association. and, of course, any experience you've had in this field,

we would love to hear from you. Do text the program 84844. Now, let's talk about this. Food, bus passes and school uniforms, just some of the everyday items being bought by families using by now pay later. It's a form of credit that allows consumers to spread the interest-free purchases

over weekly or monthly installments with only soft credit checks. carried out. But now leading debt advisors have told the BBC a BBC investigation rather that this kind of debt is a growing problem and they've seen a rise in women in their

20s, 30s and 40s often with children seeking help as they struggle with the cost of living. We can talk with BBC Yorkshire Investigations reporter Stephanie Miskin who's been leading this investigation. Morning to you Stephanie.

Morning. What have you found out? How big an issue is this? Well, over the past few months, I've been speaking to people right across the country, mostly women, about how they've started using buy now, pay later to buy everything from food shopping, bus passes, their school uniforms, you know, and even vets fees. And according to new research by the debt charity step change, about 1.6 million people in the UK use buying our paylator to spread the cost on their household bills this summer. Now, the cost of living is having a real big impact on people's budgets. And many have told me that they started using

buying out pay later apps, kind of multiple purchases. So what feels like a small amount, say, you know, 10 pounds, spread that over three months. You know, it feels, you know, a sizable kind of money that you can manage. But add in a few more purchases as well and the credit starts to stack.

And essentially that's what happening and what I've been hearing from people. So more money is going out with their accounts than is essentially going in. So it's a way of getting essentials and it's also interest-free. So that must be, I mean, if you need to buy food, you need to buy food. And the fact that it's interest-free must be very tempting. Yeah, yeah.

And it's something that many of us are familiar with, you know, and have used on big purchases. So that's what people, you know, might be familiar with thinking, oh, we'll use it for an appliance or furniture and spread the cost over months using interest-free credit. But those debts mount really quickly or miss or. delay payments and the number of apps out there, you know, some people are saying they're simply losing track of how much they are. I mean, the question is a lot of people listening to this will say, why don't people just get loans from banks? That's another avenue to go down. Does that come back to the soft checks that these apps require? Yeah. So at the moment,

only soft credit checks are carried out. So if you can't get a credit card, you may be able to still access this type of credit. And many of the women who I've been speaking to, that's their experience. They can't get credit cards due to other existing debts or a bad credit score. So that is why they turn into buying our pay later acts because they can use them. But from next year, they will be regulated and leading to stricter affordability checks, which will change that. So it'll be more in line of what a credit card credit check is. Why do you think, then, there has been a rise in the number of women in particular getting into debt through these arrangements?

So I've been speaking to five leading debt organisations and they all say that they're seeing a rise and the number of people seeking support, especially women in their 20s, 30s and 40s, and they're often with children. And debt advice services, money wellness, they say they've helped 44% more people with buying our pay later problems

in the year ending in September 2025 than it did in the pre-examination. this 12 months and it describes this as a huge spike. So that is more than 9,200 people who've contacted them for help. One of their advisors who I know you're going to be hearing from shortly is saying the cost of living is pushing people's budget to the absolute limit. And as well, the national debt line and business advice line supported 11,000 people in the same period. And citizens' advice have seen a 48% year-on-year increase as well as Christians against poverty. I know, Stephanie, you've been speaking to one particular woman on this, haven't you?

Yeah, Abby, she's a single mum in Sheffield, and she uses multiple buying out pay later to apps. And she says she's basically relying on them almost every day. I use certain supermarkets that I know that I've got reduced. Sometimes I will use like my cloner card, or I'd get a Morrison's voucher through the corner card and pay that off or an as the voucher. The more food we use and the more expensive things we are, using. then the more I'm having to do it. A lot of them to over three months, you know what I mean? You pay it off.

You've paid all your wages out on it and then you're going to have to go back and live on it and do it again. It's a vicious circle in it. Stephanie, I know she's obviously having a tough time, but she's in training at the moment. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. So she's training to become a barber

and she also uses Klarna to kind of help her. In response, they said, you know, it welcomes new regulation next year and its products are designed to help customers avoid getting trapped in debt, adding that real limit access to credit if payments are missed. Now, I must say, obviously, as part of buying our pay later, not everyone is struggling to pay it back. And I spoke to Danielle, she's a single mum of five kids. She works as a home care assistant and is based in Rotherham. And she told me about how she uses it and says she's responsible and only uses, what she can afford. I bought brand new beds for like the first time in like my whole life

because before that I couldn't really afford it. You said sometimes use it for food shopping, don't you? Yeah, so occasionally like, especially if it comes up to like the week before I get paid and I'm like, oh I need some food and I'm looking at bank and I'm thinking I haven't got enough for a week shop. But then I think, oh, I can just put it on my zilch card and I've got shopping and as long as I know that I've got that 25% of the full amount in my account, I'll be all right. And then obviously when I get paid, I just pay the rest off. And what would you have done before then if that

had have happened? Either food bank or just try to make do with what we've got and like struggle. It's lifted the stress. I don't have to worry anymore. As long as I know that I'm making my payments and that I'm keeping within my agreement type of thing, it works really well for me. especially like having four children in schools and they all need uniform, they all need PE kits, they all need shoes, the all need equipment, they all need bags and everything. We're going to bring in Rebecca Routledge now from the Debt Advice Organisation Money Wellness. Welcome Rebecca.

Hi Claire. Thanks for having me. Two examples there. We heard Abby, who's kind of spiraling into debt using these apps. And then we just heard Danielle, who says it's the lifeline that she needs to have a little bit of slack in her life. so they can be helpful. But I guess what you're worried about is the people that are just racking up debts on these apps. Yeah, I think, as Stephanie said earlier,

we've seen a 44% rise year on year in the number of people coming to us for help with buy now, pay, later debts. And we've seen a kind of change in the use of buy now, pay later. So where it used to be for those kind of one-off, relatively expensive purchases like a new fridge freezer or a washing machine, now people are using it for essentials. And that's a concern. Even if they think they're managing, that's worrying. And we'd say that's not really what buy now pay later is for.

If you're at the point where your income isn't covering your essential costs, it's time to get debt advice. You should come to an organisation that offers free debt advice like us at Money Wellness and get debt advice. And debt advice covers a wide range of things. People will be surprised at the amount of help that is available. So we'll go through your budget. We'll come up with a realistic budget that you can stick to. Make sure that your income is covering your expenses.

If it isn't, we'll look at ways that you can maximise your income. So we'll make sure you're claiming all the benefits you're entitled to. we'll look at grants so you might be able to claim you might be entitled to claim some energy grants for your to help with your energy costs you might be able to claim money from the household support from from your local council or you might be entitled to say a discount on your council tax we'll check all that stuff then we'll also if appropriate look at debt solutions so if you're not managing to cover your debt repayments every month we can look at debt solutions as well so yeah it shouldn't really be being used to plug gaps in your budget.

And I guess when people do that, it's out of desperation. A lot of the time, as you say, this research has found that it's for essential items. Many people will say, that's great advice, but I can't afford to step off. When it gets to the point where you need to use these apps to pay for food, that's a daily need, isn't it? So what would you say to them? It is. It is a daily need. And that's when we'd say, come to us, come to us or an organisation like us

that is offering free debt advice and see what other help is available because you really shouldn't be relying on credit to cover the essentials. No one should have to live like that. And I think that's a particular problem with Buy Now Pay Later is a lot of people don't appreciate that it is a form of borrowing. It's so easy. It's just presented. and a lot of people actually just view it as a payment method rather than a form of credit.

We did, we actually did a survey among younger Buy Now Pay Later users. So Buy Now Pay Later users age between 18 and 28. And when we asked them why they use Buy Now Pay Later, over 40% said it's because it's risk-free. It isn't risk-free. So there aren't, if you pay in full on time, there aren't going to be any charge. but if you don't you're going to start racking up late fees and then if your budget is already squeezed that's when you can get into real problems we're hearing that it's affecting more women is that something that you've seen coming through your door yeah

100% more women tend to be tend to be younger although use is increasing across all demographics and all age groups but yeah tend to be younger tend to be women, often single women, so single mums a lot of the time. And yeah, using it for essentials to pay things for the kids. Okay, so it's still a debt. Is it changing the mindset of how you use these? Think of it like that. Don't think of it as this life raft that you can deal with at some point.

Otherwise, the situation is just going to get worse. A hundred percent. That's exactly what we say. If you're using by now, pay later to cover the cost of essentials, basically there's a problem and you're just kicking the can down the road you're storing up problems for the future so yeah think of it like a credit card

think of it like a loan there are regulations coming in next year just run us through those if you could yeah so we really welcome the regulations that are coming in next summer hopefully so what they're going to do is one as we're saying before a lot of people don't really realise

when they're using By Now Pay Later, that it is a form of credit. These new regulations, providers will have to make that clear from the outset. So people will be informed. They'll have more information about exactly what they are agreeing to. So that's one thing. There are also, as Stephanie said, there's also going to be more affordability checks. And that's really important because people aren't just taking out Buy Now Pay Later in Iceland. What we found in that survey that we did, we found 88% of those people also had other forms of credit.

So they had credit cards, they had store cards, they had personal loans. So what that means is if you're just taking out some by now pay later credit, so maybe for something quite low cost, so 20 pounds, you think, yeah, I've split right into three payments, that's not massive, that's not going to push me over the edge. but by now pay later providers don't know what other credit you've got so if you add that on top of your monthly credit card bill alone your store card repayments that can be enough just to push someone over the edge so when these regulations come in they'll have to do affordability checks and genuinely make sure that people can afford to pay this back what it will finally what it will also mean is there'll be additional protections in place for the borrowers so They'll be able to go to, if they have problems, they'll be able to go to the financial ombudsman, and they'll have the kind of protections you get when you buy things on a credit card. Rebecca, final question, just to remind people listening, if they find themselves in this situation, where can they turn to for help? They should go to a free debt advice provider that's regulated by the FCA, like Money Wellness.

We offer debt advice. They can get help online or over the phone, and a lot of people don't want to talk to someone. It can be uncomfortable talking about money. And a lot of people don't like talking about it over the phone. But so they can get that help online as well. So, yeah, speak to a professional. They'll run through, we're impartial, we're confidential, we'll run through all your options.

And you're under no obligation to go with anything, but just get that free advice. And the message is you can get on top of it, but act now. You certainly can. There's so much help out there that people are unaware of. But yeah, get help. Great to have you on the program. Thank you so much for joining us.

That is Rebecca Routledge. from the Debt Advice Organisation Money Wellness and you also heard from Stephanie Miskin and of course as ever if you need help and support on any of the issues we've just been talking about please go to BBC Action Line a lot of the organisations Rebecca was talking about

will be listed on the BBC Action Line website Now have you had a chance to listen to the Woman's Our Guide to Life yet Well, all six episodes of our debut series are available now only on BBC Sounds. It's here to help you navigate the juggle of life, basically, whether you want to nurture your friendships, keep the spark alive in your romantic relationship, or build the emotional resilience your kids need to thrive.

Each episode is packed full of advice like these excellent tips from Squiggly Carers co-founder Helen Tupper and Dr Claire Ashley. Here's Nula, talking to Helen first on the two words you need to know to help prevent burnout at work. Sometimes when you say no and you're asked again and again and again, that my willpower can be weakened. You know, and that sometimes I can't stand as firm as perhaps I did with the first no. There's a little clever language hack that you can do here because if you say I can't very often a, Highly assertive persuasive person can convince you that you can. You might say, well, I can't come to the meeting and they'll say, well, you know, I'll make it shorter and you probably can.

Whereas the I don't is a lot harder for somebody else to disagree with and it means that you are more likely to identify with that. Like I don't go to meetings after five on a Wednesday because I go and put my kids up. And then it's hard. Like I would start with no cabblery because it's a slightly softer way in. But if you feel like your willpower is weakening or somebody is challenging you and challenging you, I think some careful use of the I don't, when you might have been saying I can't, could be a good one thing. One thing we didn't touch on which we should, which is digital. There's an argument that actually just the presence of a smartphone stops you from relaxing from work

because you check it so habitually. You might open up your emails, you know, outside of work hours, just without even thinking about it because it's second nature. So one of my favourite exercises is something called completing the stress cycle, which I don't know if you've heard of. No. It was first described in the book, Burnout by Amelia and Emily Nogoski. Completing the stress cycle is this ritualized act that you do every time your workday is done. So it signifies to your body that your workday is over. You're going to close the laptop. You're not going to look at your work emails anymore. You are done. And it can take the form of anything. So I like to go for a walk. Some people like to have a hot drink or to have a shower, get changed.

Some people that's putting loud music on and just head banging in the car as they pull up onto the driveway. There are lots of different ways that you can do it. if you do it every single time that you finish work, eventually your body realises, okay, work's done and I can relax. There we go, Dr Claire Ashley there. And before that, career's expert, Helen Tupper, from our episode on Ambition Without Burnout, so to find that or any other of our instalments,

just head to The Woman's Our Feed on BBC Sounds and scroll down to find the Guide to Life episodes. Now, Jackie Clune is an actor, writer, performer, whose eclectic career has included everything from a Karen Carpenter tribute act, Shakespeare to Mamma Mia, and most recently the narrator of a UK tour of the Rocky Horror Show. On screen, she's familiar too many as Mrs. Lamb, the school secretary in Motherland. Thank you for that, Jackie. And she's also written novels and a memoir about unexpectedly becoming a mum to triplets at nearly 40

and finding herself with four children under 19 months. She's now on stage in the Meet Kings, Inc. of Brooklyn Heights. It's on at London's Park Theatre. She plays Paula, a tough, no-nonsense boss, fighting to keep the family business afloat as tensions rise and loyalties are tested, all sent against a very contemporary backdrop of immigration in modern-day America, America. And I'm delighted to say Jackie joins us now. Good morning. Morning, lovely to be here. It's great to have you. I saw the play last night, and I thought it was absolutely superb.

In the glamorous world of the cutting room floor of a butcher's, the kind of backroom, what inspired the play? I mean, this is an award-winning play already, isn't it? So Hannah Duran, the writer, she won the Puppetango Award, which is a theatre company that deals with new playwrights. They had, I think, something like 1600 submissions. So this play won out of 1600 submissions. And they do a great job because new writing is challenging to get people along to see it in the cultural climate and the economic climate we're in. So she actually went to New York to work, to study, and got a job in a butcher shop, even though she was a vegetarian. And she says that the minute she walked in, she thought, I don't know how long I'm going to last here, but this is going to be a play.

Because it's such a rich environment, you know, full of like incredible characters. And it serves as a really great metaphor for the political climate at the moment. You know, people are literally being carved up. And it's very prescient. very topical, but it's also a drama. It's a brilliant drama, and I've never been in a play where the audience gasps and shouts things out sometimes

because they cannot believe the twists and turns of what happens. Because it's all about what happens when poor desperate people have pitched against each other in the workplace. Yes, and you're really drawn to the characters. It's incredible writing, it's incredible acting. You play Paula Caffarelli, and she's the first woman to run the family business. So gender runs through this as well, doesn't it?

Very much so. And of course, obviously, it's quite a male environment. It's quite a misogynistic environment at times. So Paula comes from a long line of Italian butchers. They came to New York from Sicily in 1913. She gives a whole speech in the play and is very proud of inheriting this business. But one of the other characters, when she leaves the room,

says, oh, that's a load of nonsense. You know, they didn't want to give her the business. She was just they didn't have another son. So she's kind of a little bit in denial about the fact that her family was, you know, insidiously misogynistic. But, you know, there aren't that many female butchers. But she's a good female butcher. She loves the industry. She loves the business.

She loves the community. But she's also, tragically, quite a bad judge of character. And that comes to light during the play. The family has always hired ex-cons because, mob boys who got out and needed a job and she continues to do that to try and be useful but it backfires sometimes she's the heart of the play though

she's the soul of the play isn't she and you kind of as a member of the audience you're kind of lifted up by her eternal positivity when people constantly let her down that's nice but she would she'd be there saying no no no we can put this right we can put this right well I think what's brilliant about her as a character when I read the play and I thought

wow you know I'm of a certain age These parts don't come along too often because, you know, a lot of the time women in their 50s, 60s are portrayed in a very two-dimensional way and they're either, they're normally moaning. I mean, I have a joke with my family. I'm watching TV and if there's a woman with a lanyard on in the back looking a bit grumpy or if she has one line, I say, oh, that's my part. You know, but these parts don't come along that often. And when I read it, I thought, what a great rounded character, because I don't know about you, but I feel like our generation, our age, bracket. It's really interesting. Most of the most interesting people I meet are women in their 50s and 60s who have lived alive, who don't care anymore about what people think of them,

who have huge, you know, reserves of wisdom and humor and wit, and yet we're not represented enough. So I love playing Paula because, like you say, she is positive. She has her flaws, but she's got a can-do attitude and she will push through. And even at the end, you know, Spoilers, but even after the devastation of the end, her first thought is, how can we reopen? Yeah. I mean, you talk about that, about limited roles or just limited, interesting, well-rounded roles for women when they get to a certain age. And yet we've seen riot women on TV recently. There are examples of great writing and opportunities. But would you still say, I think you work quoted saying there's literally five women over the age of 60, he would always get offered the really

interesting roles, first of all. What needs to change? I think more women like Sally Wainwright, more women in positions of power, people trusting women to write interesting stories. Let's just diversify. I mean, riot women, that's a great story. Why is that taken until 2025 to come to air? I just think people need to be braver and women's voices need to be amplified in the creative process. Just to go back to the play for a second, I mean, you touched upon it. And it kind of is at the heart of this, that the current state of play in America and what is going on with immigration and how these incredibly poor people at the bottom of the pile end up turning on one another because that's all they have left. Why is it important

to you that in this country we see this play? Well, without going into the sort of global capitalist conspiracy, it's very important because I'm I see the ripples here. You know, we have a very complex political situation at the moment and it's as a feminist and it's always tempting to think that these rights are won and they're now set in stone. But what we're seeing now is rights and human rights being eroded and a new narrative or rather an old narrative being rehashed.

So I think it's important that we look at this and this play because this could happen here. you know, who knows what's going to happen in the next election, who knows at the reach of the far right and how they could get into power and what they will do if they do. So I do think that it's something that the UK needs to look at very carefully. I mean, you know, we've been doing a lot of research

into the ice raids and, you know, the dreadful situations that are happening, children being separated from their families, being ripped out of bed, people being arrested in places that the police shouldn't really go. and I do fear for what could happen here. As you get older, you are the Vice President of Equity as well, a woman of conviction, you know, a woman of principle, of giving a voice to other people

and especially the arts and performers. Is that why you're drawn to roles and characters like this because she stands for something? Yeah, I think so. And it's not, I think I often get cast as, like, I'll get a casting breakdown and my agent will say, you've been offered this and it will say, she's no nonsense she's tough she takes no prisoners and I'm like there you go and I think you know

obviously that's great because it's nice to play tough women but it can become a bit of a trope this is not the case with Paula because as you say she's she's got her vulnerable side and her faults and she's also very warm so yeah it's something that that can happen quite a lot to me yeah but I do but I do love it as well I've been so fortunate to be in things that are so you know, political and I am a political person and the equity stuff is really important to me amplifying the rights of workers in our industry. And so, yeah, maybe that's just my role

and I'm really happy to keep doing that. Yeah, and you're also very vocal about the fact of the kind of income generator that the arts is in this country as a percentage of GDP. And yet you're at a theatre with a small production. With no funding. No funding. So how tough is that?

It's really tough for them. and I take my hat off to them because, you know, new writing is tough, producing new theatre is tough. Theatre is tough generally apart from, you know, star passing in the West End. It's hard for everybody. TV and film industry is struggling too. So then those actors come along to theatres, which knock out the theatre actors and it's all, you know, it's really, really tough out there. So it's very important that we recognise that the arts in this country are not a luxury. They're not like an add-on, a nice to have.

They're a huge part of the GDP. There's something like 1.67 billion the arts bring into this country. And our arts output is world-renowned. And yet we don't value it. And we should. You have a very busy life away from the stage. I mentioned in the introduction. You gave birth to triplets naturally at 39.

At one point I had four children under 19 months. If I was wearing a hat, I would take it off. We have four children in our family, but that's quite a birth rate there, isn't it? And now they're in their 20s. Some of them have gone away and come back again. How is family life for you now? How are you navigating this stage? Well, it was hard then, but it was kind of easy, hard, if you know what I mean?

It was like labour intensive. I think now the generation of students have it really hard, like the financial struggle, trying to battle working, paying student loans off, the lack of opportunity, you know, dealing with a lot of emotional stress all the time. So the triplets are now 20 and my oldest. Searsher is 22. She's just graduated. The other two of them are ones in Bristol, one's in Cardiff, and the other one, Frank, is now work, is at home and working as a teaching assistant. So it's hard trying to keep them afloat and trying to keep them positive, you know, and I do a lot

of motivational speaking and I do still a lot of washing up and tidying because I get sick of the sound of my own voice nagging them, so I just think it's easy just to do it. But it is very hard on them and I have to really sit on myself not to jump in all the time and try and save them because that's a toxic trait of mine apparently. You've heard that. Does your agent say that as well?

No. And while we're at it. And I wanted to talk to you about grief as well because you are an ambassador for the bereavement charity at a loss. You've really been through the ringer on all of that. Why did you decide to get involved with that charity? I think we don't speak about

grief enough. Loss both my parents, that's no surprise, you know, I'm in my 50s. But then my brother died at 55, Ray, tragically. That was in 2020. And then the following year, two years later, I lost three very close friends. And it always amazed me that we walk around, you know, the walking wounded, and grief is not spoken about. And we're all kind of in denial a bit about the fact that, you know, we're all going to fall off at one point, fall off the perch. And nobody talks about it because it's frightening and grief is frightening and emotions are terrifying and we don't talk about it enough. So I think Atalos do a great job in providing signpost to people to be able

to talk about that stuff. How did it hit you? I think each grief has been different, which was a surprise too. So when my dad died, I was terrified for my mum and I didn't know how she was going to cope and I wanted to crawl inside her and soak it up for her. And then when she died, I remember But looking at my face and it looked like a tragedy mask. My mouth had literally turned down. And then when my brother died, it was just such a huge shock because that's one of my siblings, one of my peers. And, you know, he left behind a daughter, Grace, and a wife.

And, you know, it was terribly sad in a different way. And then the friends, you realize that are formed part of who you are. When they start to go, you start to feel like you're shuffling closer to the edge of the perch. And, you know, you miss those things that they brought to your life. So it's been very different each time. But as you say, talking about it and getting in touch with charities like that can massively help. Before we let you go, and my goodness, we've covered some territory. So I thank you for that.

There's so much to ask you about rugby. Oh, a huge fan. I run a women's rugby team called Eaton Manor Women. We're in Nutter Lane. The club was started in Wonstard by some Eaton boys in the 1920s to help the poor of the East End. And now we're approaching our centenary in 2020. and the women's rugby team I run is brilliant. It's a huge part of my life.

I love the metaphor of it. I love how women have to work together, get to the breakdown, help each other out, get knocked down, get up again, tackle things. I mean, it's just such a great sport for women. And this, your dad would be very proud because you were dragged along, weren't you, as a child, to your dad. Was he watching rugby? Was he capesing rugby?

He was a refree. He was Irish. My parents were both Irish immigrants. And he was a keen rugby player, but he got an injury. And then he went to refereeing. And we used to be dragged along on a Saturday so that my mum could do the ironing. And we didn't have a car. We lived in a council house.

We didn't have any money. And so we'd walk three miles to Harlow Rugby Club and watch my dad refereeing in the rain. And I thought it was the most tedious, boring, pointless thing I'd ever seen because they just seemed to stop all the time and have a chat about what to do next. And I couldn't understand it. Cut to 2010 when my dad died, my kids were then the age to start playing rugby. And someone mentioned it to me And I thought that would actually be a great tribute to him So I took them along

And I had two girls, two boys, they all played But when the girls turned 11 That's when they had to play single sex And there wasn't a girl's team So me and my friend Caroline started one And cut to 12 years later We now have about 120 girls playing every week And we have 60 women playing in two teams now

And I'm very, very proud of it And I hope my dad That's one thing about grief every time, especially my daughters, walk out onto the pitch. I think, my God, he will be grinning from here to where. He wouldn't believe it. It's been fantastic having you

in the studio, Jackie. Thank you so much for coming along. And that thread has got our audience thinking as well, so I'll read out some of your text shortly. But Jackie Flynn, thank you. The Meet Kings, Inc. of Brooklyn Heights. It's on at the Park, Fietta, London, until the 29th of November.

And I can highly, highly recommend it. Let's just read a couple of texts. I used to hate football and rugby on the TV, even the sound of it on in the house. Now, as a mum of three boys who all play both sports, I watch it on TV with my husband and sons and have spent many years pitchside with them. I started this when I realised if I didn't join in, I'd be left out of a major part of their lives, but now I actually quite enjoy it. Thank you for that text, 84844.

Keep those texts coming in. Now, a rare 500-year-old English parchment birth scroll is to be sure. shown in the UK for the very first time following recent pioneering analysis that confirmed its use during pregnancy and childbirth. The medieval scroll is central to this, expecting birth, belief and protection. It's a new display at the Welcome Collection that explores the protective practices and beliefs around pregnancy, childbirth and infertility that existed in medieval times. Well, Dr. Elmer Brenner is Research Development Lead at the Welcome Collection. Welcome to the programme.

It's great to be here. And Professor Valerie Worth, fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, who holds a research grant from the Leverhume Trust, joins us as well. Hello. Hello, thank you for inviting me.

Brilliant to have you both here. This is really, really fascinating, Elmer. Talk to us then about the period we're looking at here and this fascinating scroll. What was it? How was it used? Yes.

So we have a really remarkable object that really tells stories about women's experiences at the end of the medieval period. So it's a very long and narrow scroll made of sheepskin, animal skin, that was produced in England at the end of the 15th century, and that was used for a number of protective purposes. It's multifunctional, but it's particularly connected to childbirth. And it's understood that it was wrapped around a woman's body during the latter stages

of pregnancy and during childbirth. And what was on it is absolutely fascinating, isn't it? What did you discover on it and what did that tell you? Yes. So there has been some recent scientific analysis of this object. So when you see the object in the display at Welcome Collection, you can see that it has numerous images, Christian religious images and words, which are Christian prayers and devotions to different saints.

But also you can see on various parts of the scroll stains that are not the same colour as the inks on the manuscript and that for many, many years have raised lots of questions for researchers. And really excitingly, recently we were able to work with a team of protein scientists who had a new non-invasive technique that was able to take tiny, tiny fragments from the surface of the scroll take them away, analyze them, and they came back with truly remarkable findings. They identified a number of natural substances such as honey, legumes, milk, that we know were

used in medical recipes, including those for childbirth at this time. But they also found concrete evidence of human bodily fluids, specifically cervical vaginal fluids, on this scroll. Right. So these women were wrapped in it. And also Valerie, I mean, what was on there, rituals, prayers, all that kind of thing. How does that tie into bring medieval times up to the present day, would you say? Are there echoes? Yes, indeed. I work in the period just after Elmer, so 1500 to 1700 and on printed text, which is perhaps the shift. And what we're finding there is a mixture of medicine as we'd recognize it with cures, with advice about how to position women, what to do if labours go wrong,

but also references to these traditional practices, prayer in particular, because we're living in a world in 1500 where most people are believing and in a culture that believes. And they find the prayers very comforting. It's also the period of the Reformation from 1500 to 1700s. So there's an interesting shift between Protestant and Catholic practice with Catholics invoking the saints, as Elmer's mentioned, The Protestants are much more cautious, but actually sometimes traditional items were hidden away, even in Protestant households, and brought out at times.

I've worked a little bit on the delivery of one of the kings of France, Louis XIII, where a female midwife records what happens. And because the woman was Italian and very Catholic, the queen, they had in the birthing chamber monks who were probably hidden in a corner reciting prayers. and the very active recitation, it gives something to grip on to and to believe in while the woman is in labour. And then there were indeed girdles. I didn't find any parchments, but girdles, and relics believed to have belonged to St. Margaret, the patron saint of childbirth. So that was a queen who had access to all of this, but even the ordinary woman might have some talisman handed down the family that she believed would bring her luck in childbirth. So, yeah, so it thinks some certain traditions and practices are kind of quite similar today. And when did these scrolls stop being used?

Well, as Valerie says, in England, the Reformation was a key turning point. When these scrolls came from being incredibly widespread and used across different types of households to being forbidden, to being something that you would need to, if you did hold on to one of these, it would need to be hidden. And there is some evidence that they did continue to be used right up until the 17th century in England. But increasingly, they were something that was part of a kind of a hidden and fading religious culture.

What else have you discovered? Because we start with the scrolls, Valerie, but there's so much else that you have discovered that is on display in this exhibition, which shows how birthing used to happen and how we do it today. It's not necessarily progress. see when you look at that line? No, I mean, I think it's very important to avoid a wiggish view of history where everything is progress.

So one of the things that interests me is, and I've worked quite a lot with midwives on this, is looking at some of the practices that have gone in and out of fashion or instinctive ways of doing things. Because in this period, midwives would have cared for all the normal deliveries and only called in a surgeon or a physician, A, if there was one nearby, be if people had the money to pay for it. but see if there were real complications. Midwives had to be able to cope with almost anything.

And something like a breach delivery where the baby comes not head first, but bottom or feet first, was something they would be competent to do. They would also deliver twins. And in fact, one of the midwives writes, well, if the twins are small, they might be easier to get out than a large singleton. I don't know about triplets. They're very, very rare. That was interesting hearing about that.

So midwives had to be prepared to cope with these deliverings. And something like breach delivery, which these days is very often coped with by Caesarean, there are groups in England that still have the competence to do vaginal breach deliveries. So if any of your listeners are interested in this, I think talk to their midwife, talk to their doctor about what is possible. But in the earlier text, there was a lot of advice about how to do it. And there's a German midwife who writes about breach deliverers with the advice, don't pull the baby out.

Have your hands supporting a wonderful image in the... book itself, of her gently supporting the baby's bottom as it comes out. And that is still apparently the advice of modern midwives and doctors. If you are doing a vaginal breach delivery, receive the baby, don't pull it. So perhaps people did know something quite important. Yes. And talk to me about the 16th century woodcut image of a birthing stool as well, which kind of illustrates a different approach, doesn't it? And when physicians became involved and women would go from the vertical,

to the horizontal during labour? Absolutely. So the idea of women lying down to give birth really gets traction in Western Europe in the mid-17th century when physicians and surgeons become more involved even in normal births, particularly for women with lots of money in cities. Whereas midwives had tended to favour far more of a range of positions, the use of the birthing chair, which is a wooden stall with almost like a horseshoe shape, and the woman sits on it, but she's leaning back slightly so that her pelvis opens. And interestingly, the first midwife to be published, a French midwife, Louise Bourgeois in 1609, says she reserves a birthing chair for difficult deliveries.

So when the Queen's having difficulty with her first child, 22-hour labour, really tough, she gets her to sit in the birthing chair and the child does come out without any surgeons being involved. Now, that fits again with a lot of modern thinking that if the woman can be active, in neighbour, she's got more chance of delivering easily. So these birthing chairs originating in Germany, spreading to France and I think also to England, and you can see some in museums still, are not unlike some of the apparatus, let's say, that's available in modern birthing rooms for women who wish to have an active delivery. Well, it's been absolutely fascinating having you both on.

Thank you so much for joining us in the Woman's Hour studio. You heard the voice there of Professor Valerie Worth, Fellow of Trinity. College, Oxford, who has that research grant from the Levin's Hume Trust and Dr. Elmer Brenner Research Development Lead at the Welcome Collection as well. Expecting both belief and protection is now on at the Welcome Collection. Lovely having you both here. Just in response to our earlier item about buying our pay later arrangements and rising debt, we mentioned Zilch, who have told us that they are an FCA regulated lender.

They say they have affordability safeguards in place and ensure customers are using their product responsibly. Join me tomorrow on Woman's Hour. I'll be joined by Laura Mulvey, the filmmaker and pioneering feminist theorist who first coined the term the male gaze. Talk to you then. That's all from today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. I'm Ragnar O'Connor from BBC Radio 4 and the History Podcast. This is the magnificent O'Connor's. In war-torn London, a man is murdered. The police arrest 23-year-old Jimmy O'Connor. He's sentenced to death, but Jimmy is my dad.

For 80 years, my family has fought to prove his innocence. And now we're making one final attempt to uncover the truth. But are we ready for what we'll find? The Magnificent O'Connor's. Listen first on BBC Sounds.