Woman's Hour - Intergenerational friendships; Victims' Commissioner Vera Baird; Nikita Gill and Gnarly; Liz Fraser

Episode Date: October 1, 2021

Are you in an intergenerational friendship? Anita speaks to Emily who’s 33 and her best friend Sue who’s 60 about the unique benefits of friendships across the ages.The Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick has admitted that trust in the police force has been "shaken" by the murder of Sarah Everard. So where do we go from here? And what support is there for the bereaved families who have lost loved ones to male violence? Anita speaks to Dame Vera, the Victims' Commissioner for England and Wales.Irish Indian poet and writer, Nikita Gill and British Sri-Lankan producer and live performer Gnarly will appear together for two nights at the Southbank Centre in London tonight and next week. Poems written by Nikita are transformed into songs by Gnarly, merging traditional and digital art and creating, what they say is something no one has seen before. They join Anita in the studio for a chat and a bit of a performance.Writer and broadcaster Liz Fraser has written a memoir about being in a relationship with a man she loves, the father of her child who is also an alcoholic. For a time, she failed to realise how serious his addiction was and she also kept the often shocking truth of what was going on entirely to herself, trying in vain to help her partner find a path to sobriety. Finally she herself broke from the trauma and started to speak out. She joins Anita to talk about her experiences described in her book, Coming Clean: A true story of love, addiction and recovery.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning. We are still reeling today as Sarah Everard's murderer starts his whole life sentence, the first ever given to a police officer, which means he'll never be released. With the thought of Sabina Nessa in our minds and thinking about the 80 women who have been killed in between their two tragic deaths. From the messages we've been receiving from you on social media,

we know that many of you are experiencing a huge amount of emotion, anger, sadness and fear. So today I'm asking you all, do you feel safe? And what needs to change in order for you to feel safe? I'm going to be joined by the Victims Commissioner Dame Vera Baird in a moment and can put your questions to her. It's her job to ensure that victims and witnesses of crime are listened to and to promote good practice across criminal justice services. So I'll ask you again, what will make you feel safe? Get in touch with us. You can text us on 84844.

Text will be charged at your standard message rate and do check with your network provider for extra costs. You can contact us via social media. It's at BBC Woman's Hour, or you can email us through our website. And it's a packed show today, full of women with incredible stories and talent to share, including Nali and Nikita Gill. They're a band who are performing at the Southbank Centre,

but are probably unlike any band you've ever heard before, bringing together Nikita's poetry and Nali's two-fingered percussion. Have a listen. A hymn for the women who have learned survival when survival was hell-bent on disavowing them. Praise for the women who faced their own deaths to get here. Praise for the little girls who survived trauma early and refused to let themselves be baptized. So we will be treated to a live performance during the show today. Writer Liz Fraser will be joining me to talk about her powerful and brave new memoir about being in a relationship and having a child with an alcoholic.

And today we are also discussing friendship, but a particular kind of friendship, intergenerational friendship. Do you have a mate who's either much older or much younger than you? And what makes this relationship in your life special? What do you think you get out of it? And what makes you get on? Is it important to be friends with people from different walks of life and age groups? And what does this friendship offer you that others don't?

I would love to hear from you on everything we are talking about this morning. Text number is 84844. I'll be reading out as many of your messages as I can throughout the show. You can email by going to our website and of course you can go to our social media. It's at BBC Woman's Hour. But first, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has said Sarah Everard's murder has brought shame on the force, admitting a precious bond of trust has been damaged. Dame Cressida Dick was heckled by people calling for her resignation outside the Old Bailey on Thursday after ex-PC Wayne Cousins was handed a whole life term. That call for her resignation has been echoed by a number of MPs and campaign groups. So where do we go from here? Have you lost faith in the police?

What do you think needs to change? What measures would you like to see put in place to support victims and their families? And I'll ask you once more, what will make you feel safe? I'm joined now by Dame Vera Baird, the Victims Commissioner for England and Wales. As VC, it's Vera's job to support the rights and protection of victims of crime. Very good morning to you, Vera. Welcome to Woman's Hour. I'm going to start

by asking you the question everybody's talking about. It's on all the papers. Where do you stand should the Commissioner go? I truly don't think that that's something that the Victims Commissioner should be expressing a view about. So you don't have an opinion either way? I certainly do have an opinion. But you're not going to share it with us? I feel that it's not for me to express that view. Supposing I say one thing and say she goes, then the next time a victim's not treated well, they will say, perhaps, well, should the Victims Commissioner really have talked about the Metropolitan Police?

No wonder they're not doing a good job because she got rid of their leader last time. And if I say she should stay, you know, the opposite will be the case. My interest is victims. My responsibility is victims. There is no doubt whatsoever that particularly females' victims' faith in the police has collapsed. But this is the pinnacle of it. This is the worst bit of it. It is dreadful that this was a police officer. Believe you, we did a survey a year ago which showed that only 5% of rape complainants thought they could get justice by going to the police then. So this collapse is at its worst and its highest now.

But it is not a new thing. There is really very little faith by women in how the police deal with violence against women and girls. And frankly, you know, scrapping one individual in the hope that, you know, Superman is waiting in the wings and can put it all right is not a very realistic. I should say that we have, of course, reached out to Cressida Dick to join us this morning, and she did decline the offer. In that case, Vera, I'll ask you what you think about the way the Met Police have reacted, how they've reacted to what's happening.

Is it satisfactory in your view? No, I think that firstly, I'm very pleased if they think that they can put forward a positive strategy that will impress people. Let's give them that opportunity. But honestly, you know, another piece of paper that we can put on the shelf isn't going to make the difference. It has been very clear for a very long time. Look at the figures you've already quoted, Anita. You know, it's 80 women who've been killed since Sabina, since Sarah, including Sabina. And all of the outcry that there was around Sarah's death,

you know, 180,000 women wrote to the government's Violence Against Women and Strategy, the inspectorate of constabulary. I think you had Zoe Billingham on yesterday. Yes, we did, yeah. She led that brilliant report. Well done to the Home Secretary for Commissioning, that in-depth look at the police.

It concluded there is an epidemic of violence against women, girls, and the police have failed to protect them against it. They've got better. I mean, no doubt they've got better over the last decades, but it's extraordinarily patchy. And, you know, one has to look at the real problem that probably innate sexism runs through the police, probably more deeply than it runs through society, though it remains a big factor in society. Attitudes that women are, you know, not so valued for anything but their sexuality. And so they are not treated as people. Why do you say that, Vera?

I mean, this is just my, you know, sort of cheap assessment from, you know, from my own experience, isn't the fact that in society now there is a permissive quality to the fact that women are seen primarily as sexual creatures, not wholly as sexual creatures, but they are, I still think, seen in that fashion. That's the first... But you've just said that you think it's worse in the police

than in society. Why did you say that? I think that it's probably the nature of policing. In what way? First of all, it's still very male. And even though there are some women chief constables, there are obviously not enough. There is no critical mass of female officers to change the culture. The culture remains male dominated. I have heard people say that, you know, you can be gay, you can be black, you can be a woman, but actually that's all fine in the police as long as you behave like a straight white male. There is a need

for a sense of collegiate nature about the police because they have to deal with public order stuff, they have to know they can rely on each other, but that can tend to bond into a sort of brotherhood. And I say that probably another reason that it's worse in the police is because of the nature of why people go into policing. Quite often, it's a bit of an action man thing, not quite military, but not far off it. And that's the stuff they're interested in. A senior woman police officer said to me just a few weeks ago, if it's a burglary, boy, they'll go very, very quickly. Speaking of the police, if it's domestic abuse, they probably won't hurry quite so much. So I am obviously very worried about the whole history of this.

And we're not getting violence against women and girls any nearer at the top of the priorities than they were when I was a young woman. Our listeners hearing you say that, who are already feeling all the emotions that I mentioned in the opener, they're angry, they're sad, they're terrified. We know this because they're getting in touch with us to tell us how they're feeling. Having listening to you say that as someone who was before you a victims commissioner, you were police and crime commissioner, so you know, it isn't what Vera Baird thinks. Obviously, there is my own experience. And obviously, it is my own experience that's speaking to. But we have, you know, a fantastic stakeholder network, where we make sure that when a position needs to be taken about victims, it's not mine, It's what I've been told by victims.

And you couldn't, you know, you couldn't say it more loudly this morning than victims themselves and female members of the public themselves are saying. Trust in the police has currently been lost, but it isn't, as I think the Met are trying to make it seem, only this awful incident that's caused that loss. The police have not been as good as they should have been dealing with violence against women and girls for a very long time. And so innate distrust has simply built up. My message is to the police surely at this stage you must realize how deficient your service to women has been this you know awful crescendo uh must tell you now's the moment you really have got to raise this as a national priority and i think zoe billingham yesterday was saying well i fundamentally agree which is violence against women and girls has to become a national strategic policing requirement on every force. Then it can have more resource. Then the force forces which are doing quite good work, that good practice will be spread to other forces and not resisted. There will be an expertise that is valued,

that has status. So people will want to go into this area of investigation and policing. And we need through, I think, through police channels to lift up its priority. And I think that's the way to start doing it. Do we trust? I'm going to finish that tiny sentence and then back to you. Back to you with apologies for taking so long. No, take your time. I think if you say to police, you know, your sex is changing, that isn't going to make the difference.

I think if you can say you're failing as police officers, this is half of the population. And the way to do that is to use a police definition and drive it through the police own channels. So I'm 100 percent with Zoe Billingham about the likeliest way of making relatively speedy change. That's not to say we don't have to tackle societal attitudes as well. Do we trust the police to police themselves on this? Well, again, they haven't, it seems, been doing that well either. I mean, this guy who is just beyond words should not have got as far as he is.

But I think you saw some data probably came out yesterday from Byline Times who've done some freedom of information requests of 83, I think it is, officers in the Met who did some sort of sexual misconduct in the last four years. Forty-odd of them are still in post. And that wasn't only, though this is bad enough, sexual misconduct with other officers. It was on occasion sexual misconduct with vulnerable victims and witnesses. So you have the idea, you know, somebody who's themselves been abused,

perhaps, and wants the help of the police, knowing that somewhere in there, there is a cohort of men who have themselves been guilty of sexual misconduct and I think we know that 700 officers in policing more broadly not just in the Met have been reported and have been found to have been guilty of domestic abuse and the prosecution rate there is even tinier than it is in the public domain. So it is hard to feel confident that they have acknowledged that there is a problem of their own abuse internally

and have tackled it sufficiently, which again is bound to sap the confidence of people externally who want to come to them for support. None of this is not to say that there aren't some excellent officers and a very large number of those. But this inherent problem has been around for so long.

This has got to be the moment action is taken. As you can imagine, Vera, we're getting lots of people getting in touch with the programme. 84844, by the way, is the number to text. An email from someone who wants to remain anonymous says, I'm a woman in my 80s and I worry for my daughter and granddaughter. There are no doubt many good and honest policemen. However, the police should be checked regularly, their personalities, their phones, their domestic behaviour. And there's only a third of women police officers

and that should be at least 50%. This dreadful man was known apparently as the rapist to his colleagues. So why was that allowed to continue and end in this truly dreadful death? He is not the only one who is guilty, but those colleagues too. Well, that's why, apart from the fact that confidence was, as my survey showed, and it's obviously not the only one, go back to Zoe Billingham, you know, who found that asking the four forces she selected as sample forces to identify the 10 most men who were most

dangerous to women. She got them to do that, but 34 of them hadn't been identified before. That's to say, you know, almost seven-eighths of them hadn't been identified as dangerous to them before. They only did it because they were driven by the inspectors. That means the police are not protecting women against them. They are not dealing with them in the way that they deal with perpetrators of other offences. When they do manage them in the community, they do make it harder for them to offend. It can't be that one says, you know, chop this person's head off, introduce a new set of rules about officers in plainclothes, draft a strategy six months down the street and it's all sorted. There has to be action now. I do think we're going to hit the button. And I do think we need the government to take a serious interest in it, too. Vera, what I need to ask you, though, as someone who has spent your entire career fighting for reform, you know, you were a barrister for 25 years.

In 2009, you sat with the Stern Review, which looked at the way rape cases are handled. And you concluded then that the focus needs to be in victims. That was 2009. Your entire career working at the highest level to try and implement change. And yet here we are. And women are tired, they're devastated, they're angry, they're scared, they can't trust the institutions put in place to protect them. Enough is enough. Enough talk, surely. Enough reviews. When are we going to see action? When are we going to see change? There has to be action immediately. I'm afraid the burden falls to some extent on the Home Secretary, and she has to grasp it. I do think elevating this to a strategic national priority

is the way to open the door to a real understanding that it's got to be tackled properly by policing. There is a much broader societal problem that I tried to kind of describe in my own woolly terms in the beginning, which also needs tackling because it is important. You know, if women's voices could get rid of violence against women and girls, it would have gone, as you say, 30 years ago. We need to mobilise the whole of society and particularly men. Now, violent men are very different from ordinary men. And there is no question of blaming all men for any of this at all.

But what we need to do is we need to get to a stage where when a man catcalls a woman in the street or wolf whistles frankly you know that isn't going to make her feel that she's very pretty and she's very lucky to have that admirer it's going to make her think you know which predatory bloke is that is he coming down off where he is to come and have a go at me you know men and women need to say to people who do that, just stop, just don't do it. Because if you don't stop sexist behaviour against women at the start, then there is a sort of sense of permission for it to go forward. And men who are violent will take that permission and will go from bad to worse. You've seen what happened. This guy, one day he is indecently exposing himself.

The police do not deal with that. Nobody in his colleagues stops him and says that is very, very bad. The red flag that should have been flown by that is not seen by anybody. And a few days later, we have the horror that there's been. These things can escalate extremely badly and it needs to be acknowledged that this kind of casual sexism is a permissive element which allows bad men to do bad things and that conversation is happening nationwide and it's happening a lot on social media particularly coming through to us at women's hour by the way

it's at b Women's Hour. As the Victims Commissioner, Vera, I must ask you, lots of us are really feeling a wave of emotion, and particularly for the families of both Sabine Nessa and Sarah Everard. What support is there for those families at this point, for the victims of the families? So a family of somebody who breathed by crime will be entitled in policing to a family liaison officer who is, as is often said at these times, a specially trained person in whom I have to say many victims put a lot of faith and have a lot of praise for. They're there to liaise between the family and the investigation. So the family's kept up to date about the investigation,

but they also have a responsibility for the broader welfare of the family. You have to remember that victims by and large are not at the centre of criminal cases. A big mission of mine is to put victims at the centre of criminal cases. But at the moment, obviously, they're pursuing the prosecution, but the FLO's specific task is to keep the family involved and to ensure that their welfare needs are met. There is also the National Homicide Service, which is not run by the police. It's run by Victim Support, which is a separate charity and is nationally commissioned by the Ministry of

Justice. It is very experienced. It has access to specialist kinds of homicide supporters who have experience. I mean, for instance, one that I'm very familiar with is domestic abuse, people who are specialists in the domestic abuse bereavement. So that kind of service, which is a victim support type service, is readily available to families in this situation. And then, you know, there are specialist bereavement organisations. There is the statutory services in due course. But that's the sort of threshold support

that will be there at the moment for this family. And I'm sure we will be talking about the support that is available to victims of various crimes at some point in Women's Hour. But for now, Dame Virabird, thank you very much for joining us and speaking to me this morning. 84844 is the number to text.

Someone has messaged and says, a teacher of teenage girls. I have no idea how to reassure my students about police protection and where to even point them to when I've lost faith. That's from Sarah in London. You can also contact us via social media

or email via our website. Now, Irish Indian poet and writer Nikita Gill and British Sri Lankan producer and live performer Nali are set to perform together for two nights at the Purcell Room in the Southbank Centre in London tonight and next week in this new collaboration Nikita writes poems

which are then transformed with electronic music into songs by Nali and they join me now in the studio actually physically present in the studio to talk to me and to perform. Have I described it right, Nali? You're basically collaborating to do something completely new.

Yeah, it's definitely something very new. I don't think it's ever been done before. Well, that's exciting. And so this is the first on Woman's Hour. Describe yourself as a duo, Nikita. What is it? I think we we are, we are a band. And what we are doing is like a collaboration of literature, art, music,

and also visuals like so it's, it's an experience. I would definitely call it that. But yeah. And you've both come from two very backgrounds. Nali, you're a producer, music producer, and a creator generally. You do lots of various things, I'll let you tell me. And Nikita, you're a writer. You've published lots of books. You're also an illustrator. So how did you come together?

So it was through Noam and Anushka Shankar. Anushka had a festival at South Bank a couple months back for the reunion of events starting to happen after lockdown again. And they had this idea to kind of combine us and see what we could come up with. Anushka Shankar, as in the sitar player Anushka Shankar, has brought you together. That's quite a good origin story, isn't it, of collaboration? So tell us about the work

itself nikita um your work features women heavily oh yes um the show specifically makes space for women's rage um and it makes space for women's rage with an intersection of mythology meeting the modern woman um and i think what I think what's really cool about it is Nali just every time with every poem just understands the assignment. She gets it spot on, first go. And that's why I think this collaboration works so well because she's so talented

and I feel so privileged to be working with her. So you've written poetry specifically about women and Nali, you're putting the music to it. Exactly, yeah. It's very timely, isn't it, Nikita? Just the conversation that we've been having over the last few months, particularly on Women's Hour, we've just been talking to the Victims Commissioner there. Women are feeling a lot of rage as well as sadness and anger. But rage is something that they're feeling right now. Yeah, precisely. I think the other thing is, there aren't a lot of spaces for women's rage. The minute we express it, there are so many words

that are used to like shut us down. And I want to make space for that. I think it's incredibly healing to feel that rage and to feel that grief in full instead of suppressing it and that's what the show is about. Is it important I described you both you've got this amazing various cultures coming into the room right now so I described you as an Irish Indian poet Nikita and that you're a British Sri Lankan producer is it the fact that you're women of colour is that important to the work? Absolutely hugely important. In what sense? I think you know like being women of colour we don't often get a stage to perform what we're doing and especially in the sectors that we're in so in literature for Nikita and in music

production you don't often see women of colour and the fact that we've come together with this very powerful and really emotive piece I think is really like important. I'm looking at you Nali you've got this what have you got in front of you? So it's called a machina it's by Native Instruments and it's basically a drum machine. So I can program in any sounds that I want. It's like, you would never know that that was a drum machine, though, if you didn't know it was a drum machine. Because it's just got little pads on it, right? Yeah. I sound like such an auntie right now, don't I? Like, oh, it's got little pads on it.

Describe it. It's kind of, you know, I've got these 16 pads um unlimited amount of groups that i can set up in these pads and then each pad can have an individual sound on it so it's almost like having an entire band or an orchestra or a entire recording studio at my fingertips okay will you give us a burst yeah well it impresses and this is this is what did how did i describe it two finger drumming finger drumming finger. All right, here we go. It's me. It's me.

It's me. It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me

It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me

It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me

It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me

It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me

It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me

It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me

It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me

It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me It's me that's so good and her fingers are going 10 to the dozen excellent i filmed you on my phone so that i can put we can put that on our social media later so everyone can see exactly what's going on. So impressive. I think we now need to hear the two of you perform something. Tell me what you're going to do and is this what you will be performing at the South Bank?

Yes. So this is called War Song. And it basically is about, again, like we spoke about female rage and it's like a little taster from the middle of the show. Okay. So this is Nikita Gill and Nali take it away a war song for the women who have lost so many selves they fight back who are

called monsters because when the world tries to harm them they turn into switchblades and fight back it happens at a party it happens at a market It happens at a party. It happens at a market. It happens at a church, a temple, a gurdwara. It happens when we are walking home or at school or at work. The point is not that it happens to the best of us or the worst of us. The point is it happens to most of us and there is only so many times you can turn someone into prey before they do what any good wolf does and strike back. It happened to me at a club at 18 where I finally went from girl to monster where I found that I had it in me to lash out at the greedy hands that were trying to take from my body what I never agreed to give. I lashed out in a way I didn't even know was within me,

fangs instead of teeth, a red glow in my bones, a siren song in my sinews as I bit and scratched and punched till I was left alone. Women are taught to be silent. Women are taught to take injustice, turn it into healing or perhaps something pretty, but never fight back with such ferocity. Later, I looked at my hands and asked myself what happens to prey when it fights back? Am I a predator now? And this was when the goddess came back to me to give me her story. She told me, there is only one goddess named Carnage.

One goddess who has distilled anger in woman form and who causes such fear that they have misplaced her story of origin. There are three versions. In one tale, I was born terrifying. On the battlefields where gods fought demons and no one wanted to make the demons bleed because what good are gods without their piety? So instead, I was conjured from the goddess Durga's head, bloodthirsty and angry. In the second, I was born from the ashes when Shiva triktamha Devi,

goddess mother to us all and made her give him her powers and from the ashes I was born. Women do this. We are able to resurrect ourselves from the ashes of what others do to us. In the third, I was born to be every mother's uncontrollable rage from the womb of the goddess of love. A riot in a woman's body when she found her beheaded son, Lord Ganesh. I waged war on this earth, poured destruction into everything that existed here. I was the vengeance the gods could not silence. No matter how hard they tried, they had to beg and plead to us that I put my anger aside. All three are true. All three are not true. It doesn't matter. People lie all the time to each other.

Lies become rumors and rumors become legends and legends turn into myths and gods and goddesses are born. It's why we reincarnate so often, to tell a different story. What doesn't change is our purpose. I was born to drain the wicked from the earth. They cannot change that about me.

Even when they tried to rename me demonic, they cannot change that I am also a woman, friend, protector, mother and sister to all the women who worship me. They will tell you, I am not beautiful. I agree. I was never meant to be. I am chaos. I am the rage they quiver before I carry within me an anger so

powerful even the gods are afraid of me. Even in power, they want us to be pretty. They expect us to be palatable, easy to digest, as though we are some small feast. But dear one, I am proof we do not have to be. We can be a war cry and a violence. We can be ugly as we want to be. Hard to swallow, unsettling to look at, a fire in the mind, a morbid they fear. What happened to you is one of many tragedies too many women go through, but this does not have to define you. You too can be like me. I am a goddess of duality. Sometimes I sit on a throne of corpses and sometimes the gods themselves hold up my throne. I challenge their sense of what is womanly.

Wear my hair untamed, the patrician goddess of destruction and anger and righteous fury. Whatever I am, they find it hard to accept me. I am a dialogue between what is carnal and what is glory. Monster maiden, mighty and mythical story. Let yourself be like me and become an enigma too. But here is the trick, dear one. When you embrace your monster, you must turn your anger into a spell. If wielded with wisdom, it'll serve you well. And if they ask you who

gave you permission to your rage, you tell them, the rage is a gift the goddess Kali gave you. Oh, wow. Nikita and Nali, thank you so much for that live performance.

They'll be performing tonight at the Purcell room South Point Centre and next Friday the 8th thanking you but you've heard it here first on Woman's Hour amazing absolutely amazing oh my unwaxed arm hairs are standing on end now thank you both now we're talking friendships on Woman's Hour today but a certain kind of friendship one with someone from a different generation to you are you mates with someone who is much older or much younger than you? And what makes this friendship special? What do you talk about?

Are you in one? Get in touch. I'd love to hear from you. 84844. Sue and Emily are best friends from Kent. They've got a 27-year age gap. Sue is 60 and Emily is 33. And they join us now.

Morning to you both. Morning. Morning. Morning. Emily, how did you become friends? Where did you meet? So we both belong to the same running club. And we went on an away marathon together with a group of people from the running club. And we just really hit it off.

And yeah, I've just been friends ever since. I think that was about six years ago. And Sue, you have daughters the same age as Emily and Sue is probably the same age as your mum is it comparable to the mother-daughter relationship is it similar what do you think so no it is it is very different it is with a mother you tend to be much more nurturing it's much more about guidance and you know like if Emily's saying something because she's got children as well and she's saying, oh, I need a bit of help on something,

it's much more about sort of advice and suggestions, whereas with your own children it's a bit more guidance, a bit more nurturing. I mean, it's much more fun, like a friendship, whereas with a parent you have that responsibility all the time and you're very concerned that you're doing the right thing and you're not saying things in any way could harm them whereas with a friend that sort of responsibility as a person as a nurturing parent isn't really there which is great you can talk

about anything and not being and not be awkward um we're getting lots of people getting in touch about this you know um amanda says as a 63 year old woman i can honestly say that some of the most rewarding friendships have been with younger men and women in their 20s they consider me to be a wise woman and listen carefully to my opinions i hope i do likewise and i can honestly say that i think the generation gap has disappeared is that what's happened with you do you think that actually there is no joke that you the wisdom that you learn from each other is important. Yeah, definitely. I feel like, I generally just feel like Sue is just one of my friends. It's not, the age gap has got nothing to do with it.

It's just we really hit it off. We find each other really funny. We've got the same sense of humour and we just, there's just that openness there that you get with any friendship. How is it different though to the relationships and friendships that you have with people your own age well i i think when people my own age tend to be uh look back on life a little bit it tends to be a bit more jaded a little bit more this is what's happened to me in the past particularly if you talk about relationships or uh careers or whatever they tend to it tends to be always looking back

whereas emily's always looking forward and younger people tend to be always saying they've got these experiences to come yet and some of them we've gone through and some of them we haven't I have to say I don't I feel when I'm talking to Emily exactly the same age as her so although I am I do realize I'm older than her I'm not you know you know stupid but I do I don't feel that when I'm older than her. I'm not, you know, you know, stupid, but I do. I don't feel that when I'm talking to her. I feel we are feeling the same things about the same as you do with your friends. But then sometimes like she's got young children and my children are grown up and you then feel sometimes you'll be concerned about something. You feel you have to then offer advice because you've been there and done it emily's into women in sport it's a big issue for her you know

she's very trying to promote it massively and so she's talking much more for me the younger perspective and i will be then but that's probably it's really interesting though isn't it to hear the younger perspective life has changed quite a lot in the last sort of you know 30 years and sort of different perspectives what do you think Emily um definitely I feel like I feel like from my point of view I've got my friends I've got my really close group of girlfriends I went to school with the same age as me we feel like we're all in it together we've got the same struggles we've got young kids we're married we have the same kind of issues so he's been through a lot of that and so for me it's having that person who has seen a lot more of life than I

have and it's just been through all these things kids and marriage and and all sorts of stuff and being able to go to that person have have that other perspective that come in that comes in and for Sue to say to me you know don't worry about x y and z you need to be looking at the bigger picture and looking at this and for me it's just having that person that can, you know, don't worry about X, Y and Z. You need to be looking at the bigger picture and looking at this. And for me, it's just having that person that can go, you know, forget all the stuff that you're annoyed about today. You know, you've got all these fantastic things going on. Do you know, it's interesting because obviously we knew we were setting this,

going to be talking to the two of you and I was thinking about it last night and I thought, why wouldn't we want friends from different generations? This idea that you only hang out with people your own age is probably the the odd thing really surely where you'd want to talk to people with from different walks of life with different experiences yeah I remember leaving university and being desperate to go to work where there would be a range of ages yeah because you know you're all university you're just with the same age all the time. But I do actually remember that. And I, yeah, I love it.

I think it brings such a whole range to, you know, to the workplace, to what you're talking about. You know, people at different stages, different experiences, different emotions. And you've obviously got the running club in common, but where else do you hang out? Like if you were my mate,

so I might want to take you to a club. you come with me well I would actually good on you yeah why not I don't know I I think it's about just getting out there and doing things and being spontaneous and um and I think that's a personality thing I think that's the thing about uh Emily and I we we get on and it's about personalities and and neither of us are ageist in the sense that particularly from Emily's point of view I don't feel that she talks to me differently because of my age I think she just talks to me because I am who I am and we get on yeah and it's like we're very we're quite we have the same sense of humor we're quite rude to each other all the time. So we never fall out.

We don't know if we're actually being rude or funny. Emily, what's the best thing about your friendship with Sue? I think, like I said before, it's just having that older perspective. But genuinely, she's just a really, really good mate. Like it's not in any way, you know, I'm not trying to do myself any favors by having having a range of different friendships it's just we genuinely really get on she's just a really good friend someone I can confide in with stuff you know we talk about everything there's nothing nothing that's off limits or anything you know um and have you met

each other's friends have you hung out with each other's friendship groups um yeah i mean emily's wedding was good you know at her wedding i sat next to her and it was yeah there was some really good people there and then i said recently emily's done a presentation of women in sport and it was a whole range and she's been out for coffee with my daughters as well and things like that. Yes, it's fine. We've had a lovely text in here saying, I'm 31 and have a lovely friend of 95. We've known each other since I was 12. I know, that's a great guy, isn't it?

We've known each other since I was 12 and our chats have progressed from just J20s and biscuits, I love those, to cocktails and cake. Her perspective on life is wonderful. She gives me advice but also asks my opinion on modern day issues that she wants to understand. I get so much from our friendship and always come away from time with her feeling inspired. How lovely is that?

Yeah. Phenomenal. And that's what friendship's all about, isn't it? It's about putting energy, positive energy into each other. I don't think the age makes a difference at all really it's just adds a different perspective to it yeah absolutely and um yeah maybe it's highly recommended go out there and find friends from a different generation absolutely be out there get out there uh thank you so much for speaking to me sue and emily 84844 is the number to text. Someone else said it's important to have

friendships from different backgrounds to learn and grow personally we're all human and it's important to interact indeed it is. Now writer and broadcaster Liz Fraser has written a memoir about being in a relationship with a man she loves the father of her child who is also an alcoholic. For a time she failed to realize that he had an addiction, let alone how serious it was. And she also kept the often shocking truth of what was going on entirely to herself, trying in vain to help her partner find a path to sobriety. Finally, she started to speak about it. The book is Coming Clean, a true story of love, addiction and recovery. And it came out yesterday. And Liz joins me in the studio.

Welcome. Thank you. Now, the events you described in the book happened so recently. What made you choose to write and publish it so quickly? They did happen very recently. And I suppose with addiction and recovery, it's going to be forever, actually, this story for us. In a way, I didn't decide to write it at a particular time. I wrote it because I needed to start writing this stuff down, really, for myself to make any sense of what had happened.

I wrote the book throughout lockdown. So I started writing it in about March, I suppose, March, April of the first lockdown that we had. And it helped me to put in any sort of order in any way that I could really understand that last what had actually happened. And it's yeah, it's funny that you say that, you know, it was so recent. It's very raw. My editor said to me recently, you know, Liz, I remember your first draft coming in and it was just blistering pain, trauma, rage. And then seeing the next draft come in as you'd given it six months, how you change. And she said, it's like literally like reading somebody living through this. And it is. And it's not just me and my story. And I think that's very important to say.

My partner gave me not only his blessing to write this book, but when he was six months or so into his sobriety, he reached this beautiful sort of sweet spot of suddenly being able to see what had happened to me. And I think that was also through the meetings that he was going to and listening to other accounts for the people. And I remember he came home one day from a meeting and said, Liz, you have to write this. I want you to write this because I couldn't be aware at the time of what I was doing to you and what you went through. And there are so many people in your position and you almost owe it to those people to write this down

because I needed so much help and I didn't know what was going on, as happens to so many people. So I've written it down in case it helps anyone else. You said it yourself, it's raw. I would say it's unflinching. It's incredibly brave. And you are drawn to every page because you want to know what is going to happen. So did I.

Yeah. Well, we're living it. We're living it with you. I'm glad that you say that. I really am. You fell in love and started to live together quite quickly, didn't you? But he already had the addiction, but you just didn't know about it. I don't know whether he had an addiction or whether you see the thing with addiction and with mental health problems is that they're often multifactorial. So you're very rarely just an alcoholic, there's probably an underlying at least one other condition, be it anxiety, depression, it might be ADHD. There are many other factors usually. The drinking very often starts as a buffer for that,

something to dampen these feelings of heightened anxiety or of depression. And unfortunately, with addiction, it just takes over and it is the most selfish thing in the world. And you, the partner, you might, well, you might not recognise any of the signs. And that's something really important to talk about, I think, today. And also, it might take you a very long time to realise that there is absolutely nothing you can do. You are fighting something that is so much greater than you. And whatever you do, and however much you try, you suffer, you give, you hope, you

shout, you scream, you whatever is not even left of you in the end, you have no chance against something as huge as addiction, and it will destroy you. The only person who can who can deal with it or, you know, manage it is is the person who suffers from it so what were the signs that you didn't know to look out for because you do you you know you write about it very early on in the relationship that was one of your first dates that he passed out oh that wasn't a date actually that that wasn't the first year that was just the first time we hung out together and uh yeah look i don't know if I come from an especially sheltered background. I do come from quite a sheltered background.

I could admit that. But what I'm hearing from a lot of other people now, especially, I mean, the coming clean came out yesterday and it landed on a lot of people's doormats yesterday. And I've been inundated by messages from people saying, my God, you are saying every single thing that I felt. And a lot of us don't know, right? What are the signs? They're often very small. It's little inconsistencies. It's things that don't

quite make sense. And then it turns into lies and lies and lies. He would sort of disappear and then not come back on time. And there was always a ready reason. There was a reason. And the trouble is we live in an alcohol-soaked culture right so it's not weird yeah someone to to get super drunk at a stag do or whatever it would be but it was somehow different um and i always excused it and i always said oh you know it's because he's tired or it's because he's injured or it's and then there would be in the way he would pass out was so odd or fall asleep. Like nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. Lucid, fine.

Absolutely fine. Functioning, out cold. And would wake up the next morning and go, yeah, sorry, I guess I was tired. And even then I didn't realize that was odd. And then it started to build. After I had a baby who's now three and a half, there was sort of more frequent. The disappearances were ever more. And then it's only in retrospect, as I started to write the book,

that you can look back and go, all these extra hours you were working, all this extra, the money never, I never saw the money. I was, I just didn't see it. And one of the things I think is very difficult for partners or families of addicts to deal with is how angry you can feel with yourself and how stupid you feel and I felt really really stupid to have not only not noticed all of this stuff but what it obviously was but also that I continued to enable it and let it happen because I'm empathetic and I'm a mother and I'm a pleaser and I and you loved

him exactly I thought it would be okay but I loved him so absolutely it was just not possible to me that this thing was going to come between us you know there's so much I want to talk to you about Liz because the book is just I mean, you move to Venice together. And that was really where it started. It spiraled, didn't it? You were the 10 month old. Yeah. And this is something I think that I've I've learned from. I have a large network now of friends who are addicts of one kind or another, generally now sober or clean. And one of the things that I've heard so often from them is the only constant in addiction is change and reinvention and reinvention because there's a hole in the soul. There's this hole in this person.

They try and fix it, you know, fill it with this. I'll set up a business. I'll, you know, have a baby. I'll start doing this. I'll become a vegan. I'll do a triathlon. It's an obsession of something else, something else. And the move to Venice, right, was not crazy. It was not crazy.

It was, we went there when I was pregnant and we were very happy there. And he said, you know, I love it here. I actually think I could be really happy here. The light and the sea, I'm a photographer. It'd be great. There was lots of work for me as a copywriter, translator. There was plenty of work to be found for him. And we we went so it wasn't like this crazy on a whim hey let's go to venice if anyone listening has ever been to venice you you will know that it's a floating pub and it is absolutely soaked with booze there's no paper trail because you pay in cash you can disappear down all these you know you can be 20 minutes late because in fact it's impossible to stay on time so it descended very very very quickly yeah and it gets it's really you and you you describe the descent and we are living it with you that's the best way I can describe it when you read the

book you'll see for yourself but one thing that stood out for me is that you said that actually you realized um when whilst during that time in Venice how important your girlfriends were the support you got from the women around you. I did not initially. And I do say in the book, I'm really not a girly girl. And the whole sisterhood thing is something that I've never really been a part of. I've never really, I don't know, identified with or felt comfortable with. And I think that's common of many women. Actually, I have one brother and I tended to have more male friends and I have great male friends. But when he finally really fell off the cliff, which was after a period of two and a half months of sobriety,

and this is the thing with alcoholism, it can happen at 10 o'clock on a Tuesday morning and there doesn't appear to be much reason for it. He was then sort of, well, drunk enough or unwell enough that he really couldn't function in much of a helpful way or a well way for quite a long time. And I really was on my own with my daughter who was 18 months at the time. And yes, I did at that point start talking. I ended up traveling with her quite a lot because I couldn't be in Venice. I had nowhere to live in the UK. A friend of mine in Sweden said, hey, come and stay. So I did.

But I ended up talking to, you know, women in parks and on trains. And every single time I said, they were like, you know, why are you here on your own? What are you doing? Oh, my partner's an alcoholic. And boom, straight away. Oh, my God. My ex was. My mother was.

And it was everywhere. And I just started to think wow I had no idea and the progression of alcoholism and I think this is a really important thing to say because coming clean is a book not just for partners or families it's also for alcoholics or people who think they may may have a problem it's a progressive disease it will only get worse that's the only way it's going to go is worse. And it reached the point with me where there was not just mental and psychological abuse, but, you know, physical. You know, there was violence.

And when you find yourself in a situation like that and you are actually threatened very seriously and terrible things happened you don't really know what to do because you're looking at the person that you do know who you knew was was lovely and you love but they've now become so ravaged by this disease that they're actually barely human at this point and worse still I became dehumanized so there was nothing he couldn't do or say to me because I almost didn't exist to him anymore as a person because he was just filled I think I hope I hope what I'm saying is correct and we have talked about this a lot and it's all in the book um it becomes dangerous because you're not dealing with a normally functioning person. And then what do you do?

That's the thing. What do you do? How many times do you say, come back? Come back until you decide. And actually, you know what's interesting? You had a career. You have a family. You had teenage children.

You're very much a woman in control of your life in your early 40s and he you're unrecognizable even to yourself yeah it's interesting so I'm reading the book I think why and I'm sure lots of people have said it's the obvious question why not just step away well this is probably a very good time to start talking about gaslighting yeah and psychological manipulation and control because yes you're right you know on paper and demonstrably I like many people listening to this as well am very capable competent smart you know successful sane very sane if you spend a lot of time with somebody who tells you you're mad and says I told you I was coming home late no we I didn't say that um you know even if it's things like even if someone is you have boundaries

and you say if you swear at me if you swear at me in this house you I'm going to ask you to leave the house they swear at you could you leave the house please just for a minute oh are you kicking me out so you're kicking me out are you no I'm not kicking you out. I'm saying that that's beyond my boundaries. So you want me to go now? And you end up, you're told you're mad. I was told other people think I'm mad. This is, you know, continues. I've got people who will testify that you're mad,

you're crazy. You see, you start to believe it or you start to question your own sanity. Maybe I am. And also your own behavior has now changed to the point that, you know, maybe when someone's being horrendous to you, you break to the point. So I started self harming. I'm sorry, if this is a trigger for anybody, so I won't go into any detail. But can you imagine the distress a human has to be in to seek relief from pain by hurting themselves and then to be told, you're crazy. Look at you.

You're mad. You do that. You shouldn't be near a child, actually. Oh, my goodness. Your head is just spinning at this point. When actually you just need love and you need support. And how are you now and how is the relationship between you now? Because the book came out yesterday.

He doesn't come across very well in quite a lot of the book. And you put in a lot of horrible, nasty messages that he sent you. And we learn about the gas lines, you know, we're living through it. But how are things between you now? But I hope, and this has been a great response, has been how compassionate it is. At any time, in fact, I even say I feel terrible writing some of this stuff because I know this wasn't, you know, he didn't mean to be this way. So I do, I'm very clear on that.

Well, you ask how we are now. He actually left me about seven weeks ago tomorrow at 10 to 2 approximately. And this is not the first time. This is the fourth, fifth, sixth. I don't know time that he's sort of done this and i respect his decision of course and everybody has the right to to choose to live how they want to live it came as an absolute shock to me because i thought we were just about to get things really in order and lockdown was open over and our daughter's nearly four but it's this restlessness and you see it building anyone listening who lives with someone in this way you see the signs and i saw it and i tried i tried i tried i have to say for anybody

listening though liz um ai uh anon is available alan alan is an organization for partners of alcoholics and of course we will be putting up links to various websites that can support you if you are going through with anything similar to what Liz has been through on our website. Liz, thank you so much for coming in and speaking to me this morning. The book is out now and it's called Coming Clean, a true story of love and addiction. And thank you to all of you who messaged during the show today. Have a lovely weekend. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hello there, I'm Richard Osman. Before you go, go yes i know you've switched off already but in case you haven't i want to tell you about my new radio 4 podcast

the birthday cake game a brand new comedy quiz that poses one simple question do you know how old people are by which i mean how old say is bruce willis hmm now i know all you're doing now is thinking about how old bruce willis is and listening to me, but I can tell you each episode I'm joined by three celebrity guests who battle against each other to see how old celebrities are that week. Richard Gere. I'm still enjoying the assertion that Richard Gere has always been old. What a beautiful baby, Mrs Gere. Unusual grey hair.

So old, your baby. The winner takes home a birthday cake. A very special birthday cake from a supermarket I can't mention in the shape of an insect I can't mention. You know the one I'm talking about. So tune in to find out who comes on top and see if you can beat the players and score higher at home. That's the birthday cake game. Listen and subscribe right now on BBC Sounds. How old is Bruce Willis? I'm Sarah Treleaven and for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies.

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

It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.