Woman's Hour - Isabella Tree, Emma Caldwell case, Baroness Delyth Morgan

Episode Date: June 10, 2024

Nearly 300 rapes and sexual assaults reported by sex workers during the Emma Caldwell murder investigation were not dealt with by police at the time, the BBC has learned. 276 reports of sex crimes made by sex workers working in Glasgow during the murder inquiry were filed away and not acted upon. Investigate journalist Sam Poling, whose work was pivotal in bringing Emma Caldwell’s killer, Iain Packer, to justice in February of this year, joins Clare McDonnell to discuss, along with former Detective Sergeant Willie Mason. Baroness Delyth Morgan, the chief executive of Breast Cancer Now, the largest breast cancer charity, is stepping down after 23 years. She joined Breakthrough Breast Cancer in 1995, where she led fundraising efforts that resulted in the opening of the UK's first dedicated breast cancer research facility in 1999. The crossbench peer, who sits in the House of Lords, joins Clare McDonnell to reflect on her tenure as well as the treatment and outlook for breast cancer. Conservationist Isabella Tree tells Clare about turning her failing farmland estate into one of Europe's most significant rewilding experiments. Her bestselling book about the Knepp Estate project has now been made into a film. Later this week, Wilding is released in cinemas. Virginie Viard, the creative director at Chanel, has announced her resignation from the fashion house. Only three people have held this prestigious position in the brand’s 114-year history: Viard, Karl Lagerfeld, and Coco Chanel. Who is in the frame for this esteemed role? And what will be the impact of a change in creative vision at Chanel on the fashion industry at large? Clare talks to Justine Picardie, writer and biographer of Coco Chanel, and Victoria Moss, fashion director at the Evening Standard. Presenter: Clare McDonnell Producer: Dianne McGregor

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, this is Claire Macdonald and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Good morning and welcome to Woman's Hour. I'm here to keep you company for the next few days. Now, it took the police in Scotland almost 20 years to bring Emma Caldwell's killer to justice. 27-year-old Emma was working in Glasgow as a sex worker to fund her heroin addiction when Ian Packer murdered her. Now, a BBC investigation has revealed that almost 300 rapes and sexual assaults reported by sex workers during that murder investigation were not dealt with by police at the time.

We're going to be hearing on the programme today from Sam Poling, the journalist who's been immersed in this story for years, and the former detective who says witness statements he collected from victims were simply shelved. She's a woman who's led the largest breast cancer charity in the country for over 20 years. Now Baroness Deleth Morgan has decided to step down. Baroness Morgan will join me in the Woman's Hour studio

to talk through how her sister's diagnosis of breast cancer started her on this journey and her hopes for, in the future, a potential cure. And... Just beautiful, the rare sound of a turtle dove singing alongside a blackbird. Now that was recorded at the rewilded Knepp Estate, where my guest, author and conservationist Isabella Tree lives. And a new film, Wilding, tells of her decision to let nature take over her

and her husband's five-mile square farm. It's quite a tale. Now, if buying an iconic Chanel quilted handbag will set you back £11,000, why on earth should any of us living in the real world of rising rents, mortgages and food bills care about who takes over as head of one of the world's most famous fashion brands?

Well, here is why. Virginie Viard, the creative director, has announced her resignation and only three people have held that position in the fashion brand's 114-year history. Where Chanel leads, of course, the high street inevitably follows. We'll be finding out why its influence and appeal still endures. And Billie Eilish on being ghosted. I had a crazy ghosting happen actually this December. It was insane. It's probably the craziest one that's ever happened to me.

I was like, did you die? Did you literally die? It was like somebody that I'd also known for years and had a plan. Day of, on the phone, making a plan, this is my address, Be there at three. Never heard from him again. Couldn't believe it. Let me know if you've been ghosted. One of music's biggest stars you just heard are there. Billie Eilish has been. It is when a friend or romantic prospect suddenly

cuts off all communication with you without explanation. Have you? Maybe you've done it or had it done to you. You can text me. This is the number you need. 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. On social media, we are at BBC Woman's Hour. And of course, as always, you can email us through our website. Now let's start with the latest discovery from the investigation into the murder of emma caldwell to remind you emma was a 27 year old sex worker in glasgow when in 2005 her body was found naked in a remote wood the investigation into her murder became known as one of scotland's most high profile unsolved cases until a bbc investigation paved the way for the arrest and eventual conviction of Ian Packer, 19 years after Emma was murdered. Ian Packer was found guilty of the crime

in February this year, as well as attacks on 22 women, including 11 rapes. Well, today we can bring you news that nearly 300 rapes and sexual assaults reported by sex workers during the Emma Caldwell murder investigation were not dealt with by police at the time. The BBC Scotland reporter who's been across this from the very start and whose work was pivotal in bringing Ian Packer to justice is Sam Poling. And Sam joins me now. Good morning. Good morning. Let's take our listeners back to the very start of this story. Remind us who Emma was. Yeah, Emma, as you say, she was a 27-year-old woman. Her sister died of cancer and she was incredibly grief-stricken about this. She was struggling and her boyfriend

at the time introduced her to heroin and she very quickly became addicted and moved up to Glasgow where she started working on the streets of Glasgow as a sex worker to fund that addiction. And it was in 2005, April 2005, that she went missing and her body was found five weeks later in remote woods about an hour's drive from Glasgow. I mean, incredibly remote, so difficult to find. And it was a massively high profile case, as you say, not least because the original murder inquiry into Emma's murder, they wrongly arrested and charged four men with killing Emma. The inquiry team spent four million pounds. They spent two years on this police inquiry. In it, they launched one of the most sophisticated

surveillance operations in the country against these four men, only for the case to collapse years on this police inquiry. In it, they launched one of the most sophisticated surveillance operations in the country against these four men, only for the case to collapse in 2007, because the evidence that they got was just plain wrong. And the case went cold. When did Ian Packer then become a person of interest for the police? Immediately. I mean, almost immediately, within weeks of Emma's murder, he was spoken to. The police started to take statements from women and women were telling them about a violent man who had a van. They described the van. And one night, this man is stopped in the red light district and the van matches the description.

And it's Ian Packer. And he's brought in to give a statement. His photograph is taken. And women start to pick him out of the police photo books. That's the man who's been violent. That's the man who's raped me. And they start to identify him as that's a man who raped Emma in the year before she went missing.

So this man becomes central to this investigation. Women also start to identify him as being a man that's taken them to some remote woods about an hour's drive from Glasgow. You know where I'm going with this. It's the same woods where Emma's body was found, the same remote woods where Emma's body was found. Ian Packer himself is asked by the police, show us where you take women. And he gets in the police car and he directs them and they end up an hour's drive from Glasgow down in these same remote woods.

But the inquiry continued to focus on these four men who were arrested and charged until the case collapsed. And the case went cold, as I say, until 2015, when the Sunday Mail newspaper named Ian Packer as a potential suspect. Another investigation was launched. And again, nothing happened. Why did it take so long then, Sam, for justice to be served? I think it was largely down to attitudes at the time. These were prostitutes. They were drug addicts. They weren't believed. They were silenced very often. You're going to hear in a minute from Willie Mason as to why they were silenced or how they were silenced. And, you know, Ian Packer was only

really brought to light again because he came to me wanting his name cleared. I went to investigate and discovered that after many months of meeting this man, the killer that I'm looking for was him. I mean, it's incredible. You can still see that interview on the BBC iPlayer. That must have been quite something being in the same room as him. Well, yes, because I'd been meeting this man for months and I'm thinking, OK, you know, no smoke without fire. Maybe it was these Turkish men. Why did the case collapse? And all the while I'm investigating the case, not realising that he is the man that I'm looking for. Not just Emma's killer, but a serial rapist.

I mean, multiple reports of attacks by this man. It's your dogged determination that has helped put him behind bars. But today we have the news that nearly 300 rapes and sexual assaults reported by sex workers you've just mentioned during that Emma Caldwell murder investigation were not dealt with by police at the time. Unsurprising given the attitudes that you've just described. But tell us more about what you've discovered.

So as I was investigating Packer, I started to find statements that women were giving at the time to the police inquiry team. And I kept reading the same thing over and over again. They would be asked, did you know Emma? Did you know any violent clients that she had? And typically they'd say, yes, I knew Emma. I didn't know her violent clients. But I have a violent client. I was raped a month ago. I was sexually assaulted six months ago. They'd give details of properties, addresses, details of cars

in which these attacks happened. And I couldn't find anything happening to these reports. And the more I started to investigate, I discovered that 276 offences were reported at the time to the Merge Inquirer team. And nothing happened. You mentioned Willie Mason. Let's bring Willie in now. Former Detective Sergeant Willie Mason, who worked on the inquiry in 2005. Good morning. Good morning. Thanks so much for joining us. I understand you were based on a bus run by a church group, which we're very familiar with these buses. They park each week in certain areas of town to keep people

safe. This bus parked in the red light district. So what had you been asked to do? Well, first of all, let me defend the real detectives that were on this case, the guys who knew the truth. Not everyone was the same. This was the senior management team that were so bloody minded and career driven that they just pushed everything to the side, despite being told time and time again. And it cost a lot of us our careers and it cost a lot of us, you know, to end our time in the police very unhappy and unsettled. Yes, because you no longer work for the police.

I mean, I guess what you went through in this particular case may be led to that. But tell us what happened. What were you told when you were on this bus and by whom? I went on to the Salt and Light bus, which was a church in Glasgow who looked after the sex workers in Glasgow at that time, provided them with a safe haven for cups of tea, soup on a winter's night, and an ear to be listened to.

And sometimes the church workers would take them upstairs and say a wee prayer for them. They were basically trying to look after the girls. I went onto the bus many, many nights. It was a Tuesday or a Thursday night every week for weeks and weeks and I put in countless numbers of intelligence forms and reports from prostitutes that they had been assaulted. I even put in a handbag with about 200 registration numbers of a car on it and I ended up buying the girl a new handbag to replace it. She used to take note of the car registration numbers when she saw one of her fellow sex workers getting in. And time and time again we asked at briefings what's happening to all these reports and we were told they'll be

dealt with by another inquiry team at another time but we really all knew that that would never happen. And why do you think it never happened? Because the persons who were in charge of the investigation were determined to show the new Chief Constable Stephen House that they were the new kids on the block and that they were going to be career-driven and they would drive the CID to where it should be. But they were really, they were incapable of doing that and they just lied their way through this whole inquiry, spent almost £5 million

and basically they just hid everything away from the Chief Constable and the powers to be and ploughed on forward in their own careers. We're going to hear from Police Scotland in just a second, because Sam has been speaking to somebody there. But you're essentially saying that all the evidence you passed over just got boxed, just got shelved. That's absolutely what happened. We call it boxing in the police. It was all boxed, put in a cupboard and forgotten about because there was just so much of it that

they weren't able to deal with it. They had already ploughed all their money and resources into these four Turkish men and the ground staff on this inquiry, myself and the other people who have spoken to Sam Pollan knew that Ian Packer was the main suspect

we knew Ian Packer killed Emma Caldwell all those years ago and we were bullied, just bullied into keeping quiet Sam, the reaction to this then, what you've uncovered today with the help of Willie Yeah, well

you imagine being one of these women and hearing now that the report that you made was just disregarded. It wasn't an accident. It wasn't a slip up. As Willie says, these reports were simply ignored. So the women are angry, understandably. They say it goes towards the way they were treated at the time by the

police. They were disregarded because they were prostitutes, because they were drug addicts. And they would often find themselves to be the focus of police attention rather than what they were reporting. One woman told me that when she tried to report an attack to police they arrested her for prostitution instead. There was twice I went to report things and taken up there by uniformed officers in a car and then ended up myself for a Section 46 because I was out in the streets working and they would do nothing else with the rest of the information.

I would just be in a cell. I mean, what's even more shocking about this particular victim's story is that the man she was trying to report as someone who had attacked her, actually it was two attacks she was reporting, it was ironically Ian Packer that she was trying to report is someone who had attacked her. Actually, it was two attacks she was reporting. It was, ironically, Ian Packer that she was trying to report. Not only was it not taken seriously, she was the one arrested. Let's just bring Willie back in for a second.

You've kind of alluded to this, Willie. Is this indicative of the culture of the police at the time? Not all, but some? Well, not all, but some, yeah. I mean, a lot of the time what Sam has told you and what that victim has told you is correct it was the easy way out for the police

you know charge them with a section 46 and lock them up and that way it will go away nobody will believe them and I'm afraid that was a lot of the culture and it was indicative at the time right through the police force but especially at senior officer level you know I mean

it was this particular inquiry not all senior officers you know were rotten but this particular inquiry they were Sam you mentioned you've been speaking to Police Scotland what have they had to say about this well I should say that the investigating force at the time into Emma's murder was

Strathclyde Police that no longer longer exists. We have a single national force, Police Scotland. They've already apologised publicly for the police having let Emma and her family down, as well as the victims of Packer, because of the way the original merger inquiry was run. And I should say something that Willie said, which is not all officers did a bad job. I've spoken to numerous officers who did the most incredible work and they were named by the judge in the sentencing of Packer for the professional way that they operated but the deputy chief constable for Police Scotland Bec Smith has said now that a separate operation was launched into the offences that I'm talking about which were

ignored she says a number of them are now going through the criminal courts and she encourages women to report crimes regardless of how long ago they occurred. Time is no barrier to justice. And if women feel like they want to come forward and report now, then absolutely it's the time to do that. I think one of the sad things about this, Claire, is that many of the women who made the reports back in 2005, they're now dead. So they won't ever see the justice that they deserve to see. Willie, final word to you. How do you look back at your time? You're clearly a very conscientious detective who wanted to help these women.

How does this whole episode leave you feeling? Well, it ruined my final years in the police. I mean, I did my full time. I did my 30 years and retired. But I voluntarily left the CID because of bullying from the senior officers. You know, basically letting you know that I was put off the inquiry because I kept asking for the Ian Packer inquiry. And I was kept told there was no Ian Packer inquiry the Turks had done it and I just kept saying well that's not true, we know who done it and we were just bullied out Thank you so much for joining us former Detective Sergeant Willie Mason

you also heard there, thanks to Sam Poling and you can hear her podcast Who Killed Emma on BBC Sounds it's still up there so do give it a listen and as we just heard there from Sam, Police Scotland has encouraged women to report crimes regardless of how long ago they occurred. And those investigations are ongoing now. Now, after 23 years as the chief executive of the largest breast cancer charity, Breast Cancer Now, Deleth Morgan is stepping down.

She joined the charity Breakthrough Breast Cancer in 1995 and led fundraising efforts which resulted in the opening of the UK's first dedicated breast cancer research facility in 1999. In 2005, she joined the House of Lords and was a Labour government minister for four years before returning to the charity sector, where she led the mergers that brought together the then three leading breast cancer charities to form Breast Cancer Now. She sits in the Lords as a crossbencher. Delighted to say Baroness Morgan joins me live in the Women's Hour studio. Good morning. Good morning. Great to have you here.

Let's start with why now? Why have you chosen to stand down now? Well, in truth, it is a huge responsibility to lead Breast Cancer Now. I feel the responsibility for supporting all the amazing research that we fund, all the campaigning and the support services. And just after a while, it just becomes a lot to deal with. And I think somebody new with lots of energy coming in, it's the right time for the charity. And also for me, you know, a's a very emotional kind of roller coaster to and it's time for someone to really come in and and take the charity to the next stage. How did that impact your work in this sector with your sister who has secondary breast cancer and still alive which is she's she's bucked every single trend hasn't she? She has and I think she would describe

herself as being a miracle of modern science. And, you know, obviously, it's great that she has. But, you know, it is a roller coaster. And I think, to be honest, when you're leading an organisation that is so purposeful, you know, it's all about trying to stop women dying of breast cancer, trying to make sure that there are the best possible services available to everyone who's affected when you've got it's a double-edged sword because when you've got that personal connection it really drives you on and helps you to understand what people are going through and but at the same time it means that you know it can be you know makes it quite tough sometimes and but it keeps it sounds really corny but it it keeps it real. So it's meant a lot.

So it was a personal mission as much as a professional one. Yes. And I think, you know, we're all put on this earth. We want to make a difference. And, you know, I studied science at university and I thought, oh, I'm going to go off and be a research scientist and everything. But actually, when the opportunity to serve in the charity sector came along, I found that that suited me really well. And so it's been an enormous privilege to have that opportunity to make a difference for so many people's lives. Well, you really have done that. Let's look back. I mean, the attitude towards breast cancer when

you first came into the charity sector, it's really changed hasn't it um let's talk about your first job at breakthrough breast cancer 1995 you say no one talked about breast or cancer in public and it was around the time and if people don't know where the pink ribbons came from they came from an unusual source didn't they well yes so what happened was it's actually yesterday lauder makeup counters they put out a little basket of free pink ribbons on their makeup counters. And that's where it came from. And it really was a kind of reinterpretation of the red ribbon from the AIDS movement.

And so then we, as the charity in the UK, we really picked it up and we made pink sparkly ribbons and we did all sorts of interpretations just to raise funds and to raise awareness because at the time it really was a taboo. And I think there was a women's own at the time described breast cancer as the hidden epidemic. You know, so it there was a mountain to climb to get over that that taboo and to talk about breast cancer in public because even then we knew that if you could get breast cancer diagnosed as early as possible then the treatment is so much more successful. So there was a real need to get awareness out there

and actually now, even now, the screening programme is still operating at less than 70% take-up which is a real worry because by being diagnosed at stage one, that's where you get the really great survival rates and that's really important now as it was then. Why do you think that is? Well, I think there are lots of reasons, I think,

why the screening programme did struggle during the pandemic and we saw over a million screens missed during the pandemic. But I think there's been a real kind of lack of drive and kind of advertising and marketing to get the screening take up again. And particularly for women from black communities, from South Asian communities, where there are concerns about what screening actually means. We should be targeting campaigns for these communities. And the screening programme, NHS England and the devolved health authorities could do so much more and it would make such a lot of difference. Why do you think they're not?

I just think people just take it for granted, really, that the screening programme is there. If you don't keep putting the effort in and keep educating the public about screening, then everyone's really busy. People have got lives to live, children, grandchildren to look after. So, you know, you have to keep getting that message through. Is that in a sense? Do you feel like you've been a victim of your own success? Because people look at breast cancer and awareness and pink ribbons and they think, well, that one's sorted. It's never sorted, is it? No, and I think that's a really good point because, yes, we do have awareness now and, you know, much more so. But we still see 11,500 women die a year of breast cancer and 85 men. So, you know, we're still seeing a lot of lives lost.

And if the diagnosis could be better, if the treatment could be better, if, you know, the support and information and all of that could be better, then the outcomes would be so much more kind of, you know, ripe for the 21st century, you know. And we've got now, again, the victim of success. If you think about how treatment has improved over the last 20 years, we're now seeing more women like my sister living for longer with secondary metastatic breast cancer which is incurable and so we need to make sure that the new and better treatments come online as quickly as possible so we're campaigning for access to say you know at the moment the focus is on a new drug called nher2 which is for women with her2 low breast cancer so it's a particular type about a thousand women will have that

potential to benefit from this drug so we're campaigning for that through through you know putting calling for nhs england nice and um and the drug companies astrazeneca and dhc sankyo to get together around the table and agree to make that drug available. So it's not done. There's so much more to do. Absolutely. I mean, just to go back to screening, because all women age 50 and up to their 71st birthday are invited for breast screening every three years. But obviously, younger women get breast cancer. So that's an issue as well, as you said, of awareness. But women over 71 as well, what needs to change there? Well, I think we absolutely need to make sure that, you know, younger women and older women get the respect of the system,

if you like. So for younger women, the mechanisms of screening are not as effective because of denser breasts. So there needs to be a better focus on understanding individual women's risk of breast cancer. So if you're at a higher risk, then you get more screening. If you're at a lower risk, then you may be allowed to get on with your life. And then older women. So, yes, you can refer yourself for screening if that's what you know. And I would always recommend that carry on on going for screening if you can. I certainly will when I'm over 70. But also you need to be treated as an individual because there are assumptions made about older women and are treated as individuals according to their individual health needs rather than treated as a number.

Do you think that there's quite a lot of ageism at play here then? I think there is. And there's also limited evidence around the research because research kind of stops at a cut-off age, about 70. So you can rightly say, oh, oh well there isn't evidence to show that so and so would benefit from this and that but actually i think if you think about the person individually and their how healthy they are and how well they could tolerate surgery or radiotherapy or chemotherapy even you know you you have to look at the individual and and and tailor for their needs i mean you mentioned new treatments, progress continuing. And just last week, here on Woman's Hour, we reported on a new blood test that could help predict if breast cancer will return years before it shows up on scans. So are you hopeful for a

cure, I guess, at some point in the future? I am. I couldn't do what I've done for so long and not be hopeful because you do see some of the most incredible science and the idea of being able to predict the return of breast cancer or the likelihood of it is, you know, that is the one thing that most women, when they come to the end of their primary breast cancer treatment, they want to know, is it going to come back? And to be able to say, yes, you're in that particular group or the chances of it are really slim, to have that clarity would make so much difference. And then you could bring forward treatments that might be given later on once there is a reoccurrence. So you could get the benefit earlier. And there are lots of new immunotherapy coming down the track, lots of greater understanding

of all the different types of breast cancer and understanding how some treatments that say used in lung cancer could be used in breast cancer and then also really importantly more understanding of when treatments aren't working so that you can then move on to the next thing that does but it's all about making sure that there's an agile health system that can adopt these new treatments and new ways of doing things as quickly as possible. And that's why the campaigning and access and fairness is so important. And that's why what the charity, I hope, will continue to do in the future will be really important. And you see somewhere down the line, we would have access to treatments and drugs in the same way that if you have asthma, you could kind of just put that in your day to day life. You can kind of treat yourself at home and going about your business. You think we'll get that far? Because when you see, say, women like my sister, it's not been easy for her at all.

But there is something else and there is something else. And so it's possible to have some good quality of life. And that's what we need. We don't just want women to live. We want women to live well and enjoy life and have the support that they need to be fulfilled for the future. And I think there's a real, real prospect of that happening. Lots of people texting the programme, just a couple to put your way.

Please go for your regular screening. I am thankful I did and I am on track to surgery, the best service I have received. This one, not so good from Rose. Thanks for getting in touch, Rose. I was so traumatised by the actual experience of breast screening one day, some years ago, when a very angry woman,

who'd either been having a hard day or maybe worse, handled me so brutally I had to ask her to stop the session. I got dressed and left and haven't had a screening since. I did let a couple of people know, including my GP, without going into detail, I was afraid, and thought she did encourage me, the GP, to go back. I've yet to find the courage and I'm about to turn 60, says Rose. What would you say to Rose?

I'm really sorry to hear that. It's very, very unusual to hear such a story and no one should experience that poor experience. And I think, you know, I've been to screening a few times and, you know, it's wrong to pretend that it's it's not something you know that is it can be uncomfortable and you are your your breasts are moved around by the radiographer to be put to put them in the right place and so one relies on those radiographers and they are I'm sure the vast majority of the time really supportive and really sensitive that doesn't mean to say that sometimes it can't go wrong. And so I'm very sorry to hear about that. But please don't give up,

give it another go. Just see if it will be okay this time. We hope you do, Rose. And thank you so much for coming in, Baroness Morgan. I know you're going to be, you're not completely disappearing. You're going to join Breast Cancer Now as a volunteer, which I suppose you would encourage everybody to do. Yes, I mean, volunteering is the most fulfilling thing to do if you find the thing that really clicks for you. So I shall be doing my volunteering for the charity. And I hope very much to keep, you know, keep informed of all the research developments and be there for the charity whenever they need me. You're going to be a tough act to follow. Thank you so much for dropping by the Woman's Hour studio. That is the soon-to-be former chief executive of Breast Cancer Now,

Baroness Deleth Morgan. Lovely to meet you. Thank you. Now, you cannot have missed the fact that it's less than a month until the general election. Party manifestos are coming out this week. Here on Woman's Hour, we have plans to speak to the leaders of all of the seven main parties,

starting with Reenap Yorwath, leader of Plaid Cymru, who'll be joining me in the Woman's Hour studio on Wednesday. Next week, Nuala will be hosting a special extended election debate between senior women representatives of the main parties.

That's on Tuesday, the 18th of June for an hour and a half from 10am. So you'll be able to call in with your questions for them. But you don't have to wait until then to let us know what you would like to ask. All you have to do is text WOMENSHOUR on 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. You can check with your network provider for exact costs as well. On social media, we are at BBC Woman's Hour and you can email us through the website.

Lots of you getting in touch about ghosting. We'll read some of your text out in just a moment, but thank you for those in advance. We're going to talk about Chanel now. Virginie Viard, the creative director who took over at Chanel from Karl Lagerfeld after his death in 2019, has announced her resignation from the fashion house. Only three people have held the position in the fashion brand's 114-year history.

Villar, Lagerfeld and, of course, Coco Chanel herself. So who is in the frame for this prestigious role and what will the impact of change of creative vision at Chanel be on the fashion industry at large? Delighted to say I'm joined by Justine Picardy, writer, biographer and author of Coco Chanel, The Legend and The Life and Victoria Moss, fashion director at The Evening Standard. Welcome, both of you. Hi. Great to have you on the programme. Justine, let us start with you. Tell us a little bit about Virginie Viard. Well, Virginie actually has been right hand and his left hand.

So I suppose she represented continuity for the brand. And I always say that Karl Lagerfeld was fluent in the language of Chanel. He really understood the language of this remarkable woman, Coco Chanel, the founder who set up the company in 1910, at a time when women in France didn't even have the right to vote and whose vision was such that women should be afforded the same sartorial dignity that had hitherto been denied to women and was really only available to men. And so the continuity, the understanding of legacy that Virginie had was very important.

And that transition, I would say, after Karl's death. Victoria, let's bring you in. She was, as we just heard from Justine, the continuity candidate, shall we say. But Karl Lagerfeld really blew up the brand and took it in all kinds of directions. And she was much more kind of quiet and behind the scenes. So will they be looking for the next Karl Lagerfeld, do you think? I would think yes. I mean, I think what you can say about Chanel is they've obviously been very conservative with their designers in that they had Karl for such a long tenure and then they kept on his right hand as Justine said. So I think it's interesting to see what they'll do next. It is sort of touted as

like the biggest role in fashion. Chanel is one of the most recognisable brands I think if not the most recognisable brand in the world. So it's something that everyone is familiar with Chanel with the tweed jacket, with the handbags, with the ballet pumps and the perfume. So it does sort of resonate with lots of people. And it's whether, you know, Carl was really great at creating these sort of really viral, hot moments. He was a real sort of marketing talent. And Virginie's collections didn't quite have the same cut through as he did. And he was obviously a really omnipresent character who was, you know, always quoted kind of saying something slightly controversial or so he was very present, whereas

she sort of hasn't been in that way. So it's whether they want someone who will step into that real Carl role of being this larger than life figure or someone who's going to concentrate more on the design. Justine, that's always the risk, isn't it? With such a well-loved brand fashion house. I went to the recent exhibition at the V&A. It's absolutely jaw-dropping the vision that she had and how that vision has been carried through and curated so carefully down the decades. Talk us through some of the names in the frame and why you think they would be good at the job, essentially. Well, I think, first of all, it's worth saying that Chanel, my educated guess is they're not going to rush into anything. They're still a privately owned company. They're still owned by the Wertheimer family who first went into business with Coco Chanel in the early 1920s.

And the other thing I think is worth mentioning is that Virginie was hugely commercially successful for the brand. time of, as you said at the beginning of the programme, of economic uncertainty. You know, nevertheless, profits went up under Virginie and sales went up a staggering amount. You know, they doubled. So I don't think that Chanel was, that the company was unhappy with what Virginie was delivering. As to who will be replaced, well, you could say sort of all the usual suspects whose names are mentioned when a big position becomes available. I mean, personally, I would like to see a woman take the role. And because the house was founded by a woman. And I think there is still a problematic sexism in fashion. There are fewer women heading big brands or running a successful brand than there would have been in the 1920s when Chanel was at the height of her powers and and and chanel herself passionately believed in what we now

know is the female gaze that it it is different what a woman thinks um another woman might enjoy wearing might well be different to what a man thinks so when we think of the senior women who are working at a high level in fashion today, they are people like Sarah Burton, who's recently departed from Alexander McQueen to be replaced by a man. I mean, I think she's a strong contender. Maria Grazia Chiuri, who's been hugely successful at Dior and who's absolutely steadfast in her commitment to solidarity with other women, to championing feminism. I think that these are interesting names. Claire Waite Keller, who is an English woman like Sarah, very successful at Chloe. And then at Givenchy, she, like Sarah, doesn successful at Chloe and then at Givenchy.

She, like Sarah, doesn't have a position at the moment. I mean, I have no idea whether anybody would take any notice of what somebody like I think. Oh, we are. That's a brilliant list. A woman. Victoria, I mean, it is staggering, isn't it? What Justine just said there that there's fewer women heading up fashion houses now big name fashion houses and they were in the 1920s

do you think it's important that it's a woman? Yes absolutely I mean I think that it's it's always it is obviously slightly depressing that women aren't in these in these high profile roles at these houses and I think that's partly because they've become these kind of huge business juggernauts. And, you know, those jobs are insanely vast in what you're expected to do and the reach and the pressure that people are under. That's obviously not to say that women shouldn't be in those roles, of course,

but I think those brands have become something very different than they were when Coco Chanel started out with her hat shop. So it's difficult. And I think, you know, Sarah Burton would be incredible. Claire Wake Keller, I think, is a really interesting

and interesting choice as well. Someone like Phoebe Philo would be incredible, who's also British. So she was previously at Celine and she's now started her own label sort of the last year. So whether she'd want to go back and run one of these huge jobs, you know, it's the job that is your whole life. There's no kind of off switch. There's no sort of going home at five

o'clock. It is this kind of all encompassing thing. And I think if you look at, you know, someone like John Galliano, who again is a name that sort of peopleencompassing thing. And I think if you look at, you know, someone like John Galliano, who again is a name that sort of people are touting around, and in the documentary about him, which came out a couple of months ago, and he obviously had this sort of terrible fall from grace from Dior. But when you watch that documentary and you see the amount of collections he was expected to produce and the pressure he was under, you know, you can understand

obviously he had addiction problems and lots of other issues but these are kind of slightly poison chalice jobs I think now yeah it gives you an insight into the huge pressure final brief word from both of you I just said coming into this that Chanel handbag now a few years back you could say I'll save up for that three thousand pounds and now eleven thousand pounds yeah um and we all understand the name and we all understand why it's so important um it's it's a legacy uh label that you know we all love but why should it be important to women's listeners listening now when they think well that's just something so far out of my reach why should why should i. Why should I care? Why should they care, Justine?

I think that, you know, plenty of people, of course, the vast majority of people are never going to be able to afford to buy a Chanel handbag or a tweed jacket or whatever. But nevertheless, what Coco Chanel stood for is meaningful, is relevant. It's women being able to dress for themselves rather than necessarily a man's idea of how a woman should look. So it's a way of life. I mean, listeners can't see us, but you and I are both wearing stripy tops. We are. And, you know, you can buy a cotton stripy Brett on top of the kind that Chanel popularized in the 1920s. And that's thanks to Chanel. I've got short bobbed hair. That's thanks to Chanel. And you might think you're going to buy yourself a Chanel red lipstick, which is much more affordable. Or you might associate the scent of Chanel No. 5 with a sort of very powerful emotional memory of a mother or of oneself. So I think the emotions and memories and the affinity

that you can feel with Chanel isn't monetary. Victoria, final word to you? Yeah, I think, you know, we're talking about Chanel on Women's Hour. So it's obviously a brand that really resonates and people are interested in. And I think when the new designer is announced, it will only heighten that brand's the awareness of what people are talking about. So spot on talking about the female gaze, I could literally have bought and worn everything in that exhibition at the V&A. It wasn't just a feast for the eyes. Thank you so much for coming on the programme.

Justine Picardy, writer, biographer and author of Coco Chanel, The Legend and the Life and Victoria Moss, fashion director at the Evening Standard. Lovely to meet both of you. Thank you. Thanks so much for coming along. And thank you to everybody listening

who's been texting in. We were mentioning earlier about Billie Eilish, music superstar who's been ghosted she talks about this in a bbc podcast uh she was ghosted by a former um squeeze shall we say um this i was go i ghosted a friend using the excuse of lockdown so she couldn't come to my house she was manipulative and just used me for money and to drive her places the final straw was her smoking whilst holding my baby I realized she had no respect for me or my family um this one no name on this one either I'm a lesbian and was ghosted for about six years ago by a woman I was chatting to on a dating site we've been chatting for a couple of weeks every day several times a day

and had arranged to meet up she'd given me her address for me to go around on the day she stopped all communications when i was trying to confirm the time my messages weren't being delivered and i'm assuming i was blocked there was never an explanation just all communication withdrawn everything was fine the day before i would have been fine if she told me that she changed her mind but she chose to ghost me instead. And this, no name, please put your names on. We'd love to know who's getting in touch with this. I haven't ghosted or lost touch with people quite a few times.

Sometimes people just move on. But I took a conscious decision last year when I was 60 to move on from an old school friend. There was good reason to think she'd never liked me. And every time I saw her her she would criticize me and belittle me I'd known her for 50 years and I just thought I'm much too old to celebrate my birthday with people who don't like me I don't wish her ill but the last time I saw her even she knew she'd gone too far thank you for all of your communications on the program this morning and I think that was a very positive move,

whoever that was who texted in that you made. So well done, you. Now, here's a question. What springs to mind when you try to picture a beautiful British landscape? Rolling fields with hedgerows, maybe a few oak trees as well. Well, my next guest,

the travel journalist turned conservationist, Isabella Tree, wants to change your mind on that. In 2000, Isabella and her husband Charlie found themselves trying to raise two small children on a failing farm in West Sussex. They were also one and a half million pounds in debt. So they decided to surrender their 3,500 acre estate to nature and see what happened. It was a controversial decision at the time. Not everyone was on board, but over 20 years later, it has become one of the UK's great ecological rewilding success stories.

Birds and insects have flourished and animals like pigs and cattle roam free whilst beavers and storks have been reintroduced into the area. This is what dawn sounds like at the Knepp estate now. A beautiful dawn chorus including a nightingale singing recorded by Hazel Reeves. Now Isabella's best-selling book Wildinging, about their estate, has been turned into a documentary film of the same name and is released in cinemas on the 14th of June. I'm delighted to say Isabella joins me now. Good morning.

Good morning. What a wonderful sound to wake up to. Isn't it incredible? And, I mean, we're so lucky, but we walk out, you know, at dawn this time of year and you're just absolutely bowled over by the sound. And you walking out at dawn has massively changed over the last 20 years before you decided to do this when you got up when it was still a working farm and you were there with your husband and two young children what was the start of every day like?

I mean if you had walked out at dawn which you really probably wouldn't have unless you really had to you'd have heard the old jack door I guess. I think what we have been bowled over by is just how quickly nature bounces back if you let it and that first summer after releasing the farm from agriculture it was the sound of insects that really bowled us over. And that was something that we hadn't realised as farmers that we'd even been missing. Why did you decide to make it a very hard decision? You were a travel writer, your husband, Sir Charles Burrell, was farming the estate, he'd inherited it. And he kind of knew, as you say, in the documentary from the age of 14, that was going to be his future.

It wasn't working at the time. Why wasn't it working? We're just the wrong land. We're very marginal land. We sit on 350 metres of clay, the Sussex Weald. It's not cut out for modern intensive agriculture. We tried for 17 years. Charlie tried, you know, did everything that a good farmer is supposed to do, made efficiencies, brought in new machinery, new crops. And our yield did increase, but never in a way that was going to be competitive with lovely, lonely soils where you can get on the land pretty much all year round. Our land is like a bog in the winter. And you literally can't get machines on the land for six months sometimes. Yeah. So you saw the pictures in the documentary.

It's really, really fascinating how far you've come. Who made the initial decision then? It was definitely Charlie. And it was a clean kind of financial decision. We knew we had to get out of farming. He saw farming subsidies changing sooner rather than later. But he realised that the writing was on the wall for us. And if farming subsidies did change change we would be toast.

And so we didn't really have a plan other than getting out of farming and clearing our debts. But once we'd done that we had the headspace really I think to stand back and look at our land objectively and think creatively about what we could do for it in the future. And we were very inspired by the things that were happening in Europe at the time about free roaming animals and how they can be the drivers of new creation of habitat. And we thought, well, that would be a really interesting experiment if we can release,

allow scrub to grow up, allow some natural regeneration, restore natural water systems, and then put in these drivers, these large animals, to start creating habitat again. If we could increase biodiversity by just a little, that would be an amazing experiment. And you've really done that. I mean, tell us the change, talk us through it. You know, the insects, the larger animals, everything that's come in.

That's been the surprise. You know, provide insects, the larger animals, everything that's come in. That's been the surprise. You know, provide and they will come. So everything from some of our rarest species, the nightingale you mentioned, but turtle doves, which are about to go extinct in Britain. We're probably the only place in Britain where turtle dove numbers are continually rising year on year. Probably not enough to save the turtle dove from extinction, but maybe the last place you to save the turtle dove from extinction, but NEP may be the last place you'll hear a turtle dove. We've got purple emperor butterflies. A couple of years ago, we discovered the large tortoiseshell butterfly, a butterfly that was thought to

have been extinct in Britain for 50 years, breeding at NEP. Every year there are surprises. But I think on top of just the tick list of rarity and numbers of species is the abundance. And I think that's what has been a surprising ecologist as well, because we're now that you feel familiar with, perhaps that you love, and you feel that they're empty. You suddenly realize what the carrying capacity of the land is and how much life we're missing. That is so interesting. I want to ask, though, how you made that transition because you said, right, OK, we're not going to do traditional farming anymore. How did you survive? I mean, how did you actually make that transition? The subsidies went. I know you've now got a successful ecotourism industry going there, limited, but that must have been a very difficult transition.

Well, we did have subsidy. We had a sort of agri-environment subsidy. So we had higher level stewardship funding, which enabled us to kind of make the crossover as it were. And that's hugely important for other farmers on marginal land who are wanting to do something similar. There is now private finance available in terms of biodiversity credits, carbon credits, that kind of thing. So we're seeing a really exciting mobilisation of private funding for these kind of projects. But for us, that enabled us to stop farming and to think of other ideas.

What we hadn't been prepared for was the alternative income streams that would come our way. So we now have, as you say, we have this ecotourism business. It turns over about 1.8 million a year. We make about a 20% margin on that. We couldn't have dreamt of that when we were farming. We've got buildings that we now let out to light office space and industrial use, that kind of thing. And those buildings employ 200 people. So we, when we were farming, employed about 23 people. We're now employing more than 80. And then there's 200 people in the buildings. And then we have 200 volunteers. So what rewilding has shown us at NEP is that actually it's about revitalizing rural economies. It's getting people into nature, back into nature. And so that's a very important stimulus, I think, when we're thinking about the economic benefits of doing something like this on

unprofitable land. Yeah, I mean, and as you've outlined there, there are grants still available to do this. If anybody listening is thinking, well, that's a transition I might make and private finance as well. We do do need farming do we not are you just saying we need to think about it in a different way not every farmer wants to or can afford to do what you've done what what do you what do you think the answer is well I I think any farmer who is in the red needs to go green you know we would say that that rewilding and farming go hand in hand often in the media they're pitted against each other as polar opposites, enemies even. We have to shift to regenerative agriculture, even on our most productive land,

because we know that the current methods of agriculture are not sustainable. We cannot carry on ploughing and using pesticides and fertilizers and poisoning ourselves and the land. But equally, rewilding is very important for being the life support system of those food production areas. So it can clean the water, it can clean the air, it can provide the pollinating insects, the dung beetles, the natural pest control. It can provide the physical buffers against climate change. So these extreme weather events we're seeing all the time,

we need rewilded areas threading through our food production land so that we can protect that land from wind blow, from drought, from storms and create microclimates to actually encourage those crops and protect those crops. So they work hand in glove. And the Woman's Hour listeners listening to this will think, OK, but what can I do? I mean, I might only have a window box

or a little pocket handkerchief of land in the front or the back of my house. What can we all do? Well, that's the joy of it. I think all of us can rewild whatever space we have influence over, even if it's a window box or if we can start trying to persuade our local council to stop mowing the verges. No mow May. We should have.

Now it's June. Let it bloom. We can all go wild. I think it's thinking one step more beyond being nature friendly gardening. It's about thinking with a rewilding mindset. So if you have a garden and you're putting in a pond, say, rather than putting in a pond that is of equal level, the depth is probably a round ornamental pond, think like a beaver.

You know, go in there, change the levels of the water, allow it to dry out in summer, chuck in some dead wood so that it breaks down and creates food for the aquatic insects. Think like a water buffalo, paddle around the edges of the pond to create those lovely nooks and crannies where aquatic plants can take off and your great crested newts can come and spawn. It's really thinking about how can I provide habitat wherever there's a space for it. Brilliant to have you in the programme.

I'm going to go forth today and think like a beaver not a water buffalo. Wonderful. Isabella Tree, thank you so much for joining us and Wilding is released in cinemas on June the 14th. That is it from Woman's Hour today. Do join us tomorrow from 10 o'clock. I'm going to be speaking to writer Naomi Klein about what her deep dive

into the world of conspiracies where it took her for her latest book Doppelganger and American. Grammy award winning folk singer and songwriter Aoife O'Donovan will be playing for you live in the studio. That's Woman's Hour tomorrow. That's all from today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time.

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