Woman's Hour - Jayde Adams, Liz Truss' future, Phobias

Episode Date: October 20, 2022

Comedian Jayde Adams and her Strictly Come Dancing partner Karen Hauer speak to Woman’s Hour about their performance on Saturday’s show which was dedicated to Jayde’s late sister Jenna Adams. They’ll be talking about how their journey dancing as a female sex couple has been, reflecting on the public support and reaction, as well as giving us an insight into what’s in store for their next dance. A recent poll by YouGov found that half of Conservative members now think Liz Truss should resign. Krupa is joined by two of them: Sally-Ann Marks who is chairman of Maidstone and the Weald Conservative Association and Seena Shah is formerly the National Chairman of Conservative Young Women, and now a board member for Conservatives in the City.We hear from a woman we're calling Sarah who is living on the estate where Rikki Neave, the six year old boy was killed in 1994, lived. Presenter Winifred Robinson met Sarah by chance when she was investigating why it took twenty years for Rikki’s killer to be brought to justice which resulted in the recent series “The Boy in the Woods” which has just been aired on Radio 4. She was living in a situation comparable with the Neave family. Krupa Padhy speaks to Winifred and you can hear her exclusive interview with Sarah and we’ll also be talking to child protection expert Sarah Humphreys.Women are twice as likely to suffer from phobias than men. Kate Summerscale joins Krupa to discuss her new book, The Book of Phobias and Manias: a history of the world in 99 obsessions.Presenter: Krupa Padhy Producer: Emma Pearce

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.

Hello, I'm Danny Robbins, host of the spooky podcast Uncanny and the Battersea Poltergeist. Just before you settle down for your usual podcast, maybe you're out walking or maybe you're at home. But are you alone? Are you sure? Because this is a warning. Something Wicked This Way Comes, my brand new podcast series, The Witch Farm. because this is a warning. Something wicked this way comes. My brand new podcast series, The Witch Farm, mixes documentary and drama

to investigate a real-life paranormal cold case. Listen out for The Witch Farm, the true story of Britain's most haunted house. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Krupal Bharti and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello, very good to have your company. I'm a fighter, not a quitter, said Liz Truss at PMQs yesterday. We subsequently saw her Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, resigning, and then a fracking vote that descended into mayhem. The question is, how long can she keep fighting for? We'll get into

that shortly. You may have been listening to a new 10-part series on BBC Sounds. It's called The Boy in the Woods. And it's about the killing of six-year-old Ricky Neve in 1994. What's emerged from that series is a larger conversation about children from difficult homes being put into care and the role of mothers, some of whom may be victims of domestic violence themselves. We have an incredible account from a woman with experience of this. The presenter of the series, Winifred Robinson, will join me,

as will Sophie Humphries from the organisation Paws. Phobias and manias. You may have one. You may have overcome one. Women tend to suffer more from them, and this will all be explained in the programme by the author Kate Summerscale, who's written a new book all about this. One thing I've learnt from reading the book is that there is a whole spectrum when it comes to phobias and manias,

from a fear of cotton wool to a fear of flying. And we are keen to hear your experiences on this one. I'll also be talking to the comedian Jane Jade Adams and her Strictly Come Dancing partner, Karen Hauer. If you watched Saturday Strictly, you would have seen the duo in action. An emotional dance in honour of Jade's sister, Jenna, who died in 2011. Jade shared that dancing was their thing and as teenagers, they'd entered freestyle disco dancing competitions together. We want to hear from you about what you and your siblings shared together and possibly still do, a hobby, an activity, a song.

There are many ways to get in touch with us. Here are some of them. You can text the programme. The number is 84844. On social media, that's Twitter and Instagram, you'll find us on the handle at BBC Women's Hour. You can, of course, email us via our website. And now you can send us a WhatsApp message. That's via a voice note.

The number there is 03700 100 444. But let's begin with the past 24 hours. Trusts on the brink. Day of chaos. Broken. Just three of the front page headlines this morning following a very turbulent day in Parliament. If you missed it, Liz Trusts appeared to have got through Prime Minister's questions, but it was mid-afternoon when a resignation letter from her home secretary, her then home secretary, Suella Brotherman, was submitted on the grounds of her breaking parliamentary code, but also citing concerns about the direction of this government.

Mayhem then ensued over a vote on fracking in the House of Commons that evening, which saw confusion over Liz Truss's decision to expel Conservative MPs who voted against the government. Add to that speculation her chief whip and deputy whip had resigned, but they this morning are still in their posts. So, like I said, quite the 24 hours and an awful lot has already happened during Liz Truss's mere six weeks in that top job. Market fallout from her mini budget, sacking a chancellor. And now she's facing calls, very public calls from some of her own MPs to resign. Sina Shah is formerly the National Chairman of Conservative Young Women

and now a board member for Conservatives in the City. And Sally-Anne Marks is the Maidstone Conservative Party Chairman. And we spoke a little earlier on. I began by asking Sina for her reaction to the Home Secretary's resignation. I mean, I think it was just another instability that no one really wants right now. I think everyone wants the government to get on with it, show you some competence, show you some stability and just get the job done that they've been elected to do. So for me to see chopping and changing so frequently really isn't delivering on what we need right now as a country. And I would

just urge everybody that's in cabinet that is on those green benches right now that, you know, we are about to enter a cost of living crisis, an energy crisis. And, you know, people are really going to struggle over the next few months, particularly into next year when interest rates start to go up. And that's who they need to have at the forefront of their mind delivered for the people that they are there to represent. Were you surprised in any way that she chose to step down? I was surprised because she's only just gone in and it's a fairly new team. And I think, you know, it did surprise me to see that change. But also nothing's kind of surprising me anymore, if I'm honest, because we're seeing so much chopping and changing. You know, I laugh,

but it's quite sad, really. And you laugh, but I think everyone is feeling this barrage of mixed emotions. Should we laugh? Should we cry? How have we got to this point? Sally-Anne, let me bring you in here, because Suella is seen as a leading woman in the party. And she's seeing what's going on behind closed doors. So if she's decided she wants out, should others be listening to her? Well, I think we've got to be quite clear. The reasons she's given for leaving were not primarily because of dissatisfaction with the government. It was because, in fact, she had made an error. And it's a serious error. In fact, she broke the parliamentary ministerial

code and she fessed up to it and decided to go. Of course, she took the opportunity to vent her frustration with the government. So, of course, that's all been conflated now. And everybody's talking about that rather than the initial reason for her to go. I'm very sorry she's gone. Extremely sorry. She was, well, Sina and I were both at the Birmingham conference just a couple of weeks ago and I don't know what Sina thought but I thought she gave a standout performance actually her speech was just excellent and I think she's a serious loss to the cabinet I'm very sorry that she's gone I thought she was a strong able woman I'm quite sure we'll see something of her at some

point in the future. Well let's move on to someone else calls to resign there. But Liz Truss is saying, I'm a fighter, not a quitter. Sina, what will it take for her to resign? I don't like to talk about it in this way because she was voted in by the members. She was who the members chose to put into number 10. And I think the MPs need to give her their confidence and support so that she can deliver on the plan that she set out when Conservative Party members voted her in. We need to see more announcements, we need to see more positive news coming out of number 10.

And I think we're all sort of wondering where that is. And I just want to see her delivering as she said she would. I think the big issue for me at the moment is the potential destabilisation of our country. We're almost on, I feel anyway, almost on a war footing. Here we are fighting all sorts of things on different fronts. You know, Ukraine in the east, Russia is the aggressor. Post-COVID, who knows what's going to happen to COVID over the next few months. The NHS crisis, coping with post-COVID, let alone the cost of living crisis. And yet here we are with the opposition who appears to be in total destabilisation mode,

where's the loyalty to their country at the moment? In a war footing, actually, you would hope, wouldn't you, that people and parties would come together for the good of the country. I don't see any of that. I do want to see a greater understanding in the media and actually in the opposition about what it is that they are creating and supporting. But all those problems that you highlight, the economy is central to all of them. And we've had Liz Truss eventually apologising for the

mistakes that she made with that mini budget. But I go back to that point, everything from the war to the post-COVID recovery, the economy is central. Moving this on slightly, Boris Johnson, he took a very long time to apologise over Partygate. Here we have Liz Truss. Many will say being vilified both inside and outside her party, as you've just pointed out, Sally-Anne. Sina, do you think she's being treated fairly compared to her male predecessor? That's a really interesting point. And one does sometimes wonder if she was a man, would she be getting as much stick as what she's getting right now? Would she have garnered the support of some of her parliamentary party that are refusing to do so right now? It is a factor,

I think it really is. And I think that's a real shame. She has got there on her own merits. She was chosen by the members. And there's good reason for that. She set out a plan that everyone really believed in. They really want to see growth in the economy. They want to see this country prosper. They want to see more high quality jobs, more businesses setting up here, attracting really great talent from around the world. That's what people voted for. And I just think we need to let her do that, because that's the only way that we're going to get through this and have a light at the end of the tunnel. Slow growth year on year, whilst it was in a positive direction, it just wasn't, it wasn't

cutting it. We wanted to see something that was going to deliver real meaningful growth in the long term, to ensure that people had more deliver real meaningful growth in the long term. So ensure that people had more money in their pockets in the long term. You're asking the public to give her the space to carry out her plan. Many will say they've done that. And what we've received in return are U-turns and apologies. I actually quite respect a leader that recognises when they've made a mistake and rectifies it. In six weeks? But isn't it lovely that women actually do see the error of their ways and come out and apologise?

I don't understand why it is so hard for some men to do it. You know, I wonder what would have happened actually if Boris had come out and said, look, I'm really sorry. Actually, we would be in a very different situation now. He didn't. And maybe that was something he should reflect on. I don't want to generalise because we shouldn't too much. But a lot of men seem to find it incredibly difficult. And politicians generally find it difficult to apologise when they get things wrong. But Liz Truss did. And she seems to be knocked for that. It's not a sign of weakness. I think it's a great sign of strength to recognise your mistakes, to apologise and to try and set things right. And Sally-Anne, what about the wider language, stepping away from that

apology, the wider language around it, just watching the coverage and the commentators yesterday, we had her called burnt toast, you'd get better leadership from a piece of tofu, what do you make of all of that? It's a bit like a shark infested waters at the moment. There are people circling around, nibbling away. And actually, I honestly get extremely worried by the tone of some of our commentators and broadcasters. We've got so many news channels now and they all seem to be totally united in knocking. There's very little respect left. I know respect has to be deserved. Of course it does.

You know, I get that completely. But the language and negativity, when during the conference, somebody said, I'm reporting from a bitter and divided Conservative Party. Well, I wasn't at that conference and I don't know where that commentator was because it wasn't bitter and divided.

Like most political parties, there's debate and different points of view. But it's the tone and the language that is being used by so many commentators that is feeding this frenzy, just trying to knock everybody and certainly knock the government. And that contributes to our country being so destabilised. Moving forward, I mean, the question is, how does the party move forward now in the current state that it is in? There is talk by MPs of the membership effectively being shut out of any process to replace Liz Truss. Sina, what do you make of that? I just want our MPs that are on those green benches right now to stand behind the leader that the membership voted for and support her in actually delivering for this country and putting the interests of the people that they represent first.

Any talk of replacing who we have now so early on is just outrageous. It makes me really quite cross. I want to see everyone getting behind Liz Truss and helping her to deliver for the people. Sally-Anne, does the direction of the party concern you? The next steps concern you? Am I concerned? Of course I'm concerned. I think a lot of us are very concerned. Yesterday's pictures and reports from Westminster were, of course, unpleasant to listen to and to watch. Of course they were. But I also do have hope that we can turn this round. We have to, without hope or without faith, with nothing. I think she needs a bit of time to get on with it. I think she's got to be extremely

careful not to lose anybody else, but really to keep her cabinet tight and focused on delivery of policy and for good things and better things. I mean, she has delivered some good things already for us, but there's an awful lot more to do. Sina Shah and Sally and Mark say in conversation about what has been a testing 24 hours in Parliament, that debate, those conversations, they do continue. They will continue throughout the course of the day and we have our live page up and running over at BBC News Online. Over the last couple of weeks, you may have heard

the series The Boy in the Woods here on Radio 4, presented by Winifred Robinson. It's about the killing of six-year-old Ricky Neve. In November 1994, he was found naked in woodland near his home in Peterborough. He'd been strangled. Police initially suspected Ricky's mother, Ruth, and she was charged with his murder. At her trial in 1996, jurors were told how she had threatened

to kill her son, scrawled idiot across his forehead on one occasion, and squirted washing up liquid in his mouth. She was cleared of his murder but was jailed for seven years for child cruelty. Earlier this year, Ricky's killer was finally brought to justice, James Watson, who would have been 13 at the time. He's now aged 41. He was convicted of killing him after DNA evidence came to light. Now, I don't want to focus on James Watson right now, but on the life that Ricky and his family were leading at the time of his death. It was chaotic, to say the least. He truanted from school.

He was on the Children at Risk register and was known to Cambridge Social Services. Winifred Robinson joins me on the line now to tell us more. Thanks for joining us, Winifred. Briefly, tell me about the life that the Neve family were leading. Well, when I looked into this story, the character who emerged who had been given very little attention in the huge media coverage that there has been of this case over the years was Ricky's stepfather, Dean Neve.

And Dean Neve, Ricky's mum, Ruth, left Ricky's dad, who she had been with for seven years. She'd had two children with a man called Trevor Harvey. So she had Rebecca and Ricky with Trevor Harvey. And then when she met this man, Dean Neve, she separated from Ricky's father. The best way to describe Dean Neve, she separated from Ricky's father. The best way to describe Dean Neve, I suppose, is a sort of force for chaos in their lives. He was a drug dealer. He was a petty criminal. He was in and out of jail. He was abusive towards Ruth. And he was certainly violent and abusive

towards the two children who were not his children, his natural children. So Ricky and Rebecca. Ruth went on to have two children with him who were aged three and there was a little baby by the time Ricky was murdered. But by then, Dean Neve had deserted her. He was never faithful to her. She says that he got her onto using drugs. They were both using amphetamine. He wrecked the council house

that they were living in. In anger, he punched the doors in and he would do up old cars in the back garden. He backed a car into the house and it meant that she was stranded. She couldn't leave that estate where she had lived with him because the council wouldn't let her go without paying for those repairs. And she had no money. She was a lone pair and she had no money. But the important thing, I suppose, the thing that struck me is that I know that women are in abusive relationships, but the thing is that Ruth really loved Dean Neve and she carried on loving him even after Ricky had been murdered

and she carried on writing to him in jail. So he was in jail. The dream that it would somehow work out OK for them and that they would still be happy was so potent in Ruth's mind that it survived. And that was the thing that struck me. The way, I guess, that all of us, don't we, we long to have a partner for life.

That's perhaps an instinct in us but I think for women in the culture there's a big expectation that a woman will be very much in love with a man Ruth herself had been in care from the age of two and she'd become pregnant with Rebecca her first child when she was 17 in a children's home

and I suppose what I learned from making the series was that for really disadvantaged women, the dream of that, you know, the romantic dream of love and happiness, it's much more potent and much more is invested in it. And in the lives of many women and children, it's just so, so destructive. And you describe what is so complex and so multi-layered there. During the course of putting together The Boy in the Woods, you actually came across a woman on the same estate living in very similar circumstances to Ruth Neve, albeit 30 years on. A woman called Sarah, that's not her real name. And this is some exclusive material for us, which we are going to take a listen to now. This is you having knocked on her door as you want to look around the layout of her house,

as it's the same as the layout of Ricky's family home. Tell me the story of how the doors got the holes punched in. So me and my ex-partner was having an argument. He was scaring me, so at the time the only best place for me to hide was in the bathroom. So I sat behind the door and he came out of this bedroom in so much anger. He punched the door in because obviously I wouldn't let him in. What made him angry? So the thing is, like, all the little things.

So he had, like, no drugs, like, no weed. Every little thing was getting to him. Obviously, the things that I do, he didn't like either. He would, like, try and control everything I did. Once he realised that he couldn't control what I did, I think that's when he decided that he'll try a different way. So he threatened you? So he put his hands around my throat. He did tell me to like top myself and stuff like go kill myself. He also tried to suffocate me with my own pillows and then he will put his own body weight

over my face. So you're crying sorry sorry I'm making you remember this. It's horrible. Do you want to go on? Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry. So he was violent towards you? Yeah. But it was when he didn't have drugs? Pretty much. When he had the pillow around my face, he was proper, like, putting all his strength on it. I thought I was going to die.

I'm so sorry. So he can't have been like that when you first met him because no one would live with someone like that so tell me about the good side of him when we first started getting to know each other we always like video called everything two weeks of getting to know each other he came into mine

everything was going great we were so happy I couldn't ask for anything better from him and then just gradually as I got to know him that's when obviously things turned for the worse you loved him yeah I did love him I really cared about him my past hasn't exactly been the best tell me what you mean by that so I was sexually assaulted at a young age, well so young, I was 16 at the time. It's a guy that I knew raped me so I went through all that as well. I'm not gonna lie like that just made me feel like I shouldn't be loved, like I don't

deserve anyone. So when Dave came along, everything was great. I felt love for him. I wanted to be with him. I wanted to have a kid with him. I wanted to marry him, grow old with him. It was just, I don't know, I never felt like this with someone before. It was like the feelings that I got for him, it was just... Have you ever heard of something that psychologists call projection,

where you've got a lot of hopes and dreams inside you that we all have of finding someone to love us for the rest of our life? And you meet a stranger and you project on them everything you need and you decide they're the one. But all they are to you because you don't know them is a kind of blank screen. Yeah. Do you think it was that?

Probably. I think about it now. Obviously it did hurt, like, when he ended it and he walked out of my life. It was, like, literally a situation that I never want to go through again. But it was the end of your dreams. Yeah.

It really did hurt. Can you understand, then then women who stay with men who have a good side and a really horrible side? When you love someone, you see their good sides and their bad sides. And if you feel like you love that person so much, you just want to hold on to them. But it wasn't him you really loved, was it? Because you didn't know him and he wasn't very nice.

No. But I thought I did love him. It's the dream, isn't it, that's hard to let go, isn't it? Yeah, I was planning to have a baby in February. What's really striking about this house and your story is that we've come in here to see the layout of a house very similar, well, the same as the house that Ruth was living in with Dean Neve and her children.

It's a very similar story that Dean Neve had punched the doors through. He had a drug habit. He was not a nice man, certainly wasn't nice when he needed drugs. Ruth felt that she really, really loved him and it didn't seem to matter what he did. She still always wanted that dream that they would be together and they would have a family. Lastly, every woman, every person, I think, want this dream of having the perfect relationship and having someone around your children. I think it's sometimes as well, though, it don't matter what people do.

If you truly love them, you'll stick by them. You'll tell me that I look beautiful, it'll call me gorgeous, babe, princess, just everything that I've ever wanted from a guy to call me, and he was calling me all these. Then, obviously, when he did have his bad days then that's when I get called a lot worse than names what would you call you then he'll call me a slag a whore a tar an idiot he'll literally call me any other name that he can to hurt me there'll be times where he would like grab my hair so when he was

trying to pin me down to the cushion down he got my hair here and literally grabbed it so tight on the crown of your head yeah but I'm like I'm kicking the floor he was like shut up we've met you really really by accident by just knocking on the door of a house that has the same layout as Ruth Neve's house we've found here a similar story in some respects a woman who's fallen in love with a man who has turned out to be a really bad lot but still wanted to carry on with it one you know carried on loving him and that's the big mystery really and I think Ruth's case why does she stay at really attached in her heart to Dean Neve when she knows he's not a good man she would like would want to believe that he could be a really good person because he

probably gave her some good times as well like you don't want to lose that you don't want to lose the person that you had such a strong connection with, that you think you mentally love them so much that you just want to be with them constantly, no matter what they do. Sarah there, that's not her real name, speaking to my colleague, Winifred Robinson there. Winifred, you're still with us. And I'm also joined by Sophie Humphries,

who set up an organisation called PAWS, which works with women who are in domestic violence situations and they've had their children removed. And Sophie has also recently co-founded SHIFT, which works with young people struggling in difficult family situations. Welcome to the programme, Sophie. Listening to that account from Sarah, is this a typical situation you hear from the women that you help?

Yeah, good morning, Krupa. So, I mean, PAWS was set up to help break the cycle of women who are having repeat removals of children into care. And that would be for numerous reasons. However, what became, and we know for sure now, is that, you know, in last actually works with young people, predominantly boys, not all, but children and young people who are caught up in crime, gangs, county lines. And what's interesting with them is that you'll see also in their family backgrounds, this repeat cycle around domestic violence. And in some ways, some of the children we work with at Shift are actually really the children of the women that get removed at PAWS. So your question about whether it's typical I think that I mean obviously every situation is different but yes I think hearing

Sarah talk unfortunately is very familiar. I think that it's very complex and it's not a black and white situation of kind of good and bad. What we've learned is the importance of working with the dynamic and actually even with that relationships in some circumstance. That is by no means and absolutely want to make clear, not condoning domestic violence in any way. But we do to actually break the cycle for good and to bring about long-lasting change we need to understand and I think Sarah said it very well about this sort of I think this need for love I think Winifred also talked about that this great hole this gap that needs to be filled and it fulfills a need in some ways often of of great trauma for many women we work with, certainly it pours from their own childhood experiences, the trauma of having children removed, that fear of abandonment.

And so often people can't understand why women might stay in those relationships. early stages of them in some ways were incredibly seductive because the men usually men that perpetrate um domestic violence often also will have come from very uh complex backgrounds and may well also have vulnerability and trauma themselves and so in some ways they're very skilled at kind of it's it's nearly identifying each other's vulnerabilities but unfortunately it manifests in a way that's obviously totally unacceptable. So let me bring Winifred back in there because you explained a great deal there and very very clearly as well. Winifred reflecting on what Sophie's just shared I mean it's almost 30 years since Ricky was killed and I know that you were very close to this story at the time as well covering it reporting on it as well since then I mean we've had we've seen the number of looked after

children here in the UK increase year upon year we know that Ricky's life was chaotic do you believe he would have been taken into care now? I just think that's just impossible to know, isn't it, Krupa? I think that what I know from... We did a discussion programme, which was on Radio 4 on Monday evening, to try and pick apart some of the many questions that are raised in the story itself. And what the expert said in that discussion is that a lot of the early intervention in family troubles,

families, has gone in cuts in a decade of austerity. And so it's all or nothing now, much more than it used to be. So I guess, Ricky, yes, perhaps he would be much more likely to have been taken into care. His mum wanted him to be taken into respite care because he was acting out all the troubles in the family with disruptive behaviour. He was only a little care because he was acting out all the troubles in the family with disruptive behaviour.

He was only a little boy, he was only six, but truanting from school and so on. So I think we're perhaps in this moment where maybe children like him are more likely to be taken into care. Or I wonder if the bar for intervention isn't just much higher now because you describe his life as chaotic but what Ruth did to Ricky I'm not defending it in any way you know slapping him, putting, washing up liquid into his mouth she served five years in jail for that

and yet that is not, is it at the kind of the really horrible end of child abuse that we hear about now, you know, year after year after year. Children are dying in terrible circumstances. Yeah. Sophie, Dame Louise Casey, talking on Radio 4 yesterday about the work in the Troubled Families programme,

said domestic violence and coercive control was the biggest factor. And she said, we just don't hold the men in these families responsible. When social services opens a file, they open a file on a woman. And then she said, why don't we put something in place so the woman doesn't want him back? And I'm just keen to hear what you make of that assessment. Well, I mean, I don't disagree such with what Louise said. And I did listen to and hear that piece, which I thought was excellent. I mean, I think one of the things, one of my co-founders at Shift is Josh McAllister, who's just finished the care review. And one of the things they're looking at, which hopefully will pick up on Winifred's point,

is around actually getting in that support earlier, because we don't actually want children like Ricky to be removed because actually going into care is not by any means the best solution if it can be avoided and so I think you know they're looking at putting in much more sort of family help teams who will be working with a domestic violence focus and also having child protection expert practitioners who are able to have more curiosity, be able to sniff out those cases such as that of Ricky. So hopefully might be able to get in earlier and maybe circumstances could have been very different and not meant that actually even Ricky would have needed to go into care. I think the point about men and hidden men, I think it's a really important one. And I totally agree with what was said. I think it's not as simple, though, unfortunately, of more support for a woman to leave the man. I

mean, in PAWS, they work incredibly intensively with the women and are often trying to work with them and their partners and the fathers of the children to try and change the circumstances and where possible, help that woman to get into a safe safer place but we have to understand the mechanism of it we have to understand that great need for love I mean people ask why would somebody not protect their child over a man now that can make you think that person is just a horrible, cruel, evil person, but it's not like that. It's because somebody's need, what they didn't have met for their own childhood, is so strong. It's like addiction.

We all know of addiction, that it's a cycle, that unless you get in and you put something else in, it's going to replace it. And that's what pause does. That's what shift does with young people who are caught up in crime and knives. You have to put something in that's going to create that opportunity for change. And ultimately, this is about people's self-worth. You know, someone like Sarah, I think she talked about it.

They have no belief or confidence in themselves. So we have to start working with women and men. Yes, we must hold the men to account but we also have to understand what is going to enable people to make better choices and to choose better healthier relationships i've had so many many if i could just say communications about this program so many emails so many tweets but i had one yesterday someone a social worker who had listened to that discussion program and said the thing we didn't discuss was poverty, that poverty is the big thing that crushes people's lives,

that narrows their horizons, that distorts what happens to them. And when Louise Casey did the Troubled Families Initiative for David Cameron at the time of the coalition, they had some data about what helps women in serial abusive relationships and interestingly that the biggest thing you can do to help is to find someone exactly like Sophie's just said a job a life outside of the home and identity. Yeah thank you both of you for sharing your expertise Winifred Robinson and Sophie Humphreys and a message there on the Boy in the Woods series this one from Jane who writes, the series has been so compelling.

Winifred's tone has been superb, a non-judgmental presentation of the reality, but also she hasn't hidden how troubling she found it all. So good to hear the expression of such humanity and empathy. Truly excellent and important programming. Thank you, Jane, for sharing your feedback. You can listen to that entire series over on BBC Sounds. empathy truly excellent and important programming thank you jane for sharing your feedback you can listen to that entire series over on bbc sounds my next guest is jade adams she's a comedian who

champions body confidence and making her thoughts known on social media with tweets such as i would rather be fat than basic however you might be more accustomed to seeing her at the moment on a Saturday night floating around the Strictly Ballroom. Last week, it was a beautiful silver ball gown. Earlier in the series, a leotard with thigh-high boots. Jade has also been celebrated for her honesty and openness about heartache and grief after the death of her sister, Jenna Adams, who died in 2011. And Jade says her decision to do the competition has a lot to do with her sister's memory, as she was the person that she would always dance with.

With Jade Adams and her Strictly Come dancing partner, Karen Howard joins me now. Thank you to both of you. You're in the midst of practising. You're all kitted out. Yeah, we're in the rehearsal studio today, rehearsing our Charleston for this weekend. And we can hear that lovely echo.

You got your highest marks on Saturday, the both of you, for that very, very moving dance. How are you both feeling? It's great. The response to Saturday night was so overwhelming. I've heard that people have been calling bereavement centres and stuff, and it went up by about 121%, I was told, on It Takes Two the other night. And to hear that, as someone who has spent the last 11 years trying to make people feel better as a comedian and also just generally,

it really... I was trying not to be emotional and it takes two, but it was, the tears came, but I put them back in my face. They did, but they were very true. And Karen, you were right by Jade's side, holding her together. Absolutely. And I think that's, you know,

that's the beauty of this partnership is that we have each other's backs and it's not just dancing. It's the support that we have each other's backs and it's not just dancing it's the support that we have for one another um and this this magnificent you know um journey that we're in together um but yeah i was holding her hand and she didn't cry until she got to claudia's area claudia's phone claudia you know but it was it was a beautiful moment. And thank you for letting me choreograph that, you know, and telling that story. She was so, she was so, it's really difficult to know what to do with people.

I've noticed this over the last 11 years. It's really difficult to know what to do when someone has lost someone. And quite often people can say the wrong thing and then they'll stop themselves from saying anything at all, which is definitely not the right option. And it's so, people just don't understand. If you haven't experienced grief, how would you know? The only reason I'm very good at it is because I've done it. And what was amazing was Karen just dealt with the entire situation

with compassion and empathy and understanding and patience and time. And it meant that actually sharing that story on Saturday night was one of the easiest things I've done. It wasn't hard because not only is Karen looking after me, but the entire Strictly model, everyone that works on the show is just wonderful. They've just got a great... It's a great programme to have shared that story on.

You were tearful, but so was I. So were so many people watching at home. Those words you shared that Jenna didn't want to be forgotten, that honesty, that is what is really connected with the audience. It's absolutely true as well. She said it to my mum. She said, oh, do you think people will forget me? And my mum sort of said to her not

as long as I live and both of us have spent the last 11 years keeping that and my brother and my dad have been I've spent the last 11 years keeping that promise and it's been incredible like even just now when you said the words Jenna Adams I went oh like just Jenna Jenna's name being mentioned on Women's Hour like it you know she did amazing. She died at the age of 28. She didn't really leave a legacy behind. The legacy she left is in our memory. And I think that it's part of our grieving process to carry on talking about her because it was such a tragic age to lose anyone.

She was so very, very young. And what you've done on our programme is opened up a conversation about memories with your siblings. I just want to read a few of those comments that have come through to us. Because I know that you and Jenna love dancing together. You had those competitions that you used to take part in together. We've had this message. My sister and I, now both in our 60s, meet up regularly to paint together. We both have a great time together exploring the lovely art of Chinese brush painting. That one from Claire.

This one is from Nadia, who says, good morning. My brother and I share our love for music. We exchanged CDs and we love the same band. That's the Sugar Babes. And he's coming in November to London all the way from Germany

so we can see them live at the Apollo. And one more I do want to squeeze in my sister and I would act out both miming and dancing you're the one that I want from Greece and we were probably around nine and ten years old my lovely big sister died in 1993 so this is a treasured and enduring memory that one from Charlotte so you've opened up this conversation about sibling bonds but also something else that I think is really important the role of the arts may that be comedy dancing singing in helping with grief it's been the it's been the thing that saved my life over the last 11 years she died so I moved to London to be famous

in 2010 and I met a load of drag queens that's how I got into comedy I tried to get into stand-up but it's not the friendliest of communities to get into but I found loads of drag queens and I did my first gig on the 17th of March and that was the first ever sort of thing that I hosted and then I was doing loads of drag shows and I was actually at a drag night with Sink the Pink which is this big sort of LGBT collective that I do stuff with. And I was with them the night before. And that was on the 24th of April. So I'd only really been in London doing that stuff for a tiny amount of time.

I didn't even know I wanted to be a stand-up comedian. I sort of knew that I kind of wanted to do it. I knew that I was able to make people laugh in really dark times because Jenna had asked me to make everyone laugh when she got diagnosed in 2005. I went into the hospital and she was sort of sat there looking really worried and my family were obviously really sad. They went off with the doctor and she sort of grabbed my hand

and she went, can you start making everyone laugh because they're all looking at me like I'm about to die and I can't handle it. So that's basically how I did it. But it was the on the 24th it was the 24th of April I'd only just sort of um started and then you know there could have been this idea that I'd not do it anymore because I was too sad but actually it was the thing that helped me the most and it was my friends at Sink the Pink getting me to get up and and going to

and going to do gigs I know that I went off to Glastonbury with them to perform. And it was all these distraction things in those first three years that really helped me. And I remember I had a friend at the time I was really low and she said to me, just fill your diary up. Just do anything. Just keep going. Because at the beginning stages of grief, the worst bit about it is how weird it is that they're not around anymore and there's this hole inside of you and nothing but time heals the hole and it was the best advice that I got at that time but the the art has me like you know in 2016 I wrote a show about Jenna and me and I got nominated for best newcomer in at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and and and it

really helped me because everyone had their own story about my sister and whether it was my parents or her friends they all had their own grief and no one thought about mine and I no one had really listened to how I felt and I lived I lived in a bunk bed with her. I danced with her. We had the same friends. We holidayed together. I knew every single inch of her body and for the first time in 2016, I was able to have an audience for one hour to listen to my story about her

and as long as I put jokes at the end of the sentences, they would stay for the whole hour and it was the best thing I ever did for my grief. Well, your sister was right about your energy. And so was one of the judges in that first episode where one of the judges said, your energy is contagious. And that has stuck with me.

Karen, do you find the energy contagious? I mean, you've already got so much energy being such an exceptional dancer. Even more now? No, absolutely. And I think, again, it's what's so magical and what comes so natural to Jade and what's so easy to be around. You know, there's never a point where she comes in and she's like, no, I don't want to do this. It's always happiness. And you can see

it in every inch of her body, from her fingertips to her toes and that smile. And, you know, it's really nice to be around. And it's nice to be able to put that out there for everyone to see. You know, and it is fun. We have such a good time. It's really good. It's really, it's just positive. And, you know, we don't come in and we're like oh my god this is you know it doesn't like rain and

you know sunshines and the birds are chirping all day but like we're real women it's not always a good day we have great communication and you know she's she loves telling jokes and she always makes me laugh and it's always

a very positive and when we get down to work we get down to work and we get it laugh and it's always a very positive and when we get down to work we get down to work and we get it done but there's always there's always time for for the positivity and the smiles because that's what it's about and talking about positivity body positivity you have been wonderful in sharing how you feel about your body and how you want others to see that as well talk us through that. Well, I knew it was going to come up because I've been watching Strictly Come Dancing for all these years. And I know one thing that always gets mentioned is when there is any woman, whether it's Karen or it's a woman that looks like me, the women on that show get an absolute blasting on the Internet from people.

And I knew it was definitely going to happen to me because every time i'm on television or whatever forum it is some idiot somewhere speaks about my my weight and i'll not actually i'll retract that i won't call them an idiot i'll just say that they're they're not educated and they've been given the wrong information about what what what constitutes um uh way i won't get into that conversation but basically they've given the wrong information about how to treat other people by someone in their life that's the only way that people are ever like that and I just knew it was going to happen and I was like I could do one of two things I can either ignore it which is what everyone tells me to do or I can actually tackle it and show people who follow me or I followed my journey and feel like me who relate to me about resilience and actually finding it funny like I don't mean I like I get so much laughing yes there was there was

there was a video the other day a man posted which is you know that bit in Ghostbusters where the big old um the the big old uh sort of uh I feel like the Michelin man. It's like the Michelin man. I was sulking through the town. Someone wrote, this is Jade Adams rocking up to Strictly. And I laughed. I found it funny. And I don't really want people to be saying stuff like that.

But if I don't find it funny, it's just... These people, they want to have any reaction with anyone anywhere and that's how they do it and i just find it funny and i think that the most useful thing i can do is not get at them in any way it's actually to show resilience to this stuff because it's never going to stop and you're absolutely doing that jade both of you have been wonderful cannot wait to see what you have in store for us j Jade Adams and Karen Hauer, thank you so much for joining us. And we'll let you crack on with those rehearsals you so need to do. Thank you.

Thank you. Now, yesterday I asked you whether you'd gone off fashion trends after you hit the age of 35, because one poll suggests that that's the age that we find our style or just stop bothering if we ever did. Today, I want to know if you are or have ever been a goth. It seems as though they've always been with us in the park, in the shopping centre, with the black lipstick, dyed black hair, big boots, corsets, fingerless gloves, all of that.

Next week, we're going to talk about the history and culture of gothic fashion and we want to hear from you. Why does or did gothic style appeal to you? And what are your key gothic fashion and we want to hear from you why does or did gothic style appeal to you and what are your key gothic pieces it's 84844 or at bbc women's hour if you want to get in touch now something else we're going to move on to many of you will have heard of arachnophobia that is being terrified of spiders but what about glossophobia fear of public speaking or emetophobia, a dread of vomiting? The list of our anxieties is very long and women are twice as likely to suffer from phobias than men. Well, Kate Summerscow is the author of the bestselling The Suspicions of Mr. Witcher.

And she's now written the book, The Book of Phobias and Manias, A History of the World in 99 Obsessions. And she joins me now. Very good to have you in the studio with us, Kate. A thoroughly researched, dense book, A to Z of Phobias and Manias. What led you to write a book about phobias and manias in the first place? Well, I think I've always been sort of fascinated by people who have fixations of one sort or another, and in the past I've written books about people

who are obsessed with murder, or ghosts or romance. And phobias and manias are the kind of ordinary madnesses that we all carry around with us little pockets of weirdness. And I was intrigued as to when they'd first been identified, what some of the early cases were, and some of the latest thinking about them. And you did a thoroughly brilliant job of doing that. But let's get our definitions clear first. What is the difference between a phobia and a mania?

Well, simply put, a phobia is a compulsion to avoid something and a mania is a compulsion to do something. So they're two sides of the same obsessive coin. And interesting that women are more prone to phobias and manias as compared to men. Yes, it seems in some of the international gathering of surveys from around the world, it seems that the prevalence of diagnosable specific phobias in women is one woman in 10 has one, whereas with men it's one in 20. But there are evolutionary hypotheses for why this must be because phobias are more pronounced in women during their childbearing years. So perhaps we've got a propensity to be cautious,

to be wary and fearful because we're responsible not only for our own safety, but that of our children or the children we're carrying. But then there may also be much more cultural reasons, like the fact that women are more likely to self-identify as frightened, that it's a less acceptable thing for men to say they're scared. And even that some things in the world might be more genuinely scary for women, for example, public and social spaces. So women may suffer from agoraphobia in part because, especially in the 19th century, they're very defined by the home and felt alienated outside it. I did at the start of the programme ask our audience to send in their thoughts on phobias and manias. And we have had a message sent in to us via WhatsApp. Dear Women's Air, my name is Louise Somerville.

My phobia is arts and crafts. It stems back to when I was a teenager at secondary school and the art teacher held up a piece of my work and said, look everybody, Louise draws like a three-year-old and I'm in my 50s now. It's pathetic that I haven't recovered but when I tell people I have an arts and crafts phobia, they laugh, they dismiss, they demean and it's really undermining and nobody ever seems to take it seriously and I'm always so hugely relieved when somebody looks at me and finds out and asks to find out more information and actually begins to understand and then I just feel hugely relieved. So much in that message. First of all, how phobias begin, but also how they're received as well.

Yes, I mean, it sounds absolutely sort of classic. Often phobias take hold in childhood with a shocking, disturbing experience, sort of emotionally upsetting. And yes, many of them seem comical on the surface and writing researching the book was an absolute education for me in how some of these things that seem sort of absurd or outlandish um actually when you trace back to their roots they do have a logic and a narrative and a personal story there.

And they are very deeply held feelings that they represent. For example, there's a young man in the book who's phobic about popcorn. Yes, I saw that. Yeah, yeah. And was sort of reported how he was tormented by his friends who thought it was terribly funny and would throw popcorn at him and to him it was it was grotesque it was like being pelted by maggots and um and terrifying and very disturbing that his friends should want to inflict such pain on him so yeah he'd avoid the cinema of course because popcorn was around but also also because of the levity with which people treated this phobia, because it seemed silly.

And I wonder, therefore, the way these phobias are received, i.e. the laughing at the individual, that can only make it more entrenched. Yeah, I think it probably makes the individual identify all the more with the phobia and feel it part of their identity, a sort of misunderstood part of who they are. Yeah. We've had this message in from Alison who says, I heard that you're going to be talking about phobias in the programme. I've got a severe fish phobia. I don't eat fish. I shriek if I'm suddenly confronted by one, even if it's in a picture.

I can't swim in the sea. I have to prepare myself when I go out to dinner, just in case someone orders fish. It's the head and the tails and the eyes I'm afraid of. And I've had this fear for over 50 years, not helped in my teenage years by my younger brother putting a frozen trout in my bed, says Alison. I guess that just goes to show how much it can take over your life. Yes, that's fascinating, isn't it? You wouldn't have thought of all the different places that fish could interfere with your life, from swimming to restaurants. And, yeah, there's a story in the book about a woman who developed a severe cat phobia. And for some reason, her parents put a piece of fur in her bed,

knowing that she was phobic when she was in her teens so there does seem a sort of cruel to sort of propensity to taunt people with phobias um people i suppose are intrigued and disbelieving and they're testing the sort of limits of it it's as if you think they must be making it up they must be pretending or something briefly i do want to bring in one that caught my attention because I want to ask whether some women or women in general are labelled with some phobias more as compared to men. I mean, the term nymphomania comes to mind,

defined as the insatiable sexual appetite of a woman. Some argue it ridicules sexual desire and when it comes to men, the more generic sexual addiction is used. Well, I think nymphomania by now has pretty much fallen out of use as a diagnosis, but certainly in the 19th century and beyond. I mean, it's in the word. It's exclusively diagnosed in women. And at the most extreme, it was treated with operations on the reproductive organs.

So, yeah, but by the 1970s, I think people were pointing out that really an infomaniac was just a woman who wanted sex more than her husband did. And there are diagnoses, controversial, contentious diagnoses of sexual addiction and so on, but actually now more in men than women. This is a message in from a listener who says, I had a friend whose phobia was large paperclips and I don't know why.

If someone's listening to this and thinks that their phobia is utterly bizarre, that no one's going to take them seriously, or their mania is utterly bizarre, what would you say to them? What should people do to try and overcome these? Well, they are among the most treatable of anxiety disorders. But only apparently one in eight people with a diagnosable phobia actually seeks help. I suppose because it's, in many cases, easier to avoid the thing you fear than to remove the fear itself but but yes i'm sure i'm sure people there are lots of treatments out there from hypnotherapy cognitive behavioral

therapy virtual reality therapies that that you with which you can treat these things if they interfere with your life but sometimes a phobia is is mild enough that it's more like a personality trait, not something deeply distressing, and can almost be a sort of protective device, a kind of focus for anxiety, or a protective superstition. We will have to leave it there. Kate Somerskull, the author of the book of phobias and manias. Thank you so much for your time. And thank you to our listeners for your company this morning on Woman's Hour. Thanks for listening. There's plenty more from Woman's Hour over at BBC Sounds. Video games can be fun. Restart on BBC Sounds. They can also be a danger to your child. We sent him to a rehab facility for teenagers addicted to video games.

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I don't know what game we are playing. What are you going to do? Restart. Play the game. To the end. Available now on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered.

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