Woman's Hour - Jennifer Saunders, Fashion editor Justine Picardie on the real "Miss Dior"

Episode Date: September 13, 2021

From Ab Fab to Jam & Jerusalem, Jennifer Saunders has been gracing our TV screens for decades. She now returns to theatre as eccentric mystic Madame Arcati in a production of Noel Coward’s comedy Blithe Spirit. She discusses what attracted her to the role and reflects on her wide ranging comedy career.When a cancer nurse Aimee Winfield posted on social media about how much she was looking forward to a break, it provoked a flurry of abusive messages. She talks to Emma about the impact it's had on her and why she worries about how this behaviour might affect other colleagues.We hear about Catherine Dior, sister of fashion legend Christian Dior, was a French Resistance fighter during the Second World War and was the inspiration for the Miss Dior fragrance. She was also central to his decision to set up his own fashion house in the aftermath of the war which launched what known as the “New Look” – which created an undeniably feminine silhouette . Her story has received little attention, until now, with the publication of a new book: “Miss Dior – A story of courage and Couture” by the fashion editor Justine Picardie. She joins Emma Barnett to discuss Catherine’s life and her catalytic role in the history of one of the world’s greatest fashion houses.Presenter Emma Barnett Producer Beverley Purcell

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Hello and welcome to today's programme where we're still riding high on another Emma's glorious success at the US Open. Emma Raducanu, of course, the first British woman in 44 years to win a Tennis Grand Slam singles title. The 18-year-old star who had just completed her A-levels before casually winning a major tournament like you do, tweeted yesterday with a picture of the trophy with the words saying, we are taking her home, as she prepared to go back to her family home

where her excited neighbours have put up banners and balloons in their cul-de-sac in Bromley in south-east London. On today's programme, we will pay tribute and tell the story, and if you don't know it, what a story it is, of the trailblazing original nine women of tennis who paved the way for Emma Raducanu one of whom of course, Billie

Jean King, the American tennis legend who presented Emma with her trophy on Saturday in New York. Now a lovely detail, you may have spotted this yourself, is that Emma spurred herself on through each round with the promise of buying herself something she really wanted. In Emma's case, some new headphones. I think with $1.8 million in prize money,

she'll probably get a few sets. What did you buy, though, with your first bit of money? Cast your mind back. Probably wasn't $1.8 million. But what did you treat yourself to if you started to work and you just had a little bit of something you could use? What was it? Why did you go for it? Can you even remember? 84844 is the number you need to text us on. Social media, you can get in touch with me at BBC Women's Hour or email me through the Women's Hour website. Also on today's

programme, someone I'm sure will have a good answer to that, Jennifer Saunders. She'll be here. Anything could happen. I'll also be talking to a cancer nurse who got in touch with me on social media after receiving abuse from anti-vaxxers, after she posted about going on a much-needed holiday. And the other Dior, Catherine, not Christian, why one woman believes that's the Dior to know. Do let us know anything you think while you're listening to today's programme. And I think our first discussion will be something that a lot of you have a lot to say about

because thousands of working parents say they're being failed by the government according to a major new poll into the crippling costs of childcare in this country. Take this in. 84% of women respondents to this poll say that childcare has affected their seniority or income at work compared to 42% of men. That's not discounting what's happened to men. But 84% of women in that poll say that this has affected them, their ability to either afford or access childcare. That figure alone is compelling evidence that a lack of access to affordable childcare or any childcare at all is preventing progress on gender equality, which we, of course, spend a lot of time talking about

here on Woman's Hour. Then we get to the costs. One third of parents say they pay more for childcare than their rent or their mortgage. And the survey, which more than 20,000 parents took part in, has been released today ahead of a debate on childcare in Parliament later. Data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development shows that the UK has the third most expensive childcare system in the world. The third. What choices have you had

to make about your career and your family because of the cost and availability of childcare? You may think we've talked about this before. We have, and we will keep talking about it because, as one commentator put it, it is an invisible problem, and yet it's a huge problem hiding in plain sight that is changing and disrupting the way so many people live 84844 is the number you need to text on social media we are at bbc women's hour jolie brieley's here founder of the charity pregnant then screwed and kathy ray the writer and editor who runs this that single mum instagram account jolie good morning good morning. Good morning, Emma. You put this together with a group of people. Why? Because we have a debate happening in Westminster Hall today, as you have

said, and because for the last decade, charities, campaigners, the early years sector have been whistleblowing and saying there is a massive crisis in the early years sector. It is forcing women out of work. It is forcing them to work fewer hours. And it is entrenching poverty within families. And the government continues to ignore this problem and they continue to push it into the long grass rather than committing the money that they need to in order to make childcare both affordable and good quality.

What do you actually want government to do? Firstly, we want them to commit to an independent review of the childcare sector so that we can see exactly what the problem is. Is childcare affordable? Is the amount of money that they're dedicating to the early years sector enough to ensure that it benefits families and the economy? Are we paying childcare workers effectively enough for the very valuable work that they do? And once they have that data and that research to match the investment

that is necessary to ensure that it stops forcing women out of work and it doesn't entrench poverty in this country. But there will be some listening to this who say that the government have put in provisions and we'll of course talk to the government when we can about this to support some child care and some child care costs. Yeah well the government keeps saying that they have invested the most in child care that has ever been invested by any government previously. The most recent investment that they made actually is very small in terms of what it means per child, but the majority of it was swallowed up by the increase in the minimum wage. So we're not seeing an investment in childcare.

We know that the amount our government invests as a percentage of GDP is about half of the average investment from other OECD countries. It is very small, our investment in the early years sector compared to our education investment. And that means that childcare providers are having to charge an extortionate price, a completely unaffordable price for families to access childcare. Therefore, they are having to leave their jobs. It also means that childcare workers, one in 10, are living in poverty. I mean, that's just disgusting. So we really need to see the government step up and start investing in our early years sector properly. Mary's just messaging to say cheap care comes by paying the childcare as awful wages. They must be

paid properly. Maybe a sliding scale of payments backed up by the government, a suggestion as well as an observation there. Because I think what people struggle with, if they're not familiar with this, and they may not be at that stage of their life or may not have children or whatever their viewpoint is, is how is it so expensive and yet the salaries don't reflect that? Because our government doesn't invest enough in the earlier sector, other countries, they invest a lot more money as a percentage of GDP in their childcare sector to make it affordable and good quality. Our government does not do that. Therefore, childcare providers have to pay their staff badly in order to stay afloat, and they have to charge an extortionate cost in

order for parents to use childcare facilities. Against the backdrop of a pandemic, thinking of last week with the reaction to, we've only got a little bit of a view of what they might be, the plans to fund social care, but broadly what's going to happen with national insurance there will also be others listening to this thinking the government can't pay for everything i mean that that's their argument as well but we know from many studies there's a big study done in australia that for every dollar you invest in child care you get two2 back. The Women's Budget Group have done a full budget of childcare that shows that if you pay childcare workers the same salary as teachers, and if you make childcare completely affordable, you recoup the money from more women being in

work, from more women paying more taxes. We also know that investment in care creates 2.7 times as many jobs as investment in construction. There is a hard economic argument here for investing in childcare, but for some reason, the government ignores that economic argument and refuses to invest in it. Again, questions to put to, I suppose, the Children's Minister, Vicky Ford. We've had her on before. I hope we can have her back and talk about the economics of this. The economics of people's lives, though, has also come up in this. I'll come to Cathy in just a moment.

The figures that you've got about a third of parents saying they pay more for childcare than their rent or mortgage is definitely something to pause on and reflect on. What's your take on that? I mean, you could buy another house, couldn't you, rather than pay for childcare. And we've seen for Black, Asian, ethnic minority women, it's half of Black, Asian, ethnic minority women say that their childcare costs more than their mortgage. This is disproportionately impacting the groups that, you know, we really need to be supporting as well. So, I mean, it's absolutely crackers that we would be paying for somebody to look after our children so that we can work and paying more than we pay to live in a house. It makes no sense whatsoever. Yes, no, and I know you did this in

partnership with people from different backgrounds to make sure that you covered that. And some of the black mums that you're working with are also trying to popularise that and make sure that people know that it's disproportionate. Because when we talk about equality, we don't just mean gender, we're also looking across the board. Also got to look at single parents. Cathy, this is where I hope you can come in and help us. What is your response to the findings of this poll and how have you found childcare provision? Hi, thanks for having me. It's not at all surprising having had two children and having had to fund their early years myself um and knowing how colossal that cost is um I work I work full-time um however my income has never ever been enough to pay for my child care and my child care has always been at least

three times what I pay to live in my home um two kids in childcare. Three times? Yeah. Wow. Okay. I've tried different settings, nurseries, child minors, nannies. It's always been at least that. And now that my eldest is a bit older and she's in primary school, that cost is alleviated slightly. But again, you know, even though we've got things like 15 hours free

and 30 hours free um for certain ages for children and then obviously they go to primary school um it's very rare to find uh jobs that will fit into that uh time frame of 9 15 a.m to 2 45 at p.m and pay enough to pay for all that child care that you need as well. Have you ever thought about not working because of all of this? Yeah, definitely. When my children were zero and one and three, I thought about it a lot. But I also knew what it might potentially do to my ability to move up that career ladder. And keep going thereafter, because it's not a short space of time, but it's a relatively short space of time where it's really, really the worst.

And then you hope to be able to invest. I mean, we had a fascinating discussion about this about Japan the other day where we had somebody on, an author, who's trying to get housewives, as she was referring to them, back into the workplace who've been out because maybe we should be flipping this whole thing anyway. But I remember we immediately had a message from a single mum saying, I would have loved to have actually been off with my children, as it were, but I couldn't afford to. So that's the other rub. People cannot afford to give it up and they can't afford the childcare. Jolie, just to come back to you on this, there'll

be people listening again will be thinking, why is women's hour got to do this? Why is women's hour got to have this conversation? I know that men, this is a poll of parents, not just women. Do you think that it's still the reality, of course, that it is the majority of women who are affected in one way or the other, not least by that statistic I said right at the beginning of our conversation about women respondents saying childcare has affected their income or seniority at work? Yeah, absolutely. It's because it tends to be women that take time out in those early days to care for their children because of the way our parental system works. It makes much more sense for the mother to take time out in those early days. So she tends to take nine months a year off.

And then when she's looking to return to work, what tends to happen is they look at childcare costs, compare it to her income, and it doesn't stack up. So they say, okay, this isn't going to work. What do I do? Do I want to pay somebody? Do I want to be paying for somebody to be looking after my child that I love dearly and want to spend all of my time with? No, of course I don't. So I'll step back. I will leave the workforce for't. So I'll step back. I will leave the workforce for five years and I'll try and get back in five years later when of course they started to much lower level.

And so therefore we have a gender pay gap. We know that there are 870,000 stay-at-home mums who want to work but can't because of childcare costs and availability. That's half of all out-of-work mums. This really is a women's issue. This really is an equality issue. I'm very struck by a couple of messages. One that's synonymous, it says, as a graduate and qualified chartered accountant at the start of a potentially promising career, I found that after having my two children, virtually my whole salary would be spent

on paying for someone else to look after my children a tough choice was made to put my career to the side like so many others and another message below that which I'd love you to respond to both of you just briefly if you can David says don't parents think this through and budget accordingly before they have children child care costs often seem to be a surprise to many people Jolie yeah? Yeah, I mean, we often get told it's a lifestyle choice, isn't it, having children? What we're saying here is that this is good for the economy. We're not saying, oh, pay for somebody to look after my kids, you taxpayers. We're saying this makes no economic sense to force skilled women out of the workforce so that they are not paying tax, they are not contributing to either their families or the economy.

Let's have that conversation. Cathy? That kind of comment angers me a bit because why should only one class of people be allowed to have children? Everybody should be allowed to have children. As in those who can afford, is what you're taking from that? Yeah. Cathy, thank you very much for allowed to have children. As in those who can afford, it's what you're taking from that. Yeah. Kathy, thank you very much for talking to us today.

Kathy Ray there, writer and editor who runs That Single Mum Instagram account. Jodie Brearley, founder of the charity Pregnant Than Screwed, who convened this research. Keep your messages coming in on what you have to say about this. And I know that many of you will have had the experience and want to say something. But let's get to our next guest she may have something also to add about this and cast her mind back to when her children were young you may know her as Irina from Ab Fab Caroline from Jam and Jerusalem or one half of the eponymous French and Saunders but Jennifer Saunders is back treading the boards in the West End in a new incarnation as Madame McCarty, an eccentric medium who presides over a seance

in the Noel Coward comedy, Blythe Spirit. Jennifer Saunders, good morning. Good morning. Thanks for joining us today. Oh, absolute pleasure. Why are you back on stage in this role? What drew you to this? Well, I mean, to be honest, we had done two weeks in the West End before the first lockdown. And it was we literally closed down one night. You know, they just came around the dressing rooms and said, don't put your makeup on.

You're all going home. No one's allowed in. So we were sort of halted midstream. And so what we're doing now is completing the circle. We're coming back at the Harold Pinter Theatre, a different theatre, until November the 6th. Yeah, I was actually walking past there the other day and I caught sight of your face staring down. And I thought...

Beautiful, was it? Yeah. And you're stunned by the beauty. Well, she's quite a character, isn't she? For our listeners who don't know anything about... Tell us what she is and what she's doing. She's an English eccentric. She's of the great sort of tradition of English eccentric women.

And she's a medium. And I think when Coward wrote it in the 40s, just remember that there'd been the First World War and a lot of people's families' sons had died and people hadn't got closure. And I think a lot of people were left with just a letter saying your son has died and they wanted to they wanted something you know and I think there were a lot of mediums and a lot of people having sentences around that time

and so it was a sort of rich rich comedy ground for Noel Coward and um and he makes the most of it it's it's a glorious part and it's a part I love mainly because you can't have any vanity and those are the best parts. You wear the worst dresses and the terrible shoes and I try and make my eyebrows just almost reach my hairline as I pencil them on every night. And the rest of the cast gasp as they see me because sometimes they do go too far

but it's honestly it's just it's just one of those lovely glorious parts. Do you believe in the supernatural? I don't know really I think when I was younger I used to imagine I saw all sorts of things and you you know you sensed atmospheres and possibly saw things. Now, I just honestly haven't got the time. When you walk home, you go, oh, gosh, please don't let there be anything because I just haven't got the time. I haven't got the time to be frightened anymore. I've got to brush my eyebrows down from this experience.

You've got beautiful eyebrows. I'm talking as if I'm you, but poofing them down. Really happy you've brought up facial hair actually an interview i was reading with you in preparation for our chat today jennifer um was when you uh you talked about being a grandma and one of your grandchildren uh asked if you were growing a beard yes he caught me in a bad light um there was some light coming in through a window, and it suddenly highlighted quite a lot of facial hair. And he just looked at me and said, and they called me Jam Jar.

And he said, Jam Jar, are you growing a beard? And I thought, oh, no. But you see, that's the laser-sharp eyesight of a tiny person. We don't have any more. If I took my glasses off, I can barely see, you know, I'm just a beautiful glowing face. If I put my glasses on,

it's horrifying. No, no. I also had that thing. I went to a hotel for the first time in a very long time, not long ago. And, you know,

they have those amazing mirrors with the lights around them. And I caught sight of a black hair, you know, underneath my chin that I've never had access to see before.

I also have severe myopia. And I thought, right, that's been a friend on my face, possibly during the whole of lockdown. These are the things we have to deal with. Terrible. I have a mirror that is so powerful. It's like the Hubble telescope of mirrors. You can sort of, you rope in the sun to just examine every pore now, because you because you think well this is what children are seeing it's horrifying well it's just it's just good to talk about these things let it let it hang out i'm talking of hanging out you and dawn french she was on the program not long ago making us all smile as well and you've gone into podcasting now together yes we have we've been

forced into it right and by lockdown and um and we found we rather enjoyed it we were unaware of really what it was before but during lockdown um they said well you could podcast and we thought well let's have a go but the rumors about you writing a new sitcom together though true not true who knows you say these things do you know and then we there was a good idea but then you wish someone else would make it and you could just watch it um because we'd have to actually do something and that's what we find we're very good at talking at each other and that's why we do titting about because it's it's basically just yakking in a way that we we spend a lot of our time doing yeah well you know you

need to get on with it jennifer come on now you we've talked about it publicly and it's we did talk about it we said well it would have to be something set near our homes where we both wear loose trousers and flat shoes because that would encourage us that would encourage us to get it done well i i love what you've you've said before about female friendship and actually about you and dawn there was one particular gig you were working on you said you were able to drive there and drive back together for an hour or so. And you sometimes repeated the same conversations you'd enjoyed so much. Lovely. That was doing Death on the Nile, the Kenneth Branagh film that might never come out. We haven't seen it yet. And we were so glad to be in a huge movie.

And of course, it hasn't seen the light of day yet. But we used to get in a van together and drive for an hour to the set and just talk. I mean, solidly talk all the way. And sometimes you do have those conversations and it can be a person or an event. And you say, oh, can we just and you start talking about it again. And it's even more enjoyable the second time round. It's just lovely. Female friendship's been a massive part of your life, hasn't it? I know you've got three daughters as well and now a grandma. But sometimes I know you felt frustrated about how it's represented in the media. Yeah.

I think often, I mean, less so now because there's so many brilliant female writers. You've got Sharon Horgan, Aisling Bea, and you've got Motherland, and you've got some brilliant female writers. And I think women write much better for women generally because before women were always seen to be competitive somehow. And you think, well, I don't think I have that in my life. I don't think I'm competitive with my girlfriends. You know, you tend to be incredibly supportive.

And a lot of women spend a lot of their time with other women, you know, and I didn't think that was particularly well represented. Well, we've just been, of course, talking about women being able to work, childcare, all of that side of things and how difficult that is and what some see as a lack of investment in all of that. How did you do all of that side of things and how difficult that is and what some see as the lack of investment in all of that. How did you do all of that? Do you remember what the patterns were? Because it's often a patchwork.

Oh, yeah. Well, we could afford childcare. And because by the time I had kids, we were touring and stuff. And so we were earning and could afford childcare. But we never left them on the arena. We made sure that, Ed and I made sure that we were never working at the same time so that we could always do the school run

and be there to pick him up or in the evening or whatever. But no, it was a matter of just juggling it. And also we just prioritised it, to be honest, because, because we always said, well, we won't work in the summer because that's school holidays and we will try not to do this. But we have a job where you can do that. Most people don't have that luxury. You know, most people have to get up and go into an office or be there for a certain amount of time. But the job we have allowed us that luxury. I think the other side of what I was thinking about before speaking to you today is when I was younger, I was so excited to see you and Dawn French on the television simply because you were two women talking about things that I hadn't seen anyone else talk about necessarily.

And just in terms of representation, I know that's changed again. And I was re-watching actually just before I turned the mic, came on and the mic went live. I was re-watching that scene from The Young Ones where you're sat there and Rick Mayall, the much-loved, much-missed Rick Mayall opens your handbag and finds a tampon and uses it to stir a drink next to him. Just talking about women writing for women

and sort of what you were doing and breaking new ground. Did you know how much new ground you were breaking some of the time? I recognise that wasn't necessarily your writing there, but you were obviously writing throughout this time. I think we probably did because we knew when we mentioned certain things, you know, if we said the word clitoris or if we said your period or all that sort of stuff, we knew that there was deep intake of breath from male executives and things and around. But we just thought, well, just do it. Just do it. Because, I mean mean and until someone stopped us we just went on saying it and doing it i mean the one thing i realized we never knew about was the menopause

because we used to say it quite a lot and imagined it was something to do with menstruation but had no idea because nobody talked about it then you know i remember even when i did ab fab when i was in my late 30s when i started AbFab and Dean was 40. And she started talking about menopause because I heard it was something women talked about. But I honestly didn't really know what it was. When did you find out? When I had it, no. I was going to say, when it came and smacked you in the face.

The thing probably in that time, I mean, I got a book on it to sort of look, oh, that's what menopause is, I see. And then forgot about it after I'd written the part. But I then, I do remember thinking, as it sort of crept up, as you get older, people sort of test you for osteoporosis and things like that. And they, oh, you're in the foothills, was always the comment. And I thought, the foothills of what? What are the foothills of? What is this mountain approaching? And then because I had breast cancer, I was sort of plunged into the menopause very quickly.

And I suddenly realised it's, nobody talks about the mental health really around it either, you know, and everything you can go through and everything you do to counter it. It was a revelation. Well, maybe that's the sitcom. Can you do a sitcom, do you think, on menopause? Just call it menopause, yes.

There's nothing wrong with that. That's quite good, isn't it? Loose trousers, no hormones. There we go. I feel like the direction, we've talked about chin hair, the direction of all of this is heading in that way. So can you keep me posted? Can you keep us all posted? Yes, pretty women. Yes, that'll be it. Yes.

If that's the way it will go. I also just wanted to ask you about sexist heckling, because I came across this story and I'd love it if you could share it with us or your memory of it. What Dawn once did when you were heckled on stage or how did you deal with that? Because you were obviously dealing with audiences not still used to perhaps femaleled on stage. Or how did you deal with that? Because you were obviously dealing with audiences not still used to perhaps female comics on stage. Wow. When we started, we started in a Paul Raymond's Review Bar, which was a strip club as well. And so we had one theatre and all the punters for the strippers

would go in another entrance. Occasionally they would come and sit in and look. So generally what we used to get was people just looking at us completely bemused that we'd managed to keep our clothes on. One day we went to the comedy store. And remember, Dawn was a teacher at this time, so she was quite strict. And we got up on stage and there was a lot of heckling.

There were some very, very drunk men in the audience. And they started to shout things like, get him off. What are you doing? And started to sort of be a bit lewd with us. And Dawn just stopped. And she said, hang on a minute, Jennifer. And she just looked at them and said, stop it. Stop it now.

This is not going to happen. Stop it now. And they all completely went quiet and we continued obviously then nobody laughed for the rest of the act because everyone was so afraid so afraid of dawn and we went off stage and backstage one of the guys who'd been in the in the um gang came back and said hold hold up, we're really, really sorry. It's a stag party for the river police. And they'd just been drunk and they'd just been silly. Well, that's one way.

Someone had stopped them in their tracks. I was going to say that's one way to ensure you don't get any laughs thereafter. Exactly. On that lovely note, I'll ask you what I'm asking our audience. We've got some lovely messages coming in from our listeners, what they first bought when they got a tiny bit of money or the first paycheck with Emma Raducanu wanting to buy some headphones. Do you remember anything you bought?

Yes, I bought a car. Oh, what car? And I remember it. I remember it because we used to earn very little when we were doing live stuff live stuff we literally it was like a bus fare home but um then we did the comic strip series for channel four and i think i must have earned two thousand pounds for that because that's exactly i remember spending everything on this guy this flash guy used to drive past our house in this um alfa sports car. And I used to think, I'm going to have that.

I'm going to have it. And one day I produced £2,000 and bought the car. Cool. Happy that we got that on the record there. It was really, really cool. I had no money for a long time, but I had the most beautiful car. Oh, lovely. Well, Madam McCarty, or Jennifer Saunders, Madam McCarty as she is at the moment

in Noel Coward's comedy, Blythe Spirit at the Harold Pinsley Theatre, thank you so much for coming to Bear All and you're welcome for that idea for the sitcom. Let us know if it comes off. Jennifer Saunders there, lovely to have you on the programme. Tom says,

I bought a set of samurai swords with my first pay packet. Like you do. Bespoke 28-inch flared trousers. Thought I was cool, but I probably look like a Muppet. There's another one here. I've got some sandals.

I still have them, back in 1971. Another one, D says, I bought my first bike. Always wanted one, so I bought it with my first wage packet from a full-time job. I was 19 at the time

and more than 30 years later, I still have it. And another one, my first pay slip from being a chambermaid in 1989 was spent on a trip to London to buy some ultra-cool clothes and some shoes from Carnaby Street. Well, Emma Raducanu still dominating the headlines and the front pages this morning following her spectacular win

against the Canadian tennis player Leila Fernandez at the US Open final on Saturday. And I'm sure she's already got those new headphones. Let's talk now to Rebecca Myers, journalist at the Sunday Times Sports section, about the original nine, the female players who paved the way for players like Emma to be paid equally to men and demand the same audiences. Good morning, Rebecca. Good morning. Hi.

Some of them were there, weren't they, on Saturday? They were, yeah. And what an amazing image that was to see those women. I think there were six of the nine were there at the match on court. And Billie Jean King, who is very much the sort of trailblazer for all of this. And to see that, I think, obviously looking at the future of women's tennis and a player who we can get excited about for the next decade, alongside the women who who really made exactly as

you said paved the way for everything that she's going to enjoy now but for some people that you know will not know a single thing about the original nine who were they so they were incredibly pioneering and it's i have just literally um finished reading billie jin king's new memoir all in and she talks about all the work she's done over the years and i think what really struck me is that billie jin king was doing all of this all of this activism fighting all of these fights but she was doing it 50 years ago you know these are fights that we are still having to wage now you know equal pay equal audiences attendances all of that Billie Jean King was was on that 50 years ago and these women basically um were were up in arms about unequal pay at the time.

It was 1970. Billie Jean King had received $600 for the Italian Open win at the time when the male winner had received $3,500. Routinely looking at about at least sort of five times the amount that women players were receiving at the time. And women players were fed up. You know, they were also in America concerned that they weren't getting enough opportunities to play, enough invitations to tournaments. And so they sat down with the U.S. Law and Tennis Association. They said, pay us more or we're not going to turn up. And the U.S. LTA said no. So they didn't. They started their own event. They played their own tournament at the same time as a U.S. LTA official tournament.

And from there, they started their own circuits. They ended up having a whole tour that they played all year round, away from the official sanctioned tour, basically saying, we'll keep playing, we'll keep getting those crowds until you bring us in and pay us properly. But it was quite, it was major, wasn't it, though? And it was a real risk. And they always hold up a dollar bill, don't they?

Why do they do that? So this is the sort of, yeah, famous photo of them all up a dollar bill, don't they? Why do they do that? So this is the sort of famous photo of them all with a dollar. And it was basically a way of them signing a professional contract. So it was a token gesture. Literally, they whipped around the room and said, has someone got a dollar? We can sign these contracts now. But it allowed them to play as professionals on this tour

that became the Virginia Slims circuit for many, many years. And just for context, by the of the the second year of that tour by the end of 1971 the total prize money they could win on that circuit was three hundred thousand dollars they'd gone from this sort of one dollar moment all the way to that and billy jing king would go on to become the first female player in history to win um a grand total of a hundred thousand dollars which at the time was was huge um huge in one year. And I was just also going to say that, you know, the sort of risk to their careers in doing this was also major, wasn't it? Because, you know, they had to build a business on the side of this. They had to get advertisers. They had to get sponsors.

They had to keep themselves afloat on this completely separate circuit that they built from the ground up. Absolutely. And it was, you know, the USLTA were furious about this. Senior figures in tennis who had a lot of power were absolutely furious. And there was every chance that, you know, they were at times they were threatened with basically not being invited to major tournaments to the biggest kind of other earners that were available to them. And these women weren't earning a huge amount at that time. So everything, everything they'd worked for was on the line. And I think it just shows how obviously fed up they were that they basically said, fine, you know, we'll, we'll risk it. We'll, we'll go for it.

And that's why, I mean, of course, tributes have been paid this morning and she's paid tribute, Emma Raducanu to Virginia Wade, of course, who was in the audience watching and also Tim Henman, who's been a big part of her inspiration and knows her coach very well. But it was those women in a way that everything comes from. Absolutely. And, you know, Billie Jean King basically threatened to boycott the US Open in the 1970s. So the US Open had equal prize money pretty much as a direct result of her. By 1973, for context, Wimbledon didn't have equal prize money until 2007.

So she was an absolute trailblazer in that sense. I think across the board, you know, you see her legacy in that cheque that Emma Raducani was holding up. She points out in her memoir that Forbes, who do a kind of collection of the highest paid female sports stars every year, a tennis star has been at the top of that list every single year since it started coming out in the 90s. So her legacy is that female tennis stars can earn millions and millions of dollars in a way that a lot of other female sports stars

simply still can't. And it's not just about the money, though, of course. There'll be debates about that, I suppose, in other ways and what that is and what that means because it's not just about prize money now, obviously, it's about sponsorships and then being seen as those figures that people want to follow. It's about audience, isn't it? It's about actually having made the women's game be deemed worthy of watching a battle we still see, as you say, being fought across so many sports. Yeah, and that was such a sort of joyous thing to see about Emma Raducanu's matches, all these people. And I think sort of, you know, senior male figures in sports saying, I've never seen a sporting moment like this in my life,

which you just don't see. And this sort of attention, you know, it completely eclipsed the men's final, even though there was a lot at stake there as well. The excitement around Emma Raducanu totally eclipsed that. And that's a phenomenal achievement for a female athlete um and I think also you know like I said these battles are still being fought we talk in women's sport about a sort of vicious cycle so when female athletes earn less because there's less sponsorship because there's less viewership and because there's

less coverage so if you don't cover it people don't know to go and see it so they don't attend so people don't sponsor it because it hasn't got the audience and then they don't earn the money. So it's this kind of horrendous vicious cycle that women's sport can get into. And it just shows when you break one link in that, when you invest in women's sport, when you invest in young talent, the whole picture can change and you can end up with someone like Emma Raducanu. Who's hopefully got a new pair of headphones by now. Hopefully. We're getting some great messages about what people have bought or did buy with their first paycheck or a bit of money. Rebecca Myers, thank you for putting us in the picture of the original nine.

A journalist at the Sunday Times and Sunday Times Sports section. Diane says, back in 1975, I went back to part time teaching and with my first pay packet, I bought an Urkel rocking chair. It's still in existence. I gave it to my son and daughter-in-law who then passed it to my granddaughter. Today it's back with me until my granddaughter has space in her home for it. It's been recovered a number of times but still a retro delight. And Jane says I bought my mum a bottle of Chanel No. 5 with my first paycheck. I was a student nurse in London in the 80s. What a lovely gesture, what a lovely gift. Well I'm going to be talking to a nurse just now

because as the Prime Minister prepares to unveil his winter plan this week regarding COVID restrictions, what is it like on the front line of the NHS at the moment? A few days ago, a cancer nurse messaged me on Instagram describing the trolling and abuse she's received just for taking some holiday. Last month, Amy, who's a prostate cancer nurse in the Midlands, wrote a post online saying how much she was looking forward to a break. It provoked a flurry of messages saying she shouldn't be going on holiday,

as well as some abuse and misinformation, which seems to follow an anti-vax line. Amy, good morning. Good morning, Emma. Thanks for coming on the programme. I know that you were very distressed by this, but before we talk about your reaction, what were people getting in touch to say? So it started off with some comments, definitely from anti-vaxxers.

And then I think they're all from anti-vaxxers, to be honest, but mainly about I shouldn't be going on annual leave. There's too many unwell people that have been delayed in the backlog that were murderers in the NHS as nurses. There were so many comments about, you know, what we're giving to people in the vaccine and also the use of midazolam in the NHS at the moment. Well, I've also got a few of the messages in front of me asking, you know, you're saying you're full of lies.

Hospitals haven't seen mass deaths. Asking where this is. The same, basically the whole thing is a hoax, as well as comments about the vaccine. And we should say here, you've not got a particularly huge following. You're someone doing your job, sharing that you're going on holiday

after what I imagine has been an intense period. Yeah, absolutely. I think I've got about 1,300 followers, very small. And I think I was targeted because I hashtagged NHS nurses. And I'm quite proud to be an NHS nurse, so I'm quite happy to tag that in my posts. So, yeah, I think they go out looking for certain hashtags and certain people, unfortunately.

And what was your response when you saw this? I was really shocked I was furious I wasn't actually upset I was just so cross um and I did respond to them and some of my friends did as well um and to be honest that didn't really make any difference I think it just gave them more ammunition to keep going um eventually I did block them then they just went for my friends. So that didn't work either. And Instagram weren't really interested in doing anything about it, which probably enraged me even more. We did have a statement from Facebook, which is a parent company of Instagram saying, no one should have to receive these messages. We understand how

upsetting this must have been. We have strict rules against bullying and harassment on Instagram and apply our harmful misinformation policy to misinformation about COVID-19, which could contribute to physical harm. We have removed one of the accounts for breaking our rules. This is in response to you, Amy, and are investigating the second account brought to our attention. So that's a response there. But I suppose just away from the social media company's response, which is a whole other debate and one we have had and I'm sure will continue to have you're left with the reality that this is something that you received after 18 months like no other in the job that you do and

you've just alluded to the fact I mean is this happening to other colleagues as well? Not colleagues I work directly with but I had so many messages from other NHS nurses saying this happens to me all the time. And I was really shocked. I'm not saying that anyone else deserves it. Nobody deserves trolling. But you hear about people in the public eye getting trolled, which is awful. Anybody getting trolled is awful. But people are targeting nurses and NHS staff and I don't think that's known I certainly didn't realise what a big problem it was until I started investigating but a lot of people I work with messaged me saying I wouldn't cope if this was me you know mental health is huge in the NHS at the moment and you know we have lots of people off at the moment struggling with their mental health

and on the edge and I think this would push some people over. And I mean, just to stress again, you hadn't even posted, I say even as if it would be justifiable, but in this warped world of what people can say to each other on social media, you hadn't posted anything political, you hadn't posted anything about, I don't know, COVID passports or vaccine passports, I should say. It was just about going on holiday. Yeah. It was just about going on holiday.

Yeah, it was purely about going on holiday. I'd say I am a pro-vaccine person, but most nurses are. But no, I haven't posted anything like that. And are your bosses, I know we're not naming where you work or anything like that. We just keep this to this discussion. But are people in the NHS aware of this and what's going on is there any response in that way to try and support so my um my you know my small team are amazing they're really supportive my line manager's amazing the communications team at my trust have

been fantastic and um the lady in comms that i've been speaking to actually wants to make this a lot bigger and take it a lot further and have involved NHS England. So hopefully we'll sort of raise awareness and more to provide support really to people that are affected and do really struggle with these kind of things. What would you like to say to anybody listening who's ever posted abuse?

I doubt they'll get in touch but have ever posted abuse on a nurse's social media account or a doctor's social media account um i think they probably don't realize how difficult the last 18 months has been um we don't want to delay anybody's operation cancer treatment etc you know it's distressing for us as well as the patients themselves and I think if you're trolling anybody that you're you know you're probably really not in a good place yourself and you probably need to reach out and get some help so instead of reaching out and being cruel maybe reach out and get some help for yourself it's such a stark contrast and of course there'll be

people listening saying this is a this is just a minority of people, but it's a stark contrast to the scenes of standing on doorsteps and clapping. Yeah, and it's so sad because actually when we stood out last year and people clapped, it was my, you know, my husband's a nurse as well and it was the most heartwarming thing that we'd ever heard. And, you know, we were all very emotional and it's just sad that we feel like this summer

it's completely turned on its head and it's nothing like that at all. Even though it will be the minority and the silent majority, of course, do not feel like that, which I think is important to say, if I'm allowed to say, on behalf of others. Just finally, did you get a nice holiday? Did you get a break? It was a lovely holiday, thank you. We went to Norfolk. It was absolutely beautiful. beautiful yeah it was lovely to get away thank you well I thought I'd at least ask and thank you so much for for coming on I know your time is precious and I'm sorry to say talking about something like this but I think it's important to to let people know what is going on which is why I suspect you got in touch with me in the first place yeah absolutely thank you so much Emma for having me Amy all the best thank you very much for coming on and as say, we just shared that statement from Instagram

for the latest about that. Well, my next guest actually knows that corner of the world, Norfolk, very well. Maybe we'll get to that shortly. But forget about Christian. It's all about Catherine Dior, often written up as the mere sister of the fashion legend and the inspiration for the Miss Dior fragrance.

Actually, she was a French resistance fighter during Second World War who was sent to concentration camps. Catherine Dior's story has received very little attention until now. Fashion editor Justine Picardy is hoping to put this right with the publication of a new book, Miss Dior, a story of courage and couture. Justine, good morning. Hello. Why Catherine? What drew you to her? I was just so shocked when I heard about her, which I hadn't for a long time, that her voice had been silenced, that her story had been forgotten.

She, as you say, she was a heroine of the French resistance. She was deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp and she was the woman that Christian Dior loved most in the world and was his inspiration for the perfume Miss Dior, but also really to set up his couture house in the aftermath of the war and his famous new look. So I wanted to explore why it was that the world, and this was beyond the fashion world, couldn't bear really to hear about Catherine. Did she not want people to know about her though?

Because you've had a bit of a challenge on your hands finding out much about her from her. I think she was traumatised after her experience. She was captured by the Gestapo in July 1944, tortured. Some of the people that tortured her were French collaborators and then deported to Germany and was in four different camps. First of all Ravensbrück and then three slave labour camps. So by the time she, I mean, it was a miracle that she survived at all. And she wouldn't give anyone's names, would she?

No, she protected her brother, Christian, who had sheltered her, all her comrades in the French resistance, everybody. But by the time she returned to Paris, she herself was suffering from the traumatic aftermath. But I think that at the end of the Second World War, people didn't want to hear the stories of women like Catherine. And just as perhaps now, you know, as we're emerging from this period of great global disruption, there are a lot of people that just want to forget about what's just happened and start looking forward.

And I think something very similar, when you think about the Second World War, it was six years and there were perhaps a majority of people that just wanted to think about hope and romance and joy and beauty, which was represented by Christiane Dior's legendary new look. They didn't want to think about the suffering. Let's go back to perhaps the fashion and the new look and what happens next and her role in that.

But she goes in and begins this quest, this fight. And one of her ways into it, I believe, was an affair with a member of the resistance or was she already involved? Which came first? Well, what happened first, actually, and it's rather relevant because we're sitting here in the BBC, is that she went to buy a radio so that she could listen to the free French broadcasts on the BBC, which. So she did that. And while she was, you know, finding a radio, she met somebody, Hervé de Chabonnerie, who she did become involved with, and he was already in

the French resistance. But she'd already taken that important first step. And Christian Dior's role while she was resisting was what? Because he was continuing to create? Yes, well, to begin with, they were growing vegetables together, because there was no food, you know, there was rationing. And they moved back to the south of France. And they moved back to the south of France. And then the conditions just worsened, you know, no food, no fuel. And he returned to Paris, which was occupied to work as a designer for the couturier Lucien Lalonde in order to earn some money. And she joined the resistance, worked in the south of France to begin with, and then returned to Paris and lived with Christian in his apartment in Paris and continued her resistance

activities. But he sheltered her there as long as well as some of her comrades in the resistance. And he was gay, which would have been enough for him to have been deported too. So he was a tacit supporter, I would say, who put himself at risk. She was an active supporter at a time when there were only 100,000 active supporters in the resistance, maybe 400,000 majority, you know, at the most, which was less than 1% of the French population. Which is, again, a statistic, we've had a few today, worth pausing on. Yeah.

To take in the enormity of that in several ways. You described, and you do describe in the book, enormity of that in several ways. You described and you do describe in the book the horrors that she went through. And when she emerged amazingly alive, what did she go back or go and do? Well, she found solace in the natural world. So she returned to Paris and then Christiane and Catherine had grown roses together on their father's little farmhouse in Provence. And she continued to do that, but she also she had to earn a living and she became a dealer in cut flowers at the Paris flower market. So literally, you see this extraordinary woman who the Nazi regime has attempted to dehumanize everybody. And their way of dehumanizing women was to strip away their last vestiges of femininity. And you see her somehow rejoining the world through the natural world, through growing roses and selling flowers. And it's interesting that Christian Dior's, it was christened The New Look by the then editor of Harper's Bazaar, Carmel Snow.

But what he actually called it was a collection for flower women. It was La Carole, you know, the flower. And Catherine really was the original flower woman. She was the woman who returned. One of the things I found most moving in researching the book was I went to Ravensbrück twice and to go through the archives because so much has been forgotten. And when I was there, and nobody else was there, it was practically empty, I found in this terrible, haunting place this symbol of hope and renewal, which was a rose garden.

The survivors of Ravensbrück had returned to plant roses in memory of their lost friends and sisters. And a French woman, a member of the resistance, had bred a rose called Resurrection that could survive the cold northern winters because Ravensbrück is 80 miles north of Berlin. And the first time I went was November and the roses of Ravensbrück is 80 miles north of Berlin. And the first time I went was November, and the roses of Ravensbrück were in bloom. And that, to me, seemed such a powerful symbol, both of resistance and resilience. And I just hadn't expected to find it there.

And so roses, for me, as a researcher and writer, I sort of followed the trail of roses in the search of this elusive woman. And Catherine continued to grow roses until she died at the age of 90. And her roses were used as an ingredient for the perfume named in her honour, which is Misty Orr. Which people will not necessarily, most people will know. Nobody would know that. Or who that woman was. Exactly. And she died in June at the age of 90, having brought in her last harvest of roses. And she made sure to bring that harvest in.

So to me, she's an extraordinarily inspiring heroine. Why do you think the House of Dior have been so quiet about her? They did use her once, didn't they, in recent times? I think they just didn't know very much about her because Christian Dior died in 1957. And the house, you know, was sold to somebody else. It was only, it was finally bought by and became part of LVMH in the 1990s. So there was a long period where the archives weren't necessarily kept. As you say, Catherine was very discreet. I mean, she did still, she would appear every year, you know, at a resistance ceremony. She was given a lot of medals and honours. But no, everybody kind of forgot about her.

But wasn't she brought up by Dior or the House of Dior, whoever was owning it at that point, when they had that issue with John Galliano? Yes, I mean, she was dead by that point. But after Galliano was sort of infamously got rid of after he'd made anti-Semitic comments, Dior at that point did say, you know, Catherine Dior, the sister of the original founder was in the resistance and we cannot tolerate anti-Semitism. But that was all, nothing more

really was known about her. That was the first time I heard about her. And that was one of the kind of triggers for me to think, why do we not know more about her? And she was left as what was described as the moral heir of Christian Dior's work. Yes, Christian died of a heart attack at the age of 52 in 1957, and by that point he was actually in debt to unpaid taxes to the French government. So he did leave everything really to Catherine but that involved a lot of debt but he named her, it's a very powerful term, his moral heir. So she kept everything, his drawings, but I think she was his moral compass

and I think she represented the sort of best and truest part of himself and his vision of France as well, that did have moral integrity, despite the widespread collaboration of the Second World War. Well, you've also, and you mentioned Harper's Bazaar, we should say, used to be the editor of that particular magazine. And you've written a previous book and i was just minded of it because we were talking about what people bought with their first salary or bit of money and someone said they bought chanel number five for their mum and you previously wrote about coco chanel and you've you've delved deeply deep into these women's lives it must have been such a

different thing to look at the sister here also Also a very different side of this, if you like, with terms of the war and the politics of it. And it must have been fascinating to have that contrast as well. Yes, I mean, Coco Chanel and Christian Dior are the two most famous names in fashion, in couture and also in perfumery. And I felt that it was really interesting to understand Catherine in order to be able to understand Christian.

But yes, they represent two very different, powerful, yet iconic looks. Well, people can have a look in more detail through your book, Misty Orr, A Story of Courage and Couture. Two words to put together there that perhaps people don't always put together. Justine Picardi, thank you very much for talking to us. Thank you so much for your company and brilliant and interesting messages today, as always. I'll be back with you tomorrow at 10. That's all for today's Woman's Hour.

Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. Hello, this is Jane Garvey. I'm with my broadcasting friend fee glover come in fee oh thank you darling thank you how are you all right uh we do a podcast together called fortunately it has been surprisingly successful and you'd be honestly you'd be really quite quite choked with emotion to discover that other people have found us some of them have quite enjoyed it other people like carping we welcome all comers we don't care who you are where you

are what you do or what you think as long as you're prepared to join with us in well what do we do fee we kind of unravel we unburden we unload what do we do we're a self-help group of two that other people quite like to witness and we don't really mind if you laugh with us or at us. You're just welcome aboard a slightly rickety midlife ship, which occasionally has guests who are far more successful than us. But we try not to let that get in the way. We'd love you to join in. And as V says, be a part of it.

All you have to do if you want to subscribe is pop along to BBC Sounds and search for Fortunately. It could not be more simple than that. I'm Sarah Treleaven and for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this?

From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.