Woman's Hour - Jojo Moyes, Grief, Running

Episode Date: October 2, 2019

Jojo Moyes is the bestselling author of over 15 books, including the smash hit 'Me Before You' which was adapted into a Hollywood film. Her new historical novel 'The Giver of Stars' is based on the true story of the Horseback Librarians of Kentucky. She joins us to speak about the women who inspired her story, her campaign to save local libraries and how her research led her to the mountain trails of Appalachia.In June this year Freddie McLennan and Joe Atkins, both 19 and on their gap year, were driving across salt flats in Bolivia when their vehicle hit a pot hole and crashed. They were both killed. They would have been due to start university this week and Freddie’s mother Miranda wanted to turn what is a particularly difficult time into something positive. She joined Jenni to talk about Freddie and how his love of football has led her, his friends and their family to focus their grief and energy on raising money for disadvantaged children.As Britain's Dina Asher-Smith prepares for the 200m final at the World Athletics Championships, we discuss women's running and the impact of 15 years of Parkrun with Dame Kelly Holmes, the double Olympic Champion, Rachel Baker, a mum who started running when her weight reached 20 stone and Jens Jacob Andersen, CEO of Run Repeat.

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, Jenny Murray welcoming you to the podcast for Wednesday the 2nd of October. In today's programme a new novel by Jojo Moyes who made her name with Me Before You. In The Giver of Stars she's inspired by the horseback librarians of Kentucky who delivered books to remote communities in the early 20th century, and the mother's grief and the charity she supports. Miranda Porritt's son, Freddie, and his friend, Joe, died in Bolivia earlier this year.

They were both 19 and would have now been starting university had they lived. Now, you may have been watching the World Athletics Championships on BBC 2 this week or you may have read about the disappointing crowds who've turned up at the stadium in Doha but there may be gold tonight for the British runner Dina Asher-Smith in the 200 metre final. Earlier in the week she won silver in the 100 metres, and if she wins tonight, she'll be the first British woman to win a sprint distance on the world stage. Well, it's quite a week for the popularity of running as a sport. It's the 15th anniversary of Park Run, where anybody can turn up to their local park and run or walk for five kilometres with an organised group. And it appears more women than ever are taking up running

as their preferred form of exercise. Rachel Baker runs regularly. Jens Jacob Andersen has researched data with the International Association of Athletics Federations to establish how participation in the sport has developed since 1986. And Dame Kelly Holmes won two gold medals at the 2004 Olympics. She's also a supporter of Park Run and is said to have been the inspiration for Dina Asher-Smith.

So what does she think of Dina's chances tonight? She can win tonight. I am putting it out there. I've never been so confident in someone of course you never know on the night but no like Dina has the pedigree of a champion you know she was a junior world champion in the 200 she's been a junior champion in the 100 before her rise to fame has been like just incredible since the age of 15 when you see her perform she has that poise she has the ability to just blank out anybody else in terms of her rivalry I think the 100 meters

silver medal was an amazing achievement her first global medal she was disappointed and what that shows is a true sense of what a champion wants. She wants to be on top of the world. The 200 metres tonight, if she's going to win a world title, it's tonight. Because not putting anybody else down and not dismissing the opposition, but her biggest rivals are not there. The winner of the 100 metres, Shelley-Ann Fraser-Price, is not running. Diane Schreiber would be one of her biggest rivals. She's pulled out.

Other people have withdrawn or been disqualified. But Dina has that pedigree, and I really believe she is going to be the champion tonight. How proud are you to have been her inspiration? I mean, she said that when she was a little girl, she saw you and thought, hmm, I'm going to do that. Yeah, I am so honoured, to be honest, but proud that my achievements have inspired another generation because when I did it, I did it for my own self,

my goals, my ambition and drive and determination. But the journey it took to be there, hopefully, is inspiring things because things don't always go right. But if you keep going, perseverance, and you believe in yourself, you can achieve. and I think Dina's got that attitude and behavior where she knows what it takes to be world class she's very articulate she looks lovely so she's got all of that asset to her but irrelevant to that is the fact that she is incredible and talent in both the one and

200 meters and we have to remember as you said in your opening, this would be the first time ever that a woman in Great Britain would have won a global medal. In fact, 100 was the first time ever in a short sprint that a woman in Great Britain has ever won a global medal. If she wins a title, that's history. Now, the crowds, as I said, have been very low and it's very, very hot, hot apparently what's it like for the runners in those kind of conditions yeah i mean firstly with the crowds i feel disappointed for them because you know when you're at that stage you are doing it for yourself but that atmosphere in the stadium and and then doing a lap of honor and you want to see fans. And, you know, it must feel a bit kind of, you know, a little bit disappointed because we're very fortunate that in the UK we showcase our sports

and especially athletics on television. But can you imagine all those others that don't have that profile and TV to back up in a performance? Who are you doing it for? Who's going to actually recognise your achievements? So I feel very sad on that. It's very hard in conditions that aren't conducive to running. But then I suppose, you know, that's all preparation.

You could go anywhere in the world and have a heat wave or something. So you have to just deal with that. The crowds are very disappointing. But I would have thought that they've thought about that. Because if you think about somewhere like Qatar and Doha, women do not expose their bodies you've got now women essentially running around in bikinis you know are men in particular going to go and watch that when actually they're in a nation where they don't allow their women to expose themselves publicly and are women going to feel that they shouldn't be going to watch I wonder if there's also that element of it. Or it could be that they work very hard and it just hasn't worked out during a working week.

Let's see when the weekend comes if that fills up. Let's bring in Jens Jacob Andersen. Jens, what was your research intended to reveal about particularly women taking up running? So initially we didn't have like one intent because when you analyze running or any other topic on a global scale it can sometimes be a bit challenging to know what specifically you're looking for. Most of your findings will come as you research and dig into the numbers. So we looked at, we did the biggest analysis of race results in history and did the first global mapping of running participation. And we found that in 2018, for the first time, there were more women running than men. But you don't know why. It's just the data is there. No reasoning why?

We cannot say for sure what the reason is. We have to be a bit careful about that. We have our hypothesis. And one hypothesis is, of course, the entire movement that we've seen over the, I don't know, 50, past 50 years of gender equality and where women previously didn't participate to the same extent in sports as they do today, which is amazing. And I think that we've just crossed the 50% participation for female runners is amazing. But I think the reason can be because of the motives of running, where if you look back 20 years, the people who ran were competitors. They were people who did it for the sport of running, the competitions. If it was a 5K, it was a competition.

Marathon was competition. Whereas today, the motives for running can be many. They can be plenty. They can be not only achievement, the achievement element, but also health. It can be social elements. There are many elements to running today other than just competition. Rachel Baker, let's bring you in here. You started when you were 40.

What motivated you to begin? Hello, Rachel. Oh, dear. motivated you to begin hello rachel oh dear we've just lost rachel fingers crossed that we will get her back i mean i happen to know that rachel was very overweight had not been well and did it for fitness now you are kelly a big supporter of park run yeah which I know is something Rachel is also involved in. Why did you get involved in Park Run? I love the Park Run movement. I mean, you said it's 15 years. It was something Paul wanted to kind of start up just for himself.

And what I love about it and probably one of the reasons why women are taken up that it is um it is for everybody it does not matter what your background is um what your weight is your race your color your height it doesn't matter because what happens is you go to a park run there's a social element it stopped isolation for older people that might go and volunteer. So there's a big volunteer movement there. You have people that have come back from surgery, people that have been ill, people that want to lose weight. And then you also have young runners who aspire to be good. And you have those that want to go and get a PB.

I love turning up. I go to random park runs around the country, around the world, in fact, where I just love that movement that's involved. A PB, that's a personal best. A personal best, yes, sorry. A personal best, yes. And I have to say, I was looking just before I come on this show and there was one from Telford, I think it's Telford Park Run, yes.

Jim Hussey, former Royal Air Force PTI, competed 300th Park Runrun aged 81 years old. So, Rachel, we've got you now, have we? Yes, we have, hello. Thank goodness. What was it that actually prompted you to start? You were 40 years old. You hadn't been well.

What made you start? Actually, I hadn't reached 40 yet. So in 2015, in February, I had pneumonia. And throughout that year, I then got tonsillitis seven times. And I also got psoriasis. And then I had pneumonia again in the November. Turned 40 in the November. And the week before my 40th, my doctor says, you're not going to be here by the time you're 50 if you don't do something.

That was quite a shock. We've had them six years now. And I just thought, oh, my God, they can't lose another family. So January 2016 I weighed in at 23 stone and went to a slimming club and started to lose weight and then I was walking around the park with my little boys one day and my little one suddenly learnt to ride his bike and I had to run after him and I was like oh I can do this and I weighed 20 stone at that time so I then went home downloaded a couch to 5k app and started running it was really hard how hard very hard I did it by myself

uh local park and there were many Sunday mornings where if you're in that park you probably would have seen 20 stone me running around crying at some points but I kept at it and the more weight I was losing the more people more weight I was losing the more people were saying I was healthy the more I was going back to my doctors and getting really good heart rates and blood pressure readings and low cholesterol rates I just carried on I lost nine stone now I know you're now a run leader and you teach other women how to do it what are the basics a beginner needs to know that they can do it they've got to come knowing that they um are able to um do this and um pair trainers and some sports clothes and that's it I think and somewhere to run. And Kelly as our star runner here

this morning if anybody does want to take it up what would you say is the way to start? Yeah I think the Couch to 5k programs that are out there are amazing because they really are getting people started. I think what also just to add into why people do it is the mental health benefits. So many people do it because the mental health benefits so many people do it because it makes them feel good and they may have struggled in the past so you have a social interaction you have the feel-good factor of getting fitter which is obviously a lot of people's barriers but you also have that moment where people need to get out there and feel good about themselves so I've seen a lot of people who have extreme mental health problems who are taking up

activity, coming together in a social group like Rachel would have started, and they've changed dramatically and it makes them feel good, both physically and mentally. So it's really good to see. And I really hope that more people take part for those reasons and also give it a go. Park Run, Catch the 5k, Mission to do Park Run, which is 5K, and then anything to oyster. Dame Kelly Holmes, Jens, Jacob, Anderson and Rachel Baker, thank you all very much indeed. And all you have to do is go and do a parkrun, she said, hopefully. Thank you all. Walk.

Yes, you can walk, can't you? You don't have to run. No, you can walk. That's a good way to start. Now, still to come in today's programme, a new novel by Jojo Moyes, The Giver of Stars, is based on the history of the horseback librarians of Kentucky and the serial, the third episode of Crybabies.

Now, earlier in the week, you may have missed three young men discussing toxic masculinity and the impact of the term on them. And yesterday, the MP Stella Creasy and Ruth Rawlins from the Centre for Bioethical Reform UK joined us to talk about abortion and then that new term, sharenting. How much should pictures of and stories about our children be shared online?

If you missed the live programme, all you have to do is catch up by downloading the BBC Sounds app, just search for Woman's Hour and you'll find all our episodes. Now earlier this year, in June, two young men, Joe Atkins and Freddie McLennan, were coming to the end of their gap year. They were both 19. They were being driven across salt flats in Bolivia when their vehicle hit a pothole and crashed. They both died in the accident.

Had they survived, they would both be beginning university. Freddie had been accepted by Leeds and Jo was to go to Bristol. Freddie's mother, Miranda Porritt, is clearly wracked by grief at the loss of her son and this is a particularly tough time for her as so many of his friends are leaving to begin their academic careers. Miranda got in touch with us and asked if it would be possible for her to talk to us about her son and how she's trying to manage her grief. It was not an easy encounter for either of us for obvious reasons. But we began by discussing the kind of young man Freddie had been. His brother would say that he was loyal, funny, messy,

very focused when he had to be, but otherwise very lazy and laid around watching the television like all teenage boys do, but always willing to help. His friends would say that he was, again, loyal, compassionate, that he was always very reliable and I would say that he was loving, very affectionate. And adventurous, I suspect. And adventurous, yeah. But my boys and I used to be adventurous together.

We've had holidays where we've gone off to Indonesia for the summer and we've gone scuba diving or we love skiing, we've gone hiking, we've climbed mountains. So yes, a very adventurous spirit but at the same time, you know, loved home and loved our animals and and his friends. The accident only happened in June which is very very recent Why did you want to talk about Freddie now? So at first when something as devastating as this happens it's difficult to eat

to get out of bed to do anything but as time's gone on I realise to do anything. But as time's gone on, I realise that I've got other people I need to live for. I've got my other son. I've got his friends, who have been amazing this summer. So supportive.

They've been round to see me and to see my other son. And I've got my fiance, Mark. So there's lots of people and lots of things to look forward to in time. And a positive focus out of all of this Nightmare has been a charity that we chose in Freddie's memory. And it's called Football Beyond Borders. Freddie loved sport and music, but he particularly loved sport, playing and watching, and was very passionate about Liverpool Football Club. So when I googled football charities, Football Beyond Borders came up. And as a massive coincidence, which made it feel even more right, their founder who's an amazing man called Jasper Kane came from Cranbrook which is where we

come from and went to the same school as Freddie. So it just felt like absolutely the right thing to do. So what kind of work does the charity do? So they re-engage young people in schools back into education and these are kids who are having a really difficult time who are on the point of exclusion a lot of them and they go in and they help them to refocus on something positive and that's often football but it can be other things as well they have a lot of summer projects and other holiday projects which I've been and I've visited um and by re-engaging them back into something positive it means that they refocus on education and realize the importance of it education was very important to Freddie wasn't it he would have been yeah going to university right now yeah he should have been starting this week um so it's been very poignant to come and talk to you this week ahead of all the freshers going off to

university for the first time and freddy's cousin rob has an instagram following and he's called the lean student chef and he prepares meals recipes for students it's aimed at students but it can be anyone who can do it that's cost two pounds or less and they're healthy nutritious meals that students can make when they're away from home and they're simple to make and he's prepared a recipe book that he's released this week because he was going to do a recipe book for freddie so that he would have healthy meals to week because he was going to do a recipe book for Freddie so that he would have healthy meals to cook when he was away from home. You said at the outset it was really difficult to even get out of bed in the morning but I know you've also talked about trying to find

a new normal what what do you mean by that? It's just the way that I have, in my head, allowed myself to function. So Freddie will always, always be with me. But we all, collectively, my family, everyone, we have to find a new normal without Freddie. And I'm really lucky because I enjoyed exercise. So I can set an alarm every morning and make myself go for a run, which really helps my mental health and my strength. And I think it's really important just to have a sense of achievement every day even through the pain you have to have something that you've achieved every day and at the beginning that was even cooking a meal for my family or hanging up a load of washing just to feel like you can still function and you can

still be a person who's useful and that's what I call my new normal. As a paediatric nurse at Great Ormond Street which is obviously a hospital that has some very difficult, very sick children and very anxious parents. How has the work that you've done for so long helped you get through such a difficult time? I think it has in that I know the structure and I know what people and what we as nurses and doctors do at Great Orm Street and many other hospitals across the country to help particularly parents who lose a child so you know one of the practical things that we do is take handprints and footprints and locks of hair and so I knew that that would be something that would help in the long term

and make me feel like I've still got a piece of Freddie. So you can see I've got necklaces that these are his ashes. This is his fingerprint that I can keep him with me. And I've also had handprints cast from plaster so that there's a big imprint of each of his hands so I can put my hands in his hands and feel that part of him is still there. Now, Freddie has an older brother. Yes.

How is he coping with the loss of his sibling? He's very sad. He said the other day to me that everybody he knows has a sibling and he doesn't like being an only child. He grew up with two very close cousins that are like brothers to him. Rob, as I've already mentioned, and another cousin, Ollie.

So they're like brothers to him. So he's still got very close relationships with them, but he misses his brother. But how are you managing not to wrap him in cotton wool? And he would probably say I am, but I'm trying really hard not to he's a musician he's a very talented boy and i think if i was to wrap him in cotton wool and not let him go out or live his life i would be really restraining his talent and his abilities and that wouldn't be

fair on him so although i do worry more than probably the average parent now about how he is and where he is when he's out, but I also, and this probably drives him mad too, but I have a Find My Friends app so I can see where he is and I can see when he's safely there without having to text him and bother him. So, yeah, he has to live his life, and I have to let him go and let him do that.

I know Freddie had a girlfriend and lots of friends, as you've mentioned. How are they managing? So this summer has been a remarkable journey, really. And for 19-year-olds to have such emotional intelligence has been absolutely mind-blowing his friends have been amazing they've been around to see me his very closest friends carried him into the church and carried his coffin his girlfriend Emily has been incredible and I feel very close to her now was close to her before but even more so now we we sit in Freddiereddy's room we chat we

cry she stood up and bravely said something at his funeral so i think having all his friends around and his girlfriend really helps me feel connected still to him you have to some degree returned to work not doing your nursing side of things but working on research how much are you actually able to manage again so soon after the accident happened so some days i might only manage an hour and probably not concentrate very hard even in that hour and when people see me in the street and you know I might look okay and I might be smiling you know half of my brain is still switched on to Freddie all of the time and to what happened and sometimes it's red hot and I'll sit and I'll cry and I'll be very sad but it's always in the background and sometimes I'm able to function more and so I do go to work

and I'm really lucky because I've so I do go to work and I'm really lucky because I've worked there for a long time and I've got amazing friends and colleagues and they've all been so supportive they haven't in any way pressured me to go back to work anytime soon and when I do go back and I hope I will go back I hope I feel strong enough to go back I hope I'll feel strong enough to support the families that I look after. How generally, though, do other people respond to you, the ones who know your story? I think the hardest thing always is knowing whether to talk about Freddie in this case, not to talk about him. How do people manage that?

Some people manage it better than others and i'd say to anyone who is in contact or knows somebody who's been recently bereaved or not so recently bereaved don't be frightened to say hello and even cry you know when people see me and they cry because they know freddie too that's okay and that shows me that they care and it's okay to talk about him and i want them to talk about him because otherwise it's like he didn't exist how much courage has it taken for you to come and talk like this today um the thing that is giving me so much courage is Football Beyond Borders. Because out of this whole nightmare, that's been the positive driving force. And I've been to do some volunteering work with them in the summer.

I took a group of girls down to Chelsea Training Ground from Peckham. And, you know, these girls were so excited to go out of London. And they had an amazing day. And the thing that made me really sad is that the girls who were on the programme were end of year eight and end of year nine and they only get two years of support because there isn't the funding for girls like there is for boys. The boys are much more likely to be excluded

so the funding tends to go to boys but the girls have hidden mental health issues and other issues which means they still need the support so that's what drove me to come here. And what would Freddie think about what you're doing? He'd love it. We went and had a day where we looked at their projects and after we'd seen the projects that they were working on which were incredible and weren't football related and these kids were bright and energetic and so full of life and it would have been so difficult if I hadn't had the background information to know that they were kids who were in trouble and on the point of being excluded and then they all came out and into the football pitch was in in

the middle of the Angel Estate in Brixton, which is never locked. And Football Beyond Borders have renovated this pitch and it gives the kids something to do and somewhere to channel their energy. And they all kicked a football around and I could so have seen Freddie kicking a football around with them. Did they know what had happened to you? Yes, they did. And I wore a Liverpool football shirt that had Freddie's name on the back. Miranda Porritt, and there are links if you feel you need them to adult and child bereavement support on the Women's Hour website. Now, Jojo Moyes made her name as a bestselling novelist with a story called Me Before You, which was published in 2012 and was made into a film four years later. She has 15 novels to her name, and her latest is called The Giver of Stars. It's based on the

history of the horseback librarians of Kentucky. It was Eleanor Roosevelt who sparked the idea for books to be delivered regularly to remote families, and it was mainly women who did the work. In the novel, Alice Van Cleave is an Englishwoman, unhappily married to a wealthy American, who becomes involved with a tough, independent woman called Marjorie O'Hare, who teaches her how to find her way through the mountains with her books. Marjorie, it emerged, had been running a skeleton library single-handed for several weeks already. They passed neat little houses on stilts, tiny derelict shingle-roofed cabins that looked like a stiff breeze might blow them down,

shacks with ramshackle stands of fruit and vegetables for sale outside, and at each one Marjorie pointed and explained who lived there, whether they could read, how best to get the material to them and which which houses to steer clear of. Moonshiners, mostly. Illegal liquor that they brewed in hidden stills in the woods. There were those who made it and would shoot you for seeing it, and those who drank it and weren't safe to be around. She seemed to know everything about everyone and delivered each nugget of information in the same easy, laconic way. This was Bob Gilman's. He lost an arm in one of the machines at a factory in Detroit and had come back to live with his father. That was Mrs.

Coughlin's house. Her husband had beat her something awful until he came home boss-eyed and she sewed him up in his bed sheet and went after him with a switch until he swore he'd never do it again. Jojo, how did you find the real story of the horseback librarians? It was in a magazine, the Smithsonian magazine. And like many writers, I scanned the whole of the internet in the morning before starting work. And I found this publication with these extraordinary photographs of young women atop mules and horses with their bags ready to head off into this incredibly rugged landscape. And the images were so powerful, like I couldn't believe that nobody had really written much about them before.

Now, you did the research in Kentucky, you're not the sort of writer who doesn't want to go to the actual places you're writing about. No, I find that if you go to a place, often completely skews the story that you write, because you speak to people, you get a sense of the smells, the sights. I also felt that given that it was about Appalachia, which I think a lot of people who live there feel hard done by when it comes to how they're written about. They feel that they're often described as hillbillies, as ignorant. I felt it was really important to get a proper measure of the place itself. So what did you learn about the people and the rhythm of their speech, which you can almost hear as you're reading the book?

Yeah, it's very particular. And I don't think I could have written the book if I hadn't spent so much time talking to them. Luckily, they're big talkers. Basically, a lot of people who live in Appalachia are descended directly from the Celts, from Scots and Irish people. But also there, because it's such a closed community,

the rhythms of the speech are descended still from Elizabethan England. So it's a very ornate way of speaking, much more ornate than we in England. And also storytelling, there's a very strong oral tradition of storytelling. It's in their DNA. So you can't sit down for five minutes. You will be there 50 minutes later and have heard half a dozen stories about everything. So what did you make of the landscape? As you toured around, you stayed in a log cabin at one point. I think we sound a bit scary.

I did. I stayed in a tiny log cabin. It dated back to 1830, which as you know, in America, there's not a huge amount of historic buildings. So it was five miles down a dirt track. It had no locks on the doors, I discovered once I'd got there. And it was in what they call a hollow, which is a sort of hollow between two mountains. And the first night I thought, oh, my goodness, what have I done? Because I looked out at this black mountain full of woodland and all I could imagine was, you know, deliverance style serial killers. But actually, that first night, a kind of a million fireflies descended. And it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. And I forgot to be afraid. And from that moment,

I slightly fell in love with Kentucky, even though it's one of the poorest states in America. And the particular area that I wrote about has a huge opioid problem. So it's not idyllic, but it is beautiful. Why did you decide to introduce an English woman to this environment? Well, mostly because when I kept visiting this part of East Kentucky, it felt so alien. I don't think I've ever felt as alien anywhere in my life. And I've been to a lot of places. And I felt that for English readers and people not familiar with Appalachia, it would almost be more effective if we had one character for whom you were seeing it through her eyes.

So you could allow yourself to experience it as an alien, if you like. And then you have Marjorie, who's grown up there, who is able to give the other perspective, which is as someone who is totally infused with her history. What evidence is there that the real librarians were women who tended to be rebellious? Because we're talking about the early 20th century. Well, I did a lot of research on an academic site called JSTOR, which gives you the most kind of niche subjects you can imagine. And I did a lot of reading about women at that time. And a lot of what you read about Appalachia and Kentucky in particular in the 1930s is of women who are downtrodden and, you know, people who are just desperately trying to keep their families together. But when you dig deeper, you find that there have always been these rebellious women. I

mean, whether they're criminal or whether they are just women who refuse to be bowed by the patriarchy of the time and and it just felt to me the more I read that it was a peculiarly modern story um which is women trying to push out into a man's world and and being sat on there is an awful lot of male violence drunkenness yeah how much is that rooted in historical fact very much so I read a lot of um first person and self-published accounts of life at that time. It's quite a popular genre. And it would not have been fun for most women to grow up in 1930s East Kentucky. I mean, you were kept pregnant and barefoot a lot of the time. Your whole life would have been spent post-depression trying to feed your family.

And it was a very violent society, not just for women, for men against men and families against families. It was a kind of lawless area, but it also had its own rules. I don't want to kind of describe it as completely lawless because like all these communities, it has its own way of being. Now there is, as you say, a strong theme of fighting the patriarchy, but there's also fighting corporate interests, because mining is what is done there. And there's corporate interests destroying the landscape. How much are there modern parallels in that? Oh, it's still, I mean, the whole thing about this story was that it felt to me like it had so much resonance for the modern day, both in the fact that Roosevelt set up this WPA programme because he felt that, he and Eleanor Roosevelt felt that because people's focus had been spent on staying alive, that they were falling prey to snake oil salesmen, religious fundamentalism and people who disputed the existence of facts. Now, that has a few parallels in the modern day, I would say. So for me, that was a really modern story.

But if you go into Kentucky's history, it is impossible to ignore the rape of the land by loggers and miners. And it's as naked now as it was back then. Now, as far as the librarians are concerned, there's one little blue book that they distribute rather secretly. What is it? It's the Mary Stokes book, Married Love, which was the subject of a court case in the States where various states banned it because they considered it indecent. And a federal judge overturned that ban. But I mean, I don't have evidence that that particular book was used. But given that the spread of materials that were distributed by these women,

I didn't think it was unlikely. But I thought it was the perfect example of women trying to facilitate and help other women by giving them advice about sex and biology and what horror that was caused by doing that among the religious community and among men in general, even though actually a lot of men were brought a lot of happiness by the distribution of that book. You've been a great champion of libraries and the importance of reading.

How much did that inspire the plot of this novel, as well as just finding out about these women? I don't think I did it in a conscious way. But funny enough, someone pointed out to me that nearly all my books have a library in them at some point. And I was a child who grew up in Hackney. My parents weren't particularly wealthy. And so for me, the weekly visit to the library was hugely important in my formative years. And I believe very strongly for both children and adults that if you don't have reading, you have nothing. You don't have the very first step on the ladder to success or, I don't know, mental health in later life. It gives you so many things.

You've also spoken out in opposition to the term chick lit. Why? Because I think most people who use it, and I hasten to say not all people who use it, use it in a reductive manner. And for me, if I tell a man that I write chick lit, he's never going to read it. And actually, I think you immediately cut off a huge proportion of potential readers. Most so-called chick lit writers that I know of, say Marion Keys is one of the most famous, she writes about extraordinarily dark and deep subjects. And, you know, she's reduced me to tears writing about depression, for example. And I think it's just, it's used as such a derogatory term most of the time that I just

don't want to minimise the opportunities for more people to read books. The title of this book, The Giver of Stars, is unusual. What's its origin? It's a poem that forms a key moment in the book where Alice Van Cleave, what shall we say, discovers her sexuality. And it's through a poem that was written at the early part of the last century about, well, by a woman who was gay but unable to write about being gay. And it's just a beautifully sexy poem that's not explicit in any way.

And this creates a stirring in our heroine and leads to all sorts of events later in the book. I was talking to Jojo Moyes. Lots of you got in touch about running. Brid said, I started parkrun when I turned 65 in December 2018, completing the five kilometres in over 50 minutes walking. I've got my PB, personal best, down to 41 minutes. And I've also volunteered a few times. Wonderful experiences that helped me to see the amazing work that goes on behind the scenes. I love park run and I try to get out as often as I can. It's really made a huge difference to my health and my outlook. My ambition for the 66th birthday is to have a new PB. That's all. A simple goal that I set for myself.

Sue said my amazing daughter Amy has lost eight stone, started part runs and even makes sure she finds a part run when away from home on holiday. She's just completed her first half marathon. She's just brilliant and part runs have certainly helped her. Chris said I'm 73 and I started running when I was 60. I've done a half marathon and although I have mild osteoarthritis, my surgeon said that I will never need surgery. His advice was carry on with your exercises.

Chris Marks said, Couch to 5K is a fantastic programme. I'm 66 and started the app in April. I completed it in June and now run for 30 minutes three times a week. As a lifelong non-runner, it's a miracle. The highlight was taking part in a run at the Olympic Stadium on my birthday in July. If I can do it, anybody can. Jenny said, fully agree with Dame Kelly. I'm in week three of the Couch to 5k NHS plan. I'm heading towards 60 and finally the penny dropped that my big bum isn't going to vanish all by itself. The only way it was going to happen was by me getting off it. Fully recommend it to anyone who's feeling a bit sludgy and lumpy.

And Pam said, I started running two years ago when I was 61 years old. I was inspired to start running after watching my local park run and use the NHS couch to 5k app to get me started. I now run 5k three times a week and I've never felt better. I didn't have a weight loss goal, but I have lost that extra fat around the middle that we postmenopausal women tend to have. Better than that, I can run for the bus and keep up with my two granddaughters. This feels like a real achievement, especially as I've never been particularly sporty or done regular exercise. Getting older can feel like a process of losing things, and doing something new post-60 feels great. And then we had a lot of response to my interview with Miranda about her son.

Rachel said, I'm very moved to hear the interview on Woman's Hour now with Miranda Porritt. My son died nine years ago, and I recognise all the feelings and emotions she has. I'm contacting you to say how amazing this episode is for me as I also found salvation in running. I feel it saved me. I've done 132 park runs. 1932, Park Runs. Rachel said, Such bravery and so heartbreaking hearing from Mother Miranda on the most dreadful loss of her son, Freddie. We have to find a new normal without Freddie. Don't be frightened to say hello and even cry when supporting those who've been bereaved.

Ali said, Thank you, Miranda, for sharing your story and Freddie's memory your courage and heartbreak are deeply touching I wish you and your family much strength on your healing journey and Linda said as a mother of a son my heart is breaking listening to Miranda so brave of her to give this interview Catherine said she talked very eloquently about approaching someone who's been bereaved. Some wise person said that when someone is struggling through a difficult time you can ask

would you like to talk about it or would you like to be distracted from it? And Kate said it will be 11 years this year since my son died at 33 after almost 15 years in a semi-vegetative state. Thank you for addressing the horror of loss. Mine has smashed my family. I hope others are able to hold fast together. Now do join me tomorrow when I'll be talking to two young women who've set up a charity to help undocumented migrant young people and children challenge what's known as the hostile environment they feel they face in the UK

and help them maybe get access to higher education. And also tomorrow, the High Court is expected to deliver its ruling about how the government raised the retirement age for women. We'll discuss what it could mean. Join me tomorrow if you can. Two minutes past ten. Bye-bye. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year,

I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth.

How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.