Woman's Hour - Kamala Harris and female votes, Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell, Poet Zara Sehar

Episode Date: July 25, 2024

Kamala Harris has spoken about making childcare and eldercare more affordable, securing universal paid maternity leave and signing into law a bill that would restore and protect the right to abortion. So could these policies win her female votes, and how does this fit in with her strategy to try and beat Trump in the US presidential election? Anita Rani speaks to Dr Leslie Vinjamuri, director of Chatham House's US and Americas programme.Zara Sehar recently won the audience vote at the Roundhouse Poetry Slam competition, and joins Anita to talk about her work and perform from one of her poems, (Hon)our Killings. In it she mentions spoons in knickers, a tactic suggested to young girls being taken out of the country who are at airports and at risk of forced marriage. Natasha Rattu, Executive Director at Karma Nirvana explains why they give this advice to British-Asian girls.Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell was the first black woman to swim for Great Britain. Born in the UK, her family moved to Kenya when she was four. She started swimming competitively from the age of six and was world number one in the 50 metres breaststroke, aged 15. But Rebecca walked away from the sport ahead of the London 2012 Olympics. She has written a memoir, These Heavy Black Bones, in which she delves into how she achieved success but also what it cost her, physically and mentally, and why she gave it all up.It's 50 years since the death of the American singer Cass Elliot. She died at just 32, and her musical legacy includes some of the best-known songs of the 60s and 70s, from both her time in The Mamas & the Papas and her solo career. Eddi Fiegel, author of Dream a Little Dream of Me: The Life of 'Mama' Cass Elliot, tells Anita who she was.

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Just to say that for rights reasons, the music in the original radio broadcast has been removed for this podcast. Good morning, welcome to Woman's Hour. Have you ever quit whilst you're ahead or decided to bow out of something for whatever reason? You could use Biden stepping aside, making way and space for Kamala Harris as an example, who we will be talking about this morning. However, this question comes from the life of another of today's guests, Rebecca Aching Ajulu Bushel. At one point was the fastest swimmer in the UK.

Her entire life was dedicated to swimming. She even went to a boarding school that specialised in swimming. She moved countries to train. She represented both Kenya and Great Britain. Her dream since she was a little girl was to win a medal at the Olympics. She'd even drawn a picture of herself as a child wearing the gold medal. But then, just before London 2012, she quit, decided she'd had enough

and that there was more to life than swimming. A very hard decision made at only 17. Why? Well, you'll find out when you hear our conversation shortly. But this morning, I'd like to know your stories of making a choice to stop doing something, walking away and making a change in your life. Could be absolutely anything. Did you leave a job, a country, a marriage? How did it play out for you?

I would love for you to get in touch and share your stories with me. Get in touch in the normal way. The text number 84844. You can email me via our website or WhatsApp me on 03700 100 444. Also on the programme, a spoken word poet who won the Audience Award at a Poetry Slam final at the Roundhouse in London last month. It was pin drop silence when she spoke in the auditorium. I know, because I was there. You'll be hearing her poem about honour killing in the programme.

Plus, we'll be discussing the advice young women are given if they think they're being taken abroad for a forced marriage. And it's 50 years since the death of Mama Cass or Cass Elliot from the Mamas and Papas. But who was Cass Elliot? I'll be finding out. That text number, once again, 84844. Feel free to get in touch with me about anything you hear on the programme. You're more than welcome. Now, can it really just be five days ago that Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race?

Biden has now told Americans in a televised address that it's time to pass the torch to a new generation, endorsing US Vice President Kamala Harris to unite Democrats and the country and run against Donald Trump, the Republican Party's candidate. He narrowly leads in most polls this week. Yesterday, Kamala Harris addressed 6,000 black women from an African-American sorority at Howard University. She spoke about making childcare and eldercare more affordable, securing universal paid maternity leave and signing into law a bill that would restore and protect the right to abortion.

So could these policies win her female votes? And how does this fit in with her strategy to try and beat Trump? A little earlier this morning, I spoke to Dr. Leslie Vinger-Murray, director of Chatham House's U.S. and America's program. She began by explaining why Kamala has publicly pledged to restore and protect the right to abortion. Clearly, you know, she's made reproductive rights a really essential part of her platform, the Democrats have as well. And she's making a play for female voters to be able to bring them into the party and to draw a really stark contrast with Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. Why is Indiana significant?

Indiana, the heartland of America, and Kamala Harris has known that one thing she'll need to really do is to draw in middle American voters. This is where the Republican Party has had a great deal of strength and where it's really doubled down on its base. And she's really trying to do a couple of things. One is to bring in female voters, to bring in more diverse populations, African-American voters, Latino voters, but also to speak to ordinary Americans and to make it clear that she is a candidate

that can really deliver on a broader agenda. And if you think about, you know, the question of abortion and reproduction, you're talking about half of the voting population. So it's a very important statement. And the fact that she's willing to, you know, be seen to be showing up in very ordinary parts of America, speaking to normal Americans, not just a sort of California, Washington elite, I think is really important for her platform. And of course, Trump is also going for women's votes, but on the opposite side of the abortion debate.

Yeah, and what's been interesting to watch with Donald Trump is that in recent weeks, he's tried to dial down the rhetoric when it comes to questions of abortion, because I think he can see that it's a losing issue for the Republican Party. There's a limit on the number of voters that want to see women's rights dramatically curtailed. So he's attempted to do that. But, you know, it's very difficult for the Republican Party to shift its stance on this platform, given the rollback of Roe

v. Wade by the Supreme Court on the back of, you know, their appointments as justices. So it really, on this one issue, plays very strongly to the Democrats' favour. And Kamala Harris, as a woman, has really been at the forefront of this agenda. It's not a new issue for her. It's one that the party had sort of assigned to her that she's taken on and that she has a very powerful voice on. Let's talk about some of her other policies that she's mentioned, including making childcare and eldercare more affordable, securing universal paid maternity leave. And earlier this month, prior to her announcement as a presidential nominee, she spoke publicly about the maternal mortality rates and how black women in the US are three times more likely to die in connection with childbirth. Are you seeing that as a policy she's going to make central to her campaign?

I think so. And again, this is her way of saying, you know, she's not, because I think for many people, they see Kamala Harris, despite her background, you know, she had immigrant parents and really made her own way in many respects. But still, many people see her as an elite from California who sort of inherited the position. And what she's doing with these issues is to really try and speak to working-class Americans, not only white working-class Americans, but women and non-white populations. And that's really critical in drilling down on the concrete policies that she will really advocate for

if she is to become president of the United States. And it's really those tangible benefits that I think people are looking for right now. If you look at what Americans are primarily concerned about, they're concerned about prices, in other words inflation. They're concerned about immigration, but're concerned about prices. In other words, inflation, they're concerned about immigration, but they want to really see they're concerned about immigration because they're, they're concerned about people, you know, taking their jobs and their,

and they've bought into this idea that immigrants commit crimes at a higher rate. Despite the fact that there's no evidence for that. And so what she's trying to do is to really, you know, speak to the concrete things that she would do that would alter people's lives in a very daily way. And, you know, and taking that a step further and saying, I care about you, women, minorities and workers. So these are the things that she's doing public facing to put a flag in the sand, if you like. But what about what's going on behind the scenes? Because while at Howard University in Washington, D.C., Kamala pledged Alpha Kappa Alpha,

the nation's oldest black sorority. You might have to explain to some of our listeners why that's so important. In her most recent speech, which was to a network of black women, is she going to be tapping into those networks to mobilize voters? And if you could give us some context,

because I don't think we really fully understand uh what sororities are and and the importance that they and the role that they can play and how powerful they can be well you you know if you can tap into a sorority especially an african-american sorority um you you just sort of mobilize people who have a very strong sense of loyalty and identity base. And they come together. I mean, the other thing that I've noticed, and I'm sure you've seen it, is Taylor Swift and Beyonce saying that they will come together and have a concert to raise money for her and raise support.

It's when you get these people and these organizations that are really core to the American public, that have social value and can really pull people along. You know, the sorority is not only the people who she's speaking to, it's all the people across the United States who have been part of that. And it's deeply symbolic, right, that she's reaching out to the African American community and that she can speak to that identity from her own personal experience. This is really powerful. There's been a huge amount of competition. You know, the African-American

voters have tended to align with Democrats, but more recently, Donald Trump has tried to peel off some of these voters, especially working class African-Americans and somewhat successfully. And so, you know, having her now at the top of the ticket really can go a very long way towards cementing those voters in the Democratic Party where they have recently been. It's interesting that Republican leaders have urged their party not to use racist and sexist attacks against her. What do you think that signals? Well, I mean, I think it's deep fear. I mean, you know, if you start campaigning on a platform that excludes, you know, 50% of the population, women, and then minority Americans, which is a vast number of Americans, you cannot win a presidential race on the back of white American voters.

You need white American voters. They're critical. They're especially important in swing states, but they're very far from sufficient for actually delivering an election and that kind of rhetoric. I mean, it doesn't matter how loyal your base is. You know, if a woman voter, a Republican female voter hears you sort of discriminating consistently against women, a Black voter, a Hispanic voter. I mean, it's a losing strategy. And the fact that you're seeing MAGA Republicans say this to their own people is a very clear indicator of a Republican Party that realizes that it needs to adjust.

It needs to broaden its base. And it's playing in a very different field now that Kamala Harris is at the top of the ticket. And what about conversely, the backlash she will get because she is targeting, you know, the black community or the Hispanic community or women? Yeah, I think that there's going to be a, I mean, there already has been a lot of tax cuts. Not only who she's targeting, it's who she is. Exactly.

We talk about her as being black. She's also, as we know, Asian American. She's half Indian. And there will be all sorts of people who feel very uncomfortable with a woman of racial minority background from California. I mean, there's so many strikes against her. It is a tough sell for a still pretty, you know, moderate to conservative country, even with that very significant progressive base in the Democratic Party, even with younger generation voters who are more progressive, still, this would be, you know, going from a history of primarily

white male presidents, with the exception of President Obama, to suddenly a president who is, you know, woman, African American, Indian, it is a considerable challenge for her to overcome. And she's very well aware of this. She's got a lot of money, and not much time. So how is this going to play out? Yeah, I mean, I, you know, what we're seeing right now and that there's some criticism of it is that the Democratic Party has very rapidly united later on. There's been no talk of considering other candidates. There's been no process as such. The moment, you know, which came after weeks of delay and weeks of division in the Democratic Party. But once President Biden announced that he would not be running again, You know, within hours, really, she'd

secured that nomination. So, you know, what we're going to see now is just the party unified in the same way that it became very unified in 2020 after South Carolina. And really, that unity is driven by an intense desire to ensure that Donald Trump never gets near the White House again. So we will see campaigning. We will see campaigning across the swing states, across the heartland. We will see concerts. We will see all sorts of mechanisms use social media. It's really already been quite a masterful momentum tapping into young voters, ordinary people, and using, you know, the energy and the power of a younger presidential candidate to really try and inspire people to get out the vote. And, of course, there's going to be a massive fundraising machine behind that.

Dr. Leslie Vinger-Murray from the Chatham House think tank speaking to me earlier this morning. Now, lots of you are getting in touch about when you've quit whilst you're ahead, decided to walk away from something. A message here saying, I was persuaded that after 15 years as a teacher, I should break out of school and experience life. I spent the next 13 years traveling the world and partying a lot. I went back to teaching when the life I was living wore thin. I never reached or wanted to reach posts I was living wore thin. I never reached or wanted to reach posts of responsibility in schools again. Do I regret my decision? Sometimes yes, often no. Another message here says, I gave up teaching yoga after 20 years.

I had a successful business, but I found it was taking a toll on my health, especially teaching classes in the evening. I was looking after other people's wellbeing whilst neglecting my own. I was very sad at this conflict of interest as I loved teaching and I loved all the people I taught. And one more from Jules in Maidstone who says,

I quit my job as a deputy head teacher of a large secondary school at 60. I'd intended to carry on until I was 65. I loved most of my work but my blood pressure

was scarily high and my friendships were suffering from my lack of time to invest in them. Five years on, I missed the students dreadfully, but not the stress that accumulated on my desk each day. 84844 is the number to text. Keep them coming in. Now, I came across my next guest, the poet Zahra Sahar at the Roundhouse Poetry Slam final earlier this year.

She came third and her two powerful poems won the audience vote in the room. Zara is from Halifax and her work often focuses on her experience as a British Asian woman. She's achieved a lot considering she only graduated from university with a degree in English and creative writing last year. And she's joined me now.

You've left Halifax, left Yorkshire, come all the way to the Woman's Hour studio. Welcome Zara. Thank you. When did you start writing poetry? I started writing when I was about 13, 14 but it was mostly to share with my friends in school. We used to write on scraps of paper and it was just like this cool little thing we used to do that was sort of secret and then I sort of kept on writing but not actively just whenever the moment spurred throughout sixth form and then it took me to choose English at uni. Why performance poetry? What inspired you to get up on stage? It was actually a Roundhouse slam video that I saw towards the end of my first year at uni. It was Suhaima Manzur Khan and the poem that she performed was This Is Not A Humanising Poem.

And it related to me on so many different levels, cultural beliefs just seeing a brown woman up on stage um writing poetry that reflects not only her story but my story too and prior to that point I wasn't writing anything that reflected my life experiences or those close to me and it totally changed the trajectory of my writing completely um I was able to write after that point I sort of found my niche um I realized what I could write about and what I wanted to write about what what was stopping you before the curriculum um the text provided at GCSE at sixth form at uni but then again I had a bit of creative freedom um they weren't reflective of my experiences growing up as a British Muslim South Asian girl um and it was hard to sort of relate to those texts and write about them critically or analytically

and when it came to poetry I was like how can I contribute to module blogs when everybody else's writing sort of looks like the curriculum? And it was a struggle that I sort of battled with at uni up until I saw those performances by Suhaima, by Rukaiya on the Roundhouse YouTube channel. It's like when you see it, you can be it. Yeah. YouTube channel. It's like when you see it, you can be it. Yeah, exactly. You are going to read one of your poems out, but before we do, you read two out, and the first one was a very powerful poem about your father and him being a taxi driver and the shame that you felt that you were made to feel at school

and how as an adult you then felt the shame for the shame. Exactly. It was something that was unspoken um at home and also in the taxi as well uh being dropped off to school and having other kids sort of look down upon working class culture which looking back and in the poem i said that's what put food on the table. That's what got me to uni. That's what got me to here, you know, and all these places that I've been able to do. And it was just having the shame

of not being able to articulate that to my dad, to say that, you know, I am sorry for looking the other way or putting my head down or sort of... ..sort of taking on everyone's outlook and sort of internalising their thoughts and feelings and projecting that myself when that wasn't how I felt. And so the poem, Dad's Taxii is an apology to my dad but also to sort of uplift all the work that he does and not only him but every other taxi driver and Uber driver that

I've sat in or that my friends have sat in. It is beautiful but you are here to, you're going to read a poem out for us specifically because we're going to go on and talk about the poem afterwards because i didn't know uh myself about the what you talk about in the poem tell us a bit about the poem you're going to read out um so the poem is called honor killings and it's about um honor based victims um within specifically the south asian community and i sort of take a look at some of the cases that have popped up in the news or that I have been taught about when I was younger and

sort of explore that. I'm going to get you to just read the first couple of verses out if that's okay just because of time constraints and then we will tell people where they can go to watch you perform the whole thing. And the title of the poem is honor killings but the hon is in brackets so it's our killings uh zara take it away in your own time

you never held her hand no palm in palm your baby girl wraps her hand around your pinky finger guiding her through life. She became an extension of your shadow following two steps for your one. Before she reached two your spoons flew like aeroplanes doing loops in the air before they reached her mouth. In year nine instead of listening to Nirvana the charity Karma Nirvana handed each girl a spoon and told them that if they were being forced flights to fight it with a spoon in their underwear at airport security you made your daughter's place in the kitchen and so she made sure to remember that cutlery was not used solely for eating that the only drawers her spoon should be placed in was the one beneath her trousers

at 13 i was told about shafilia ah Ahmed How her teachers reported her missing in 2003 before her parents did Her body found in River Kent No cause of death, no rest in peace No cause of death, no rest in peace Two post-mortems later and her sister fakes a robbery Tells the police her father suffocated Shafilia with a plastic bag For refusing to accept a hand The police later declare this a homicide that took place in her home inside.

2024 and the news covers headlines about Arthur's seat. It's very, very, very powerful, Zara. You mention a lot of names. Why did you want to say the names in the poem? I wanted to find a place to um honor the women um and more specifically their first names are not the maiden names or the names they take on um and just because towards the end of the poem there are victims that sort of weren't identified or that we still don't know about to this day or know about their names.

And so I wanted to find a space to sort of create separate from the rest of the body of the poem to have those. I'm going to get you to stay right there because I want you to join in the next bit of conversation because joining us is Natasha Ratu from the charity Karma Nirvana that you mentioned in your poem, who work to stop what they refer to as honour-based abuse in the UK and support young women who might be vulnerable to forced marriages.

Natasha, first of all, I'd like to get your reaction to what you heard of Zara's poem there. Oh, absolutely blown away. I'm surprised that I haven't heard it already. I'm disappointed that I haven't heard it already and I think we absolutely need to connect. Thank you for talking about an issue that you've described as being unspoken. Really moved. Really, really moved.

Thank you. We're going to connect you because she's been trying to get in touch with you as well. So that's happened. We've facilitated that. Karna Navarro has been campaigning on this for more than a decade. How did you come up with the idea? And we're specifically talking about, we haven't actually said this because it's something you talk about at the beginning of the poem.

I didn't know about it, Natasha. Spoons in knickers. Yes. So the spoon in the knicker advice came on the back of a call that we got to our national helpline where we had a person who was very concerned about a trip abroad and it was shadowed by this fear of a potential forced marriage not knowing when it might happen the advice that we gave was that what they could

do is put a spoon in their underwear so that when they went through security it would alert security that they had this in a private area always a spoon never a knife or a fork for obvious reasons. And they would then be taken to the side and seen on their own and spoken to. What we've been able to do on the back of that campaign is really get the word out there, work with airports who know that if a girl or a boy has a spoon in their underwear, this is an indicator of a potential concern around forced marriage. How did you come across it Zara? I was taught about it when I was at school so I was actually 13. It came up in a PPE lesson in the classroom and my teacher brought the whole topic up. And obviously you know it moved you to enough to write a poem about it. What did it make you think at 13? What was the conversation between you and your friends when they came in and gave you that advice

we sort of rejected the idea um because we saw ourselves as strong independent south asian women and we thought this won't happen to us and so my teacher said even though you think you might be able to get out of a situation or you won't need it, it doesn't mean that other people won't have to use it. Natasha, what is the impact on girls having to go through this? It's really not something that they should have to think about. Absolutely not. But sadly, this time of year in particular, leading up to the summer holidays,

have huge spikes and calls around people with big concerns that they may be taken out of the country and married and sadly what we know through our work is that when girls in particular do go abroad it's so difficult to rescue them back so we want to take every step we possibly can to prevent them from going out of the country in the first place but you know I think ultimately we don't really even want girls to be having to the country in the first place. But, you know, I think ultimately we don't really even want girls to be having to do this in the first place. That's the bottom line. It's about making sure that we're getting the message out there.

And I'm so delighted to hear that, you know, our fantastic poet that's on the show has heard about this in school because this is where we need to be talking about these issues in spaces where young people can know that should this ever happen in the future there is something that they can do as a last resort it's also really important just to very quickly reference that we only give this advice to people that are aged 16 and above because if you're under the age of 16 when you are taken aside you will be taken with a chaperone you know a parent and that could increase your risk so we only give that advice really for

those over 16 and obviously if you've got a concern for someone under 16 that is a huge safeguarding red flag that you as a you know as a professional around that person need to take care of. The foreign office forcedced Marriage Unit received 400 reports in the three months up to the end of August last year, but it's feared that many more cases go unreported, more than a third of those affected are under 16. Is there a difference we need to explain between child marriage and forced marriage?

Well, the law changed in February of last year where now any child that is married, so anybody under the age of 18 that is married, that's automatically recognised as a forced marriage. So prior to that law, you could get married at 16 and 17 with parental consent in a registered marriage. So that's changed, you have to be 18, period. But we also recognise that there are some marriages that take place where the marriage isn't registered, and it's a religious marriage. And we have no detection, you know, no data to kind of really tell us how many of these are happening. And we have an ongoing

problem in Scotland, whereby, you know, we need to push the campaign into Scotland, because you can marry at 16 without your parents consent in Scotland I am a bit concerned that potentially there is some exporting of this issue across this you know invisible border that we have and so the law has changed for England and Wales which is great because the onus now isn't on the child to say I'm being forced to marry the law automatically recognizes that yeah I was going to say our schools, police forces, social workers equipped enough to do to spot what's happening. Sadly what we're seeing are huge increased reporting levels but we we know that the professionals haven't had training. It's disappointing because the government announced it on the 26th of April in 2022

that the law would be coming in at the end of Feb 23. So a really long implementation period, but very little was done in that time to prepare the professionals. And that's what we're seeing the fallout of now, that there are girls, we had one girl that was, it took 14 months to get her back where there was a forced marriage concern. So we still have huge problems that we need to address. Zara, the poem, which people can watch online, gets increasingly, you can feel your palpable anger. By the end, you use this word, is it, which means honour,

and you question what this honour word means. From someone at 13 thought this isn't going to affect me to now using your platform to really raise the issue in a way that's probably going to platform to really raise the issue in a way that's probably going to connect with young South Asian women in a way that other people won't be able to. Was that an easy decision for you to make to write a poem about this? It wasn't. I actually had the last stanza four years ago and I sent it in a text message to my friend. She raised how important the issue was and we had conversations but they just remained in our texts and I wasn't able to write it personally I it took me four years to write that poem and that was

after the blow up on social media of the news headlines um TikTok gaining traction the documentaries it wasn't easy to begin with It's a very powerful poem I'm going to wish you all the best of success for the future keep writing and then maybe come back and talk to us again so thank you Zahra Sahar and thank you Natasha Rattu from Carmen of... I'm Sarah Treleaven

and for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this?

What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now. Vana. 84844 is the number to text. More messages coming in from you.

I quit a career in accountancy after nearly 20 years. I had nothing else to go on to, no idea what to do next, but just knew I had to quit for my well-being. Then an opportunity came up to train as a swimming teacher for free after the pandemic. I'm now three years along and absolutely love being a swimming teacher. It gives me more joy than I could have hoped for. Now, you may remember last year we featured some fascinating topics suggested by you during Listener Week, from living funerals to posthumous conception. It's your chance again to feature on the programme, so if you've got a personal story that you'd like to share with the audience, do let us know.

Get in touch in the usual way. Listener Week, we're handing over the reins. Get your ideas in. The text message is 84844, or you can contact us on social media. It's at BBC Woman's Hour. Now, Rebecca Aching Ajulu Bushel was the first black woman to swim for Great Britain. Born in the UK, her family moved to Kenya when she was four. She started swimming competitively from the age of six and was world number one in the 50 metres breaststroke at age just 15. But she walked

away from the sport ahead of the London 2012 Olympics at just 15. But she walked away from the sport ahead of the London 2012 Olympics at just 17. She's now written a memoir, These Heavy Bones, in which she describes how she achieved success, but also at what cost, physically and mentally, and why she gave it all up. When Rebecca joined me in the studio, I began by asking her about her early life.

Kenya is home, was home for a really long time, moved out there when I was four years old and had a very idyllic but very different childhood, I guess, to what it was like when I moved back to the UK. A nomadic childhood. Tell us a bit more. We moved all the time and I was always really jealous of those people who, you know, had these really static lives and lived in the same house, went to the same school. But we moved all the time and we were in Kenya, we were in Tanzania, Uganda, Cape Town for a while and then back to the UK when I was 13. So when did you decide or when did you realise that you were good enough to swim at elite level? I did my first competition when I was six and I came home and I drew my mum a picture of this little brown girl with a comically big gold medal around her neck. And I said, this is me when I win the Olympic Games.

So I think I've always had that competitive drive and confidence. Yeah, my mum definitely gave me that. We love hearing what mums do for daughters. Oh my goodness my mum is a just superhuman I don't know just rock she used to read Shakespeare to me when I was two years old she you know took me to all of my sports classes swimming lessons she was the person who pushed me but also encouraged me and been, I guess, the biggest influence in my life in terms of swimming. We love that. What's mum's name?

Mum is Helen. Helen. Very good, Helen. Well done. And you came to the UK at the age of 13 from Kenya and you came to swim, to go to school specifically so that you could train in swimming. So you ended up in Plymouth. I did end up in Plymouth, which is a strange place to end up. It's quite a contrast, isn't it? Having to leave Nairobi and end up in Plymouth I did end up in Plymouth um which is a strange place to end up but it's quite a contrast isn't it having to leave Nairobi and end up in Plymouth the culture shock was insane I think I was still kind of barefoot and climbing trees and girls were like wearing

makeup and there was Primark and it was 2008 it was like skins era so that was a huge huge culture shock and yeah the reason was to swim and we were about to move back to Kenya and the facilities and resources there wouldn't have allowed me to kind of carry on this journey and so yeah a decision was made and I ended up at Plymouth. And how was that for you? Really tough I think like boarding school probably is for a lot of kids you know lots of homesickness but also this hugely intense thing that I was doing every single day. It was like a full time job on top of school. So, you know, wake up at four in the morning, 4.45, into the pool, two hours of swimming, full day of school, back to the pool for two more hours, wait, go home, homework sometimes, and then do it all over again. And we ate together, we, you know, slept in the same boarding house, we went to school together, we swam together. This

was really, really kind of very intense experience. On top of that, you write in the book about a culture of bullying by some of the coaching staff when you were there. Can you explain how that manifested itself? Yeah, I mean, I think it's rife everywhere in elite sport. We've seen that not just in swimming and gymnastics. And, you know, for us, it was really about this club that was burgeoning and growing and that really wanted to put us on the map. And I guess the methods that were used to get us there

were, you know, definitely over the line when it came to, you know, protecting children. Harms and abuse in elite sport is not new. It's not a new story. But that was definitely something that we experienced. And yeah, it certainly wasn't just me who was on the receiving end of that. And how did it affect you at the time? You know, I think it's complicated because as a professional athlete and as a sports person, you go into these spaces because you want to be the best, because you have this dream of immortality, of pushing yourself beyond what you feel you're capable of. And when someone's there pushing you, you want to respond to that. You know, there's a desire to go with the thing that you think is going to help you.

And so it ends up being very contradictory. On the one hand, you know, internally, you feel like, you know, I don't know if I can do this. It's kind of breaking my confidence in some way. But on the other hand, you, you know, you want to be the best. And so you keep on going. And you want to impress them. Absolutely. Was there a culture of favoritism oh 100 yeah you know i think that's definitely a tactic for training athletes as well especially in individual sports like swimming where you know it's it's probably in team sports as well it definitely felt like that was used to

train us at some points in time and what about the idea that you're a young woman and you're doing this sport and it's all about your body and how you look? I mean, how much fat shaming was involved? So there's a part in the book where I talk about, you know, when we used to do these kind of fat testing weigh-ins and we'd do those in front of everybody, which is just insane to even think about at the moment but um you know again it's this really strange thing where you where is the line you know you need to be a certain shape to deliver you know there is

such thing as peak physical performance and obviously you're always chasing that but there are ways of doing it that are safe right and there are ways of doing it that aren't and so yeah definitely there were things that were said that were gosh I look back and like absolutely not okay like what so at the beginning of the book um one of the girls walks on poolside after summer um and one of the coaches says, costumes don't shrink, you know, very, very loudly in front of everybody. And I think that that really pervaded and it really became okay as well, I think, to say those kinds of things and for other people to hear them being said.

No one put a stop to it. And all the psychological effects that those kinds of comments would have on young girls who are in this intensely competitive environment. But then on top of that, you have the very physical element of what you're doing and training and the toll that that took on your body. Yeah, completely. I mean, I think, you know, the idea that sport is hard is not radical, right? Of course, of course, sport is hard. But it's one thing to kind of know that abstract,

but another thing to experience it physically. It's absolutely brutalising on your body. It really is. I still wake up now with, like, phantom pains in my hips and, you know. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, just pain, pain in my feet and my ankles. And that's the stuff they don't tell you, that that will never go away. You've really done something quite brutal to yourself.

There's a wild story that you say about how you were injured, but you didn't say anything and you popped your own knee back in. Yes, that is very graphic, that part of the book. Very graphic. It's very graphic. I think I wanted the reader to be able to understand how much you want this and how much, I guess, how much you'll give up and how much you'll do to yourself in order to kind of get to the other side. And that that, that stuff is also very normalized. You know, I think people reading about the training, for example, and not being sports

people, you know, that I can't believe that you, you know, were putting yourself through this. And I think, well were putting yourself through this and I think well what did you think we were doing what did you think we were doing yeah yeah you were putting yourself through it and you've talked a lot about the intensity and you were very young teenagers but on top of that you are a a black woman who has come here specifically to train in a sport where people don't look like you and you were great you're not just a little bit good in 2009 you were only 15 years old and you became world number one in the 50 meter breaststroke how did that feel I remember that race like it was yesterday and yeah it felt euphoric it was like a perfect high it was yesterday. And yeah, it felt euphoric. It was like a perfect high. It was like ecstasy, you know, that feeling of being at the top of your game is something that, yeah, I think I'll

never forget. And then there's a quote in the book, These Heavy Black Bones Mattered. It's the title of your book, These Heavy Black Bones. Great title. Black people don't swim, they said. They said they can't swim. Yeah, I think, you know, so much of writing the book for me was also about sucking the poison out and being able to own some of this stuff that at the time I should have really celebrated with pride, but didn't because there was this whole other narrative that overshadowed, I guess, what I was achieving in the pool. So it wasn't just that I, you know, could swim fast, very fast, faster than anyone else, but also that, you know, I had to do that whilst proving people wrong

and swimming against this narrative that said that, you know, people like me can't swim because our bones are heavier or, you know, because culturally we're not at home in the water, we're denser, et cetera. And all of this stuff is, you know, it's we're not at home in the water, we're denser, et cetera. And all of this stuff is, you know, it's racist mythology. It's not true. But being the only black person on Paul's side, I felt the weight of that all the time.

And this is not long ago. You're really young. No, no, it wasn't long ago. It was, you know, just over 10 years ago that I was swimming. Well, I mean, it's still not changed much, has it? I mean, here we go. We've got some news that Eva Caro set to become the first black female woman to represent Team GB in the pool at the Olympics.

But she's insisting that statement alone isn't going to define her. I mean, I remember watching Alice hit the press back in 2020 and just, and feeling for her so much because this was going to be I knew such a huge part of what she was going to have to talk about. Talking about Alice Dearing. Exactly Alice Dearing and then I remember seeing this news and you know just my heart sinking a little bit and

feeling like you know they're making it into another first and this is going to be such a huge part of what you're going to have to talk about. You swam internationally for Kenya, very successfully, won several gold medals, but then at 16 you decided to swim for GB. You received a lot of negativity from the media here and in Kenya, which included racial overtones. Tell me about that time. I remember this one article that said, you know know where she speaks with a cut glass british accent and you know i was born here i have a british passport like how else how else am i supposed to what are you meant to sound like and it was you know and i remember kenyan press and media saying like oh well she's never been kenyan anyway you know that's

that's not how we've considered her this feeling of of, you know, I'm mixed race, this feeling of being in between. I think I experienced that in a heightened way at that point, more so than I ever have before. And you're 16. I was a child. Yes, I was. And, you know, I think as athletes, you are always an athlete first and then everything else second. So a child, a young woman with a developing body, a black woman, none of that stuff matters. What you can do in the pool was the thing that mattered first. And so it was easy to feel like I should have been able to handle it. But you had success,

but all this intense pressure, more media scrutiny, and it did affect your form, didn't it? Yeah. I mean, I look back now and I think, how could it not have of course it affected my ability to perform especially when you're on top and there's this expectation that you're going to win it's it's a hard position to sustain and I guess it stopped being about the process and my love of the sport and it just started to become about the outcome and all of these other people who you know they wanted me to win to get my funding or to you know compete in the next competition or because on the horizon was the olympics 2012 right around the corner and that's what you were supposed to be working towards right that was the goal and there was a little picture review with the gold medal. But what happened?

I decided that even if I did get on that podium, and even if I did get that gold medal, that what I was giving up and what it was costing me wasn't going to be worth it. Not as articulately as I've just put it, I was 16. But you quit. I did. I did. I walked away. And it was probably the most difficult decision I've ever made. How long did it take you to make that decision? And how did that conversation go down with your family? Over a very long period of time, slowly and with much difficulty. You know, I think people had invested so much in what I was doing. It wasn't just me. It was my mum who drove me to training for years

my sisters you left Kenya moved to Plymouth and completely completely the boarding school the you know all of it and and also people wanted the success for me and it was really difficult for people to understand that even though it was in reach I might not want it anymore and then I wanted other things in my life so a lot of the conversation came down to education as well. The Olympics fell over my A-level year, and there was a question of me dropping out of school, which was horrifying. And it happens to a lot of athletes.

There's not an incentive to look beyond the sport, and so you end up with fewer opportunities than you should have. And how did you feel? Was there a sense of grief, you know, with fewer opportunities than you should have. And how did you feel? Was there a sense of grief, elation, relief? It's funny, the thing I remember most is just how much time there was in the day. You weren't having to get up. No, I remember coming home and I was just like, how do people not do their homework? And it was filled with grief.

It was filled with like a real heartbreak. And, you know, watching the Olympics and watching people I'd competed with compete there, there was a huge amount of bitterness and a long period of, you know, being scared that the best thing I was ever going to do had already happened to me. But that's not what happened.

Quite the opposite. Because you went on to study, you carried on with your studies. You went on to study fine art at Oxford, and you've on a mission to bring about more equity of opportunity for young black students and graduates and we do that by creating paid internship opportunities 7 000 to date in just four years we name checked her earlier eva akaro she's only 17 she's going to be in the olymp, the first black woman to represent Team Dewey. What advice would you give her? Keep yourself focused on your own lane.

Quieten down the noise and do it for yourself and do it for all the people who are rooting for you for the right reasons. That was Rebecca atching a julie bushel and her book, These Heavy Bones, is out now and we will be rooting for you as well. The club that Rebecca attended over 10 years ago sent us this statement. As a board of parents of local swimmers, we would like to address the allegations of bullying and body shaming during Miss Aching Ajulu Bushel's time at the club.

This club now operates as a community club providing a competitive swimming programme for local swimmers. The employees who were historically involved in the management of the performance programme do not have any role in the current club. As a club dedicated to promoting equal opportunities for all swimmers, we were sorry to hear about Miss Julie Bushell's experience. For the avoidance of doubt, we do not tolerate abuse of any kind and we remain committed to providing a positive and safe environment for our swimmers. And Swimmer England gave us this statement.

The welfare, health and well-being of athletes is paramount and is an issue we take extremely seriously unfortunately there will be instances where coaching behaviors fall short of expectations and we're committed to always addressing these we would encourage anyone with a safeguarding and welfare concern either current or historic to contact us there is a link to swim england's website on our own website and a message here that's coming off the back of my interview with zara the poet from halifax carmen says my mum was a cleaner and it was her hard work that got me to and through university that shame upon shame that we carry is hard to bear when we know how proud we should be to have parents who had to work twice as hard to give us the chances they didn't get. It means so much to have that shame

acknowledged and challenged. Now, it's 50 years since the death of the American singer Cass Elliott. She died at just 32 and her musical legacy includes some of the best known songs of the 60s and 70s from both her time in the Mamas and Papas and her solo career. Joining me live in the studio is Eddie Fiegel, the author of Dream a Little Dream of Me, The Life of Mama Cass Elliot. Welcome to Woman's Hour, Eddie. Thank you.

Firstly, who was she? So Cass Elliot is one of these names that might not instantly be recognisable to lots of people, but actually I think almost everybody knows her voice everybody knows California Dreamin' everybody knows Dream a Little Dream of Me and now since there's been a TikTok phenomenon a lot of people know Make Your Own Kind of Music and it's her voice that you hear on those songs even in California Dreamin' which was by the Mamas and the Papas and the four-piece harmony

group two guys two women even though there's a male lead on that song the voice that you hear so prominently coming through all the harmonies of that record is Cass Elliott's voice. Yeah unusual and what a voice she changed her name from Ellen Naomi Cohen. Cass Elliott was just her professional name. That's right. There are lots of different stories about how that happened, because Cass Elliott had a brilliant way with an anecdote and a yarn. And she never liked the truth to get in the way of a good yarn. And so during the course of her life, she came up with all kinds of stories. So her father apparently called her the Mad Cassandra because that was one version because he liked to sort of think that she had this great imagination

and was always telling stories. There was another tale that she told a friend that she was really into T.S. Eliot and an American comedian, an actress called Cass Daly. And so she'd taken the Cass from her and the Eliot from T.S. Eliot. And then there was another version that was just that she'd taken the Cass from her and the Elliot from T.S. Elliot and then there was another version that was just that she'd taken Ellen Cohen and the initials and swapped them round.

And then she was known as Mama Cass but she hated the word Mama Cass and she didn't like the word Mama. Absolutely, so that had sort of stemmed from being in the Mamas and the Papas so whilst they were at the height of their fame there was this sort of Mama Cass, Mama Michelle, but with her it stuck for years afterwards. And she hated it understandably because it seemed to refer to her size. only associated with usually sort of quite large blues singers who, you know, generally tended to be larger women physically. And so she felt that that was a constant reference to her size

and pointed out rightly that her fellow female singer in the Mamas and the Papas, Michelle Phillips, who was felt and blonde and slim, never got called Mama Michelle subsequently. Let's talk about the Mamas and Puppers. Her former bandmates have described a tense relationship between her and John Phillips, who was often thought of as the leader of the band. What was the dynamic between them? And he didn't want her in the band initially, did he? That's right. It was very strained and it was a kind of love-hate relationship because

they both needed each other and recognised that they needed each other. She needed him because he was the guy writing all these hit songs and had founded the band. So that had proved her tickets a success. He needed her because she was the fantastic fourth voice, which made his group, the four voices, gel and come together. And she was by far the most popular member of the group. Yeah. Which, did he like that? He absolutely hated that. You know, Michelle Phillips told me this story when I was writing the book that when they used to get these sacks of fan mail at the height of their fame,

Michelle Phillips and Denny Doherty, who was the lead singer, would get these sort of sacks that would be up to about knee level. And John Phillips and sort of the three of them that would then go slightly higher. But then Cass Elliotts would be sort of way up to the sky, you know. So she was just way and above by far the most popular member of the group. And when I was reading about it, something that struck me is that she made it happen for herself because she flew out to where the three of them were sort of forming this band on the Virgin Islands.

And he didn't want her in the band, but the voice was so undeniable. Absolutely. Absolutely. She just sort of she wanted to be with them and she wanted to be singing with them. I think it's really important. I've got one eye on the time, but we're doing great because there's so much I want to say about her. But you mentioned that she had this great personality. She was a real facilitator in bringing people together. She threw these salons in her fabulous home, didn't she? And brought quite famous bands together.

Absolutely. I mean, that's one of the fascinating things about her life that I think often gets forgotten about her. She was instrumental in bringing together, introducing David Crosby to Graham Nash in the first place. And she did that with so many of her friends. John Sebastian from The Loving Spoonful and Zolianowski were independent friends as well. And so she brought lots of these people together. And she had these amazing parties. People thought of her home as a constant musical salon. But with not just musical people, you could go around there at any given day

and you'd find a couple of visiting Beatles over from London. As you do. You'd find Donovan over from London, as you do. You know, you'd find Donovan over from London, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Jack Nicholson, these sort of LA actors who were at the top of their fame, peak of their fame at the time. You know, this amazing sort of get-together of people just there on any given day.

Because of her and her person. Because of her. She was the person that brought them all together and they all loved her. Oh, gosh, to be in that room, to get an invite to one of those parties. But at the same time, she had a child. She was a single mum. That's right.

Which was quite a revolutionary thing to be at that point and to just go ahead and do. She suddenly found herself pregnant. And despite having been told that she wouldn't be able to have children because of her size and for being overweight. And so when she suddenly found herself pregnant, she decided she was going ahead and having the child despite not being in a relationship or being married. Good for her. But ahead of her time, it couldn't have been easy. And you've spoken to her daughter, Owen, who was seven when she died. What are her memories of her mother? Well, they're not that, you know, understandably she hasn't got that many memories

because she was so young when her mum died and her mum was having to earn a living and having to support her and her daughter during those years. So she was on tour a lot. She was recording a lot. So, but she, you know But she has one or two. And it's wonderful that we're able to celebrate her today,

50 years on from her passing. And more recently, as you mentioned, she's back. TikTok is bringing her a new lease of life. Make Your Own Kind of Music has found a new audience. Absolutely. It's one of these weird things that sort of years, decades on from when that record was made, suddenly it was used in a film in 2022,

The Unbearable Weight of Mass Talent. And then suddenly a year later, it was used as this TikTok meme. And suddenly, you know, five minutes later, you've got 30 million views on TikTok. And it's just turned into this phenomenon. Emma Stone did a skit on Saturday Night Live featuring that record.

And we're all going to be singing Mamas and Papas all weekend. Eddie Fiegel, thank you very much for coming in to speak to me. Dream a little dream of me. The life of Mamas and Papas Cass Elliot is out.

Tomorrow from 10am, you can join me because we're going to be looking ahead to the start of the Paris 2024 Olympics and which women we should be keeping our eyes on. We'll also be hearing from a father with a disabled daughter and how the failures of SEND school provision has impacted them and what needs to be done about it. And of course, we'll be hearing from your messages as well. Join me then. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time.

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