Woman's Hour - Kate Nash, Sarah Brown, Cardiac surgeon Dr Indu Deglurkar
Episode Date: May 12, 2025Rising to fame at the age of 20, Kate Nash soon became a staple of the British music scene in the late 2000s. Her first album, Made of Bricks, reached number one in the UK and stayed in the UK charts ...for more than forty consecutive weeks and she’s won a Brit Award. But she’s spoken openly about not being able to afford to tour and choosing to subsidise her income by selling images of her body on OnlyFans. Kate’s currently in the middle of a UK tour for her latest album, 9 Sad Symphonies, and is playing the O2 Kentish Town Forum on 9 April. She joins Nuala McGovern to discuss her career and the music industry.Sarah Brown and her husband Gordon, the former prime minister set up the Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory in 2004, following the death of their daughter Jennifer who was born seven weeks early. For the past decade, the laboratory has been leading vital research into premature birth – including a world-first study following 400 babies, both premature and full-term, from birth to adulthood. Sarah tells Nuala about the research and what they've found about preterm birth. Once the Deed is Done is the fifth novel from the German-British author Rachel Seiffert. It covers the immediate aftermath of the end of WW2 and the fall of Nazi Germany. The book focuses on a group of displaced people – it’s estimated that globally there were between 40-60 million people displaced by the war. Rachel describes why she wanted to write about this often forgotten time in history, reflecting on the cruelty inflicted from above and the choices her characters make. BBC2’s Saving Lives in Cardiff is back on our screens from tonight. Based in the largest hospital in Wales, University Hospital in Cardiff, the series highlights the weight of difficult, sometimes life and death decisions surgeons make about who to prioritise next. The first episode follows Dr Indu Deglurkar, a cardiac surgeon, one of only 19 women in this role in the UK. She joins Nuala to discuss the pressures and joys of her job.Presented by Nuala McGovern Producer: Louise Corley
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BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. Hello, I'm Nuala McGovern and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4.
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for this podcast.
Hello and welcome to the programme.
The Prime Minister, as you've been hearing in the bulletin, has been laying out the government's
migration policy.
Proposed changes include cutting the recruitment of overseas care workers and the focus of the discussion is about the numbers of paid carers and where
they come from. But this morning we want to talk about the quality of care those
workers offer. What does good care look like to you? You may have used a paid
carer yourself or rely on one to look after somebody in your family. What
qualities and skills do
you want your carer to have? Or maybe you are a care worker who takes great pride
in delivering compassionate and diligent service. Well I'd like to hear from you.
You can text the program the number is 84844 on social media or at BBC
Woman's Hour or you can email us through our website for a WhatsApp message or a voice note. The number is 03 700 100 444.
We will hear from a care worker who's been on the front lines,
who objects to the characterisation of a paid carer as a low skilled worker.
Maybe you have thoughts on that.
Also today, the singer, songwriter and actor who is totally captivating
in her latest role on stage, it is Beverly Knight. She's going to be in our Woman's Hour studio. Beverly is
playing Sister Rosetta Tharp, the godmother of rock and roll. Now if you
don't know a lot about her, you will in the coming hour. Also starting today we
will be hearing different perspectives on the UK Supreme Court ruling that
decided the termed woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and
biological sex. Today Robin Moir of White, a barrister and activist who is a trans
woman. Other views in upcoming programs will also be broadcast. Plus exploring an
ADHD diagnosis during the menopause. Do stay with us. But let me begin
with that announcement by the government that care workers will no longer be recruited from
overseas as part of a crackdown on visas for lower skilled workers, as it has been termed.
The Conservative Party did previously change the rules, which saw a drop-off in the number
of visas given to care workers abroad. On BBC Sunday with Laura Kunzberg on that program yesterday, Laura
asked the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper if she wanted to cut that even further.
Yes we do and we're changing going to change those rules this year to prevent
the care worker visa being used to recruit from abroad. At all? Yes.
But we will allow them to continue to extend visas
and also to recruit from.
There's more than 10,000 people who came on a care worker visa
where the sponsorship visa was canceled.
Effectively, they came to jobs that weren't actually here
or that were not of the proper standard.
They are here, and care companies
should be recruiting from
that pool of people rather than recruiting from abroad.
But I can always...
So we are closing recruitment from abroad.
That is a significant change and we're doing it alongside saying we need to bring in a
new fair pay agreement for care workers because we saw that huge increase in care work recruitment
from abroad but without actually ever tackling
the problems in the system.
So that was Yvette Cooper speaking to Laura Coonsberg yesterday. Now the care sector has
criticised the government's plans to end the overseas recruitment of staff as cruel and
short-sighted. Let me speak to Gavin Edwards who is head of social care at Unison. Good
to have you with us Gavin. Well what about that care workers being recruited from the existing pool instead of from overseas?
I think it's obviously the government has got a right to manage migration but
it's also got a responsibility to make sure that we've got the number of care
workers that we need and over recent decades really we simply haven't been paying
those care workers enough for the difficult and skilled job that they're doing. So in the the
current situation I think this makes it all the more urgent that the government moves ahead with
the fair pay agreement, the sectoral agreement, the agreement that they're going to put in place
for the care sector to boost the wages to ensure that we can recruit to the care sector in the way that we need
to. But in the meantime, those care workers who've come to the UK from
overseas need to be treated with dignity and respect, which is something which has
been far too lacking in recent years.
So do you believe if the wages were higher, that that would change the whole
landscape?
where higher that that would change the whole landscape? I think if we see the delivery of a substantial fair pay agreement which the government has
announced that it's planning as part of the employment rights bill and that it
has substantial investment behind it that will go a long way to addressing
the huge levels of vacancies in the care sector. I mean it's having a hugely
damaging effect on the levels of care and the availability of care in this country. And so we need that national
sectoral wide agreement that's going to be legally enforceable. And I do think that's going to be a
game changer. But we also need to make sure that those care workers who are already here from
overseas are treated properly. And I think there are some changes that could be made to the visa system to assist with that.
Well, let's talk about that.
The overseas worker, how integral are they to the industry as a whole?
Make no bones about it.
The overseas workers who've come to work in the care sector in recent years
have prevented the care sector from collapsing.
The situation with paying conditions for care
workers in the UK is so dire that it was needed that those workers would come. In the absence of
a government that was going to do anything about pay terms and conditions, we did need those workers.
It's a vital public service, social care, and yet it's a sector that has the highest
vacancy rate of any sector in the economy and
that was not only holding back the care sector but also stopping us from bringing down NHS waiting
times because the care packages simply weren't there for people leaving hospitals. I'm curious
for your thoughts on this Gavin, a message that just came in. Overall my experience of home carers
for my mum has been quite poor. We've been through four home care agencies. Too many seem to do it as no alternative for work. Caring is a calling.
I completely agree that care is a calling. I was speaking to the chair of
our National Care Committee this morning, who's a support worker herself, she was
telling me about the 42 plus training courses she has to do each year,
including safeguarding, tube feeding, oral health, issuing emergency life saving medication.
This is a difficult and skilled job by anybody's reckoning, but unfortunately it's not paid
as a skilled job and that's what needs to be addressed.
Why do you think that is?
Why has that happened over a
period of decades successive governments have failed to invest in the care sector it's acutely
underfunded. We also need widespread reform because it's a sector that is far too focused on profit
in terms of the providers, it's too fragmented, we have 18,000 providers in the care sector as well.
I'm pleased to see the government starting to get a handle on some of these things by bringing in the Fair Pay Agreement by
its pledge to deliver a national care service but we need to move ahead with
these things now because the care sector has been waiting far too long for reform.
And I do not have a response from the providers to your characterization
there about profit being a motivating factor but they are your comments at the
moment Gavin who is Gavin Edwards head of social care at Unison thank you very
much I do see another message coming in my mother's two carers are with her
right now they're doing personal care to start her day both were recruited from
overseas the care system collapse without them the way in which carers are
paid is a disgrace care work is a highly skilled, yet these ladies are not paid for the
time spent traveling between clients. They're on zero hour contracts and so no
sickness pay. I can only work because these ladies come in four times a day
for my mother. I'm sure that story will resonate with many. Let me bring in my
next guest who's Catherine Falk who wrote a memoir on working in the care
sector all through the pandemic called Every Kind of People, a Journey into the Heart of Care Work. Good to have you with
this Catherine, I mean I wonder how you would describe care work and what do people need to
know about it, particularly that terminology that it's often used that it is a low skilled worker.
I think that and thanks for having me on,
I think that if you are doing the job properly it's certainly not low skills work at all.
There are all sorts of qualities and skills that you need. The qualities that you might need
probably you need to have inherently most of them. You need to be patient, tolerant, reliable,
empathic, have compassion, communicate, be sensitive, be calm, have good
humour and then the skills involved are enormous. Hoisting, safeguarding, manual handling, infection
control, being observant, record-keeping, it's you know, it's a high, I think it's a very, or I've
found since I've been in it for the last five years, it's very highly skilled if you're doing it properly.
You kind of chanced upon this career in some ways. Would that be fair? You were the accidental carer? It would be very fair to say that. Yes, I used to be a clinical dietitian in the NHS and suffered
from, I think probably just suffered from burnout really, so gave that up and became less and less
confident and a bit depressed at
home until I felt the only job I could probably get was that as a care worker
and I had a very poor perception of what that would be like. I thought it
would probably be a bit dull and possibly unpleasant, a bit boring and it
was absolutely anything but. It was interesting, fascinating, rewarding, joyful, funny, and very skilled. Yeah, I was, I was,
and now I still do it today. I can't imagine doing anything else.
What's wonderful about it?
What's wonderful about it? Well, you, I think what's wonderful about it for me is that I go
to work every day feeling like I want to go to work. I connect with people all day.
I have fantastic relationships with my residents and my customers.
And I go home feeling that I've done a good job.
I've helped people be more independent
and we've had a good laugh along the way.
I just find it
fascinating and really, really rewarding.
I'm interested in the skills that you outline for the ideal carer, which is,
I mean, how many people are that multi skilled or multi talented
is the first thing that comes to mind.
And Gavin mentioned this as well, you know, that ideally you have somebody
who wants to do it as a calling or a vocation, whatever way we want to term it.
But how do you find those people?
That's the issue, isn't it? How do you find those people? I think that one of the issues we have
alongside the financial issue, you know, the low pay, is that we have a very poor image and we need
a makeover as much as anything else. We really, really do. We need to be promoting ourselves as a profession and we need
to be enticing good people in at a younger age, promoting it as a career with a career pathway
through it. There's loads of opportunities within the profession of care and there's very little
known about them. So we need to promote it as much as pay better for it to tempt those people in because it is, apart from being rewarding, it is really hard work.
So, yes, we do need to promote it more and then we would get those people in.
Those people are around, but they need to be shown that care is a profession that
they can go into.
How do you feel about people being made to be social care workers
just because they are looking for any job, that that is the way it is,
I suppose, sold at the moment and the way many people hear it,
that that's the only job they can get?
I think it's terrible because it means that by and large I work with wonderful people. I have known
some brilliant carers in my time and I still do both from overseas and in the UK but it's not safe
to allow just anybody to come into the profession and people are not paid enough to go into people's
homes where they're caring for vulnerable people. We have to improve the quality or ensure the quality of care.
Lots of care is really high quality at the moment but to ensure it's high
quality care we have to recognise that there needs
to be some kind of training, formal training, formal
qualifications, doesn't have to be a degree but it needs to be some
structure through care that ensures that quality of care is throughout the entire system.
Lots of messages coming in on the subject of carers.
My mother-in-law has carers come to her every day and on the whole, they're lovely.
My only issue is that they're all from overseas.
And because of this, their accents can be quite strong.
My mother-in-law's dementia really struggles to understand them.
This causes a lot of confusion for her.
That's Penny from Devon getting in touch 84844.
But what is your take, Catherine, on today's announcement by the Prime Minister and also
echoed by Yvette Cooper yesterday?
Yeah, I have mixed feelings.
I work with carers from outside the UK and they have been brilliant in most respects. Occasionally I've
worked with those that have not been so good and I would echo your previous caller's observation
that communication is paramount in care, you have to communicate well and with elderly people or
with those with dementia or those who are outside the capitals, to be
presented with somebody whose accent they don't quite understand, whose culture
is unfamiliar to them can be difficult. Overall, I'm afraid that if we continue,
certainly the care system would have collapsed without them, they've done a
fantastic job, but if we focus only on bringing care workers in from overseas, I
worry that we're not promoting care as in from overseas, I worry that we're not
promoting care as a profession in this country and that we are kind of permitting
the idea that care is not for us to do, it's not a good profession.
So I think we should concentrate on that very much.
Catherine, thank you very much. That is Catherine Falk who wrote a memoir on
working in the care sector all through the pandemic called Every Kind of People,
A Journey into the Heart of care work and before Catherine
Wade Gavin Edwards, Head of Social Care at Unison, thanks to both of them. Your
message is coming in, I think the way ahead with carers is to take the
training to a single national standard as in nursing training with a route to
professional advancement that Sue in Plymouth in a way similar to
what Catherine was calling for which is a total rebrand of the career. Now you'll
remember that on the 16th of April Supreme Court judges in a case brought
by the group for Women Scotland ruled the terms woman and sex in the 2010
Equality Act refer to a biological woman and biological sex. Previously the prevailing interpretation had been that a woman for the purposes of the Act was either a biological woman or a trans woman
who is biologically male, yet has a GRC that is a gender recognition
certificate. This week we'll be hearing different perspectives on that ruling and taking a much deeper look at how it could and should be interpreted on the ground. The Equality and Human Rights Commission
has issued interim guidance that was on the 26th of April that in places open to
the public trans women, those people with GRCs and those without, should not use
women's facilities such as toilets or changing rooms. We'll look at the
practical dilemmas this ruling creates
for organizations, businesses, and individuals.
Later this week, I'll be speaking to Sex Matters,
one of the organizations who argued
for this clarification in the law.
But today, let's hear from a barrister
who specializes in taking discrimination cases
and who is also a trans woman and activist.
That is Robin Moir-White who
transitioned in 2011 and is co-author of A Practical Guide to Transgender Law.
Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to the program. So what are your
reflections almost four weeks on from that Supreme Court ruling? Okay well I
don't think the ruling will survive a trip to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
There was a case called Goodwin back in 2002 and we didn't have the Gender Recognition
Act out of the goodwill of some government. We had it because the European Court, under
the convention that we wrote and we signed up to in 1951, told the UK that it had to have an effective method of
acknowledging someone's change of gender and whether or not I think it's a
particularly poor judgment by the Supreme Court whether it's right or wrong
what we have is a situation now where that recognition is not effective and
will need to be corrected.
But on what grounds would the European Court of Human Rights potentially overrule the judgement?
Well, if you are a trans person, that acknowledgement of your changed gender
has to allow you to live appropriately and with dignity.
And if you go to the cinema or the supermarket and you are forced to use facilities
that are not appropriate to your
gender, then firstly your rights to privacy are compromised and your right to live in
dignity are compromised. I this week was talking about the circumstance of a trans woman who
for 20 years has worked in a financial institution is not known to be trans other than to her employers and the employers are trying to decide
whether they have to tell her to go and use the mail facilities. But could this
not be a bedding down period in the sense of when organizations, businesses,
workplaces begin to have also adjustments for those that are trans because with the Supreme
Court ruling it talked about for people not to be discriminated against.
Indeed it did and there's been a somewhat unholy rush to exclude trans
people from facilities to take the Supreme Court's judgment to mean rather
more than it does and And the Equality and Human
Rights Commission's interim statement has been widely criticised by discrimination lawyers
for being part of that unholy rush.
Why do you call it an unholy rush? What are you talking about?
Well, for example, access to spaces in workplaces is not determined by the Equality Act, it's determined by other
legislation than that which the Supreme Court was looking at. And that a careful look needs
to be taken at how people are to be accommodated with dignity in their working life and their
daily life.
Which they may take steps to do in a way that they believe achieves
that goal. And I think it's put employers... But I'm saying still following the Supreme
Court ruling. Well, perhaps not. Many employers or service providers have put out statements already that says we won't be excluding trans
people from gender appropriate facilities because we don't think that's
the right thing to do and if we've put ourselves in a position where business
and service providers don't think that a ruling of our Supreme Court reflects
justice and right and the dignity of people. Maybe that's why we
signed up to a convention on that as long ago as 1951.
But do you not think in an instance like that, for example, some of the examples you give
there, that any person within that organisation has the right now to lodge a complaint with the EHRC and that with the Equality
and Human Rights Commission that implements these laws that took a look
at the Equality Act 2010 in particular and gave that guidance you know an
individual within those organisations now has the right to lodge a complaint
if they disagree with that. Well they can lodge a complaint, what they've got to come up with is a disadvantage.
Which many people have as we've seen in the run up to this particular case.
Yeah, yeah and it frankly puts employers and service providers in a nigh impossible position
because equally the trans person who is forced into facilities that
they would say are not appropriate for them or is forced to tell their work colleagues
that they can't go and use the same facilities as them as they've been doing for many years
is equally put into an impossible position. The Equality and Human Rights Commission have
a duty to uphold the convention rights of the individuals
as well as the Equality Act rights and so you could what this ruling has taken
us into is a situation where I think you're likely to get complaints from
either side of the debate. With that in relation Victoria McLeod is a former
High Court judge who is trans told the BBC she will go to the European Court of
Human Rights in Strasbourg to seek a declaration that the actions of the UK
government and the Supreme Court violate her fundamental human rights which I
think is echoing a little of what you're saying there Robin and also of course we
should say that the government has accepted this ruling saying it brings
clarity and confidence and continue to say the very
last thing it does is bring clarity and confidence it has brought muddle and
doubt I think that is one perspective and we're hearing of a variety of them
this week but there are others that would agree with that characterization
of clarity and confidence the Justice Secretary Shabina Mahmood she said I
think they've done their job, talking
about Supreme Court, I think they've
sought to do it in a way that
recognizes that we're talking about a
balance of rights but sought to give
confidence to a minority community that
they still have protections. Why do you
not believe that? Well, at the end of the
judgment there's a long homily from the
judges about trans people still have
rights. And that it shouldn't be
considered a victory by either side.
Well, indeed.
And I've heard words like vindication
used by people on the gender critical side of the debate.
The problem is that it's all very well having
fundamental human rights.
But if in your workplace you're forced to go,
you very specifically rejected your birth
gender and now you're forced into facilities that reflect that, that is devastating for
someone who has made those choices, made that difficult journey and their rights are not
being respected.
Why is it devastating? Well, the definition, gender dysphoria,
is complete unhappiness with your birth, sex, or gender.
And people go through, as I'm sure is well known,
considerable and difficult stages, which
can involve the loss of family and friends,
the loss of employment, having
to seek new employment in different ways, having to seek medical intervention and surgery
and go through all that. And many of those people, in fact the vast majority of those
people have lived perfectly successfully for many years in their affirmed gender. And to
be now told that you have to out yourself to work
colleagues and use facilities that
you've specifically rejected is
devastating. I mean there are people who
would say it is devastating to have to
share facilities, same-sex facilities,
with a biological man. Well indeed and
there are solutions, there are solutions to that problem. So that there are, I mean, one of
the things, one of the areas that I practice in particular is religious discrimination.
And some people from certain religions are very keen on the sex differences and maintaining
the sex differences. And the way that you accommodate those needs
are by providing additional privacy
for those people who need additional privacy,
not forcing particular groups into that additional privacy.
So if there were accommodations for additional privacy for trans people,
would that resolve the issue for you?
No, that's exactly the problem, you see. Additional privacy for trans people, would that resolve the issue for you? No, that's exactly the problem, you see, additional privacy for trans people.
So you force the trans people into the additional privacy.
If you say there are private facilities
and if you are disaffected by the idea that in
your normal group there might be a trans person, then
you can use the additional private facilities and know
that you're not going to encounter anyone else.
But we do know with this ruling the terms woman and sex in the 2010 Equality Act refer to,
they say, a biological woman and biological sex.
You will have also seen some...
Does that mean, for example, that my, I mean, I have a barrister friend with relatively young children, so can she now
not take her young male children into the female facilities when she's at the
cinema or the beach or the supermarket? You know, what is, and if she can, why can,
why are they allowed to be accommodated and not a trans person who
transitioned 20 years ago? And maybe it's boy, man, I don't have the answer on that one.
But I am, I do want to know from you,
that's probably with their child under a certain age, but I don't have the specifics for you right now.
The Act is very clear. The Act says that
boy and girl include, man and woman include boy and girl.
That's what the Equality Act says.
When it comes to some people now describing you as a man, how do you react to that?
Those who do it are being deliberately offensive generally when they do.
Why do you say that's their motivation? They could say that they're identifying people by biological
sex. They could. People can say all sorts of things. There are unpleasant ways to
refer to all sorts of people. I never choose to use unpleasant ways to refer
to other people. The choice of referring to someone in an unpleasant way is a choice. They might say that having to be pleasant is not reason enough to use a term which they feel is biologically inaccurate.
Well, imagine I'm in a queue in a shop and I'm an out trans person, so people have seen me on the TV, have heard me here on the
radio.
And if the shop assistant happens to know who I am, and asks perhaps another shop assistant
to come and open another till, and shouts across the shop, would you start with the
man fifth down the queue, would that be appropriate?
That's just plain unpleasantness. Now if we're
dealing with a court case where the gender identity of someone is relevant
that's a different matter. If we're dealing with how we behave to people in
society you know there are appropriate ways to refer to people and inappropriate
ways. Let me turn to the case again. According to the Equality
and Human Rights Commission, the EHRC, no trans organizations applied to be part
of the case. Two trans individuals, Vicky McLeod, the judge that you've mentioned
already, and Stephen Whittle, Professor Stephen Whittle, applied to intervene and
they are eminent squeezes from the trans
world. They were both involved in the drafting of the 2004 Act. There is no bar on individuals.
It's relatively unusual that individuals intervene, more often organisations, but there is no
bar on individuals intervening and those individuals
to this day don't know why they were not permitted to intervene.
But the Supreme Court as you mentioned it considers legal arguments not lived experiences
as according to Accio Reindorf, one of the commissioners said that thus an individual
is never likely to get permission.
How do you understand though no organisation instead of an individual applying to intervene?
I mean just to let our listeners know the list of interveners of organisations they
did hear from with Sex Matters, also Scottish Lesbians, the Lesbian Project and LGB Alliance,
the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and Amnesty International.
Amnesty put some very strong transpositive points which were not followed by the Superior
Court and I think are likely to form some of the discussion when this matter gets to
the European Court.
You're convinced it will?
Oh undoubtedly.
I know of a number of applications which are in preparation at the moment.
Vicky McLeod has already said she's taking her position to the European Court of Human
Rights.
The first time a trans person is forced into inappropriate facilities in the NHS for example,
there's likely to be injunction applications.
And the new guidance which the Equality and Human Rights Commission are going to
produce
before the summer is susceptible to judicial review
and on judicial review the European Convention rights become relevant.
Until then will you abide by the ruling?
I will continue to live my life in the way that I've been living it for a long time.
So that sounds like a no to me.
Service providers and those who provide workplaces don't have a duty to police facilities
and I've never yet been challenged on my use of facilities.
You previously called Sex Matters, Kimmy Badenock and Baroness Faulkner, who heads up the EHRC,
evil on this topic. I mean, we've just spoken about unpleasant language. Do you still stand by that word?
Yeah, it was a strong word used at the time relative to a particular action.
But I, my family were involved in the Battle of Cable Street in the 1930s and I'm afraid to say excluding vulnerable minorities is a pretty unattractive position for
any organization to adopt. But many would say using language like that just
inflames the rhetoric and could also be considered hateful speech. I agree I
perhaps might not have with a bit more thought might have used that word on
that occasion, but I used it on that occasion and I stand by it.
So you do stand by it. Thank you for coming in, Barister, trans woman and
author of A Practical Guide to Transgender Law, Robin Moir White. More on
this topic as I mentioned, including on Wednesday when we'll speak to Sex
Matters, one of the organizations that were heard in the Supreme Court case. And next week, Baroness Kishwer
Faulkner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission will be here to explain how the
Commission is consulting on changes to its guidance. If you want to get in touch, 8484.
The Dear Daughter podcast received some fantastic letters from our listeners recently.
I just had a lot of emotion and I had to put it somewhere.
Together we're creating a handbook to life for our children.
Feelings that you don't know how to express verbally, write it down.
Enjoy the life you have.
No one can tell you what tomorrow will bring.
Dear Daughter from the BBC World Service. listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
Now, let me turn to Sister Rosetta Tharp, a woman we should all know about as she was
the godmother of rock and roll. She influenced countless musicians. Chuck Berry was quoted as saying,
my whole career has been one long
Sister Rosetta Tharp impersonation.
A new play, Marie and Rosetta,
has just opened at the Rose Theatre in London,
portraying Rosetta and her singing partner,
Marie Knight.
Described as one of the most remarkable
and revolutionary duos in music history,
the play aims to bring these forgotten musical heroines
back into the spotlight.
Olivier Award-winning performer, Beverly Knight,
plays Sister Rosetta, and joins me now in the studio.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Great to have you with us.
Love it to be.
Can we start by talking about your performance?
What are the words?
Mesmerizing, perhaps.
Oh, thank you.
Goosebumps all the way. When you come down
into the audience with your tambourine it is thrilling. Tell us a little bit
about Sister Rosetta Thorpe. I didn't know anything about her before I began
reading into her with this particular play. Well Sister Rosetta Thorpe was a
force of nature. I mean she was a complete child prodigy, she was playing
guitar at the age of six, it was her and her mum, Katie Nubin Bell, and her mum
would go out and preach around the southern United States and then in
Chicago and little Rosetta would accompany her playing
guitar and roaring in the crowds and she was such a remarkable player. The way she would
pick the guitar was what made us stand out from everybody else. She'd pick in such quick
succession where she wasn't singing, she'd be picking in quick succession.
That in time became known as, as we all know it, the guitar solo, paving the way for, you
know, the rock gods with their, you know, soaring guitar solos that we all know and
love today. She made gospel music. So, music was almost completely of a religious nature, but she
got into huge trouble with her church, Church of God in Christ, which is a big kind of evangelical
African-American founded church, for making secular records, which she did. She went out and sang in the
Cotton Club. She brought her brand of Christianity to the nightclubs which was an absolute no-no
at the time. You're talking about the 1930s, 40s, 50s. But she got to sing with Cab Calloway
and Duke Ellington and the huge people of the time.
But it was Marie Knight and her partnership with Marie Knight
that got her back in with the churches
because Marie Knight was very much a proficient singer
and player and their combination, their duets,
which were entirely of a religious nature,
just set the world on fire really it's been lost to history. Like you did with Ndombi Zotwa and Ndiluvu who is
Marie Knight. Oh my goodness I mean what a pairing just an amazing thing to watch. How
much fun was it to have somebody to bounce off in that way? Oh, superb. Ndombi Zodwa is just a fantastically
talented young actor and singer and just to be able to sing duets with someone and just have so
much fun with it was brilliant. Putting together the show was everything. But it's something I felt so different. You've got these two women on stage, it's a two-hander,
the intensity of it physically, as well as this story that set in such a sad time of, you know,
deep sad segregation and maybe performing in places that black people weren't able to attend.
Absolutely. We find ourselves, for the duration of the show, in 1946.
And the first scene you see is Marie and Rosetta in a funeral home rehearsing.
Check me a second. I was like, that's a coffin like that.
That's correct. Yeah. It's a funeral home in Mississippi because as Rosetta says,
we can't stay in no hotel now here. Black people couldn't stay at access places
to lay down their heads, which is why Rosetta Tharp had a tour bus.
So the origins of
having a tour bus as a status symbol were actually born out of complete and utter necessity
because people couldn't stay in hotels. It was such a terrible and difficult time. Jim Crowe was
very, very much adhered to in the Southern United States, which meant as
black women and as musicians, they were in precarious positions up and down, you know,
the different states. They had a white bus driver as a shield, really, as safety, to
get them food, you know, the basic necessities that
they would need. But it speaks to the bravery of both women and their tenacity and their
resilience to get the music to the masses however they could and doing what they saw
as God's work.
What about the relationship between the two of them?
So I'm glad you asked.
We are almost certain that Sister Rosetta was bisexual.
Her relationships with men, she had three husbands.
Squirrels.
The squirrels. She had three squirrels. But she also had
relationships with other women and most people agree that one of the most loving
and affectionate and close of those relationships was with Marie Knight
although in the books Shout Sister Shout by Gail Ward, which
we used to do a lot of research, Marie Knight denied absolutely that there was such a relationship,
but understandable because the fundamentalism and the evangelical nature of both of their religions would have meant
that that would have been a no-no, especially at that time. But the evidence was that a
lot of the big kind of gospel blues singers, as Sister Rosetta Thorpe was, endured relationships with both men and women.
And it was completely commonplace.
It was just not out in the open and definitely not approved by the church,
of which it was a huge part of their lives.
I mentioned squirrels.
Do you want to tell our audience why they were called that?
Squirrels.
Because to tell our audience why they were called us. Squirrels. Because Sister Rosetta in our play refers to the men in her life as squirreling away her money for a rainy day, which is based absolutely in fact.
She came up against men who saw the fame, saw the glitz, saw the glamour
and certainly saw the money. She could demand a really good fee for what she
did because she was so unique, her skill set was so unique, female guitarist with
an incredible voice and she was just basically a bank account especially for squirrel number
three who outlived her. She died you know in her late 50s. But in the play as well
I did come across just researching that there is a tombstone that that now says
about who she is. When she died it was an unmarked grave. It was an unmarked grave
for Sister Rosetta. A woman who, and to give her her due and you beautifully surmised it in your intro,
a woman who was part of the Mount Rushmore of creating this thing that became rock and roll. Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard. That's right and they all came after her. Little Richard opened for Sister Rosetta Thorpe. The duck walk that everybody talks about with Chuck Berry,
he saw Sister Rosetta do it first. He just got down a bit lower than she did and Elvis had loved her.
And I know you've been influenced by Aretha Franklin. Yeah. But Aretha was influenced by Sister Rosetta Thorpe.
There you go. And now we come back full circle that you're playing Sister Rosetta Thorpe.
It's a remarkable thing. This woman whose name has been unfairly suppressed when we talk about
the history of rock and roll and where it's come from and how it's been built and the architects.
the history of rock and roll and where it's come from and how it's been built and the architects.
This woman influenced directly and indirectly just about everybody that you've heard of in modern music. You can trace it all back and you know there is a direct correlation between
what Sister Rosetta Tharp was doing and women like Tina Turner and certainly Aretha Franklin and her
father James Cleveland you know who would have who would have revered Sister
Rosetta and played those records to a young Aretha coming up and in turn Aretha
has influenced me greatly. What's it like performing her? What's it like with the
audience? I know I was totally smitten, but as I've said, but how's
it been? Because I can't think I came the very first night. Yes, it's been incredible. People
been clapping along, cheering and deadly silent in the poignant moments of which there are quite a few. It's been a wonderful, wonderful privilege and an honour to play this iconic woman.
One line I read about you, Beverly, is that your biggest achievement of your career is that you're still here.
Yeah.
And I thought that might be kind of interesting to explore a little bit, particularly with the backdrop of Sister Rosetta Tharp, who stayed there through thick and thin when she was in the
flavour of the month and when she wasn't.
That's right. It's funny, I keep finding correlation between my own life and career
and that of Sister Rosetta. The whole kind of going into the valley of not being the, as you quite
rightly say, the flavor of the month or the current thing. And then coming back out the
other end, which Sister Rosetta Thorpe did when she went to England.
Yes, England adopted her, so to speak.
Absolutely, because all the young people were like, who is this incredible blues woman that
the Beatles and the Stones and the animals are copying?
You know, oh my God, she's the real deal type thing.
And I found now, I've, in this part of my career, after 30 plus years, people are looking
to me going, oh, Auntie Bev, yes, go on, Auntie Bev, go on,
you know, Queen Bev and all of this, which is so flattering. But it's just, it's wonderful
to have a career where I'm still able to be of service to people with my voice and hopefully with joy and to be a figure that people are influenced by and
hopefully an aspirational figure.
Most definitely. Beverly Knight, thank you so much. Marie Ann Rosetta is on at the Rose
Theatre in London until the 22nd of May. Then on tour to Wolverhampton, you're going to
get some reception there. That's right. And at the Chichester Theatre, a festival theatre from the 25th of June to the 26th of July,
Beverly, because that's not enough, will be performing on BBC2 and BBCI
players later with Jules Holland that Sunday the 25th of May at 10 p.m. I will
be listening. Oh thank you. Now thanks for all your messages coming in on carers.
Let me read some of them. Dear Wom's are, how can we have a conversation about carers and not
mention the patriarchy carers are labeled low skilled because care work
is undervalued in a patriarchal society that exploits women's caring nature
to prop up broken social systems.
Where are all the men in care work outside of well paid managerial positions?
That's Alice in London.
Next one, I worked in domiciliary care for five years, but couldn't stand it any longer,
so I've turned to private care work.
The colossal stress you're under to get everything done
within the dreadfully unrealistic time frame you are given.
For example, I would regularly have to get
a physically unstable elderly person out of bed,
assist to wash and dress them, give their meds,
wash the dishes, change the bed linen, empty the bins,
get breakfast and empty the commode all in 30 minutes, then get to the next client with no travel time allowance.
Calls were routed back to back so you could actually only have about 20 minutes to carry
out all those tasks and get to the next call on time.
84844 if you'd like to get in touch.
Now it is thought that around 3 to 4% of people in the UK, so about 1 in 20, have ADHD, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. However many
women still remain undiagnosed for decades only discovering in their 40s,
50s and 60s that they have it. Following the success of the award-winning BBC2
series Inside Our Autistic Minds which explored the experiences of neuro
divergent people, a new documentary starts tonight with Chris Packham
hearing the stories of people with ADHD. One of those taking part is Jo Beasley.
She was diagnosed with ADHD just two years ago at the age of 49 after her
symptoms worsened during the menopause. Welcome Jo to our studio. Thank you very
much, it's a pleasure. We also have Amanda Kirby, who's the former chair of the ADHD Foundation and a professor in the field
of neurodiversity also joining me down the line. Good morning Amanda. Good
morning to you. So Jo, you and your undiagnosed ADHD, what was the effect on
your life before the menopause and before you got a diagnosis
So before the menopause when I reflect back the undiagnosed ADHD on
Reflection had an impact on me from when I was quite small from when I was at school
Through my teenage years through various careers, etc on On reflection I can see the struggle with time, tasks, sitting still.
Girls were expected, late 70s, early 80s, to sit very still at school and concentrate
and get things in on time.
I struggled quite a bit with that.
And then it was when the menopause hit, things started to really become even more apparent.
And it was quite a struggle at that time.
So what was it as you had perimenopause, menopause, wash, weeded, manifest?
I remember one significant moment when my wife, Ali, came home from work
and I was sitting on the dining room table with my laptop.
And I just sat there in tears and said, I
think I'm going to have to give up my job. I don't think I can do this anymore because
the requirement to do things on time, the tasks, et cetera, that I was doing, you throw
in menopausal symptoms as well that I've since learned they don't run nicely next to each other at
all so I think I had exacerbated symptoms of both going on at one time
and it was just really it was too much and I thought I wasn't I just wasn't
coping at all. And at that point though you went to speak to somebody and got a
diagnosis? What happened then was my wife Ali was working with
somebody who had recently been diagnosed, my eldest daughter Katie was at uni with
somebody who was diagnosed with ADHD and they both kind of around the same time
came to me said I think we should look at this and my manager at a time was
previously a special educational needs teacher I mentioned it to her and she
said yes I think maybe you should look at that and then there was then the whole journey
really began after that. And I want to come back to how it meant to get that
diagnosis but I do want to bring Amanda in here. What is it about perimenopause
or menopause that might exacerbate the symptoms of ADHD? Well I think one of the
big things is you've got estrogen going up and down and all over the place and estrogen can interact with dopamine and
serotonin and so you might have had those symptoms but the depletion of
estrogen really exacerbates it and as Jo says rightly you've got a combination
of the two so quite difficult sometimes to recognise which is menopausal
symptoms, perimenopausal symptoms, and on top of this
which are the ADHD symptoms which are being unmasked and you're seeing the combination of
the two having worse outcomes. We didn't think about it though, we weren't thinking about women
10-15 years ago, so these are new conversations which is remarkable really.
Yes it is because we often hear about girls when we talk about autism and masking very well but
talking about women menopause post-menopausal women getting this diagnosis do we know what
percentage of women have ADHD we're talking about in the population as a whole about three to four
percent in the UK. Well I think we don't exactly because what we were doing with most of the
research done 15 20 years ago was done on boys, on men. And so you look at the research studies, they were predominantly boys and so we're looking for boys
and men symptoms. We're seeing in other conditions like autism as well, it's likely to be the gender
difference are not so great as we always thought. We always thought it was two, three to one,
males to females. We're thinking it's probably much less than that and maybe a little
bit more males but nothing like the low levels of lack of diagnosis that we
actually saw. Do you believe there's a higher awareness now among medical
practitioners? Well we've got a way to go I think you know I think we've got
GPs and psychiatrists, clinicians as well, you know you've got gynaecologists
who are seeing women
with menopause need to think about ADHD
alongside perimenopausal symptoms.
So I think we've still got a way to go.
You know, I was quite struck, Jo, in the documentary
about the grief you were feeling post diagnosis.
Yes, you had a reason for some of the ways you were feeling
or had behaved, but grief and anger for all those years
that were lost perhaps
is one way of describing it. I was actually sitting in this studio making
part of that film and Candace the director who was amazing and worked
alongside her a lot she said bringing some pictures of you as a child and
let's talk about how you felt. So that's when I was really struck by the memories of,
you know, at school, sit still, stop chattering,
you know, be quiet, you're a bit too much.
And it's really that, I mean, I've had,
my life is great, you know, I have a wonderful life,
but I did sit and look back and think,
well, if I'd have perhaps got that support earlier on
Would it have been less than a struggle could I have had a different career could I've achieved more you set your film to dance music
This is part of what's in the documentary. I just want to play a little burst of it actually
You're recording it in this studio. I thought it's very moving when I looked at it
And now you're back here with us speaking about it. Let's play it. My dad used to call me a butterfly.
13 or 14 careers got bored want to try something else
You forget people's birthdays
Double book let somebody down
That panic and that guilt and that worry.
Bad friend, bad daughter, bad mother.
I mean, you sum it up in 30 seconds, you love dance music, hence that beat that's
there behind. Your dad used to describe you like a butterfly.
But bad mother, bad daughter, bad friend, which I know when your friends and your wife and your
daughter saw it, of course they wanted to reassure you that you're none of that. But the low self-esteem.
If you think of, if somebody forgets something, it's just that one thing that they've
forgotten. If I forget to text a friend back a birthday, forget something, I'm not dealing
with that one time I've forgotten something. I'm dealing with decades of feeling bad that
I have been a bad friend or I've been a bad mum if I've forgotten the
birthday party etc. It's like it starts off with something in your pocket it's
then this little rucksack on your back and then it becomes this huge piece of
luggage that you carry all the time so then the next time you do something that
to somebody else might seem quite small it's not just that one time that I'm
carrying it I've carried it for decades.
The response to all of that has been wonderful when people have said, you're never too much
for me. In fact, I haven't had enough of you. I've gone goosebumps because that was beautiful
to hear. But it's still, it's decades of feeling that you are too much for people and you're bad at so many things because life is around.
You have to do things on time, be organized, etc. And when you can't do that, it's tricky.
In my last 10 seconds or so, do you think it should be renamed Amanda ADHD?
Yes, I think we need to remarket it. Absolutely. New press campaign. It's not a deficit and it's not a disorder.
We keep hearing about rebranding this morning from carers to ADHD.
Thank you, Jo Beasley, and thank you, Professor Amanda Kirby.
Inside Our ADHD Minds is on today, BBC Two at 9pm or on the BBC iPlayer.
Thanks so much for joining me.
Tomorrow I'll speak to the US director, Nadia Connors,
about her new film, The Uninvited.
That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time.
Hello, I'm Manishka Matandodawati, the presenter of Diddy on Trial from BBC Sounds. Sean Diddy
Combs is facing a fight for his freedom as his hugely anticipated trial starts for sex
trafficking, racketeering with conspiracy and transportation for prostitution. He denies all the charges. I'll be bringing
you every twist and turn from the courtroom with the BBC's correspondents
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