Woman's Hour - Kate Rusby, Women and high street job losses, Mary Trump, How to be a friend, Childfree by choice

Episode Date: July 25, 2020

Known as The Barnsley Nightingale, the folk singer, Kate Rusby talks about her latest album of covers, and recording it with her husband and two young daughters. A number of high street retail stores have announced job losses. So many of the shop floor, customer facing jobs are done by women. Retail analyst Catherine Shuttleworth, and Sue Prynn,deputy divisional officer for USDAW's southern division discuss the consequences of these lay-offs. In court in New York last week President Trump’s niece, Mary J Trump found out that a temporary restraining order on her book about her uncle was going to be lifted. She spoke about Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created The World’s Most Dangerous Man.In the next of our summer series of practical How to guides, how to be a good friend. The broadcaster and beauty expert Sali Hughes, the comedian Jenni Eclair whose new book is Older and Wider – A Survivor’s Guide to the Menopause and Radhika Sanghani, a freelance journalist and novelist discuss.The Australian chef, Lara Lee specialises in Indonesian cooking. She cooks the perfect sambal, which is a hot relish found on every Indonesian dinner table.Emma Gannon is a podcaster and writer. She’s now written her first novel. In ”Olive”- the central character is thirty three and, like her creator is childfree by choice. The gymnast Simone Biles is on the cover of American Vogue’s August 2020 issue, but critics have said the photoshoot highlights why there needs to be more diversity in the photography industry. The photographer Ola Adegoroye and Lazara Storm, who works as a commercial model and is now moving behind the scenes discuss.Presenter: Jenni Murray Producer: Dianne McGregor

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. Good afternoon. In today's programme, the jobs that are being lost on the high street. What's the impact on the women who did most of the shop floor work in the retail sector? The podcaster and writer Emma Gannon on being child free by choice. The protagonist in her novel Olive has made the same decision. Cooking the perfect sambal, a hot relish found on every Indonesian dinner table, the Australian chef Lara Lee has traced her culinary history

from Sumatra to Timor. The next in our summer series of how-to guides, this time on friendship. I basically just befriended loads of my neighbours. And now we have Friday drinks every Friday in the garden. I've befriended people who live in cafes near me. I've started outdoor yoga classes. And it's kind of become this lovely community.

And the Barnsley Nightingale, Kate Rusby, said to perform folk music for people who don't like folk music, with a new album of covers made with her husband and her two daughters during lockdown. For a while, it looked as if Mary J. Trump's book about her Uncle Donald might not be published. But last week, a court in New York lifted a temporary restraining order and it began to fly off the shelves. Mary is a psychologist and daughter of the eldest boy of the now president's siblings. He was known as Freddy, named after their father Fred, and expected to be the one to follow in Fred Trump's footsteps. It was not to be. Donald became the favoured son, and Freddie died in his early 40s, a ruined alcoholic. Too much and never enough, how my

family created the world's most dangerous man, is based on her memories and conversations with family members, as well as legal documents, bank statements, tax returns, private journals, family documents, correspondence, emails, texts, photographs, and other records. But what does she say to those people who paint her as a disgruntled, disinherited niece looking to cash in or settle an old score? I actually understand the initial skepticism

because it's certainly the way my family is painting me. But the truth of the matter is that if I had simply wanted to settle an old score or had wanted to cash in, I would have done it years ago when Donald was still a quite well-known public figure, but didn't wield the power that comes with being in the Oval Office. So this book would not have ever existed if Donald weren't in the position he's in now. It's not really the safest thing for me to have done. Why is it unsafe? Well, he has a quite fanatical following in the United States. And I've seen what's happened to whistleblowers over the last three years. Generally speaking, it doesn't end well for them. Their careers are ruined or they're forced into early retirement. Their reputations are called into question by people who, you know, are angry with them for daring to speak out. So, you know, I think it's

fair to be concerned. I mean, I'm not scared or anything, but, you know, I did not do this lightly, shall we say. How would you describe your Uncle Donald? He is a deeply damaged man who constantly needs to have his ego propped up. He's so desperate to be admired that it's quite easy to easy to manipulate him and that's that's a that's a grave concern you you write i have no problem calling donald a narcissist and that a case could be made that he also meets the criteria for antisocial personality disorder, dependent personality disorder, and he may have a long undiagnosed learning disability. And I'm sure he would absolutely deny any such bold claims. How have you come to that conclusion? Well, over decades of experiencing being part of this family and watching. And then, of course, through my

training as a clinical psychologist and, you know, watching his behavior closely in the last three years as a concerned citizen. I don't think anything I say in the book is a stretch, and I do my best to back it up with historical examples of past behaviors. And, you know, I don't directly diagnose him. I don't think that's my place. Basically, what I set out to do was to outline for people possible scenarios and in helping people to understand his behavior and give it context. You write about a particular incident that happened at dinner when he was seven, and your father dumped mashed potato over his head, and then it was raised at a White House dinner, and you say still seemed to wound him. What did that teach you about him?

That he never recovers from even what anybody else would seem a fairly insignificant slight. He takes things very hard. You know, any minor insult is exaggerated and felt very deeply by him. And, you know, that was almost seven decades ago. And, you know, that story gets brought up or has in the past gotten brought up on, you know, various family occasions. And he always reacts the same way. He just has no it's as if it just happened and there was no distance between what he's experiencing now and that experience. And his his sense of humiliation is still quite palpable. You write about the influences in his childhood. What influence did his mother have? Well, unfortunately, when Donald was two and a half, my grandmother became very ill. She had

some postpartum complications after the birth of her youngest son, my uncle Rob, and was, to all intents and purposes, absent for an entire year during what is perhaps the most crucial developmental period in a child's life. So he probably experienced that on some level as a betrayal and abandonment, even though, you know, it certainly wasn't her that point, I think, was complete. And what was his father like? a very cruel, cold man. I mean, if you met him, you wouldn't necessarily see that because he was rather cheerful. You know, he had every reason to be. He was extraordinarily successful and wealthy, and he was in control of his world entirely, you know, from his family to his business. But he's not a man who would be crossed. And if you did not live up to his expectations,

then you would be punished severely. And that was certainly what happened to my dad. And so why do you believe Donald was selected to be the one to follow in his father's footsteps rather than Freddie, your father, who was the older son? Donald had the benefit of being seven and a half years younger than my dad. So he was able to see how my dad and grandfather interacted. And what he learned was that the worst thing you could do was be like Freddie.

My dad was a really kind man. He was sensitive to a fault, generous. He was deeply loved by his friends. He had interests outside of business. And unfortunately, my grandfather admired none of those qualities. And because my father couldn't be the tough guy and the killer, my grandfather required in his namesake and heir, Donald realized that that was something he shouldn't do. So he tried to become the killer that my grandfather required and was able to step into that spot. What was your response when you realized he had become president of the United States? I was devastated, honestly.

The election in 2016 was complicated by many, many factors. I hope someday we'll understand it better and get at the truth of what really happened. But the fact remains that over 60 million people cast a vote for him. And knowing what I know, and knowing what I knew then, yeah, it just devastated me that people actually thought that he was a viable option. As a psychologist, do you feel any pity? Because obviously you've described a difficult childhood. I have a great deal of compassion for the child who suffered as mightily as Donald did. He had a very difficult childhood and it was a cold household.

So, yeah, I have a lot of compassion for that kid. However, he's a grown adult now. He knows the difference between right and wrong. And a lot of people on the planet have childhoods as bad or worse and still manage to become caring, empathetic, responsible human beings. So he needs to be held accountable. You know, despite his disadvantages growing up, he is responsible for what he's doing now. I was talking to Mary J. Trump. Now, job losses in the retail sector inevitably spell bad news for women. It's the second most common area of employment for women in the UK. Marks and Spencers are set to cut nearly 1,000 jobs, mainly managers, and 500 jobs are to go at Ted Baker. More are going at John Lewis, Boots, Debenhams and the shirtmaker T.M. Lewin, Karen Mellon, Coast, Laura Ashley, Kath Kidston, Accessorise and Monsoon.

Jobs at Oasis and Warehouse went in April. And on top of the High Street clothes shops, there are redundancies at High Street takeaways like Pret-a-Manger and Upper Crust. So many of these shop floor jobs are done by women. Well, Jane spoke to the retail analyst Catherine Shuttleworth and to Sue Prynne, the Deputy Div divisional officer for Osdo's Southern Division. How pessimistic should we be?

And it's 60% of women work in the retail sector. And overall, at the minute, with the number of redundancies, I mean, 24,000 jobs already lost this year. And the problem is they're also trying to work now and look after their children because schools and everything being closed, it's now affecting their work and whether they'll be able to carry on with the jobs. We have known this was coming, haven't we? The high street has been really struggling for quite a few years now. Absolutely. I've still been fighting a campaign to save the high streets for over two years now, where we've been asking for a minimum wage of £10 an hour, where we've been asking for level playing fields for online

shopping and also for the stores, because if you imagine the cost of the rates and parking in towns, we need to make it more equal so that stores can start surviving. In 2019, we actually saw 1,234 stores disappear out of the top 500 and 2,868 store closures in that year, which is 16 a day. And that was before COVID came in. We're really disappointed that when the government laid out their recovery this time, that they didn't include retail as well as hospitality to help retail recover. And also that the fact that the Chancellor never made any statement involving retail with his summer statement.

Well, in May, we know that the M&S chief executive, he's called Steve Rowe, he said that the impact of the virus lockdown had driven effects and aftershocks in the retail sector that would, and I'm quoting here, endure for the coming year and beyond. And this is a truth, isn't it, Catherine, that our shopping habits have changed or had to change depending on how you see things? Absolutely. And, you know, what's happened is before COVID-19 came along and turned our lives upside down, we were shopping more and more online. And when the stores had to shut and we went into lockdown, there really was only one option outside of food and grocery shopping, which was to shop online. And we've done that. We've taken to it in our droves with real gusto.

And some of the parts of the market, perhaps maybe slightly older people who weren't convinced by online shopping, have got into it, found that it's absolutely fine and will now stick with it. And we're not going back to the high street. And that's where Steve Rowe's concerned and most retailers. So to give you some idea, footfall on the high street at the moment is down about 40%. In London, it's down 71%. People are not coming back to stores because they're quite satisfied with online shopping. And that is in part because we're living different lives now. We're living lives that are much more digitised and retailers have got to respond to it. And if you're a retailer and 40% of people aren't coming back to your shops, you do not need as many stores anymore. It just doesn't make commercial and business sense. And that's why we're seeing all of these stores announcing quite major closure programmes.

But this does impact on women more than men. So what, if anything, can a woman in retail, one of Sue's members at Usdor, what can they do about it, Catherine? Well, it's hugely concerning for women because, you know, the thing about retail jobs is they're quite flexible. They're very local and they allow you to run your lives, get there on public transport. And there aren't jobs that kind of reflect that, that are easy to replace them. Historically, women have gone into, when this has been happening over the last few years, they've gone into caring jobs, you know, in care homes and looking after people. Of course, that's a difficult sector at the moment. They've also gone into catering and hospitality, which has also been really badly hit. So it's quite difficult to see where those local jobs will come. There are

jobs in the distribution industries that are increasing. So we've seen that Hermes are creating 10,000 jobs. Well, why can't women do those jobs? They can do those jobs. They're just not as convenient and as easy for them to go to. And they are very male dominated, some of those industries. And I think that hours are more difficult. So lots of jobs like night shift jobs, where women used to be able to work when their partners came home, have disappeared. A lot of these distribution jobs are in the day and they're not as easy for women to do. So night shifts, they were a useful thing for lots of women. Absolutely, because they used to be able to go to work when their partners came home,

the children would be home as well, and they could go and do. But many stores now have stopped 24-7 opening and the night shift refills where they were filling up the shelves has now gone to twilights. So a lot of these people can't do those early shifts because their partners aren't always home by then. I think what we need to be doing is investing now and actually equipping and supporting retail workers with learning new skills to do other roles. Do you see that happening? Well, I'd like to think that employers are going to start doing that a little bit more and giving them more skills. Because, you know, like we said, 24-7 retail has been and it's always been,

they've been about to work around children and schools and partners. The trouble is now companies want them to be 24-7 flexible. And that won't work for a lot of people because of the care commitments and the children's commitments. And I think the problem with the government and everybody always sort of looked at shop workers as just, you know, just menial jobs that women did to get a few quid. Well, actually, the shop workers have kept this country going over the time of Covid and still we're moving forward. And I think we've got to start supporting the high streets again and start going to our local stores because that's the only way we're going to get the recovery going back. What about the social aspect of the high street, Catherine? It's a place where a lot of us, I actually enjoy going out to shop and it's not really because I need three or four bananas.

It's because I quite fancy a walk and a chat to people. That's huge part of this isn't it it's a huge part I think one of the things that's happened in lockdown is what I would call local high streets so the high streets very near to where you live have had a bit of a resurgence and that's a very positive thing so those green grocers and butchers and local stores that have served us during this period of lockdown I think will retain us as customers because we want to support local businesses. And that's where women actually can have a huge impact in terms of thinking about what their local community needs because they generally know what their local community needs and wants. So at that aspect, I think that's a positive.

In terms of the bigger high streets, you're absolutely right. You know, most of us enjoy going shopping on Saturday as a social occasion, don't we? And meeting up with friends, maybe having lunch and just spending time socialising. And in the short term, that's disappeared. I think in the longer term, what we've got to hope for is there is a rethink about high streets and how we use them for leisure, social and residential purposes. I mean, with respect, I've heard this before and it never seems to happen. And the same, I am one of those people

who wangs on about the decline of the high street whilst idly clicking on my phone and ordering stuff. I mean, you couldn't make it up really, could you? No, and that's the problem, isn't it? Is we say one thing and we do another. But I think the challenge in the short term is councils are not going to have loads of money to re-sort out high streets. We've got to think of something very differently. And I think the government will have to intervene in that in a better way than they

have been before. It's far too male. You know, get some women to sort out what the high streets need and start looking at how people really live their lives. Catherine Shuttleworth and Sue Prynne. Emma Gannon is a podcaster and writer best known for her non-fiction work on business where she's now written her first novel. In Olive the central character is 33 and like her creator is child free by choice. Jane spoke to Emma about Olive's life. We meet Olive at the beginning of the novel having just broken up with her boyfriend of 10 years and it's because they hadn't really had the baby conversation, it hadn't really come up and you know it transpires that he really wants to have a family

and she doesn't so it begins there and we follow Olive's journey being child free by choice but navigating her friendships where her three best friends very much want to be mothers and are going through their own path there. Yes, and very different paths actually in the book. Very different. Think in your 20s and younger, you kind of have the same milestones in life. You feel very connected. You're a bit of a unit. You make decisions together.

And then suddenly, you know, your very best friend can turn around and say, you know, I'm pregnant or something. And then you can have this weird feeling of, hang on a unit, you make decisions together and then suddenly, you know, your very best friend can turn around and say, I'm, you know, I'm pregnant or something and then you can have this weird feeling of, hang on a minute, that wasn't supposed to happen, you know, we were supposed to do things together and you start feeling very, very different from your friends suddenly. So yeah, it's about sort of going through your 30s and maybe being a bit selfish in ways, you know, going through your own thoughts and feeling like your your thing matters the most and so the friendship group can get a bit tense at times yes people are I think they've greeted your novel with profound relief some women haven't they

because they're just saying oh thank you thank you for saying this stuff they have I mean I've really felt the the um the momentum actually of this conversation again it's not new of course but feels like it's having a new lease of life and a lot of younger women in their 20s are getting in touch saying I feel so relieved I've always felt this way but also older women who feel really unapologetic and really happy with their life choices but have always felt the stigma of society and their family members so it it's been great. And also, it's not just child free by choice women who are getting in touch. It's all women, you know, mothers, people that are going through IVF themselves. I just feel quite united by the conversation, really.

Is it still a stigma to be a 33 year old woman and to say, no, it's not for me, actually, I really don't want to have children? You'd think we would have gone past this. And I'm getting some comments saying, wow, we're still talking about this. Yeah, well, I almost don't want to ask you about it, but it is the subject of the book, to be fair. But go on.

Yeah, no, no, exactly. And I've been surprised myself that I'm feeling it personally at the moment. You know, I'm 31. I'm getting married next year. These questions are really coming for me. And it feels like everyone just wants a reason or they want to hear that you might change your mind or they just want to feel justified that, you know, you know what you're doing and you're doing the right thing. And it's just so interesting that we're not there yet where people can't just nod and think, OK, great, great for you.

Do you have people in your family, your personal circle saying well Emma you're only 31 so of course you could change your mind no I haven't really had that I feel very lucky I just have a family that you know wants the best for me and wouldn't really put their own thoughts onto it too much but I mean I'm from a really big family so I do get this sense of a lot of child free women who maybe feel off the hook because they have siblings that have children. So you kind of feel like you can just be the one that chills out and doesn't do that. But then that's a really weird way of looking at it as well. So it shows that I've internalised it being a strange thing to do.

Yeah, that is a weird one, isn't it? So your parents certainly wouldn't question your belief. They're absolutely on side. Yeah, I mean, I have not had that pushback from my immediate circle the real thing that I've written about is acquaintances or people at parties or you know at a meeting you know it's it's very much that small talk that has kind of grinded me down slightly when people talk about the weather but then they also just casually say, do you have children? Or when people have had a baby and then people say, are you going to have

another one? You know, it's just, it's that social conversation outside of my immediate family that has kind of worn me down a bit. At the same time, I know that you're aware that there is, there is a privilege at work here, isn't there? Because you have a, not just a job, you have a career. It's a passion for you, you're very successful. Having a child would be, well, it would emphatically change things. It isn't true of all women, is it? It just isn't. You know, it's really interesting. I've been asked that a bit. People saying, well, is it because you want to go and write your books? And is it because you can do X, Y and Z? And it's true on one hand that I really do have something that fulfils me

and I don't feel worried about my future because I know how I'm going to fill my time and I'm actually really excited about the life hopefully I'm going to have. But, you know, it's interesting. Zadie Smith talks about having children and how it's made her more productive in her work and more productive in her writing. So I think there's such a case for having children. I think it looks amazing for many others. But just for me, hopefully, regardless of my career, it's not something that I felt is for me. There's also that age old thing, which we want to avoid of pitching women against each other,

isn't there? Lots of people rather enjoy doing that, don't they? They do. Yeah, I think at the same time there is a united front with this conversation because women are made to feel guilty for everything you know I'm being made to feel guilty for not having children people are made to feel guilty for having children having careers there's no escapism I think from that thing that's put on to women so yeah I haven't got any pushback. I haven't had people thinking that I'm on a campaign trail for not having children, which I'm absolutely not doing. This isn't a journalistic investigation. I just want to write a novel and really put a lot

of different characters in the book so that if you're not like Olive, you might see yourself in some of the other characters. Emma Gannon was talking to Jane. Lara Lee is an Australian chef whose mother is also Australian and her father is Indonesian. She decided to trace his culinary history and travelled from the west coast of Sumatra to Timor in the east, where her family story began.

The result is a book called Coconut and Sambal, and today she cooks the perfect sambal, a hot relish found on every Indonesian dinner table. There are 17,500 islands across the Indonesian archipelago. So how does the food vary across the region? Across Indonesia, you will find different flavour characteristics across, you know, each of the individual islands. And what is beautiful about Indonesia is the way that it has taken on culinary influences from, I guess, different trading routes that have visited the country. So traders from Spain, from Britain, from the Middle East, from China, from Malaysia,

have all kind of traded through Indonesia through the last thousand years. And with them, they've brought produce and different dishes that have really influenced Indonesian cuisine that we see today. So one of the primary ingredients in Indonesian food is chilies, which you'll find in sambal, which is a hot chili relish. And chilies were brought to Indonesia in the 16th century by the Spanish. So as I traveled across researching Indonesia, what was marvelous was how the flavor profiles change from, you know, sweet in central Java to really punchy vibrant chinese influenced uh flavors in the north

of sumatra to bali where there's uh you know a lot of pork so not all of the country eats pork because it's predominantly muslim but in bali they're a hindu island so they eat a lot of pork but they also have a really lovely fresh raw sambal that's marinated in lime leaf and you know with garlic and shallots and so on. So Laura, how is sambal actually made? Sambal can be you know made in many different ways and you know there are some researchers that have found that there are I think more than 300 sambals across Indonesia. So they come as fresh or cooked, They can be made with dried ingredients like dried chilies or fresh chilies. But at the heart of sambal really are a few key ingredients, which are chilies, garlic, shallots, sometimes ginger or galangal, and often it can be seasoned with some beautiful

palm sugar or tamarind. But typically in terms of how to cook sambal when you do cook it it will either be ground in a chobek and ulakhan which is kind of like a flat basin similar to a mortar and pestle but in my kitchen I use a food processor because you know you're using so many ingredients to make a sambal it is really easy to to whizz things up in the food processor and then you'll cook the sambal off to kind of release all of the aromas and the flavours. So that's primarily how you'd make a ground sambal, which is typically the sambals that you'll find across Indonesia

are usually cooked and ground. Now, I understand that Indonesians tend not to de-seed their chillies. How hot, then, is the sambal? Well, it really depends on where you travel, but Indonesians really love sambal. And at every meal you'll find sambal and a little bit of sambal will be eaten with every bite of food, kind of in the way that we would use tomato ketchup or mustard or even salt and pepper here in the West. But in terms of the heat level, you'll find that they won't de-seed the chilies and that's because they really love the heat sensation

that comes with sambal. Now that says, that said, you know, when I cook sambal for other people, people like my mother-in-law, Caroline and Devin, I'll often de-seed the chilies and then you'll have a really mild kind of gentle sambal that will still kind of give you a lovely kind of subtle level of heat and will really complement the food but I guess the point of sambal really although in

Indonesia they do love it to be spicy the point of it is not to overpower the food and so they'll often eat a very little bit of sambal with every bite of food as opposed to kind of overpowering the entire meal that you're eating so it's meant to complement rather than overpower you write about the indonesian goddess of rice who is she yes Dewi Sri is her name so she is the goddess of rice and fertility and prosperity and you'll find regardless of religion across ind that Indonesian people will really honour Dewi Sri. So particularly around rice harvest, when there's an abundance of rice

or at the end of a particular rice season and planting for the next one, they will often honour Dewi Sri by putting on wonderful festivals. This may be in the form of, you know, creating a giant rice mountain known as a Gunungan and the rice mountain will be carried by the villagers through the village and then distributed to everyone. And there'll be other kind of ceremonies like, you know, a distribution of traditional cakes, Perhaps some water will be collected from the local springs

and sprinkled on everyone's head for good fortune. So rice really has many, many purposes in Indonesia from being eaten with every meal, but also they really honour Dewi Sri, the rice goddess, and often rice will be given as an offering to the gods as well to thank them for everything that they have. So rice is very important. I was talking to Lara Lee

and you can find the recipe on the Woman's Hour website and you can download the Perfect podcast, of course, through BBC Sounds. Still to come in today's programme, the Barnsley Nightingale, Kate Rusby, and an album of covers with her husband and her two daughters. We're also looking

ahead to Listener Week next month, starting on the 24th of August. We'll be dedicating a whole week to your ideas. If you have something you'd like us to discuss, or you want to tell us about something you're doing, or there's someone you think we should be talking to,

please let us know. You can contact us, of course, through the website. The next of our summer series of practical how-to guides this week was how to be a good friend, how to make, keep and politely shed friends at different stages in your life, how to navigate tricky things like being over or underwhelmed by contact with your friends, and what do you do if you don't like a friend's partner. Jane was joined by the broadcaster and beauty specialist Sally Hughes, the comedian Jenny Eclair, whose new book is Older and Wider, a survivor's guide to the menopause, and Radhika Sangani. she's 30, a freelance journalist and novelist who's recently made new friends, even in lockdown. Most of my friends are from school and university, and I kind of realised that we'd all really grown apart.

A lot of people were starting to get married and have kids, and I was living a very different lifestyle. And I started to feel a little bit lonely. So I decided to set out and make new friends, which always feels really weird as an adult because it just seems like something you do with a child or at university. So I found it all a bit daunting, but I kind of really set about trying to make new friends, whether it was staying later in my yoga class to speak to the teacher

or starting to speak to neighbors or, you know, like with colleagues actually saying, let's go for a drink rather than just kind of, you know, having lunch together and that's it. But that sort of was like step one. And it made me realise that it is possible to make new friends as an adult. And then when lockdown happened, I'm living alone. And I felt quite lonely again at the beginning. And again, lots of my friends were in lockdown with partners or families.

So I was like, something needs to change. I can't just be lonely for however long this is going to be so I sort of just started putting into practice all the skills I learned with step one of making friends and I basically just befriended loads of my neighbors and now we have Friday drinks every Friday in the garden I befriended people who live in cafes near me, started outdoor yoga classes, and it's kind of become this lovely community. Right. And people, how did they receive your approaches? Because I imagine you were anxious not to be seen as too desperate. But you know what I mean? How do people react? So people are always shocked. I remember one of my now best friends who I met two years ago,

the first time I called her on a weekend, I was like, hey, how are you doing? And she was like, is something wrong? Why are you ringing? I know, and I was like, I just thought it would be fun to catch up. And she was like, okay. You know, she found it really weird. And people also got a bit confused when I'd say,

why didn't we do something on a weekend? Because weekends always seem to be for your actual friends rather than new friends. So people were shocked. But if there was a connection between us and they wanted to hang out with me, they ended up saying yes. Do you think, Sally, that there's ever a time when you simply decide to stop making new friends? I hear this quite a lot. People saying, well, I've got enough friends. The books are closed. I'm done now. And I understand that impulse if you do have really great friends. But I do think it's not a particularly kind of good way to think about the world. My books are always open. If I meet somebody and I'm kind of enchanted or intrigued,

then I pursue it because I kind of feel like when you're sick of meeting other people, you're sick of life in a way. And so there's always a vacancy. It doesn't happen very often because of course, we're busy and our time is taken up with the people we already know and love. But there have been occasions, maybe once every couple of years, where I meet someone really special and I make room. And Jenny Eclair, are you still able to make room for new mates? I'm really fascinated by this. I think it's incredibly interesting. I think that I have been in my past a bit of a lousy friend.

And now that I've hit 60, I'm looking back and I think that I'm very lucky to have some very loyal mates who have stuck with me through years of me sort of not really paying them enough attention. I'm slightly suspicious of making new friends. This sounds like a bit me, me, me. But I think when I was very busy gigging and I thought, I was suspicious of why people wanted to be friends with me. I thought if they expected the same persona that I was on stage

and they were going to be entertained, they were going to get all this free entertainment, they were going to get very disappointed. Because, you know, the reality, of course, is I'm very dull. Don't tell anybody. I've always slightly suspected myself as being very good dinner party value, but I'm not sure whether anybody really needs to follow me up. Yeah, OK.

Showbiz pal is a term that we do bandy about. Yeah, it's horrific. Well, we're a little cynical about the term. I haven't got any. Haven't you, really? I haven't got any mates with pools. Yeah, I'm sort of furious now because I think oh jenny wasted all this time you could have at least made one mate rich enough to have their own pool or somewhere you know you could get to for this you know weird lockdown time

where we're allowed out but we're not really um yes and uh no i i mean i have i do have a small handful i'd say under 10, very, very good friends. And I have let people into my life into my 40s. But I think they had to sort of slightly bully their way in. For me, incredible friendships have come from work. And I'm not sure if that counts. I don't know if that's cheating a bit. No. Radhika, when you introduce yourself to friends, what do you say about what you'll need from them?

And actually, do you sell yourself as being someone with what exactly to offer them in return? Do you mean when I'm making new friends? Yeah. Because I haven't really thought about it. That sounds a bit job-intensive-like. Well, that's why I've got no friends, maybe, but go on. I suppose I kind of just follow a natural connection. So what I will do consciously is make more of an effort to spend time with someone,

you know, whether it is loitering for an extra 15 minutes or at the end of something to still talk to them or actually suggesting we spend time together. And then I kind of let it happen naturally to see if we have the connection I think that's the most important thing and actually me and my friends have this amazing theory which I'm obsessed with which is called well we don't really have a name but it's either if somebody's a plus two a minus two or a zero and that's how we kind of gauge to see if we feel a connection with somebody so if you leave the encounter and you feel really full and happy then it's been a plus two situation but if you you know feel nothing it's been a bit zero and if it's been a bit it's a minor situation and it has nothing to do with the person it's more

your connection to that person yeah and see if we have a plus two vibe right and if we do i kind of hope it's mutual and i don't have to sell myself actually you've got i ask radhika go on yeah because i i like this idea and i think it's quite clever sort don't have to sell myself. Actually, you've got... But then I ask Radhika. Go on. Because I like this idea and I think it's quite clever sort of, you know, hanging around a yoga class because you know they already do yoga. You've got something in common. I've made some nice friends at art classes because, you know, I did middle-aged lady

hobbies. But, you know, say you've made inroads into making friends and it's kind of, they turn out to be a minus eight. How do you fob them off? Is there a nice way of fobbing friends off? Is there, Radhika? This has happened to me, sadly.

And basically, I just wish I was brave enough to say something. The best situation is when you both realise, so it can kind of fizzle out. But I think sometimes I've had to say something. I've had to say things like, look, I'm sorry, I'm just really busy right now. I've had to say something. I've had to say things like, look, I'm sorry, I'm just really busy right now. I've got a lot on. But, you know, all the attachments, they've calmed down.

I know it's a bit rubbish and I feel like I'm fobbing them off, but I just haven't found the kind way to say I just don't think we should hang out anymore as friends. And we had a lot of response from you on this subject. Thank you. Somebody who didn't want us to use a name said, I like the plus two minus two method. A few years ago, I made the very painful decision to let go of a once close childhood friend. For a long time, I'd been putting in much more than I got out of the friendship and she wasn't there for me at some very difficult times in my life. It made me feel rejected and needy. After years of trying to resurrect the friendship,

I finally admitted that the effort was draining me. I came away from any meetings feeling distinctly minus two. It's strange as we live very close to each other, but I rarely bump into her. And although I miss the friendship that might have been, I don't miss the way it made me feel. And then M. Varney said, surely the point of friends is being able to understand that their your relationship is not quite right. My group of friends, four of us, two married, one separated, me, and one single but dating, do get together to moan about partners or express worries as well as having fun. We've pointed out bad behaviour, how to cope with it, and have removed blinkers from eyes about what is acceptable behaviour.

So I give a big shout out to my friends, the random hat band, as we call ourselves, who've helped me, made me laugh, and been there to metaphorically hold each other's hands when times are bad. Now, if you go to the Woman's Hour website, you can find articles relating to this new How To series with practical tips and advice on the topics we've covered so far, how to change a career and, of course, how to be a better friend.

The American gymnast and Olympic gold medal winner Simone Biles is on the cover of American Vogue's August 2020 issue, photographed by Annie Leibovitz. But some critics have said the pictures have poor lighting and don't flatter Simone's skin tone, and there needs to be more diversity in the photography industry. Well, Jane spoke to Lazara Storm, who works as a commercial model and is now moving behind the scenes,

and the photographer Ola Adegoria. What does Ola think of the pictures? If you said this is for Sports Illustrated or a weightlifting type of magazine, I would absolutely agree. But I guess because Vogue is very much fashion and beauty and this is just not it. Just the posing itself, it's very kind of strong man kind of posing.

And I think that's what a lot of people have a problem with. I think it's that, you know, we know that she's a beautiful black woman. So why can she not be portrayed that way in this magazine, especially as it is Vogue? You know, a beautiful image. I take your point absolutely. If this were for Sports Illustrated, that would be fine.

But your firm belief, Ola, is that a white athlete photographed for the cover of American Vogue would not have been shot in this way. No, and I think there would be more softer lines. I just feel that when Anna Levovich is photographing black women, I don't think there's as much detail into the feminine side of black women. Let's bring in Lazara.

You've worked as a model, Lazara. Were you ever photographed by a black photographer, woman or man? This is actually a really interesting question to be asked. I've been working in this industry for over 10 years now. And the fact that I've had to sit and contemplate and run through every job, other than jobs where, I don't know, black hair brands or, you know,

things that are catered for that sort of culture. I haven't had any photographers of any other ethnicity that I can think of other than Caucasian white. Really? And that speaks volumes. Do you think the images of you would have been different had you ever been photographed by a woman or a man who was black? I'm not going to lie. We all have good shoots and bad shoots, whether you're in this industry or not you know it's good photos but I do think with the education of an understanding of knowing how to light also working with your team with your makeup artist they know how to you know the foundation

colors I often get asked to bring in my own foundation whether that's because they don't cover the shades or they're not sure or just to save time i'm not sure but in in my head you should cater for all shades doesn't really matter blue pink yellow blah blah blah yeah and you should be able to come across as yourself on camera as you would off camera um but i have come out quite washed out before a bit gray looking um i've got naturally curly hair they can panic a little bit or I've been asked to do my own hair that's quite a common thing it isn't every job but this is majority

right unfortunately okay I mean it does it is to put it mildly it is unfortunate Ola can we talk about the technical side of the photography because the colours are somewhat muted on these Vogue covers that Annie Leibovitz has done

yeah the technical side of it, we can get quite nerdy here. What should she have done? Because photographing black skin is not the same as photographing Caucasian or other sorts of skin. It's not. I do think that you can have a style and a tone to your images and that can carry all the way through. But when you, you know, you'll have your setup, your light setup that you love to do. But if your skin tone of your subject is different, then you're going to have to change your lighting slightly. I mean, you know, you can bring in a reflector. I'm sure you're thinking, what is a reflector? It's basically a bit of it's basically a bit of foil that you reflect the light onto the subject where it's needed.

So because she's outside, that would have been an ideal thing to do. I definitely think that maybe with other photographers not enough goes into the practice of photographing different skin tones. Well, Annie Libivitz, of course, can't defend herself because she's not here. I wonder whether she would say that this was all deliberate, that perhaps bearing in mind some of the terrible stuff we know we now know Simone Biles had to put up with when she was on the American gymnastic team.

I don't know. Obviously, I'm not Annie Leibovitz. But what do you think of that? Yeah. And I'm sure she probably will say it was deliberate because when you look at her images, even of white women, they are very kind of related to the subject they're talking about maybe i'm thinking if her story is grim shouldn't we kind of go the opposite way to show okay yeah do you know what i mean i do um and there is something i didn't know which will interest the many photographers listening is this um shirley card now can you define what a shirley card is ola the shirley card was um introduced by kodak who were um in the forefront of photography and they created a card like a color card and it had basically your colors so it was kind of like the colors that we're going to produce in photography are going to relate to this person.

Right. And it was called a Shirley card named after the woman and it was a white woman. So obviously they went for the reds that were in her skin colour, they would go for the, you know, the green, yellow and blue undertones that were in her skin colour. And that was how all the film that was made was produced, the colour film.

So obviously there were black people that were obviously going to be photographed, but obviously they would not come out correct because the film was only picking up the colours in Shirley's skin tone. I mean, I had no idea about this. And Lazara, presumably this is something that's impacted on you throughout your working life. Unfortunately, slightly. yes, I'm not going to lie. It's a shame because, you know, it's become quite apparent that, you know, the diversity on jobs, whether it's in front of the camera or behind camera, there's always this diversity bracket rather than being hired because you're right for the job.

And when it comes to these cards, I do feel with myself, I don't want to say I'm only booked because I'm mixed race and I feel the diversity bracket, but that is a big reason for why I am booked. You know, I'm not too dark, I'm not too light, my hair's not too afro, it's not too... So I'm on that fine line of, you know, understanding how to light me, I guess, in a way.

Right. Well, there's no need to apologise for that. You've every right to earn a living. No, I know. But I think over the years it's come, especially with the whole Black Lives Matter movement, more dark-skinned people, they assume mixed-race people have it easier, whereas mixed-race people, you know, when it comes to TV, there's only a couple of roles, for example, for that diversity bracket.

So it's like we're all trying to fit for this role and really it should just be about you know if you're right for the look you're right on camera we know how to like you shouldn't be so difficult or complicated or something of just historic moments really this shouldn't be the case nowadays. There's our Storm and Ola Adegoria. Sue wrote whilst I agree entirely with the views expressed about diversity both behind and in front of the camera I was dismayed to hear the pictures of

this strong elegant woman described as lacking femininity and showing Simone as masculine. It took me back to being told at school that having muscles in my arms that were visible was something men didn't like, and the many times that I've witnessed conversations about real women being those with curves, not smaller busted women like me. Sadly, such comments are generally made by other women.

Women are not masculine when they display physical strength any more than men are feminine when they don't. Denying diversity in the definition of the feminine in order to emphasise the lack of diversity in the fashion industry detracts, in my view, from the issue. Now Kate Rosby has long been known as the Barnsley Nightingale, said to perform folk music for people who don't really like folk music, and even though I do like folk music, having been rather raised on it like her in Barnsley, I love her work too. On Saturday, August 1st, she'll be performing at the Radio 2 Virtual Folk Festival and she's releasing a new album, Hand Me Down. It's made up of covers of other people's songs,

which she, her husband Damien and their two daughters have made during lockdown. How difficult was it to narrow it down to the right number of songs for the album? Very, very difficult. And I wouldn't rule out a part two even because we've got so many left. But, you know, I kind of narrowed it down to about 40-ish

and then ended up looking at them and wondering which ones would fit nicely as a collection on a CD and also taking into account, you know, how we work. You know, because being folk musicians, that's what we've done for years, you know, reinterpret existing songs. But of course, these songs are just a lot younger than the ones I usually work on. So it's been lovely, but also that nostalgia kick. You know, when we were performing some of the covers on the last tour that we were doing, you get that little buzz in the audience of, oh, oh, I've not heard this in a while, or, you know. But there's always that danger that you're going to upset people because it's a version of a favourite song, you know,

or something like that. But so far it's been OK, so fingers crossed. Yeah, we've had so much fun well let's see what people make of a bit of manic monday it's beautiful kate i know it was launched digitally as a single in May. What sort of response did you get to it when it was launched? It was amazing. You know, and because originally we were going to have the album released in November.

I mean, this was always the plan to do this album this year. It's just, you know, the world went sideways just after we started making it. But, you know, when all the gigs went sideways just after we started making it but um you know when we all the gigs went that we were supposed to be doing we thought we would bring the album release sooner but when we'd finished that song the manic monday song i just thought oh do you know what we should put this out now because i think it might cheer people up because it's just got such a such a happy vibe to it so and i've got this inbuilt thing from birth that i must i must cheer people up when

they're sad it's just always been there you know so we released it and it just did exactly that and 12 hour two daughters on there as well just made my whole year it's brilliant how willing were they to to take part in making a big record we had to do a little bit of of negotiation with an lol doll and something else i can't remember oh it was something for a hamster so that was what they got paid for for for doing it but but they were up at the studio with us anyway because of course come middle of um march they were off school so we were already committed to making the album so they just came with us so we were kind of homeschooling with the left foot doing packed lunches with the right whilst making the album so they just came with us so we were kind of homeschooling with the left foot doing packed lunches with the right whilst making the album so it was a natural thing really and also my husband Damien O'Kane is multi-instrumentalist he engineered the album

he produced the album and everything on there apart from like two bits you know have been generated purely by us in the studio so and we sent a few bits up to our bass player up in Edinburgh, digitally, obviously, because he couldn't come down. He's played Moog on it. And we kind of built the album like that. So I think it was slightly different feel to it because of lockdown. But yeah, we've just loved it. We've had so much fun.

How easy was it to manage the homeschooling as well as all the music? You see, I'm instantly laughing. Let's just say I'm not a natural maths teacher, it turns out. But we've tried, you know. But then also it's given opportunities, you know, even of taking the girls out to walk the different paths around the village that we live in. You know, my oldest daughter Daisy is now 10

and we were walking down some of the paths and I was going, I've never brought you down here before. Oh my goodness. So actually, it's been a lovely, lovely family time of not only doing the schoolwork in the sense of the maths and the English, but we've also explored nature a lot more and built things, you know,

and scrabbled about in the wood and all things like that. So that's been absolutely lovely. Now, as we've said, this is an album of covers but often you perform your own songs what tends to inspire you to write your own folk music well you know I've been brought up with the old ballads and there's a lot of stories in there that are still relevant now I mean that's when I first started playing folk music people were saying why on earth is a

young girl doing these songs that are 200 years old? But folk music is the music of the people, and it's about human emotion, and we still do all the things in the old songs. You know, we still go to work, we still join the army, we still lose work, we still fall in love, we're still happy. You know, all those things are still there. And I suppose mainly my own writing has been influenced by those kind of stories and those human emotions and also you know I might be inspired by

a news story my last well not the last album the previous one before that was called life in a paper boat which was named after the title track which was about a story about a refugee who a woman who traveled in a boat and she was on the news on the TV and she peeled back these blankets, you know, of a bundle that she was carrying and I thought it was her worldly belongings, but it was a little baby girl, you know, so that broke my heart and I ended up writing a song about that. But it might be something that a friend is going through. You know, there's lots of little things that kind of just drop in your brain

and spark a little idea, yeah. Now, I know you have your own record label. Why was that important to you? I think it might be a Yorkshire thing that we're not very trusting of other people with our money. It might have been that. We've remained completely in control of everything that we do, which is just absolutely brilliant. And I'm a big fan of Dolly Parton because she's an absolute troubadour for that, you know, and I just have always kind of looked at what she has done

and, you know, been inspired by that and we've managed to retain it all. And we look back and go, you know, we've done this all ourselves. It's just so lovely. I was talking to Kate Rusby. Now, do join Jane on Monday morning when she'll be talking about the school summer holidays and how difficult it will be to find childcare and holiday clubs, helpful grandparents because of the COVID-19.

So how can you make it through to September? And also the journalist Jenny Kleeman discusses what are described as disturbing contents of her new book, Sex, Robots and Vegan. Well, that sounds fascinating. Join Jane Monday morning from me for today. Have a lovely rest of the weekend. Bye bye. Hi, I'm Joe Wicks and I'm just popping up to tell you about my brand new podcast with BBC Radio 4. It's extraordinary. It almost turbo charges you. I'm really interested in the links between physical and mental health and what kind of ordinary everyday activities people do to keep on top of things.

I keep fit because it's relaxing, because it absolutely relaxes my mind. And that's so important. So in this podcast, I'm having a chat with some of my favourite people to find out their tips and tricks to staying healthy and happy. For me, it's a full-body experience and it's a total game-changer. I think you're going to love it. Hit subscribe on the Joe Wicks podcast on BBC Sounds. Let's do this. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered.

There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this?

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