Woman's Hour - Kate Tempest, Geva Mentor, Clare Mackintosh

Episode Date: June 27, 2019

Kate Tempest talks about her new album project produced by Rick Rubin. 'The Book of Traps And Lessons' has a run time of 43 mins and has a continuous narrative. She talks about her work and performs part of her ode to England and love. We look at what has become of the women who became the face of the peaceful protest that led to the removal of Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir, after his 30 year rule. We hear about a recent military crackdown and the sexual violence women that protesters have faced from journalists Yousra Elbagir, Channel 4 News’ foreign news reporter and Nima Elbagir, CNN Senior International Correspondent about the the women demanding democracy. Crime writer Clare Mackintosh's new novel ‘After The End’ looks at a couple who cannot agree over how to deal with their very ill son. She discusses how it draws, in part, on her own experience. And, the netballer Geva Mentor was part of England’s 2018 team, the Vitality Roses, who won gold at the Commonwealth Games. She talks about her career her aim to make netball more popular.Presenter: Jenni Murray Producer: Ruth Watts

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to Thursday's edition of the Woman's Hour podcast. In today's programme, a new album by the award-winning performance poet Kate Tempest. She'll perform from the Book of Traps and Lessons. Jeeva Mentor was a star of England's Commonwealth Games netball team of 2018. They won gold. What does she love about the game? And Claire McIntosh is best known for her crime fiction. Her latest novel, After the End, is very different. It draws on her own experience of being the mother of a very sick child. Earlier in the year, the ruler of

Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, was ousted from power in a military coup. There had been months of protests in favour of democracy and they were led by women. When the transitional military council took over, women continued to gather, insisting on a civilian administration, but there's recently been a violent crackdown on their demonstrations. They have, though, continued to make their demands and are calling for a Million People March to take place on 30 June, on Sunday. So what's happening now? Well, Yusra El-Bagir is a foreign news reporter at Channel 4 News. Nema El-Bagir is CNN's senior international correspondent.

She was optimistic in April when she was in Khartoum. How surprised has she been by the military coup? I was optimistic in spite of the fact that I felt this was coming because the man who was the deputy head of the military transitional council is someone that we had spent a lot of time investigating. He was a leader. And what happens when you bring forces that used rape as a weapon of war into a capital city? And very quickly, that facade began to fall away. As ever, women are perceived as the most vulnerable and the target that when you hit it, you can hit it with the most impact. And rape is something that they have used to great effect outside of the capital and they used it again inside the capital.

So how accurate are the reports of women protesters being raped and more than 100 people being killed? Horrifyingly, I think the numbers are really conservative because there is such a stigma around rape. We were investigating a story of a girl who a few days ago committed suicide because she had been raped and her family could not accept it, which only, I think, makes what these women are doing even more extraordinary because they are continuing to remain at the sit-in, literally manning the barricades, in spite of knowing what the cost is, and in spite of knowing that those nearest to them may not support them if the worst happens. Yusra, obviously the female protesters became the face of the demonstration, we've seen across the world. So how involved are they in the negotiations that are now going on? Surprisingly being left out and alienated from the change-making process that took place after Bashir stepped down. I spoke to women who were actually

meant to be a part of the opposition alliance and were signed to the opposition alliance and were being excluded time and time again from the negotiations room. And they were furious, understandably, because they felt like they were on the streets managing this mass sit-in site, organizing and then being excluded when the real, you know,

meetings and real change process took place. And they, you know, understandably said, we bear the brunt of the violence. We are increasingly being systemically abused. We're risking our lives every day to be in the streets at all hours. Why are we not being, you know, involved? And it really was shocking. And there was such a disconnect between the political sphere and what I was seeing on the streets.

Were they getting any answers from the political sphere? Was there no suspicion that the men who were negotiating might think, oh, yeah, actually, they should be here? I mean, they would actually, you know, raise it with the people in the negotiations room. And what they said that they would just be sort of, you know, told, yeah, yeah, we'll tell you next time. Yeah, brushed off and told, you know, you'll definitely come next time. And then, you know, one of the women I interviewed, Tahani Abbas, who signed to the Declaration of Freedom of Change and should definitely be in the room, said, you know, I met her and she said, you know, there's a a big mediation meeting and I'm gonna force myself in and it reached that point where the women were just not having it anymore and felt like it was you know

they're being ignored completely but what would happen to if she forced away I think that she would sort of be again brushed off and told yeah yeah next time we're given different times and she said that they told the opposition alliance that they were attending and they said, well, you weren't invited. Like it reached that point where it became a real boys club and women who had been sort of. And when they are involved, it's very it's just an optics thing. It's not a real genuine. But they have had they have had successes. I mean, when you say brushed off. Yes. But the fact that they they're not giving up. They are continuing to force their way into these rooms.

They're continuing to organise at the sit-ins. And that speaks to this new movement that is, it's a regeneration movement, not just against al-Bashir and against the Islamist movement, but also against this engendered cultural patriarchy. I think at the sit-in site, what I felt as a woman there, there was a lot of respect for women. There's, you know, women at the search point searching you. Women were actively involved in the organisation of this mass site. But they felt, you know, sort of alienated from the political sphere.

So it was sort of like, you're happy for us to run and organise in the streets, but you're not happy for us to be in the rooms when the real talks are taking place. What impact have social media campaigns had on the protests? I mean, there was the famous one, hashtag blue for Sudan. What impact are they having? It's had a huge impact. And what it's done is apply international pressure on the Transitional Military Council to behave.

I mean, what you're getting is the US calling Saudi to call Sudan to try and put pressure on them to not, you know, have such brazen shows of violence. That's what the social media campaign has done. And funnily enough, again, women are the main voices that we see on social media pushing for change, informing people, telling people where to go, what resources to use, how to raise money. It's been very much a female revolution, a female-led revolution. There were all these slogans saying the revolution is a woman. Yeah. But how are Sudanese women outside the country in the diaspora helping keep protests

alive? They have been a huge motivating force, whether it's raising funds, but also just the practicalities, which unfortunately women end up having to think about this sit-in extended throughout Ramadan. How are you going to feed all of those tens of thousands of people every day when it comes time to break the fast? It was again, women who were down there trying to organize people. But what has been really amazing, because I really, I feel that this at the moment, we are in such a low point. But overall, there is still a sense of optimism among the women that we speak to who say that it is difficult, but we are not leaving. We are staying in spite of everything they do to us.

And that has been extraordinary to see. And it has captured the imagination, not just people outside of Sudan, but of the society inside Sudan and has helped grow support for the revolution in spite of how difficult it's been. And how optimistic are you, Nema, for change now? I think it's very, I think it's a difficult thing to say when so many people have died and so many people have suffered in such horrible ways that you are optimistic. But I am. I am because I speak to these women, I speak to these kids, some of them are like 18, 19, and they do things I could never do. And the bravery that's there leaves me optimistic.

And there is this plan to have a million people march, which is going to take place apparently on Sunday. Number one, how likely is it to happen? And if it does, what impact will that have? I think it's very likely to happen. People are sort of gearing up towards it. They're sort of rallying themselves and trying to motivate themselves to do it, despite the trauma that they experienced recently,

and despite the fact that many people are still grieving the people that were lost. Friends that I've spoken to on Khartoum, we're going. You know, that's the whole thing. We're going. We don't know what's going to happen to us. We don't know how we're going to be treated by these forces and they're expecting the worst but they're still going and that's where I think it becomes easier to feel optimistic that you sort of see the perseverance and the resistance grow every day they seem to have very carefully called it a million people march yes not a million Yes. Will there really be men and women

millions of them there? Yes. And even just a small point that when the army didn't step in to protect the protesters, there are all these young men taunting the soldiers saying to them, shall we throw you headscarves if you're going to stand around and do nothing? And this old woman stepped

down and said, there's no shame in headscarves. Headscarves have protected you. Headscarves no shame in headscarves. Headscarves have protected you. Headscarves, women in headscarves have led this revolution. It was just a really interesting moment that even the language that is so casually thrown out in Sydney society, women are now pushing back against. Nema El-Bagir and Yusra El-Bagir, sisters, obviously. Thank you very much for being with us this morning. Now, Kate Tempest has been described as Britain's leading young poet, playwright and rapper,

one of the most widely respected performers in the country and one of the most exciting young writers working in Britain today. Well, she has a new album, The Book of Traps and Lessons, which has brought her into contact with one of the world's most famous rappers, Jay-Z, as a result of her working with a renowned hip-hop record producer, Rick Rubin. How did he contribute to her new work? He listened to all our demos and he gave us great advice and talked to us through the process. That's his way. He kind of Rick Rubined it.

He phoned me up some years ago after seeing me performing an extract of my poetry on a TV show in the States. He was moved by the performance and he tracked down my phone number through my literary agent. It was amazing. And he just said, I'll work with you. He said that he was interested in trying to make a record. I listen to her hips I push my kisses

To her lips. We move like we were born to move. The night is teeth and pistons. Rick Rubin's connection with big, big names like Jay-Z. Apparently he played your work to Jay-Z. You influenced his own work. What has that meant to you? Wonderful, wonderful things happen when you are in...

We're in the studio. Crazy things. It's another... It's another world, really. All the rules of, like, normal life are completely suspended because you're in this other place where things like Jay-Z walking in can happen. And I... It feels still like a bit of a fantasy thing that doesn't really happen in the real world, it just happens there.

But, I mean, I was extremely overjoyed to have the opportunity for my work to be heard by an artist of that calibre, but at the same time his approval of it doesn't mean more to me than somebody else's approval of it, you know, it doesn't mean less to me. It's incredible for me to have conversations with other lyricists about lyricism. That's what makes me extremely excited. And obviously he's a lyricist with a particular set of experiences

which make his opinion something that I'm interested in hearing for sure. It's just surreal, isn't it? Suddenly you're in this caravan in the garden of a studio that used to belong to Bob Dylan. Jay-Z walks in. It's really funny. It's amazing. Explosives have nothing compared to these sparks,

so let's fall apart and then lie with me breathing in the den of the dark. It's fire smoke. There was so much else going on at the time. I was in the middle of gearing up towards putting out my first album, Everybody Down, and I was touring Brand New Ancients and I had a play that was in rehearsal that needed my attention because I was re-editing it.

I was writing my novel and I was just completely under my workload at that time. What's amazing about this album is that its gestation period has spanned the last five years, really. So it feels really amazing now that it's finished. It feels like a new phase, definitely, in my creative life. This album, my previous poetry collection and a play that I'm working on at the minute, they feel like a new moment. Is this how it feels to feel certain?

Cos for so many years my love's been a burden But now comes this fire To cleanse and restore us To fuel us and calm us And push us both forwards You've described it as an ode to England and love. What I think about the album is that it's a journey. The speaker of the poems comes to a realisation about patterns of behaviour in their own life

which are damaging, that they are caught in, trapped in. And the album is about them becoming cognisant of these traps and also trying to put themselves in a position where they can begin to learn lessons from them and break these patterns and change these behaviours. And it is very much about love. There is a kind of meeting between the daily life and the very specific geography of how this person moves through their life

and then the bigger geography of this person's society, this person's nation, this person's planet. So there's definitely a lot in there about England and love. In the mouth of a breaking wave In the mouth of a breaking storm Shaken Thinking something is coming The sky is an unusual colour

The weather is doing unusual things And our leaders aren't even pretending not to be demons. So where is the good heart to go but inwards? Why not lock all the doors and bolt all the windows? All I am are my doubts and suspicions. I against you... You are very ready to expose your emotional life in your work. What's it like to expose yourself to that degree?

I don't find it exposing, really. I think there's really clear boundaries when it comes to making albums and writing poetry. I find the drive to connect is so powerful and so strong that I feel quite secure in performing these pieces and delivering them to audiences. When I saw her cross the floor like a firework exploding in slow motion, she touched me on the shoulder. And I started to live. But I wasn't ready yet. I wanted sucker punch and numbness.

The chase and the conquest of dating by numbers. The safety of keeping my distance and feeding my hungers. What do you mean by the drive to connect? I think that connection is like, it's kind of the ideal state in creativity. In performance especially, that's what you're hoping to provide an environment for, for connection of sorts. And for me in my own life when I feel at my most numb, which is something that I think this society requires of us, is our numbness.

It's one of the effects of late capitalism, hyper-consumerism, hyper-individualism, is numbness in us, in order to be able to survive it with any semblance of sanity or to be able to function in any way. And that numbness I find problematic, of course. It's bad for your health mental and physical when I'm in my most numb states the thing that I find really revitalizes

me and brings me back to connection is creativity music I listen to an album that I love I watch somebody sing I'm brought back to myself through engaging with somebody's passionate creativity so in my own life as an artist, I take it really seriously, that obligation for providing a space for connection. I think it's, yeah, a social role. I think it's extremely important. It's like an antidote to numbness, isn't it?

You're going to perform People's Faces. What's behind that track? Within the context of the album, this is the closing song. I suppose that after the whole discovery within this record of these traps, these patterns of behaviour that are damaging, the lessons that this character wants to learn from those behaviours, this is offered, I suppose, as the kind of redemptive moment when they're able to feel full tenderness and love

for people that they don't know. Such such a simple sentiment but it's so true okay thank you very much let's hear it it's coming to pass my country is coming apart the whole thing's becoming such a bumbling farce was that a pivotal historical moment we just went stumbling past I don't know but here we are

dancing in the rumbling people's faces by Kate Tempest from her new album, The Book of Traps and Lessons. She'll be touring the UK and she will also apparently be at Glastonbury. Now still to come in today's programme, Jeeva Mentor and her memoir Leap. She was a member of the gold medal Commonwealth Games netball team of 2018. And so to something for which we need your help, we all have a photo

with which one glance can bring back memories of a really important time in our lives. It's not often I've had a photo taken which I've actually liked and I've never taken a selfie, but there is one picture I treasure which was taken in the newsroom of BBC Radio Bristol and takes me back immediately to the start of my career. The eyes look good, the hair is great, and there's no sign of a wrinkle or a double chin, but then, of course, I was only 24. Well, this summer, we're

hoping to run a series where you find your own favourite photo of yourself, and we can then talk to you about why you like it so much and what you recall of the date was taken you can tweet us at bbc woman's eye using the hashtag hashtag my best day and you can even email us if you like but please don't send your precious pictures and we would not want to be responsible for losing them now the first time we encountered we encountered Claire McIntosh was when the former

police officer published her novel I Let You Go and became a number one best-selling crime writer. Her latest novel is quite different from her earlier work. It's called After the End and tells the story of Max and Pip whose son Dylan has been diagnosed with a brain tumour. They spend their time with him in the paediatric intensive care unit after he has surgery and is cared for by a consultant called Layla. When it becomes clear that he is unlikely to recover without serious disabilities, the parents can't agree on which way to turn. Pip agrees with the hospital that he should be allowed to die in peace. Max wants to take him to America for proton beam therapy. Only a court can decide. Layla looks around the courtroom. She has the strange sensation

of being frozen in time, that they might all wake a year from now and they'll still all be here in this courtroom waiting for the ruling that will change so many lives Before the break, Max and Pip Adams were sitting at opposite ends of the long bench seat behind their legal teams They're still on the bench but the distance between them has contracted and now they're sitting close enough to touch each other.

In fact, as Layla watches and as the judge draws closer to his ruling, she sees movement. She couldn't say if Max moved first or Pip. She can't be certain they even know they're doing it. But as she watches, two hands venture slowly across the no-man's land between them and find each other. Dylan's parents hold hands.

The judge speaks. And a courtroom holds its breath. Claire, the novel is inspired by your own experience 12 years ago. What happened in your case? I spent a number of weeks, months in neonatal intensive care with my twin sons, one of whom became very gravely ill. He had meningitis and he suffered a brain ha hemorrhage, which affected every part of his brain. He was profoundly disabled. And we were taken to a room. There's a scene in the book where the characters are taken to a room called the quiet room and just thinking about that room now makes me shiver. Nothing good was ever said in the quiet room.

And the consultant told us there that we had to make a decision. We had to decide whether to keep our son alive or whether to remove him from intensive care and let him die. And your decision was? We decided that the prognosis we were told and that the limitations that were outlined to us did not make a life that we would want to live for ourselves. And so we decided to let him pass away. What do you remember of the actual process of making the decision that you went through?

Whether quality or quantity of life is what you needed to make a decision on? It sort of comes in flashes of memory, you know, like scenes. I remember standing in that room. I remember asking the doctor what would happen if we didn't agree because we disagreed on all sorts of things, my husband and I, things that didn't matter

and now suddenly here was something that did matter. I remember going out to the car park and calling my father, who was a doctor. And I just can't imagine how hard that conversation was for him to be talking to his daughter about his grandson. And he spoke to me about the Hippocratic Oath, about a doctor's duty, moral duty, not to continue with treatment beyond a point at which it was right for that patient. And then he said, you need to hypothesise, you need to think about what life will be like in two years, five years, ten years from now with Alex and you need to think about what it will be like without him and you need to think what life will be like for him and I remember at that point I remember standing in in the staff car park at the hospital thinking about having

just got off the phone from my father thinking about that about a poem a poem by Robert Frost The Road Not Taken where he talks about standing in a wood and looking at two different paths and he says would that I could could travel both you know I want to be able to see to the end of each road and I desperately wanted to know for certain what the future held down both these roads because how could I possibly decide without knowing for sure but we don't in any decision that we make. That's such a dreadful experience for a parent to have to go through why did you decide you wanted to write about it and make it a fiction? It does, it sounds like an unusual thing to do and a sort of a torturous process, I know,

but it wasn't in fact. This was the first book I ever wanted to write and really very soon after losing our son, I kept thinking about that question that I'd asked the doctor what happens if we don't agree and she had said you have to because the alternative is unthinkable and the more time that went by the more I wanted to write not just about our experience but about that unthinkable and about the way that other people feel they know what's best for for you as a parent we do it in a very minor way when people have a baby you know you should be breastfeeding you should be doing this that and the other and we do it in a very serious way in cases such as poor charlie guard or alfie ev, where the general public feel they have a right to say what should happen to someone else's child.

And so I wanted to write this book, but I didn't really know how. I wasn't a writer. I didn't have the skill. I didn't have the emotional distance. And I also, I realise now that actually I needed those intervening years because the title is After the End.

It's not really about the terrible event. It's about what happens afterwards. And I've needed these 12 years to learn that life goes on, that there's more to life. But how did you work out how to tell a story it's very different from any of your earlier writing which is very much plot driven it is and this this is a character driven novel and so although I knew the pivotal question I knew that that here was a family who disagreed over this fundamental decision I didn't know what would happen afterwards to their lives. And so what I did, instead of spending time with post-it notes,

planning out my novels, as I have done in the past, I took a lot of walks and I swam and I thought about these people. I thought about Max, who's a, she's cabin crew and she's, I know what she looks like, I know what she looks like. I know what she wears. I thought about Max, who's American. He's from Chicago. I spent some time in Chicago just walking around,

thinking about who these people were, who Leila the doctor was, where she'd come from. And once I knew them as well as I knew my own family, I knew that I could make a reader know them and care about them. As you wrote it, whose side were you on? Pip's or Max's? The side of whoever's chapter I was writing at that particular moment to the point where I would cry for that person

and for the injustice that they felt. And in fact, I had to write their whole story. So I wrote Pip's story in its entirety and then I wrote Max's because I needed to immerse myself in their world and feel what they were feeling. In the novel, social media, the press, everyone, as you said, gets involved and has an opinion. I wondered how much did you fear being judged when you and your husband agreed on the decision that you were going to make?

I was terrified to the point where I didn't tell very many people that there had been a choice. And that was partly self-preservation. I didn't want to acknowledge the fact that there might have been another way. And it was partly a fear that I might be judged for the decision that we'd made. So the people who did know, our close friends and our family, were amazing. And there was no judgment. And if they feel anything different, then they've kept it to themselves. And you have no regrets? Oh, Danny, there's always regrets every day. Every day. But writing this book helped me explore some of those what-ifs.

It helped me find a peace that I feel I haven't had in 12 years. Obviously, in the novel, the marriage suffers terribly from the decision that has to be made and the fact that they can't agree about it. How did you and your husband manage? Because people often say that even if you've managed to agree to something, such a painful tragedy does damage to a marriage. I think it can.

You read about how something as fundamental as this either brings you closer together or drives you apart. There doesn't seem to be any option to just carry on as you were before um i um one of the doctors um says in in the novel to to pip that you can't look after each other it's like it's like two people who have got flu looking after each other you can't do it you need help from outside and and that is something that a nurse said to us immediately after our son died that although you think you're going through the same thing you're both grieving you're both grieving the same person your grief is not the same as each other's and you can't

help each other and so we did get help from outside we both had some support from friends and family a huge amount of support from Thames Valley Police, where we were both working at the time, which was incredible. And slowly we got through it. You don't get over it, but we're OK. Claire McIntosh, thank you very much indeed for being with us this morning. The book is called After the End and I highly recommend it. I finished it last night and

it made me cry too. Thank you very much for being with us. Now next month, the Netball World Cup will be held in Liverpool and clearly England are hoping to do as well as they did in the 2018 Commonwealth Games. They

won gold and the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award for Team of the Year and Greatest Sporting Moment. Jeeva Mentor was goalkeeper in that game and she's published a memoir, Leap. Jeeva, how did you start your sporting career? I know. I think it wasn't by chance, that's for sure. I'm from a very sporty family. My mum was a very keen tennis player I'm from a very sporty family my mum was very keen

tennis player her father very keen tennis player and my dad was of multi-sports and so I think it was destined that I'd go down the sporting route and living on the south coast of England in Bournemouth I had the beautiful sea there to explore so sailing and kayaking was also part of my sort of regular daily routine and I guess the attributes that I sort of possessed meant that I was quite good at sport whether it was a racquetball sport whether it was a handball sport or whether it was just generally being fit so yeah sport was definitely destined for me. But why was it netball that really got to you? Yeah and the thing is and I mentioned this in my book as well and it's probably one of the lasting quotes is I say netball found me rather than I found it.

And purely, purely by chance. I mean, I played a lot of basketball at school. I was actually in the boys teams because we didn't have a girls team. And I got to the age where I was probably a bit too old to be playing for the boys because the other schools were starting to complain. And so I had to find a new competitive sport. And a lot of my friends who I was with at school in class played netball. So I joined along with them. And again, I mentioned this in my book because we actually got to leave school a little bit earlier.

This is probably a bit naughty because you missed out on lessons. But the fact that I got to leave early to go play netball at another school. And from that, I just enjoyed this camaraderie that you got from playing in a team sport with other girls on court being able to compete for the ball and I guess all the joys that came along with that. There was a moment when you told people you were 5 foot 11 which was not true you're a little bit taller than that which is very useful for netball obviously but why did you fib about it? It's so funny I I see so many girls nowadays that are so tall, but they're very shy of their height, their shoulders are hunched over. And I'm like, you know what, own it, be confident. And there I was to myself saying that I was shorter than I actually was. And it wasn't actually through

embarrassment or being shy of my height. It was actually because I heard that supermodels were five foot 11. And I thought this was fantastic. And and I thought I'd love to be able to sort of strut around and look my best and I grew past it five foot eleven and I thought I'm still going to own five foot eleven just in case people put the connection together that I could be a model as well. So what are you now? I'm now six foot two. Just a little bit taller. You had a mother who was really really supportive how important was she in driving you around everywhere for training where you needed to be people often find role models in in other sports people either through different codes or the sport that they go into and for me I always say it's my mum she's been instrumental throughout my life and I think as

most mums do but the the relationship that we've had it's not just being there as my mum she's been there as my rock she's been there as my number one fan but also my number one critic as well and I just I guess her honesty and support that she's shown me has been amazing and has got me to where I am today from wrapping me up with my duvet and everything, sitting me in the car, driving me to training. And living in Bournemouth, for me, training was bath, which was an hour and 40 minutes on country roads and making sure I had the right fuel,

so making sure I had the right food and hydration around me and little things to making my life a little bit easier as I had that school and work-life balance. She also let you be there whilst your little brother was born you you were eight I think how did that happen? This seems to surprise quite a few people and I think now I'm older I can I can see how it is quite concerning but I think for us it was just that relationship that I spoke about before that we have in terms of my mum actually brought me along to some of her prenatal sessions and we had quite

an open relationship where I could ask anything and she'd happily explain it and yeah so I was there for the the birth of my younger brother I was eight years old at the time and I think the important thing for me is that I didn't have the connection with what mum's body was was like mine so that would happen to me it was more just about experiencing um this new life coming into the world that was going to be my brother and my mum probably came from two two perspectives on that and one that um having having an only child for so long there'd been a bit of jealousy so actually welcoming the new sibling into to our lives um would make this smoother but also just involving me in that process because at the end of the day, we're a family and I think that communication was key.

And you're very close to your brother, I know. So you obviously got into the junior team when you were 14, the under-17s, and you have gone on to do really rather well. But as a defender, what sort of personality do you need that may be different from an attacker? And those people that play netball out there will know that there's certainly different personalities throughout a netball game. And I speak about this in my book. And I've tried to be diplomatic because I do label the attack end as princesses. And purely because they're very pinnacoty. They have to make sure they have the right netball in their hands.

But at the end of the day, the pressure that they have in terms of if there's seconds to go on the clock, and you think of, for example, the Commonwealth Games last year when the seconds were down and we had a chance to score the goal. Everyone's watching you and that won us the gold medal. So, yeah, you definitely see different personalities between the attacking, the mid-quarters, who seem to be the engine for the team and a lot more bubbly and up and about and defenders we're the last line of defense and if you think about it we often we don't get the ball very often so the fact that we managed to turn it over we've got to celebrate that but we've got to be much more chilled and calm and I think that really plays into my personality of being laid back but still determined to do what I do. Now how different is netball in

Australia where I know you now play most of the time you play for England, obviously, but you play for an Australian club. Yeah, so I've been going back and forth to Australia since 2008 and I now actually call Australia home. So I've been out there for 11 years and purely because they set up a professional league. And it's great to see that women's sport moving so early on in that right direction where we could actually make a living out of the sport. And I was excited to be able to give the nod to not only play professionally out in Australia, but still be able to represent my country and still be able to play for the England Roses. Could you make a living if you were playing it here? I think nowadays it's increasing, but not for every player. And you tend to see a lot of the women and the girls that play netball in the English Super League which has improved and a lot of them are either studying at a time or

still holding down jobs as well and I think that's the next step for for sport and for netball in England. Well the immediate next step is coming up quite soon with the World Cup how do you rate England's chances of winning the netball world cup ah this this is going to be my fifth world cup um and i think we've probably got the best team that i've been involved in i do also believe that this is going to be one of the toughest world cups because there's not just the likes of australia new zealand who are ranked sort of one and two we've got jamaica and south africa that are closely on our heels and I'm excited to step out on court with these girls because I truly believe that we've got the belief now.

And that's what has probably been missing from England over the last decades that I've been involved with the sport. And so our chances are definitely up there and they're there for the taking. And it's going to be about who brings the right game on the day. I was talking to Jeeva Mentor. Now on Sudan, Peter sent us an email. Brilliant, lucid explanations of the situation in the lead up to the Million People March for the Sudan

uprising. An absolute must listen. Tremendous thanks and respect all round. Lots of response from you to Kate Tempest. Robin said, this is a beautiful expression of life, people's faces, hope in connection. Leonora said, oh, Kate Tempest giving me beautiful goosebumps on Woman's Hour. She always knows how to stir the heart. George said, bloody hell, Kate Tempest's words and music has left me tearful and wanting to cry again. Penelope said, bloody hell, Kate Tempest's words and music has left me tearful and wanting to cry again. Penelope said, I'm listening in Andalusia. Kate Tempest, I have never heard you before and your writing has stopped me in my tracks.

Lots of you responded to my conversation with Claire McIntosh. Kerry said, interesting and heartbreaking to hear both as a parent, especially as my son is 12, and as a writer. And Nick said, Claire McIntosh, I have no idea how you just got through your interview. I finished after the end a fortnight ago and have been processing it ever since. Now tomorrow, you may recall that over the last two weeks we've been discussing teenage mental health. We've heard from doctors, teachers, parents and of course teenagers.

And tomorrow, Jane will be talking to a panel and asking them how we should be dealing with the increasing numbers of young people who seem to need help from child and adolescent mental health services. Join Jane tomorrow. That's live at two minutes past 10 for me for today. Bye-bye. We all live in a digital world. How we work, how we play, the way we live, navigate the world, morals, laws, memories, even how we generate a thought and we share it with someone. These are all filtered, stored and sorted by the technology in our devices, in the cloud, and even in the pavement beneath our feet. So we have to ask,

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