Woman's Hour - Kemi Badenoch becomes Tory leader, Athlete Julien Alfred, Author Eliza Clark

Episode Date: November 4, 2024

Kemi Badenoch is the first woman of colour to lead a major political party in the UK, after being elected as leader of the Conservative Party at the weekend. What do we know about her as a woman, and as a politician? What does this mean for women in the Tory party? Clare McDonnell speaks to Katy Balls, political editor of the Spectator, Ella Robertson McKay, former head of Conservative Young Women, and Tory peer Baroness Kate Fall.The Women's 100 metre Olympic champion Julien Alfred joins Clare in the studio. Her gold medal in Paris was the first time St Lucia had won an Olympic medal. She discusses what it took to become a champion and also having a national day named after her. The author Eliza Clark is publishing a new collection of short stories: She’s Always Hungry. She joins Clare to talk about why she wanted to cover topics from matriarchal societies to body image, and how she thinks female authors deserve more respect.Natalie Hewit spent two months in Antarctica directing and producing on the documentary film Endurance, about Ernest Shackleton’s expedition. It was a labour of love, and features restored footage and AI-recreated voices of the original crew in 1914, as well as chronicling the discovery in 2022 of Shackleton’s ship, 3000 metres down in the icy waters of the Weddell Sea. Presenter: Clare McDonnell Producer: Lottie Garton

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Claire Macdonald and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to a brand new week on Woman's Hour and it could end up being a pretty momentous one for women in politics. America could get its first ever female president and here in the UK, in the last week, we've already ticked off a few firsts. The first female chancellor delivering a budget

and the first black woman to lead a major political party in the UK, Kemi Badenoch, is now the new leader of the Conservative Party. In an interview yesterday with the BBC, she played that down. But does it feel like a pivotal moment for women in UK politics to you? Should these firsts for women be celebrated? Or do you think, as Kemi Badenoch says, we shouldn't focus on them? Is it an exciting new dawn ushering in meaningful change or just distant changes in high office that won't impact your life? You can text the programme.

Love to hear from you. The number is 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. On social media, we are at BBC Women's Hour and you can email us through our website or you can send us a WhatsApp message or voice note using this number. 03700 100 444. Plus plus the fastest woman on the planet current olympic 100 meter gold medalist julian alfred joins me in the studio we'll talk dark comic horror and

gender politics with author eliza clark named in the forbes 30 under 30 list about her new collection of short stories and the film director who went to Antarctica to chronicle the search for Ernest Shackleton's endurance ship. Spoiler, they found it. Natalie Hewitt is going to be joining me live in the Woman's Hour studio. Great lineup of guests for you this morning. But first, let's start with politics, because on Saturday, Kemi Badenoch became the new leader of the Conservative Party. She beat Robert Jenrick to become the fourth woman and the first black woman to lead a major political party here in the UK. However, as she told Laura Kunzberg yesterday, she doesn't want to dwell on this. I think that the best thing will be when we get to a point where the colour of your skin is no more remarkable than the colour of your eyes or the colour of your hair.

We live in a multiracial country and that is great, but we have to work very hard to make sure that it doesn't become something divisive, where people see themselves as being part of groups rather than all being British. So when I hear people say, isn't this remarkable? We have a black female leader of the Conservative Party. I'm glad because it shows that my country and my party are actually places where it doesn't matter who you are, what you look like. It's about what the offer is. What I don't want is for that to be the thing that ends up being talked about. Kemi Badenoch, she is, as we speak, assembling her front bench. One appointment already made, Rebecca Harris as Chief Whip. Of course, if we hear any other news on who she has appointed

as we're on air here on Women's Hour, we'll bring it to you. She became an MP in 2017 after a career in banking and IT and has also said she would offer jobs to all of her colleagues who launched leadership bids in July as well. So let's find out a little bit more about her and what she might mean for women inside and outside of the party. I'm joined first by Katie Balls, political editor of The Spectator. Morning, Katie. Morning. It was a narrow victory for Kerry Badenoch, wasn't it? Can you just talk us through that? Yes, she won just over 56% of the vote. And I think when you look at that, that's close to the 2022 Tory leadership contest between

Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. It's a little bit less in terms of her lead over Robert Jenrick. So, it's fairly narrow as things go. But given her team are quite nervous, I think on the final week, Robert Jenrick might be further ahead. There was some relief when the result came through. And as we heard in that clip there, she's keen not to dwell on the first aspect of this win. She's painting herself as somebody who's bringing people together,

wanting it to be all about inclusivity. Does that stack up with her? Well, I think, as you say, she is quite allergic to identity politics. And therefore, you see Rachel Reeves, who wants to often talk about her achievement of being the first female chancellor. Kemi Badenot does not want to talk about being a woman leader. She doesn't really want to talk about being the first black female leader of a major political party in the UK. And instead thinks progress is almost not being observed. I think some in her party would actually like her to play more on it,

because the Tory party loves putting on tote bags and things, all these achievements of female leaders, and saying to Labour, you haven't managed to do it. When it comes to her general approach on equality and so forth, I mean, she's had the equalities brief when it comes to gender. I think that she is someone who's talked a lot about integration, but obviously views will differ on the best way to go about that. Yeah, let's just talk about that. Because as you say, not a fan of identity politics, very outspoken on what she does believe in, including single sex spaces. So tell us what she said on that. Well, she's been very pro single sex spaces.

She's praised J.K. Rowling, who, of course, is seen as a champion when it comes to speaking up for women and gender born women. And I think that if you think about also the gender recognition law that the SMP government tried to pass, it was Kemi Badenoch when she was in the cabinet, who was one of the key voices in persuading Rishi Sunak to do what had never been done before, and have a Westminster government bringing in a section order to try and oppose it, and to stop the SMP government changing the law. And the UK government was successful in this. And I think it shows that it's an area where you can expect her to talk a lot, but also do a lot, perhaps a hardening of the current position.

And I think some in the Tory party think that she says the right things on this, but they don't want this to be the most dominating part of her leadership. They want her to be talking about other issues too, such as the economy, business and things, rather than the depictions she sometimes gets as a bit of an anti-work warrior. And she doesn't seem to want any kind of exceptionalism put her way

because the fact that she's a mother to three young children, because it was brought up, wasn't it, during the election campaign that maybe she wouldn't have as much time to devote to being leader because she has a very young family. How did she deal with that? I think she was particularly impressed by the comments by one of the fellow MPs and her camp too, I think were quite critical saying, you know, Robert Jenrick also has children. Why is it the case that's coming up for her? But I think also you looked very early on in the campaign when she went on holiday and she was heavily criticised by some camps for taking a summer holiday. And in quite Kemi Badenoch style, she took to social media.

I think rapid rebuttal online could be a defining feature of her leadership and said, you're all criticising me. I promise my children I'm going on holiday and I'm taking them on holiday. And that's what I'm going to call balance. And we should really cut politicians a bit of a break. So I think she's going to be trying to argue for some balance when it comes to what we expect from our front bench politicians. She has a foot in the real world, doesn't she? She came to politics around 2017 in that election. What is her background then? And how might it inform how she leads the party and how she leads the opposition of this country? She spent her early years in Nigeria. And she's described that as quite a middle class upbringing. But one of the comments that got her quite a lot

of criticism is she said then she came to the UK. And that was when she discovered what it's like to be working class because she was working in McDonald's. and she was trying to make ends meet. And she went to university undergrad, then a different course and became an engineer. You often hear Kemi Badenoch saying, I am an engineer to suggest she is logical. She had a career in finance, engineer side of things. And then briefly as part of the spectator, where I, of course, work, but that was not in the editorial department, entered Parliament in 2017, not expecting to get the seat. She was not the favourite. She beat a Theresa May favourite for selection. And then from that, because it was such a small cohort of Tory MPs, because it was a bit of a disaster, that election for the Tories,

Theresa May lost the majority. It meant that you have a very tight knit group, but also she got a lot of attention because she was very quickly seen as the rising star, which I think she probably has said she found a bit of a curse in a way, because you can't make mistakes quietly. Everyone is looking at what you do. How does she then, she only has 120 Conservative MPs, and this has been something that's been spoken about over the weekend, that if she's going to, she's going to have to, in a way, be this inclusive character, because there's so many jobs that people need to do, that if she becomes this, or she carries on down the divisive route, will she have enough Tory MPs, backbench MPs to actually function

as a working opposition? Yeah, I mean, everyone will really say in the Tory party, Kemi Badenoch is a fighter, but depending on which he is saying is either a compliment or an insult. And it can be seen as one of her big strengths, but it can also be seen as the reason she is abrasive to some colleagues, and some colleagues just did not get behind her. And therefore, she's going to have to pick the right fights and who to have fights with. And I think there's a real hope in parts of the party that Cammy Badenoch is going to really try and fight Keir Starmer and Nigel Farage and not so much be being dismissive of colleagues because one of the first challenges is the shadow cabinet. We already know that James Cleverley, who

was knocked out before the final stage, said he's not going to serve in the shadow cabinet. We already know that James Cleverley, who was knocked out before the final stage, said he's not going to serve in the shadow cabinet. If she can't get Tom Tugendhat, another leadership candidate, Robert Jenrick, Kriti Patel, Mel Stride to serve, it's going to start to look like a bit of a statement on her leadership.

So she does need to build some bridges. There are plenty of jobs to go around with this many few MPs, but you need to have different parts of the party in key positions to show she can do that. And we know how it panned out with the Conservative Party at the last election when they tried to out-reform reform. It didn't really go that well. She is to the right of the party. What do you think she's going to do? Stick to the same messages or claw back a bit of the center ground i think what all all these things will say is they'll try and do both and the question is how realistic is that um henry badenock has not gone into specific policy that was a big part of her

leadership she was under pressure to do it in her campaign the other three final candidates and the final four did and that means there's a bit of a question mark over her specific policies. And I think she's probably going to face some criticism for how slowly she plans to come up for policy formations. If anything, she's almost a bit of a vibes politician in the sense that she is authentic. And she hopes, I think her diagnosis is the party became too managerialist and authenticity and straight talking will get some of those reform voters back. But also you do have to remember while she is to the right,

she has stood up to the European research group of Brexiteers. She has told them before that she, you know, she's not an arsonist. She's a conservative. She wasn't going to take every idea from the hard Brexiteers, though she did vote for Brexit.

So she will try and find a middle way, I think, through her attitude and presence combined with some pragmatism. Katie, thank you so much for joining us. We're going to bring in Baroness Kate Fall, Conservative peer, and Ella Robertson-McKay here, former chair of Conservative Young Women. Welcome, both of you. Good morning, Claire. Baroness Fall, let's start with you. What are you hoping for from Kemi Badenoch? Look, I think people are hoping for a fresh start after a terrible general election and then a period of sort of blank where Rishi Sunak has done a good job being a caretaker leader.

But Labour have made a start and not a particularly good one. And yet we haven't really heard a strong voice from the Conservatives because they've been sort of fighting yet another leadership election. I think in the eyes of the public, they've had rather too many of those. And I think in last week, you see the budget, which was a very sort of political, very ideological budget, in many ways, quite an old fashioned Labour budget. And although Rishi responded extremely well, it wasn't a fresh voice or a new voice or the new leader. because she can come in straight away, take the fight to Labour, really establish what it is that the Tories would do differently and get going straight away rather than sort of looking back

and having a fight on a sort of blame game. So I think it's a really good opportunity for her. It certainly seems, Ella, that that's her modus operandi. She doesn't want to pick over the past. She wants to move forward. So what are you hoping she will do for younger women in particular? Well, I think she's been very careful not to outline tons of policies in her leadership race, which is quite a risky strategy. So she's really dedicated to a period of reform for the party and

for the party deciding together what it really stands for. It's been in power for a long time. It's had so many different leaders in quite quick succession. So I think even to the members, there's a bit of wishy-washiness about what it really means to be a member of the Conservative Party in 2024. And Kemi's been really clear that it's time to re-articulate that and not just come up with a lot of pop-up policies very quickly, which I think is the right thing to do, because I think it's going to be quite a long parliamentary term. And much like David Cameron did, he really reset the Conservative Party, spent time building up policies, spent time rebuilding trust with voters. I mean, I think it's very clear people were absolutely sick of the Tories this year.

I think lots of people in constituencies who'd voted Tories their whole life voted Lib Dem or otherwise, or reform as a protest vote. And so she's really got to think very carefully about the Tories offer to all demographics in society. I think what was really interesting about the Labour budget, I mean, Labour's had a very strong appeal to young people, but there was nothing for young people in that budget last week. Stamp price, stamp duty back to where it was much, much more expensive to buy a home if you're a young person. So where I think the Tory party has neglected young voters for a while, I think she's got an opportunity to come in with a good offer, as she does for pensioners, you know,

winter fuel duty being scrapped. There's lots of things that she could be prosecuting at the moment. Yes, and I'm sure at the first Prime Minister's question time, we will see her do that in just a couple of days time. Baroness Full, when we look at what she has, when she has drifted into policy or what she might do, it's kind of got her in trouble, hasn't it? Her comments, for example, on maternity pay, she said it was excessive in that she felt, you know, it's coming out of general taxation, you've got to have a look at that. And she suggested it had gone too far. Do you think that turned quite a few women off? So no, I think that sometimes Kemi shoots from the hip. And I think now she's a leader of the party, she needs to be more circumspect about what she said. It's also why people like her, they feel like she says the stuff that's on people's minds. And they find that quite refreshing. That particular point, I think, you know,

wasn't the right thing to say. And I think, you know, would have lost her support. I think another thing for Kimmy to think about is there's the role of leader of the opposition. And I work for David Cameron when he was leader of the opposition. You know, you're taking the fight to Labour, but you're also trying to get cut through. Part of it is getting attention. But you don't want to find that you're the darling of SW1, but you don't, to Ella's point, really resonate and really talk about the issues that matter to people. And then the other thing, of course, is you've got to find a pathway back to power.

Now, sometimes people are good leaders of the opposition, but they never take the party back to power. Now, sometimes people are good leaders of the opposition, but they never take the party back to power. They never say to the people of the country, this is why conservative values and solutions are the right thing for the modern problems that we face.

Ella, what do you think about, I don't know whether you caught the first interview she gave with Laura Kunzberg yesterday, and she kind of played, very much played down this unique position she finds herself in to be the first black woman to lead a major political party in the UK.

She also took a bit of a sideswipe at Rachel Reeves, the fact that she was the first female chancellor ever in this country's history to deliver a budget. What did you make of that? I wasn't surprised. I hosted an event with Kemi a couple of years ago, and we had lots of young women there and lots of young women of colour who were eager to ask her, you know, what's your advice as a young woman of colour? And Kemi was genuinely quite baffled. I mean, she genuinely didn't want to talk about it. She wanted to talk about policy. She said, oh, I'd much rather talk about housing or the economy. I mean, why do you want to talk about this? So I think she sees herself as an MP, is now the leader of the Conservative Party. And I think she finds identity politics, including her own identity, very dull. proud to see Rachel Reeves presenting a budget last week. I think it's important

that little black girls will turn on the television and see someone that looks like them at the dispatch box and never have a feeling of, oh, people like, who look like me don't belong in Westminster.

But is she not kind of, is she also kind of diminishing their experience when she says effectively, you know, whatever you're going through, it doesn't matter, just plough on. I mean, there is structural racism in society. Is she saying, is she kind of shying away from those difficult conversations? I don't think that's her intention at all. But I think she wants to be seen as the leader of the

Conservative Party. And I think she takes very seriously what she says. She wants her policies and her work in the party to speak for themselves, as I think we all do. And I think whilst we're all proud of our various intersexual identities, you wish to be taken seriously as a broadcaster, lawyers wish to be taken seriously as lawyers. And I think we can all emphasise with that. Final word to you then, Baroness Fall. What do you think? Has she said, just take me as I am? I'm a black woman doing this job, but, you know, I'm doing the job. I don't want you to focus on any other kind of special characteristic

about me. Do you think that's a policy that might stand her in good stead in the long run? Look, I would go for both. It's an aspiration when she says, you know, we shouldn't be surprised by somebody who is a black woman being leader of the party. But the fact that she is makes it easier to Ella's point for other people to feel that they can follow her down that path. And I think that's a great tribute to her to the party.

And by the way, it was great to have a female chancellor. There was a time in government when I worried women are given, you know, we'll give them the social jobs and then the men do the fiscal policy. And it was really good to see that at first from Rachel Rees. Great to have you both on the programme. Thank you so much for joining us on Woman's Hour this morning. Baroness Kate Fall and Ella Robertson-McCay. Thank you both for joining us. Earlier we heard from Katie Balls as well. And some outlets are reporting they understand Kemi Badenoch has appointed a joint chair of the party. As I said,

more details on that and other appointments, we will bring them to you live here on Woman's Hour and they will come to you, of course, on the BBC News website as well. Now for my next guest, a lifetime of training and hard graft all came down to

10 seconds and 72 milliseconds. A sprint on a rainy Paris evening back in August. I'm talking about the fastest woman in the world, Julianne Alfred, the St. Lucia born sprinter, bagged herself for gold in the women's 100 metres at this year's Olympics and got a silver in the 200 metres too. Her medals marked the first time St Lucia won an Olympic medal of any colour. You may have seen videos of the eruptions of joy back home on the island at viewing parties. A national holiday in the country has been named Julian Alfred Day. Julian is over in the UK looking to inspire the next generation of young athletes. I'm delighted to say she joins me in the Woman's Hour studio.

Welcome to Woman's Hour. Good morning. Thank you for having me. Brilliant to have you here. A few months on, is it sinking in yet? So did you wake up every day and think, I did do that? Not quite, to be honest. But I do get reminded of it a lot just by how much St. Lucian's have celebrated me since winning the gold in Paris but I don't wake up every day

thinking oh I'm the Olympic champion no but I do get reminded of it whenever St. Lucian's get a chance to. I'll bet I mean I watched it back recently and one commentator said post-race, she was out and it was over. It was over by the 50 meter mark. Did you think then it's mine to lose? Did you realize how much distance you had on the other competitors? I didn't actually until I re-watched the video

over and over again. But you know, it's a race plan that my coach and I have been working on my coach Edric Florio back in Austin Texas we've been working on this race plan over and over and visualizing how we're going to execute this race the Olympic final and it just finally came into fruition and I did just that but I didn't realize how far away from the rest of the field it's just an incredible race it was pouring with with rain. You're on the line. Take us back to that moment. You know, either side of you, some of the most high profile sprinters the world has ever known. What's going through your head?

After the semi-final winning, semi-final two, I realized I had such a good chance of getting the gold medal. And as I stood on the line, watching down the track alongside the other seven women, other seven finalists, I was just thinking of my race plan, executing and thinking of each phase that I had to go through to win the gold. And my biggest challenge was the blocks.

You know, 2022, I had a four-star World Championships, so I had to really pay attention to just the gun, do not anticipate it, and just work on just thinking of my execution. But it was a lot of pressure. I'm not going to lie. Standing there, knowing that my country, St. Lucia, an entire nation is watching, looking forward to a medal. I'm not sure if it was gold or whatever, but I just know that they were expecting the medal, their first ever. And I was just thinking of my execution and trying to deliver for them. Tell us what you wrote in your journal the morning of the race.

One of the things that I wrote down is Julian Alfred, Olympic champion, just manifesting, knowing how hard I've worked for this moment. Also, I wrote that the world will know my name. I am unstoppable. It's my race. My coach has prepared me for it. Have fun. There were so many different things that I wrote down, but just realizing that I had a great chance of winning and also believing in myself before going to the finals

that I was already the Olympic champion. Yeah, gosh, well, that manifestation worked. Let's talk about the celebrations when you crossed the line. I mean, men have been known to rip off their shirts when they cross the line, jump around, beat their chest, go up to the camera, you know, pointing and all of that. You screamed, you were clearly overcome with emotion.

You're not a very flashy person, but that gives you a great authenticity, I think, that you just go, all of those years just came out, didn't they? Right. Oh my God. It's been a long journey that not many persons know about. Whenever I get a chance to tell them about my story, I do, because it's been a long journey. You don't just get here just like that. You know, it's been a, it's a build up to it.

Living my home at a young age of 14, going to Jamaica, training for three years there, then moving to Texas on my own, spending five years at the University of Texas in Austin to get into this point in my career. Lots of trials and tribulations that I've been through, lots of hardships, injuries that I have to battle. It's been a long journey. So when you finally cross the line and getting called, the thing you've worked so hard for in your entire life, when it finally comes through and you cross the line first, it's such an amazing feeling. All I could scream was, yes, yes, yes.

I mean, it wasn't so calm, but I was screaming at the top of my lungs. But honestly, it's such an amazing feeling just knowing that all your hard work and sacrifice is finally paid off. And it's what my coach and I have been working towards. And early on that season, well, this season, sorry, I had a breakdown. I was completely out of it. I told my coach I didn't want to continue the season. I told my agent to cancel my meets because I just didn't want to continue. I was just so hard on myself.

I was overweight as well, struggling mentally and just feeling like I couldn't go on. But my coach, he worked with me. He took me off the track for a little bit. We had a long conversation. We both cried on the phone. And the last thing he said to me was, are you ready to be an Olympic champion? And he believed that I could be one.

He worked with my agent as well to get me prepared, you know, mentally and physically and have some meets in place so I can prepare for the Olympics. Yeah. So, I mean, goodness, I mean, he stepped in at the right point, didn't he? He could see what was happening. I mean, to go back for people who don't know your story, you know, you were running on grass in bare feet because where you were in Solution, there wasn't an athletic stadium for you to train on, was there? No, there wasn't. the not our national stadium is

all the way to the south of the island in viewfort but where i where i lived the castries the capital of st. lucia we don't have um we don't have a track there so we have a grass little grass tracks that we paint around when it's time for school sports. So I trained on there and I joined the club at the age of nine. And, you know, just being so young, I didn't really have like much athleisure to wear and walk around in. And I didn't have the right, the proper shoes until, until my coach, my childhood coach, Kevbutt Modest, he gave me my first pair of shoes, my first pair of trainers and spikes.

Until then, I was just running around without any shoes. Sometimes I'll be training in my school shirt, my school uniform at times because I just didn't have the proper attire to train at times. So all of that stacked up against you and then the tragic loss of your father when you were just 12 years old. And you always, you talked about walking away maybe before the olympics but that that was a pivotal point as well when you thought i'm not sure i can do this yeah no that was such a hard time for me um at a young age knowing my dad and you know he also had his own struggles as well so the last time i saw him was when he took me to training at the Mindo Phillip Park that was probably like a few weeks prior and that was the last time I saw him so

it really hurt me that I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to him or even just see him in his final days and it really hurt me and I was devastated I was hurt and it just took a toll on me to the point where I felt like I couldn't go on and he really looked forward to me he was always so boastful to um to others when he spoke about me and spoke highly of me but I mean it really took it tore me apart just seeing that my dad is no longer here with me you've had to come back from so much you must have so much strength and I you you talk about moving to Jamaica and this is obviously one of your all-time heroes Usain Bolt is from Jamaica so I'm wondering how much strength or guidance

that you got from people like him maybe before you met him but also in his attitude in his approach because he seems to take it all in his stride. Right I've listened to his story also on where he grew up in Jamaica, just seeing how creative and active he is. And, you know, everything is a process. He didn't just get to be the fastest man in the world. It took him some time. He had some losses as well. And just taking a page out of his book and using it in my own life to get to where I want to go yeah well he's a certain inspiration isn't he really and he won some of his I mean you won in the pouring rain and he and some of his greatest achievements were in the pouring rain as well that must have that must have inspired you oh my god the morning of the Olympic final I watched some of his races

and just I went back to my inner child just remember how I looked up to him as a young child. And I watched his races and put myself in that same position and saying, I want to be just like Usain Bolt. I actually said I want to be the female Usain Bolt, but it's kind of cringe saying it now. But just looking at him and I took myself back to that younger Julian looking up to Usain Bolt and just pictured myself crossing the line first and being just like him. And I just wanted put that into into the Olympic final as well. I think he wants

to be just like you now you're the more recent you're the more recent winner let's talk about what you're doing here in the UK and you know using your position as Olympic 100 meter champion to inspire the next generation. What are you doing? So right now I'm here for the World Travel Market with St Lucia promoting our island's beauty, the warmth of our people, and allowing people to know what St Lucia is like. It's such a tiny island that not many people know about, but also using my platform and using my voice

to talk about and promote my country. And your prime minister says you're going to have a day named after you. How does that feel? It's an amazing feeling. One that I didn't expect, especially after winning an Olympic medal. Like I said, they could have given me the smallest thing and I'll just be so appreciative of just how much love and support that they've showed me since winning. And a day named after me, it means a lot to me.

And do you want a new stadium? I mean, I know that's a big passion of yours as well, to actually use this opportunity to get people to invest in facilities back home. Yeah, we don't have that many, to be quite honest. Right now, we have a national stadium that needs to be renewed. We also have a mini stadium that we use now for small track meets. But I think because of the state of our stadium back in St. Lucia, we don't have as many big track meets as we should, especially when it comes to inter-secondary school or island champs. I think when our new stadium gets built, I mean, the youth will be excited to race on it.

They'll look forward to it. I'm sure it'll allow them to stay on the track more. So I'm just looking forward for the government of St. Lucia, the Ministry of Sports, to just rebuild that stadium so track and field can be even bigger in St. Lucia. We need the new Julian Alfred, don't we? And just a little insight, when you're back home now, you said St. Lucia has gone absolutely crazy for you

and what you've done for the country. I mean, how long does it take you to go to the shop these days? I don't go to the shops, that's what it is. So I stay at a hotel when I went to St. Lucia. I usually make the sacrifice to just stay in Texas and train, so I don't really get distracted by what's happening around me but when I do get a chance I do have to you know watch where I go because it can you know St Lucia are excited to just celebrate me to see me and like I said

I've just felt the love and support from them so it's always an awesome feeling going back to St Lucia and being on stomping grounds. Oh, it's been fantastic having you in the studio. Thank you so much for joining us. Julia and Alfred there. She is currently the fastest woman in the world. Complete honor to have you in the Woman's Hour studio. Thank you so much. I'm Sarah Treleaven. And for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody.

Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby.

It's a long story, settle in. Available now. Thank you so much for joining us. You are listening to Woman's Hour and we're going to talk to an author next. Her books have been described as pitch black comedy, showstopping and visceral. Her first book, Boy Parts, was made Blackwell's Fiction Book of the Year in 2022. And she was named in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. Now the author, Eliza Clark, has a brand new collection of short stories out entitled She's Always Hungry.

And Eliza joins me now. Good morning. Hello, good morning. It's great to have you here. This is your third book to be published, your first short story collection, She's Always Hungry, an intriguing title. Tell us more. Yes, this had kind of always been the title of the collection. Previously, I'd gotten quite lucky with the title of my first book. With my second book, Penance, I was a bit more, it took me ages to decide on something. But She's Always Hungry was always the title. It was the title of one of the, it's the title of the title story in the collection.

I'm saying the word title a lot. That's right, I get that, I get that. So what is it? What is the theme that you thought, yes, this will hang all these stories together? You know, it's funny because the collection has sort of, I guess, been collected rather than written in one go over the course of about six or seven years. So I was quite lucky that my interests are quite narrow as a writer. So desire and hunger are the core themes. And I was just quite lucky that that was applicable to some extent to, I think, to all of the stories in the collection. And what then? Because I'm looking at the themes and it's an intriguing read.

It really is. Themes of body image and beauty. There's a couple of stories that focus on what we as women do to ourselves to be skinny, violence against women and girls as well. There's a story, the she's always hungry story, subverting the patriarchy, men are the lower beings, daughters are prized over sons. Is it gender that interests you or the power that lies behind it? Yeah, I think I'm primarily interested in power and power structures and the way those power structures often manifest themselves as interpersonal violence. So for me, gender is a way to talk about power and quite an easy way to talk about power. I think it's a good shortcut to have. Yeah. And so what is your view that how old are you now? I'm 30. Just 30. So on the

nose. I mean, you're living in a society where you still feel the injustice of that, do you? I think so. I feel it's interesting, the sort of political moment that we're living in, because I feel like women have made a lot of gains in the last, particularly since I was a teenager. You know, I kind of was a child in the 2000s when I remember there was, it felt like the 2000s was a period of a bit of a backlash to progress that had been made in the 80s and 90s.

And the 2000s felt like quite a sort of, you know, it was kind of heroin chic and low rider jeans and a news media that was constantly extremely cruel to young women who were in the public eye. And I think that was sort of living through that was quite a big feminist awakening for me in some ways. And like I particularly remember the media treatment of Courtney Stodden, who was famously married to a much, much older actor when she was about 16 or 17. And I remember being very shocked when I found out that Courtney Stodden was actually about a month younger than me and being very kind of taken aback by that. So it's something that, you know, having lived through the 2000s, it's something that I've always kind of carried with me is that early um that that period of backlash and it's interesting that I feel like we're in another

period of a bit of a backlash again um tell me more about that then why do you think we're living through that period as a 30 year old woman yes I feel like um again because there are quite a lot of gains made in the last sort of 10 15 years or so I feel like there's been a big pushback um socially to that I think you can kind of see that in the the way that intel culture has kind of arisen over the last few years I think you can see it now in the United States with the attack on women's health and um women's access to health care um And I think you can see that somewhat trickling over to the UK as well. I mean, it's interesting. We were just talking about the new leader of the Conservative Party,

Kimmy Badenoch, who's saying, you know, don't make a big deal out of the fact that I'm the first black woman to head up this party. And lots of people would say, well, good on her, because, you know, just get on, get your nose down and do the job. Where do you stand on that? Yeah, in some ways, I do sort of think it's fair enough that, you know, as a professional woman, you don't necessarily want the only thing people to talk about to be your gender.

And in Kemi's case as well, her racial identity. I do, however, you know, I think it's a bit rich to to say that while you're also kind of campaigning about how you're going to take away maternity pay or you're going to um you know generally kind of make things a bit more difficult for people like you well she was she would qualify that if she was here she was talking saying that the burden on the general taxpayer is too much but you're right she did get herself in hot water uh over that now let's talk go back to the book that's what we're here to talk about i digress um there's a content warning at the start of the book um with more details on potentially triggering subjects at the back of the

book now why was it important for you to do that of course you didn't want to give away any spoilers which is why there's more detail at the back of the book but why do that um i think content guides are a good thing to have in books um purely just because you know i i i'm a big film fan i'm very interested in the film censors in the uk i you know periodically make use of a bbfc report just i'm quite interested in film classification um which makes me sound very dull. And that's because I am. And I think I actually feel like we could benefit in some ways from bringing in some kind of not not necessarily a formal classification system, but just a sort of BBFC style report for books. I think a lot of people would find that really useful. Because it's one of the only pieces of media where, you know,

we don't have anything like that. And I think, an extent it's because you can stop reading in the middle of a sentence. You can't kind of unsee an image once you've seen it. But, yeah, I actually think that we could, you know, really like empower readers to look after themselves and be able to take personal responsibility by adding in things like content guides. Yes, because there's nothing. You go into a bookshop and it's just subject-led, isn't it? Or age-led, but nothing else. I can hear the people already saying, well, that's kind of a bit nanny state, isn't it? People should be able to walk in and make up their own minds. How do

you think it would help the reader? Yeah, I suppose I would respond that it just allows people to make up their own minds. I think as well, it means from an author's perspective, you can have people having quite visceral and quite hostile reactions to the content of your books. And, you know, as an author, in some ways, you kind of don't really have a leg to stand on of like, well, why did you read it when I'd made it quite clear that this content was going to be in it? And you can't really say that right now, but I can for She's Always Hungry. You can now. Let's talk then about young female authors. You've spoken about it being a very tough terrain for women like you. Why?

I think, again, I suppose we're living in a little bit of a backlash. I think we're at a period where for the first time, most of our sort of big young writers are women. And I think people, you know, over the course of the kind of five to 10 years that's happened, it does seem like people have perhaps forgotten about the last thousand years or so of literature where men were very much kind of dominating the scene and I think that it's just

very easy to be kind of sniffy and chippy about young women's writing particularly when their audience is is young women as well but that does just reflect who's reading books really um so it does mean that you can just end up with some quite like quite quite dismissive I would say uh responses to your work yeah who have you had that clearly you must have done yes right okay and you think that might be different if you were a young male author maybe I feel like potentially I might be being dismissed in different ways it's there's it's interesting because there are so few young male authors at the minute um and that I I would be like I always kind of flag my concern that we'll lose marginal marginalized men's voices in in

these um in this kind of influx of of young women authors like I would I think it would be terrible if we kind of lost the very few books that are being published by black men that are being published by queer men um and um is there always a comparison um for example if you're a young female author you may at the moment get compared to sally rooney do you think that's the thing when you have certain women who break out and really kind of leading the pack that you've you've kind of got a dovetail in behind them yes basically i feel like if you if you publish a book right now you're only going to be either favorably or unfavorably compared to Sally Rooney, even if your writing has absolutely nothing to do with with hers. And, you know, Sally Rooney is a

fantastic writer, but it just because she's also a woman and a woman in her early 30s, it doesn't mean that all of us are kind of attempting to or writing in some kind of Sally Rooney-esque vein. I think it can be quite exhausting both for the women novelists who are doing something quite different and I imagine for Sally Rooney herself. Yes, she can't be all things to all women. And it's dark and it's comic and there's a horror element to your writing as well. It kind of had a bit of a tales of the unexpected vibe certain short stories uh that i was reading what what attracts you to that genre gosh i think i'm just quite morbid um i've always liked horror um it's one of my favorite genres i've always been very very

influenced by it i think i'm i'm always interested in what um as a film critic whose first name is Linda and I always forget her second name who talks about the um body genre as the idea of you know um horror melodrama and erotica as being the the kind of genres that induce like a physical reaction in in the person watching a film or reading a book and I think that's sort of primarily what I'm interested in as well as this sort of quite visceral and intense feeling that you can get from reading and watching films and television and so on. And do you think thematically you can claim that back because you're writing about it from a female perspective? Because very often that hasn't historically happened in that genre, has it? And the women have been objectified. And one could argue that they often are in modern crime thrillers as well.

Yeah, I think so. I'm often quite forgiving about older horror fiction. I think often, particularly in films, there are some quite interesting proto-feminist readings you can get from horror that could also be classed as sexist. I suppose it's one of the things that I find interesting about the genre as well is that it is so divisive and that you can get all of these different kind of things out of it depending on who you are.

Well, listen, I know you've got some exciting potential film projects in the offing. Can you talk about those? I actually can't. I'm doing the adaptation of my first novel, Boy Parts, but I can't really say much beyond that. Well, listen, it's been a joy to have you in the studio. Thank you so much for joining us. The short story collection, She's Always Hungry by Natalie Hewitt

is out on Thursday this week. As always, if you've been affected by anything, why don't I call you, I called you Natalie Hewitt is out on Thursday this week. As always, if you've been affected by anything, why don't I call you, I called you Natalie Hewitt. That's our next guest. Yes. I'm getting ahead of myself. Eliza, I do apologise.

Eliza Clark is out on Thursday this week. As always, if you have been affected by anything in that conversation, help and resources are available on the BBC Action Line website. thank you so much for joining us and now we are going to talk to natalie here it's natalie your eyes popped open there i didn't realize i'd written a collection of short stories uh natalie here my next guest spent two months in antarctica directing and producing on the documentary film endurance which is about

ernest shackleton's 1914 expedition in which his crew had to abandon ship in pack ice and survive for over a year before they were rescued. The documentary features restored footage and quite brilliantly, AI recreated voices of the original crew, as well as the moment of discovery in March 2022 of Shackleton's ship, 3,000 metres down in the icy waters of the Weddell Sea. Natalie joins me in the studio now. Good morning. Good morning.

It's an incredible watch. You went to the coldest place on earth to film this search for Shackleton's ship. And I understand part of the motivation is because as a woman in the film industry, you were finding it hard to get a break, weren't you? Well, that was my first trip to Antarctica. So my first film that I directed actually was in Antarctica,

but it was back in 2016. And I had been producing for quite a long time and I got this voicemail from an old boss of mine who said, yeah, would you like to go to Antarctica on your own for three months to make a film for the BBC? I need to know by tomorrow lunchtime. And I sort of, like the kind of background context of that was I'd just finished a project with Dan Snow

and some other incredible filmmakers where we'd been on this expedition in the Yukon for the BBC and in the evenings we'd sit around the campfire and two of our guides on that on that trip were polar explorers and they would tell these stories of their trips to Antarctica and I was sitting there secretly thinking to myself well that sounds horrendous why would you ever want to go there it's kind of like freezing cold always windy snow blowing in your eyes and there was a story about a poo freezing in a toilet which I just thought I was just like

no why would you ever want to go there? And then obviously, like two months later, I got this phone call saying, do you want to go? And there were two things about that call, which I sort of realised. One was I was like, I think this is my chance. I think this is my break. It's so hard, I think, for women in the film industry to move from producing into directing. I think there's, you know, there's still loads and loads of problems. And you see it borne out in the statistics. We still have 75% of factual television in the UK is directed by men,

despite sort of equal numbers of equal people from each gender going into the film industry. And so I kind of thought, well, this is my chance. But I also had this sort of thing in the back of my mind where I was like, I just really want to know why people go there. Like what makes someone want to go to this place which sounds so awful and difficult to be. So you've been twice now so paint a picture for us and our listeners if you will of what it's

like what it's like to survive there what does it do physically to you and to your equipment? I mean it's quite an overwhelming experience in lots of ways. Certainly when you first arrive, I remember the first time I went to Antarctica and as the plane landed, I thought to myself, oh my goodness, what have I done? Because they say to you in your kind of pre-deployment training, so it's easier to get back from the International Space Station than it is to get back from Antarctica in the winter. And they're very, very clear to you that if anything happens to your family, if anything happens at home,

you are not going home until your plane ticket, which for me was three months later. So it's very overwhelming, the isolation and the sort of desolation of it. You know, I think on that first trip, I remember about two weeks in seeing a bird fly across the sky and being just taken aback by it because I was so used to this completely flat horizon in every direction forever and ever and ever. And in that sense, it's it's very difficult. You know, obviously, there's so much kind of that you have to think about in terms of your own safety and the safety of your crew.

You know, the first time I was there on my own, and for endurance I had an amazing film crew with me um and actually one morning on on the endurance shoot I came down I think it was about sort of six o'clock in the morning and I came down to the back deck and one of my amazing cinematographers called James had been filming all night and um they just I think launched the underwater drone and put it in the sea um and I came out and I was like you know asking what was going on and he just turned around looked at me and all of his eyelashes had frozen and I was like James I think you probably need to go inside and get warm because I don't think we can allow anything else on you to freeze like we just need to so it is but it is one of those things also where it's very surreal because after you've been there for a while it becomes very normal you know it becomes

very normal to have to wear incredible amounts of clothes to go outside. It becomes very normal to have to put, like, lots of layers of gloves on to go and do things. And I remember on my first trip, it kind of became normal to go to breakfast on a skidoo. Yeah. And then you're kind of like, is this... I remember getting back from my first trip and thinking,

have I filmed anything interesting? Because it all became so normal to me to go to breakfast on a skidoo or to go and film the penguins or, you know. And actually, thankfully, when I got home and started working with my editor and my exec producers and they were like, no, this is very odd and unusual and this is very interesting.

Well, you certainly did film some very fascinating stuff. And the moment when the wreck is discovered is quite a point in that film. Talk us through it. I mean, this is the life's work for people on that ship, one in particular who'd made an aborted attempt before. What was it like to be there when they discovered it? Yeah, I mean, the honest answer is quite stressful.

And also, the emotion that I felt was just relief because, you know, for those who haven't seen the film, there was a bit of a blip, should we say in the search, I don't want to give too much away, which had happened a couple of weeks earlier. And obviously there was the failed expedition, the failed attempt in 2019. And then also we had got to the point where we were on the clock we know we potentially had to leave at any moment you know we had technically kind of two or three days left on the charter of the ship but actually we'd got to the stage where we were checking in with the captain kind of every couple of hours because the worry was that the weather

would change and if it got really cold we could get frozen in just like Shackleton did and obviously no one wanted that so we really were aware like keenly aware at that point that time was running out and we had very little opportunity left. And so actually that moment was both kind of relief and also quite stressful because I knew we had a matter of days to film all of the kind of unravelling and impact of that, you know, just to see how that affected the crew and how they would then go and film it and do these incredible 3D scans. You know, that was all still to come

and I knew it was really important to document that because it was the world first, you know, to scan a shipwreck to one millimetre resolution in 3D at 3,000 metres below the surface of the sea. It had never been done before

and I knew there were lots of challenges still to come. So it was busy. It was exactly. you're not there as a fan you're there you're there working it is incredible um and we have to talk about the man himself shackleton story it's it can be seen uh as a triumph of spirit but also one of you could say male ego entitlement as it points out in the documentary, he kept going back to Antarctica because his whole status was based on these expeditions. Ultimately, he failed in his goal. He risked many lives in the process. He did save many lives in the process as well. He never left a man behind.

How do you view him now? I mean, I am fascinated by Shackleton. I think he is such an interesting character. And I also think the way that we, you know, have culturally understood him or lauded him has been very interesting to see as well. You know, obviously for this film, I did months and months and months and months and months of research, you know, reading everything I could possibly find, watching everything I could possibly find, listening to everything I could possibly find, and really trying to get an understanding of him as a man and I suppose the things the two things that I've come away with which I feel are just so powerful and I hope you know people kind of see unfolding in the film are that Shackleton was a man who you know his greatest success actually came out of his greatest failure and so you know I think also as a woman in the exploration space and in the filmmaking space you know, his greatest success actually came out of his greatest failure. And so, you know, I think also as a woman in the exploration space and in the filmmaking space, you know,

I think there's so much, especially in exploration film and storytelling, you know, there is a lot of bravado, as you said, and there is a kind of, you know, male hero character or sort of preconception of what a male hero should be. And that's why one of the reasons I love Shackleton, because I think that he actually shows the value of failure when we're trying to do great things, and when we're trying to do new things, and when we're trying to push boundaries. And the fact that he, you know, yeah, had this incredible achievement from failure and had the both the humility and the foresight and the kind of attitude to be able to learn from that and grow from that, I think is amazing. Watching the documentary, there don't seem to be many

women in the expedition crew. I think there was one French woman, I clocked for the whole, I mean, there's clearly a long way to go on that side of things, too. Yeah. And I mean, I think that's one of the reasons why I'm so passionate about this work. Because I think, you know, there is still a huge disparity in sort of the representation of people and backgrounds within the exploration world. And I think, you know, for me, I feel whilst there still aren't enough women in that world, at least I can bring a female voice to it. And I think, you know, for so long, the stories have been about men and told by men. And I think's why you know even though this story you know Shackleton's story is still very

much about men but at least it has female voices bringing that kind of new perspective to it and yes we you know on the exhibition actually I was really pleasantly surprised about the amount of women that were on the the crew of the ship so that the ship the incredible S.A. Agulhas 2 is a South African ship. And actually, I was really impressed that there were quite a number of female crew members running the ship. And then on our expedition crew,

I think we had about seven or eight. So obviously, C. Maver, and she is the only woman on the subsea team who were the team who did the actual kind of operating of the underwater vehicle. But we had a bunch of female scientists with us. Obviously, I was there. We had a female photographer with us um and you know there it was a pleasant surprise that you know because sometimes I am the only woman like on a film shoot just if you can tell me very briefly what's that like

it's both fine and and sort of surreal like I it's one of those things where I'm like I just you know we're all humans and I think when I'm at work, I'm just like, we're all humans and we are all here to do a job. And I sort of try not to think about those things. But I think sometimes you do notice it. Sometimes the way that people maybe approach or the expectations, I suppose, you know, I have. I've had a number of like emails where it's like, oh, we want you to come and direct on this. But we need you to know that the cameras are very heavy. Will you be OK with that?

I'm fine with that. Natalie, great to talk to you. Natalie Hewitt and Endurance is streaming on Disney+. Now, join me tomorrow on Woman's Hour. If you've ever received a correspondent that began, dear sirs, one Woman's Hour listener is trying to do away with that. And Susie Dent will join us, too, to talk that through. Woman's Hour tomorrow from 10.

That's all from today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hi, I'm Kirsty Young. And I'm happy to tell you that Young Again, my podcast for BBC Radio 4, is back with more conversations with people who fascinate me. In the new series, we'll hear from the comedian Miranda Hart. Part of being human is that we are vulnerable. The writer Irvin Welsh. It's quite a thing to be eight years old and then suddenly to have a criminal record. And we'll begin with a conversation with the actor Minnie Driver. What do you wish you'd understood about the movie business? It's all ephemera. None of it is real.

Subscribe to Young Again on BBC Science. 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.