Woman's Hour - Listener Week: a basic guide to economics, quizzes, ageing without children

Episode Date: August 22, 2022

Sarah wrote in suggesting we provide a basic guide to economics. Economics is so central to our lives but few of us, she thinks, are economically literate enough to engage properly with the constant references in the news. Sarah is joined by Rupal Patel, Senior Economist at the Bank of England and co-author of Can’t We Just Print More Money? Economics in Ten Simple Questions. One of our listeners – Roz Unwin – wanted to share her passion for quizzing. She took it up over lockdown, and now runs her own quizzes in North London. She joins Emma, along with Alice Walker, who was crowned this year’s Mastermind Champion. Ageing without children is the subject of our next discussion. Listener Mo Ray, Professor of Health and Social Care at the University of Lincolnshire wanted us to raise awareness of the growing numbers. She says care and ageing policy is still built on the assumption that behind every older person there is at least one adult child ready and able to provide care and support. She joins Emma along with Jenny Collieson, Trustee of the charity AWOC, Ageing without Children. To discuss the realities of the post mastectomy body, Emma speaks to listener Janine, a former nurse from Merseyside. Janine had a bilateral mastectomy as well as bilateral reconstructions, yet remains nipple-less. She emailed in saying “I have no idea where to go to get ‘completed”. Similarly frustrated by the lack of creative and attractive prosthetics, lingerie and fashion for the asymmetric body post her own mastectomy, we hear from Katie, a listener from Leicester who founded a collective called Bionic Boob, made up of artists making knitted boobs, sculptures, body armour and even biodegradable boobs with shelving. Presenter: Emma Barnett Producer: Lucinda Montefiore

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to the programme, the first of Woman's Hour Listener Week. I do talk about how central you are to the programme and I mean it every single day, but this week we've actually handed the reins to you to see what you feel isn't being covered, perhaps maybe is being covered, but never in the way you want to hear. Perhaps there's certain people that you'd like us to interview, you'd like me to talk to and ask particular questions of. I do love it because I never know what's coming up, genuinely. On today's

programme, for instance, we have the joy of quizzing bionic breasts and ageing without children with a healthy sprinkle of economic literacy. Only on Woman's Hour during Listener Week. Do get in touch, I should say, if there's anything, of course, that you hear throughout the programme you want to contribute to, as usual, I should say. But if you want to suggest something for tomorrow, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, we are still in the market for your suggestions. And you've been continuing to get in touch over the weekend. I've been looking at those messages this morning. Let us know what you would like to be covered. It could be based on something in your own life

it could be a campaign you're to do with, it could be to do with a political issue in your area get in touch. The number you need you can text 84844 text will be charged to your standard rate on social media we at bbc woman's hour or email me or the team through the website i should say you can also send a whatsapp message now or a voice note using the number 03700 100 444 data charges may apply so you might want

to use wi-fi in all terms and conditions of contacting Woman's Hour are on the Woman's Hour website. But first, police are continuing to search for 24-year-old student nurse Awami Davis from Greys in Essex, who has been missing for six weeks. Many of you have been in touch asking for the very latest information, including Samantha on Instagram, who only a few hours ago wrote to myself and the team about Awami. Awami left her family home on July 4th and was last seen after midnight in Croydon, South London on July 7th. She has not been found. Her family had reported her missing to Essex Police on the 6th and the force handed the investigation to the Metropolitan Police a couple of weeks later. This weekend it was revealed that

Met officers actually spoke to Awami on the 6th of August, although they did not know who she was at that point or that she was missing. This was after officers were called to her house in Croydon because of concerns over the welfare of a woman. Police attended and called the London Ambulance Service, but the woman told them she did not want help and they left. The police watchdog, the IOPC, is considering whether to investigate. Five people arrested so far in relation to the inquiry have been released on bail.

Well, I'm joined now to try and make some sense of this and what sense can be made by Shabnam Chowdhury, a former detective superintendent who served in the Met for 30 years. Good morning. Good morning, Emma. What do you make of the case first of all? I think that your previous caller or the message that came through as to the public wanting to know what's happening and I think that they don't seem to know what's happening. There's some real mixed messages coming out of here at the moment. You've got Croydon

Police putting out a statement significantly very quickly after the Daily Mirror article came out. Then you've got British Transport Police sending out messages saying that actually Awami may be on the underground somewhere. She may be wandering around dishevelled and wanting to speak to women. And then you've got the actual investigation itself.

It's not clear who the senior investigating officer is. There doesn't seem to be any kind of communication to the public in respect of the exact timeline. Yes, she went missing on the 4th. Yes, it was reported on the 6th. Between the 6th and the 23rd, Essex Police took over that investigation. What did they do? What inquiries did they actually make?

Was she then at that point rated as a low risk, a medium or a high risk? Because that is very, very important of how that investigation will be determined and how it will be investigated. High risk will involve lots more resources, a lot more publication, whereas medium and low risk may not necessitate that much more in terms of the inquiries, because it may be something that they, you know, that is just considered a low risk. Awami is a vulnerable, she's been declared as vulnerable, she's got mental health issues, it's believed that she's not taking medication, and that she may have resulted in taking alcohol. But the fact is, this young woman, 24 years of age,

who is a student nurse, and let's not be missing the big point here. She's a young black student nurse who's completely disappeared into thin air. Five people have been arrested and they've been bailed to return. So we don't know what's happening with that. I fully accept that the Metropolitan Police

specialist crime teams will be investigating this to the best of their ability but the fact is they need to communicate it to the public because nobody seems to know what is actually happening here. And is that unusual that you feel that there is this confusion in in terms of some of the communication? Well I think in fairness to the public and in particular fairness to the black community they will make comparisons the fact is when Sarah Everard went missing she was declared missing after three days there was a big hunt on for her after three days it took five weeks for the police to actually publicize this and put it out on social media so it's understandable why people would feel like that

she is vulnerable we don't know what information the police had at the very outset. So it may be that it might have been a bit slower for them to investigate it. And as for the police officers not knowing that Awami was who she was, that she was actually declared missing, that actually, in fairness, is entirely possible. Because if she's reported missing to Essex Police, it may be that the timeline on how long it took them to actually record it, or the fact is it may have not gone to the police national computer at that time. If the officer in the Metropolitan Police had done their checks. Now, I'm hoping that through the IOPC, they come back and say, well, actually, they did do their checks.

And at that point, she hadn't been missing. But if they had done their checks and she hadn't been missing or that there was information about her, then that's going to be a real problem. The fact is, it's very messy. You've got Metropolitan Police, you've got British Transport Police, you've got Croydon Police. The communication here seems to be very, very disjointed. I think it's time now for the Met Police to come out, for the senior investigating officer to give a statement from the heart, not a written down statement, to give the timeline of activity, what they want from the community, because the community want to help,

to go and do a community meeting, get the community out on board, get them out to do a walk and talk, get them to actually be on board to help find this young woman who has disappeared, as I say, into thin air. Well, there's been some response that we've got from the Met this morning and a response particularly around, for instance, that this investigation hasn't been taken seriously and in part some of those allegations due to Awami's race. The Met say in a statement here, this is categorically not true. The teams in every borough are dedicated to the task of locating people who go missing, some overall figures given as well.

These officers use information from a variety of sources to carry out an unbiased risk assessment based on the facts of each case. Our efforts to find Awami are being led by a team of detectives from the MET's Specialist Crime Command who are experts in complex investigations. Any suggestion that the investigation is not being taken seriously and that we are not fully dedicated to finding Awami is not only disappointing, it is simply not supported by the facts. What would you say to that, of course, as a former detective superintendent in the MET? Firstly, I would say that they are putting their heart and soul into it. That is for sure.

I've no doubt that they are dedicated to the investigation. However, what they have to understand is the public's perception is the public's reality. And the fact is the public don't have trust in them. It didn't help that the Met Police at some point knew that they'd spoken to Awami and they waited until the publication of the Daily Mirror article and then they put out a statement from Croydon Police. I don't think that was helpful and that basically all that does is they may have the reasons for it

but the fact is what it does it creates a further divide and it creates further mistrust and that's why it's important. It's all very well coming out with these you know these statements the fact is they need to come out with something more concrete for the public to actually understand what are your inquiries what are you doing and how are you doing it and who else are you involved with in order to find this young woman i have no doubt that they have the specialist crime are working very hard to actually locate this young woman. But the fact is they need to communicate that better to the public. I mean, and just finally, we are now, as you say, definitely, especially here on Women's,

are trying to keep Awami as a 24-year-old student nurse, Awami Davis, you know, the young woman in our minds, you know, who she is, how she is, where she might be. There's huge concern and obviously, understandably, who she is, how she is, where she might be. There's huge concern and obviously understandably for her. I mean, we are now six weeks into this Shabnam. I mean, what's your view on this? People are holding prayer vigils, people are talking about this on social media and talking about her and, you know, a lot of hope for her family. We have to have hope and I think we have to believe that she's going to be found alive and safe. That's the first priority and I don't think that anybody else can consider anything else at this stage. The fact is we have to live in hope and we have to keep working

together with the police, with the communities, bringing everybody on board together because actually it's not just owned by the police, we all own this together. She's a young woman in somebody's communities. She's a daughter. She's a friend. She's a loved one. And if you can't get your head around that, then the fact is you've got to be able to work together, support the police, do everything you can, find, give every bit of information that you've got, that you think that will help support this investigation to bring this girl home to her mother and her family. Thank you very much. Shabnam Chowdhury, former detective superintendent who served in the Metropolitan Police for 30 years. We are talking about the case of Awami Davis. What has happened? What has not happened?

And just a further statement from the Metropolitan Police. This is with regard to what we've heard this weekend about the police actually speaking to Awami after she was missing from her home. And this is over that weekend in August and just afterwards. On Wednesday 6th of July, officers were called to Clarendon Road, Croydon. There were concerns for the welfare of a woman at the location. Officers attended and called the London Ambulance Service, but the woman stated

she did not want assistance and left. At the time of the call, Awami was not marked as a missing person on national police systems. As a result of the subsequent missing person investigation, it was later confirmed on the 13th of July that the woman officers had spoken to was Awami. The Met's Directorate of Professional Standards was consulted and as there was contact with the police, the matter was referred to the watchdog, the IOPC. The officers are not subject to any current investigation. investigation the interaction was recorded on officers body worn video and has been viewed by members of the independent advisory group and awami's family to ensure openness and transparency of course we'll bring you any news on this case which is of course a live one awami davis who has been missing now for six weeks that's one of the questions i have to say coming in from several of

you about what you wanted to hear covered this morning at the start of Listener Week here on Woman's Hour. Another issue that was brought to our attention as something that needed perhaps better explaining, better unpacking, is the economy. It is, of course, the defining issue in the race to become the next prime minister of the United Kingdom. For instance, Rishi Sunak has criticised his rival Liz Truss's economic plans, saying she cannot afford tax cuts and a support package to help tackle rising energy bills. His attack comes as an emergency budget planned by Liz Truss may not be accompanied by independent forecasts. Liz Truss's team says immediate action is needed to address the cost of living and described her plans as solid and best for the country. But the Institute for Fiscal Studies has called pledges by both leadership candidates unrealistic unless they are matched by spending cuts. Well, Sarah has

written into the programme suggesting the need for a basic guide to economics to be given by a politically neutral, wise woman. And I have Sarah on the phone with me in Devon. And Sarah, I hope we've fulfilled your brief because with me in the studio is Rupal Patel, senior economist at the Bank of England and co-author of a book, Can't We Just Print More Money? Economics in 10 Simple Questions.

Sarah, I'm going to start with you. Good morning. Hello, Emma. Morning. Morning. What do you feel the gap is around the discussion of of economics and it's so central at the moment and actually our literacy levels around it um well i feel like there's money and we all get that but then there's the way that communities and societies organize money and i think that's what we call economics

but beyond that i don't think i really understand how that organising happens. And I don't think many other people do either. And we are talking about it more than ever. Are you finding that terms are banded around perhaps that are not explained or put in context well enough? Well, I think lots of people vaguely know there's a relationship between, say, inflation and interest rates. But, you know, what are the processes behind that? There's other things like international exchange rates that maybe affect us on holiday. But I think they affect the world.

Yeah, it's a bit opaque, isn't it? There's all these terms and I don't really know what they mean. Well, you're definitely not alone. Even if everyone's not going to admit it, you really aren't. And we do also try to explain things, but it's always better to improve on that. More work to do and the homework is going to be helped here by Rupal Patel, as I said.

Rupal, what are your qualifications here in terms of being a politically neutral wise woman, just to make sure we've fulfilled the brief? Morning, Emma. I'm an economist at the Bank of England. I've been working there for nearly a decade on some of the kind of biggest challenges the economy has been facing. So from things like Brexit, Covid and now the Russia-Ukraine war. And by writing this book, me and my co-author have tried to dismystify economics and make sure that it's explained in a very simple manner. And we've used examples which are accessible to people and that they can relate to. Yes. And neutral politically.

Yes. So very neutral politically. It's largely just explains the building blocks of economics, the simple things that people need to know to help them engage better in what's been happening around them. So just to get to Sarah, if I may, on your behalf, just a few questions, because I know the message that you sent in to us. When we look at, for instance, the relation between interest and inflation, what do you want to say about that, that you perhaps think needs explaining better? So I agree, these terms are kind of banded around and very few people really understand the relationships, but they're not that difficult. So, for example, we all know that inflation is above targets, and we're all feeling the pinch. And the way that Bank of England has been dealing with it is by increasing interest rates. By increasing interest rates, you make it more expensive to borrow money and encourages more saving.

And so by encouraging more saving, you buy less things. By buying less things, you stop prices going up as fast or you might even cause prices to fall a bit more. And that can slow down inflation in the economy. And is that going to work? That's the concern here. So interest rates are quite a blunt tool. They really target the demand side of things. So they slow down how much people spend and they can also put a stop to how much businesses can push on some of the costs to customers. But what they won't do is, you know, stop energy prices rising, because those factors are because of the Russia-Ukraine war going on, or some of the global supply issues that we're seeing there because of lockdowns in countries

such as China. So interest rates won't help with that. But it's one of the kind of the main tools that central banks have to control inflation at the moment is that making you um feel any better sarah or at least a bit clearer um a little bit but in a way it sounds like a game of snakes and ladders to me it's like if you put you know if you what did you say if you save if you can save more and then you would make money or you can spend less but how can you save more if you haven't got enough money to spend in the first place? I don't quite understand. Is it still going to work in this, you know, post-internet 21st century world? Isn't that quite an old idea, RuPaul, if you don't mind me putting it?

No, go for it. So the way that it works is by, so the way that it's kind of interest rates being put up at the moment is to make sure that inflation doesn't become embedded. So what people might not realise is that inflation can be self-fulfilling. So if people think inflation will be higher in the future, they'll act like inflation will be higher

and spend money in that way or kind of, you know, go about doing spend money in that way or kind of you know go about doing their things in that way and by doing that it can cause even more inflation and cause inflation to be higher than it needs to be so by putting interest rates up you're really slowing things down and kind of the biggest way that interest rates be the main reason interest rates being put up now is because it will stop some businesses passing on the costs that they're seeing, you know, costs from higher energy prices, costs from these lockdowns onto customers. So you have confidence it will work? Yes. Okay,

there you go. That's something in this. There's been a forecast by the governor of the Bank of England now for a recession. RuPaul, how do we manage that news, if you like, in our day-to-day lives? What does that mean? So that does mean, so interest rates, as I said, slow down the economy. And so it's quite a tightrope that central banks have to walk along. So on one hand, they have to ensure that inflation doesn't get out of control. But on the other, they need to balance it with economic growth. And at the moment, what we're seeing is short term pain for long term gain, higher inflation in the future will be worse than perhaps a recession.

I also mentioned, and I know we're not going to get into the politics of this, Sarah, but I mentioned at the beginning there, you've got two people vying to be the Prime Minister, we don't have a general election. So it's not, it's only up to the members of the Conservative Party who it's going to be. But one, the former chancellor, saying the other, her plans will not work, and the other side saying our plans definitely will work for the economy. I think that's another area, Sarah,

that people find confusing. You know, what's actually right when you've got one camp saying the other person's camp is completely not going to work? I don't know if you share in that confusion, Sarah? Well, yeah, and I wonder if even the most newsroom journalists understand enough about economics. Oh, let's not test journalists on their maths. It's a fast road to not having a good moment. Although I hope the ones who are specialising in the economy are across that, and I'm sure many of them are,

and we do rely on them to explain to us. but I think it's a fair question overall which is you know Rupa when you when you do see something like that not to comment necessarily on the politics or the options but can you understand why people think well how can both be on the table and one be right and one be wrong? Yeah I completely understand that in economics is quite complicated there are very different factors at play but what's really important is that people go out and understand what these policies mean for them. So, you know, if you have an option to vote in the next leadership contest, you should really understand what these policies mean and the outcomes that they'll have. And just coming to something else completely, Sarah, but it's, you know, it's bedded into our economics. I know that you also wanted to ask about the international exchange rates, because you have a particular connection to money and money that you send overseas.

That's right, yeah, because as a young woman, I worked in Kenya and I'm still in close contact with a family there. And I send them about £40 a month and it basically pays their rent. And the reason it pays their rent is because in Kenya it's worth more like £400. And that's because the pound is really strong and the Kenyan shilling is weak on the global stage. And I'm really just baffled by how we have a global system like that which seems to benefit some countries like Britain and really hugely disadvantage others and I know I know in your book Rupal that I haven't had chance to read and I'm really looking forward to reading after this there's a chapter about you know why

clothes come from Asia and I wonder if that's connected in some way this sort of magnifying glass of international exchange rates. RuPaul? Yeah, so you're right. So it's what economists would call purchasing power parity, or PPP. And basically, it means it kind of measures how much a pound is worth here in the UK versus in Kenya. So how many things you can buy. So as you said, you can buy more things in Kenya so how many things you can buy so as you said you can buy more things in Kenya with a pound than you can here and there are many different reasons for this so one of them might be how much the kind of average incomes are in Kenya versus here so it might be cheaper for businesses to produce things there than they are in the UK because they don't have to pay their

workers as much money and so they don't need to pass those costs on as much to customers. Yes. And that's why it goes a lot further. But I suppose staying with that theme of disparity and the value of money and who gets what, another question that we are regularly asked about, and of course has been in the news, is the gap getting bigger between those who are paid the best in our society and those who are not. And effectively, the question boils down to why are some people paid so much more than others? I know you've also thought about that. Yeah, so wages are determined by what economists would call the marginal product of labour. And it essentially means you're paid what your employer thinks you're worth.

So it's how much money you can produce for them. So in the book, actually, I talk about how video gamers who are usually teenagers get paid millions of pounds to play video games. But you know, if we were to play video games, no one's going to pay us to do that. And it's because they're really good at it. And they're employed by e-teams which get revenue from you know ticket sales where people go and watch these video gamers in large stadiums or through sponsorship deals so these video games gamers get a cut of that revenue which is actually worth millions of pounds but their businesses are making even more uh than they are yes and and i mean i suppose sarah i i don't want to hog the questions here i was just trying to also reflect with some of the questions i know we get in from

other listeners just you have the the final the final say here is there anything else you want to add or ask rupal um well i mean shareholders is another one um again going back to this idea of snakes and ladders um um it's just yeah yeah i don't know i need to read your book rupaul well i mean no but i suppose is it it's a question really what about what determines value and and how how businesses are valued is there something along those lines yeah when we buy something in a shop it's nothing to do with the cost of it isn't really much to do with what it it's real cost it ends up being as a price tag yeah it's gone through all these different value systems i think sarah also from just reading your message and also i know with your conversation here with our team and our producers it sounds sarah if i if i can be as bold to try and put put it a bit more together it's it

from from everything you said is that it a bit more together it's it from from everything you said is that it sounds like you feel there's a game being played and a lot of people don't know the rules exactly that's a really good way to put it I couldn't put it as clearly but yeah no no no well I try to try to hold your hand and you can hold mine as we do this on listener week but Rupal on that on that point that that is a feeling that people have about the economy. Yeah, I completely understand. And particularly loads of people think that, you know,

the stock market is all about gambling and speculation. But actually, these financial markets are really important for us in the economy. So you say, for example, Marks and Spencers want to open a whole new shop. They're going to borrow money or they'll need to borrow money to do it. And they could go to a bank, or they could issue some shares, which we buy. And they'll use that money to open up a new shop, employ people in the local area. And so it benefits people, those people that are then employees might go and use their income to buy, I don't know, say a new TV. And those people selling TVs will go and spend that money. It can help the economy grow. And in return, if you own a share, you'll get a cut of their revenue or their profits as dividends, and you can use that to pay for things.

So you might think that financial markets aren't benefiting people, but actually they do help the economy grow. Kate says, this can't be a politically neutral explanation of interest rates and inflation. An employee of the Bank of England has a particular stance. Final word to you, Rupaul, just because that wells at you. What would you like to say to Kate? So the Bank of England are independent from the government

and got independence of interest rate setting in 1997. And this has been really beneficial, actually, because it really helps to make sure that policymakers are very focused on one thing and one thing only, and that is controlling inflation. There's a tendency for politicians to move interest rates to benefit them. Because putting interest rates slows down the economy, politicians are less likely to do it when an election is coming up, even if inflation is high. And so this kind of stops that happening. Well, I suppose it's also a hint at some of the concern about our institutions and the trust that people have that particular message, which is why I wanted to give you a chance to at least respond in part to it.

Rupal Patel, Senior Economist at the Bank of England. Thank you. The book's called Can't We Just Print More Money? Economics in 10 Simple Questions. Sarah, thank you so much to you. Lovely to have you on the programme. Pleasure. And can I just mention, I've also had a mastectomy, so I'm going to be listening keenly for the bit later on to the bionic boob.

Good. I'm happy I can keep you till the end of the programme. Thank you so much. Thank you. Well, I suppose a theme, if I can keep going with this, of Listener Week, is it almost feels a bit like a quiz for those who are coming on to try and answer some of the questions like RuPaul. And now that does bring me on to quizzing. Are you a regular? Perhaps you set them or you just love answering quizzes.

Maybe you were roped into an online family or work quiz during lockdown. One of our listeners, Roz Unwin, wanted to share her passion for quizzing as part of Listener Week. She took it up over lockdown and now is running her own quizzes in London. And she joins me alongside Alice Walker. You may remember we had Alice on before. A veteran quizzer, she's described as now. She was crowned this year's Mastermind Champion, scoring a perfect score in her specialist subject,

which of course was the Peak District. She also became the oldest female winner of the show, aged 66, which we talked about before. Alice, I'll come to you in just a moment, but a warm welcome back to you. Roz, good morning. Thank you so much for bringing quizzing to the agenda. Did you really only start in lockdown or had you dabbled before? Hi, thanks very much for having me. I had dabbled. I had dabbled before, but it became something quite important for my family in lockdown, as I think it did for many

people, to keep in touch regularly and see each other and kind of be united by doing something rather than just by staring in a screen and losing that sense of real community. So yeah, did it a lot in lockdown. And then me and my sister Millie and my brother Eddie had a chat after lockdown and thought, let's do this in real life. I think we could actually do this and and get something out of it so we started doing it as a kind of fundraising thing for our local food bank in Finsbury Park where we live the St John's Food Bank and we've had some great success it's been a lot of fun I write the quizzes Eddie is master because he has the loudest voice and my sister

is the kind of operations manager and And we've just really enjoyed it. It's a real joy. And it's really nice to be on with Alice because I know Alice is a quizzing legend. But I think it's joy. All of those things. Alice, hello. Let me bring you in at this point.

Roz, I will go back to you. You know, I'll say it again. Congratulations on your accolades here. Thank you. How did you get into quizzing originally though? I've always loved to quiz. ever since I was a child I was the geeky kid with my nose in an encyclopedia and we just my parents like quizzes and I started doing quiz league in the 80s in the 1980s and just you know to start taking it a bit more seriously. And the more you do it, the better you get at it. Do you have books and books that you've written out answers in or you've tried to memorise facts?

How do you actually commit those things to memory? Yeah, I just, yeah, I do write things down. You know, if something comes up, I think, oh, you know, that might come up in a quiz. I make a note of it. And at some point, I have sat down and kind of learned all the American state capitals and things like that, because they come up in quizzes so much, you just think, well, I might as well just learn them and then it's done. That's information. I love that idea. These are the basics. Let's get them done. And then I'll be safe for the future. On that, as someone who's now writing quizzes, Ros, what represents a good quiz?

Because you don't want everyone to go home having got nothing right, do you? Absolutely. It's a good question. And pitching it is difficult because you want, I think the dream quiz, there should be not everyone getting 10 out of 10, but also not one getting one out of 10, because that's miserable for everyone. I think a range is really important. So a real range of rounds, including more standard ones like general knowledge and current affairs, but also some quite out there ones. One of my favourites is guess the year. So you say three events or three things that happened in a year, and then people have to work out what year it was. And the discussions that you overhear when that round is running are brilliant. People saying, oh, I was doing GCSE when the Spice

Girls did Wannabe, so therefore it must have been 1996 and it's just great and I love seeing people discussing coming together I actually love the arguments as well when people get really heated and really uh convinced of their own intellect um but no it's um it's a great thing to do and it's been a real well I was gonna say Ros you can be completely convinced you're right. I mean, the conviction, I have heard this, that I really know this, this is my one. And then the burning shame that encroaches your face as you go red and you've let the whole team down. Absolutely.

There's that great scene in Bridget Jones where she's absolutely convinced and she says, boil my head for supper if it isn't right, Madonna's song or something. And then the quiz master just says, no. So it's happened to many people and it is entertaining, but it is knowing things, as I'm sure Alice thinks as well, is a real wonderful feeling. Being the only person in a room to get a quiz question right. I don't think there's anything like that. It's a wonderful, wonderful moment.

Alice, is it the highest high? Yeah, I guess so. I I mean I quite like showing off and it's just yeah it's just nice to know things that other people don't know. Yeah and have you had any rows have you been I mean I've seen you I've seen you solo quizzing obviously on the television but when you're when you're as part of a team have you had to win your point? Yeah my both the quiz teams I play and my partner is also in the team, so there can be some quite difficult moments. Since winning Mastermind, is everyone not messing with you a bit more?

Actually, it's not really the quiz season at the moment, so we haven't really done much since it was broadcast in April. We'll be starting again next month. When you say quiz season, where are you when you do this? I want to picture it. I play in the Macclesfield Quiz League and the Stockport Quiz League.

Okay. So are we talking in a room? Is there a big room? In a pub, yeah. In a pub. It's a pub league, yes. So there's lots of different pubs to take part in.

We all play each other throughout the season. So if I was you, not that I wish to ever advise you, but I'd get that trophy and I'd just whack it down in the middle of the table very casually on the first day back and say here I am um but I don't know how that would go down Alice but I wonder everybody knows and you had to keep it secret I remember for a

while as well until it went out Alice just just on that point on then I want to ask this to Roz as well but do you think there's a difference between the way women quiz and the way men quiz? I do, yes. I've given this quite a lot of thought. I think maybe women, as a massive generalisation, maybe women are a bit less competitive, a bit less wanting to show off their knowledge.

So, I mean, it would be lovely to have more women quizzing because we are definitely in the minority. Still in the minority? Yeah, very much so in the kind of quizzes that I mean, it would be lovely to have more women quizzing because we are definitely in the minority. Still in the minority? Yeah, very much so in the kind of quizzes that I do. Yeah. How's that looking, that parity between the sexes, Ros, where you are? Are there lots of women or is it still a more male situation? It's kind of 50-50, actually. The one that we run, we tend to rope in a lot of our friends, me and my sibling.

So there is quite a nice divide. But I do agree with Alice that I think there is a tendency, again, a bit of a generalisation for women to maybe back down a little bit in a group and say, oh, no, OK, fine. I'll defer to you for that answer. And it's really frustrating when actually they were right, which, as we know, women are all the time. Yes, because it's not one of those things that you want to just be, sorry, I'll have to pick you up on that. Otherwise my male listeners will be grumbling. And some of the women, the female listeners will be grumbling too. Yes, but there's no satisfaction in your team losing that point

if you just quietly know you were right, is there? So you do need to advance your case. Ros, you mentioned some of your favourites or one of your favourite types of questions. Alice, do you have a favourite? Is it a what the year was or is it the first line of a particular book? Do you have a style? Yeah, I quite like all of favourite types of questions. Alice, do you have a favourite? Is it a what the year was or is it, you know, the first line of a particular book? Do you have a style?

Yeah, I quite like all of those kind of questions. Yeah, I've got a massive hole in my knowledge where sports should be. So as long as we steer away from that, I'm happy. You're doing okay. Have you got any tips, Alice, for those who perhaps want to up their game? I think just be aware of stuff.

I always say don't have your head in a bag. You know, be aware of what's going on around you. Keep up with the news and, you know, current, like, films and everything that's happening and look where you're going. You know, the number of young people who don't know where places are are always amazing to me. They think Durham's next to Devon and things. look where you're going. You know, the number of young people who don't know where places are are always an odour to me. They think Durham's next to Devon and things.

I just think... Well, I mean, you're a woman who knows where... Just be aware. You're a woman who knows where everything is in the Peak District, so never mind different places. It's one place with every part of it. Alice Walker, lovely to have you back on. Ros, thank you so much for bringing this to us.

There'll be a lot of people, I'm sure, who have something to say on this. any tips as you're the quiz master anything you wish people were doing a bit more yeah i agree with alice um keep your eyes and ears open and be inspired by just walking down the street and and read a paper as well every day read a paper i think that's a really really good tip there you go thank you very much good luck for the next quiz uh setting it and uh also putting it on and taking part there alice and our listener roz unwin a message that's come in from kirsty says our extended family has been doing a sunday evening quiz since the start of lockdown in march 2020 we started it to cheer us all up and we kept it going because it's very funny

and it's good to be in more regular contact than we have ever been and actually going back to our first listener that we heard from today sar Sarah, who wanted to talk a bit more in detail about the economy. A message saying, what a wonderful, insightful listener who asks such important questions. And with a global perspective on economics, I wish she could interview Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. Going there for, we've got the final two weeks, haven't we? Until we find out who is the next prime minister of the economy so far dominating. To a completely different topic, as is the case when we are in the midst of Listener Week, ageing without children. That's the subject of our next discussion because one of our listeners, Mo Ray, professor of health and social care at the University of Lincolnshire, wanted us to raise awareness of the issue. She says care and ageing policy is still built on the assumption that behind every older person,

that there is at least one adult child ready and able to provide care and support. This isn't always the case. She joins me now, I'm happy to say, along with Jenny Collison, who's trustee of the charity AWOC, which stands for Ageing Without Children. Welcome to you both. But Mo, to start with you, tell me a bit more about this assumption and where it comes out in society.

Hi, thanks very much for the invite. Well, I think an obvious recent example was the coverage of the COVID pandemic. Whilst the separation of older people in care homes from their families was obviously deeply painful and very, very difficult, there was a complete silence about the numbers of people who are living in care homes who didn't have any children, perhaps didn't have any visitors at all. And so there was this sort of assumption built that, you know, these older people all had family who were kind of rooting for them and advocating for them and it's just simply not the case so I think um aging without children despite the fact that it's a very significant phenomenon it's a growing phenomenon

still remains pretty invisible um in in sort of you know in our kind of public um in our public narratives uh in our policies and and also in the way we kind of communicate about aging because although we have a narrative of diversity um older people are still often treated as pretty much all the same which i think we need to challenge well i was also just going to say i mean there'll be some listening to this who who are older or maybe preparing to be older, who have children perhaps they're estranged from or actually the children they have don't want to be part of their care and perhaps are making some of the similar plans. But realising that this is a growing phenomenon,

have we got any idea of how many individuals this is? Do we know how large the proportion is of older people without any children? Well in terms of um people who are 85 and over um the office of national statistics have indicated that there are 23 000 people aging without children expected to rise to 66 000 by 2045 and in western europe between 10 and 20 percent of women will never have children. If we think about women born in the 1960s, 1965, as an example, they're twice as likely to be ageing without children and remain childless than women born in 1945. And you're right, Emma, we also have to think about people who are functionally ageing without children because of migration or family conflict

or a child has pre-deceased their parents. Yes, there's also that, of course. You describe yourself as an older woman without children. Do you therefore have concerns about your future? And are you planning differently? Are you thinking about this differently? Because I know you wanted to bring this to the programme to give space for this discussion and for others to hear how others are thinking.

Yeah, I think it's a really interesting question because certainly the research I've done suggests that people often don't think very much about the future, even if they don't have children. It was certainly something that I've thought about. I have to say now I inherited a couple of stepchildren 10 years ago. They're grown ups. But yes, so in terms of my own ageing, it was certainly a concern for me and reflected by other people that I've interviewed who say, I just don't know how to navigate this. I'm not sure what to do. Who, for example, do I ask to be my lasting power of attorney? Because that could be quite a difficult, tricky job involving ethical issues. And I don't have anyone close enough now. I perhaps don't have any siblings. You know, people around me are dying or, you know, my friends. Who can I ask? And I think that they pose really significant issues for people. And sometimes people, you know, think,

well, I don't know what to do about that, so perhaps I won't worry about that right now. We're all guilty of putting those problems to the bottom of the list that are very difficult. But as you say, we don't spend much time, if any time at all, perhaps thinking about this particular group. Jennifer, welcome to the programme. As I say, Trusting the Charity AWOC, Aging Without Children. It was set up a few years ago. Why? Well, it was set up first in 2014 when Kirsty Woodard, who set it up, realised, having worked in the ageing sector herself, that there was very little support and it was predicated on having a family member to do that. And obviously situation has continued I mean 92 percent of informal care is provided by unpaid carers by family members and there's as as most people know

there's a lot of family carers in this country so but what about the people that don't have family to step in or they've they've never had children they, they've become estranged from their family, they've lost their children, their children live a long way away. So that's what we focus on. We try to provide a network, a sort of social network, information and advice via our website and our Facebook page and campaigning to raise awareness, really, with other ageing sector organisations.

And what would you like there to be, if you are campaigning, as you say you are, that there isn't at the moment, apart from greater awareness and apart from actually acknowledging that there is this group? What do you want done differently? Well, I think there's obviously at the moment we're really experiencing a lot of unmet need in social care for everybody who needs it. But it's about looking at alternative models, perhaps, you know, where the presence of family is. They're not dependent on the presence of family members, particularly at the more preventative level where we're trying to keep people independent in their own homes. So there's a lot of low level informal tasks that family members, neighbours perhaps, or maybe faith groups or churches, that people have to rely on.

And in COVID, as Mo says, you know, that really raised the issue for people living alone, people who didn't have family members, perhaps to connect with them digitally. And in fact, interestingly, when you were talking to your, the person was talking about quizzes, she was talking about the connection of that. And a lot of older people have relied on, during COVID particularly,

relied on, you know, digital connection. And often adult children and grandchildren have been playing quite a role in helping people get online. Yes and connecting people so they aren't left on their own and if you don't have that what are you to do and what have you been doing? I know you've written a report about the experiences of people in York, what did you find there Jennifer? Yes that York has quite a thriving Aging Without Children peer support group. It was one of the first ones set up in 2016. So in terms of the sort of issues, people felt very invisible in the narrative.

And I mean, Mo's alluded to this in terms of family separation, people not being able to visit their relatives in care homes and all of those sort of things. So and the sort of government message about households, you know, that's not much help about being told you can go for a walk with your family member or your social bubble if you don't have that. So there were all of those messages, but also just the practical difficulties that people develop tactics and strategies for maintaining their own resilience and connection and helping other people but i think there's an awareness particularly during a situation like covid where people were very aware of their own vulnerability would they not be able to turn to a neighbor or have somebody looking out for people, people checking in on them?

So there were quite a lot of issues there. And that really persuaded us to become, to form a charity, because previously we'd been a community interest group. So we felt that the issues raised during Covid were, you know, really needed greater attention. No, that's interesting there about people developing resilience and trying to form networks and have contingency plans. Yeah, indeed. And we've certainly seen a growing number of organisations that are reflecting that sort of ageing without children. And also examples of good practice, for example, Manchester's Age Friendly initiatives have consciously included people who are aging without children and really set about sort of embracing diversity in its older population

and the Elders Council of Newcastle have also engaged in some projects where they've specifically thought about people who are aging without children and I think that's really important because having that sort of sensitive awareness can create a conversation or a discussion with a person that might just highlight, well, you know, I'm OK with this and I'm coping with that, but I'd really like some help with this piece of information. I'd really like a conversation about something that's troubling me with regard to future care planning and so on. And, you know, local authorities, for example, have a duty under the Care Act to provide advice and information. And it would be great to see them perhaps challenging themselves with questions like, well, what do I do if I don't have an obvious person to nominate as lasting power of attorney?

What do I do if I'm the last person standing? Which happens to a lot of people that I've spoken to in my research. And happens to, if I may, to a lot of women in particular've spoken to in my research and happens to to and happens to if i may to a lot of women in particular um because of what what we know about that i have to say you've really struck a chord with this many messages coming in uh and says hallelujah discussion not all about a discussion about not all women having children we are most definitely the voices which are completely ignored discussions are always skewed towards children and families leaving us to feel that there's something wrong with us and unfulfilled because we don't have children. This is a really important issue, says Melanie, which is largely absent from health and

care discourse. Lucy says, I have no children or close relatives. I live alone with cats. I'm always anxious about dying alone and my cat starving to death around my body. I have a good neighbour, though, who has a door key, so it all rests on her. The NHS always assume there is quote another building on the point that we were just hearing. An anonymous message here. I have no children to care for me. I've spent the last 10 years my retirement caring for parents with problems all around. I'm planning to sort my affairs. And another one here having having to work until 66 full time, I was never really able to look after my mother who died last year at the age of 93.

Moving pension age for women has really changed the ability to look after elderly families. So another point there about caring up, not just, I suppose, about what you're able to do. Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention, Mo. Good to have you on the programme. Mo Ray there. And to Jenny Collison from the charity, if you'd miss the name of it,

Ageing Without Children. Now, what are the options and realities for the post-mastectomy body? That's what our two next guests emailed in, respectively, to talk about this week on Listener Week. Former nurse from Merseyside, Janine, has had stage three triple negative breast cancer twice. And despite reconstructions, she remains nipple-less. She emailed the programme and say, I have no idea where to get, quote, completed. Most women I speak to do not realise what such reconstructions involve. And I should say at the same time as Janine emailed us a very similar time, so did Katie from Leicester, who's an arts collection officer at De Montfort

University, to tell us about Bionic Boob, a collective she founded to explore artistic responses to the post-mastectomy body. Welcome and hello to you both. Janine, I'll start with you, and you, as I say, have come through a great deal, but you, as you say, have not completed. Tell me more. Yeah, so basically I had my surgery and it had to be amended. So my surgery took about five years. And because I got to that time, I was then discharged from the hospital. And it was almost an afterthought that I hadn't had any nipple reconstruction at all. And it wasn't discussed with me at that point. So I happened to mention, you know, literally as I'm going out the door, oh, by the way, I don't have any nipples.

And just in case you didn't notice. And they sent a sister and it was lovely and she gave me this little box of prosthetic nipples which are basically nipples that are adhesive and you can stick them on and said have a go with those so off I went and of course that might not be the answer for me I'm not saying it's not the answer for a lot of women use these and use them very successfully but me being me thought gosh if I stick this on and it works its way up it'll probably end up stuck to my neck or something or in my hair because that's typically me and so I found myself unable to use them I just had this block about them it wasn't right for me so I thought well I'll investigate

obviously there's medical tattoo artists out there and also you might want to go really radical and have an amazing piece of art across your chest a lot of women choose that but then I was in a position of trying to find someone that could do that and And you'd think that would be reasonable, type in Google. And it's amazing what you find when you do type in Google about nipple reconstruction or nipples. And it was also hindered by the fact that on social media, to begin with, it was very hard for medical artists to show their breast reconstructions and show the nipple because it was banned.

So these photographs were getting removed. So if you were trying to search for someone. You couldn't actually see. Yeah, you couldn't see their work. Let me bring in, I'll come back to you, Janine. Let me bring in Katie at this point. Katie, good morning. Good morning.

Where are you up to with this? Because I mentioned you set up Bionic Boob, this collective. Yeah, I mean, I can relate to a lot of what Janine's saying in terms of movable pieces that you get given as replacements for the body parts that you've had removed. So Bionic Boob is a project, part of a project that I'm working on with a group of artists and designers to find more creative and cutting edge

responses to the post-mastectomy body so what i mean by that is we want to create um wearable artworks objects accessories um enviable extensions for women who have lost a breast or both breasts as part of cancer treatment. So we're looking for, we're trying to make what I was looking for, which is a more artistic alternative to the replacement boobs that you get given the silicone beanie bag, beige type things. So I'm thinking more Paralympian prosthetic limb replacements or something you would see, artistry you would see on the catwalk or on stage rather than silicone. And this is because of your own experience?

Yeah. So I, similarly, when I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2016 had a mastectomy and then spent a bit of time trying to get used to having an asymmetric body trying to find trying to settle on fashion lingerie breast prosthetic um couldn't so decided to go for reconstruction like janine but unfortunately that failed so i was back to square one um still trying to work with an asymmetric body but but i've ultimately ended up having um uh cosmetic mastectomy on the other side so I'm completely flat now much happier but still looking for um fashion jewelry um lingerie um options that just aren't there and that's part of what I'm doing with a group of artists um called Bionic Boobs. It's a great name I have to

say you're gonna get a lot of response to that I imagine janine did what did you end up coming to a conclusion about the nipple problem as it were uh because i i know you were looking at this and you've got a great area of thought which is called smooth like barbie tell me about that well yes i um um i i had a lot of medical problems this time this cancer this this last one and so i i had to go to a pain clinic i'm on control drugs at the moment and have nerve blocks but as part of their welfare they let you see a psychologist talk through about you know if there's anything else that can help and for me um i had to sort of redefine myself and we talked about what I used to like so I I started writing and as part of that I wrote a small play that was through the Everyman and Playhouse Theatre in Liverpool and um it was put on it was called Smooth Like Barbie because when

people ask me because I've had both my breasts made from my abdomen and my transrectal abdominal muscles um to describe it's it's hard to explain what it looks like they look like they grow with you as normal breasts would they feel like normal breasts because they're your own tissue it's just in the wrong place muscles have been moved so you're smooth like barbie i used to say imagine a barbie doll obviously all their genitals are smooth and their breasts are smooth so i'm smooth like barbie um so where i'm up to i'm ringing around various places having hilarious conversations where people think i actually want my nipples tattooed rather than a nipple tattoo so i I'm still looking for options, really, trying to explore.

It's very hard to go into a tattoo parlour and rip your bra off and say, have a look at these, because the facilities aren't quite right and it's a really daunting thing. And I think, again, you will not be alone with this. There will be many listening who have been thinking, I really don't know how to do this or what to do. And it sounds like from what Katie's saying, you know, that there's a gap here in the response to it.

There's a message here just doing a shout out again for a different group saying, have you heard of knitted knockers, volunteers, knit breast-shaped inserts to fill out your bra after mastectomy? They are wonderful ladies. I have to say the names associated after mastectomy they are wonderful ladies i have to say the names associated with a lot of this are absolutely brilliant and creative and inspired but the reality is obviously very painful difficult and a lot of taboo in there so thank you very much

to both of you for for bringing this to the fore i'm sure we will get messages and as part of we do try and connect people and share what the responses have been because you felt that we needed to raise this on the programme. So, Janine, if we if we do hear from anyone who perhaps can be of service, we will try and hook you up, as it were. Oh, thank you. That would be brilliant. Thank you. Lovely to talk to you. And Katie, good luck with Bionic Boob and trying to find those responses. Lovely to have you on the programme as well. That's it. the first show of Listener Week done and dusted. Let's roll on. Tell me more. I'll be back with you at 10 tomorrow. That's all for today's

Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. I'm Gus Casely Hayford. As a historian I love to unpick the hidden histories behind what we wear. In my series Torn for BBC Radio 4,

we hear about the fashion items that have changed the world. From the humble tote bag. I have a textile dating from late 17th century. And it is quite like a modern tote bag with beautiful pattern of crisscross and flowers and just two elongated handles. To the miniskirt. There were other possibilities in the air and the miniskirt. There were other possibilities in the air,

and the miniskirt was the beginning of saying, we are somebody different. That's Torn, from BBC Radio 4. Listen to stories that are woven into the fashion items in your wardrobe. Subscribe now on BBC Sounds. 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's 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.