Woman's Hour - Listener Week: Afghanistan, Women and trades, Being Average, Clearing out the attic, Titles

Episode Date: August 28, 2021

Alice Bromage served in Afghanistan as a Major and left in 2016. She tells us what's she is hearing from the troops serving on the ground in Afghanistan. A recent survey revealed that tradespeople are £35,000 better off than university graduates. But only 14.5% of the construction workforce as a whole is female, and that drops to just 2% when it comes to skilled manual trades, according to CITB figures. Emma hears from painter and decorator Barbara Marshfield, plasterer Steph Leese and Fiona Sharp, Social Value Director for Procure Plus.Clearing out the attic of family belongings - how and when should you do it? Vicki Edmunds and Marion Malcher discuss. The joy of being average with Sarah Stein Lubrano and author Eleanor Ross.What is motivating older women to join the Extinction Rebellion protests this week. Protestors Fiona Atkinson and Marion Malcher discuss.Why do we still use Ms, Mrs, Miss. Dr Amy Erikson, who is a Reader in Feminist History at the University of Cambridge and, Stella Sutcliffe, who has spent the last three years campaigning for organisations and businesses to stop requesting, using and and storing marriage titles through her Campaign “Go Title Free”.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Dianne McGregor

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Listen wherever you get your podcasts. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hey guys, what's up? It's Eve from the podcast Constantly Evolving here. Before you get into Women's Hour, I just want to let you know about my show. Every week I'm joined by a special guest from the receipts to Paloma Faith to chat to them about how they get the most out of life. So, just like Women's Hour, I'm in the business of having inspiring conversations that will make you think.

So once you've listened to Women's Hour, why not move over to an episode of Constantly Evolving? You can find it on the BBC Sounds app. Just search Constantly Evolving. Enjoy today's Women's Hour. Welcome to Weekend Women's Hour. All this week was Listener Week. Stories generated by you, topics, issues and discussions you wanted us to cover.

We have been at your service. We've also been hearing from various women about their experiences in Afghanistan all week, like Alice Bromage, who served in Afghanistan as a major. She did two tours and left in 2016. We'll be hearing from her. You also wanted us to talk about skilled manual trades. Just 2% of the workforce is female. How can the sector appeal to women and girls? We hear from a plasterer and a decorator. Also, the joy of being average. Why it needs to be celebrated. Today, we think success basically means something

that sounds good on LinkedIn and maybe a mortgage. That's sort of conventionally how the word success is used. We can measure our achievements in ways other than comparing ourselves to other people and when we do so we can experience other kinds of joy including collaboration and mediocrity which is quite joyful really because the pressure is so much less. And we'll also be hearing from the women protesting as part of Extinction Rebellion. Now, many of you have been in touch regarding our coverage of what's happening to women in Afghanistan. For instance, Claire emailed in to say, I just want to say a big, big thank you for your continued attention to the plight of women in Afghanistan. Please keep this up. Everything

you do about the women in Afghanistan at the moment is very, very important to women all around the world. Well, we've heard a lot and seen pictures of the male British troops who have and are currently serving on the ground. But what about the women? On Monday, Emma spoke to Alice Bromage, who served in Afghanistan as a major. She did two tours and left in 2016. This conversation took place before the explosions hit Kabul airport on Thursday, killing some 90 people, among them 13 US military personnel. There is an amazing network of military women in the UK who I know are being lent on really, really hard, as are some of our male colleagues, by all the women we've trained and worked alongside, and men I hasten to add, in Afghanistan who are desperately trying to support those who are still in country

to be able to have the right paperwork, to know which safe houses to go to, to have points of contact to try and enable them to evacuate. Just to clarify, are you talking about people that the British military, and specifically, of course, women in this instance, trained to fight? So like Sandhurst, and I know you covered the Sandhurst in the sand, I think last week. So CAGA has been running since 2010 and that's trained hundreds of junior officers for the Afghan army. Within that, we also trained the instructors. So everything from senior NCOs, so sergeant level, all the way through to captains, I believe. And I didn't train there, I hasten to add, but I've spoken to peers who have. And

essentially, we all have a mobile phone. That means I don't know a single solitary person who's served who hasn't had somebody texting them, WhatsApping them, saying, please help me, get me out. And what are you hearing from some of those women who've been in touch? So men and women, they are desperate. They are having essentially Taliban coming to their homes, seeking them out. A lot of these women are the key facilitators in some of the peace negotiations, be that on the ground when you're trying to ensure that when there's disputes or when you're needing to make sure there's a female voice amongst the military, they're therefore going to be a target now because they are well educated. They have got a voice. They are keen to make sure that they do the right thing. So they are a natural target

now for the Taliban to remove. And for example, one peer yesterday said she's had 30 people get in touch with her over the last week. Because the feelings run deep when you've lived in the sand with them. You know, my entire formulative years have been in the army serving in Iraq and Afghanistan to create peace and security for these peers of ours effectively to be able to live in. We've now just disappeared at a very short notice with no explanation. And that personal touch, the Female Veterans Network is trying massively. There's a lady in Afghanistan at the moment who's helping run safe hotels. I think she's got three hotels that they've put security around doing security runs to the airport. One of my peers yesterday had two female officers from the Afghan army who'd been hiding in a sewage trench for four hours,

waiting for a British soldier to come on to the gate at the airport. And therefore on the telephone back to the UK was able to speak to the lady who trained them and say, please confirm we are bona fide, you know, Afghan army women officers. And the two of those ladies and their families are now in a safe house because of that personal action. So the female officer at this end was able to confirm to the soldier, yes, these are Afghan female officers who have been trained by the British Army. You know, if you can is try and find them somewhere safe. There's a sort of network, a kind of sisterhood network there, obviously, including men as well, as you say, but just in that particular instance of women who trained Afghan soldiers,

female soldiers in the Afghan army to vouch for them to get out. In terms of those who perhaps can't get out or aren't able to even try at the moment, what are you or your peers hearing from those women? Very much both for the female army and for the police are being hunted out. There's a lady called Sangam Nagari who runs the London School of Economics, Women, Peace and Security. And we've done a lot of work with her. They're literally having reports of the females being hunted out. But I would say it's we're probably hearing that through the female network.

I've also had male colleagues on the phone to me this week where they've sent me the details of their children, their families saying, please help. I've been to the embassy. I can't get anyone to respond. So across the piece, it's desperately trying to help them not get killed, essentially. And I think there's a really interesting piece

that seems to be coming out when peers or other people in London have asked me about this. And they said, oh, but surely the women will just get raped. It's just to say there's no just about that. And that the Taliban will obliterate the male and the female. And so, you know, they rape young boys. That's been known for years as a weapon of war and a weapon of intimidation and the next stage on is to then be killed um and i've had to see for myself a female in a covered head be stoned and i can tell you that will live with me for the rest of my life and there's nothing pleasant about that and there's nothing to be belittled about what they will put someone through male or female if they want to cause intimidation and the more fear you

can put into a society the more it will capitulate and this is about survival so anyone saying that the afghans are being anything less than brave i think is also very disingenuous well does that include joe biden of course the u.s president last week he said if they won't fight for themselves Anything less than brave, I think, is also very disingenuous. Does that include Joe Biden? Of course, the US president last week, he said, if they won't fight for themselves, why should we continue to fight for them? I think when you're on a matter of survival, you know that if you can survive to the following day, you can survive to fight.

And it's about picking which day do you fight. How do you feel? You're no longer in the military, is that right? So I left the regular military in 2016. Yes. How is it in the last 10 days or so, having served there, to look at our role and how do you feel? It's heart rendering. I joined the army at 17. My entire adult life has been given to serving those who we believe, protecting those that can't protect themselves. And literally even looking at my own flat and going, but I earned the money to buy my home by serving abroad. And you've always, there's a term of happy money,

the idea that you could see that we take, you know, you'd go to schools, you could see the happiness on the Afghans faces when if my mother here in scotland would send out donations for us to take to the local orphanage and school next door to the camp you can see the happiness on those faces as you take in clothes and toys and books and you feel like your time away is absolutely worthwhile and i wouldn't swap that for the world but to see it disintegrate, and then to get those text messages on your phone of please help me, please help me. This isn't a Star Wars movie where it's coming through R2D2. This is real. It's coming onto your own phone at

night. Here are the passport details of my family, please help. You know, it takes money to stay in a safe house, it takes money to get to the airport. But, you know, that prospect of leaving your whole family, the two Afghan ladies yesterday, the two officers who'd hidden in that sewage ditch for four hours. They're a family of seven with two small children. Another Afghan I spoke to on Saturday, you know, their father didn't have the paperwork. So, yes, a lot of the family had come to the UK, ironically, a decade ago, but one of them had gone back to look after him with COVID. The father's now just survived COVID, didn't have the paperwork to be able to evacuate. So he's now stuck. And so on the human level, you're seeing families being torn apart. You're seeing those of us who have made long-term friendships, that we are, as military, a political tool. We all appreciate that. But that doesn't stop us being human,

where we create those human relationships, where when someone says, please help, you want to do so. And it's very painful when you can only do so much. And I can't emphasise the hard work that is going on amongst the government to try and consolidate those details, to make sure we can try and get those that have worked alongside us. It is exactly that. It's working side by side to help get people out. On a human level, it's painful.

And you can hear more of our coverage of Afghanistan throughout the week, such as ex-military officer Jude, who's been supporting the evacuation efforts. Now, we had an email in from listener Penny Bates, who asked, I wondered if other women are irritated by the fact that they're asked to share their marital status when completing forms or ordering products. Men can only ever be mister, whether married, divorced or single, with master being no longer in use, while I'm expected to explain my marital status when this is not significant to the transaction I wish to make. I'm currently single, having

divorced some time ago, but when recently purchasing a new floor covering for the kitchen, it wasn't enough to simply give my name, Penny Bates. As soon as I did so, I was asked if I was Miss, Mrs or Ms. Is there a legal reason why women have to explain their relationship status when making a purchase? Or does this go back to a time when husbands operated the purse strings and dinosaurs ruled the earth? If so, in 2021, I'd like to be simply Penny Bates without a miss, mrs or miz. And Penny is not alone. Dr Amy Erickson is a reader in feminist history at the University of Cambridge and Stella Sutcliffe has spent the last three years campaigning for organisations and businesses

to stop requesting, using and storing marriage titles through her campaign Go Title Free. But why did she set it up? I set up Go Title Free three years ago after receiving a letter addressed to Mr and Mrs G Sutcliffe. The G being my husband of course and I wondered how many other women had ever felt short-changed at having their identity sometimes misrepresented but actually entirely removed in this case. So I set about researching titles because I strongly felt that without the title, nobody could address me like this. They would have to use my first name to be able to address me. And one of the first things that I discovered was that titles are not part of a person's legal

identity at all. They are purely social and therefore they really can be challenged. They're very recent. Amy Erickson and I had a real meeting of minds just over a year ago on this. It bothered me that as a woman who's changed surname and title several times, I've not only had to go through the written law of changing my surname, but also, you know, suffered the confusion regarding marital status titles and what I should put in that drop-down box that comes first on everything. And this is something that neither my father or my ex-husband or any other man that I've never known has had to go through, because unless they have a gender identity crisis,

they are Mr, they've always been Mr and they always will be. And I started with businesses because I felt that titles are not used amongst friends. They're not used amongst colleagues. They're mainly used by companies and organisations communicating with us, trying to be polite. And why do they want to know that information? Why on every form do we have to put our title? I have now written 35,000 words on this subject and interviewed around just under 2,000 people. The only reasons I can think of that an organization needs this information is

to get a little bit of juicy data on you um and because marketing is extremely powerful but they're getting a little bit of information about women that they can't get about men um and um so i and i do think it's to be polite in a world where, which is the English speaking world that we live in, where we don't have a familiar and an unfamiliar. We don't have a to-do variant. So we don't have a way of addressing somebody in the English speaking world that denotes respect. So very difficult to do that. For some businesses, very difficult to to do that for some businesses very difficult to make that shift yeah but I you know wanted to find some solutions for businesses and for this campaign not to be an

echo chamber and I don't know if we could do it the Indian way and start calling anyone who seems a bit older than your auntie I just don't think that would go down very well here how is it done Amy in different parts of the world in the last century different parts of the world? In the last century, different parts of the world did have the same, different parts of Europe anyway, which is what I know about, did have the same distinction between married and unmarried. But basically, they've all now dropped it. And all adult women are addressed as the equivalent of Mrs. And all children under 21 women would be the equivalent of Miss.

But there's no marital distinction at would be the equivalent of this. But there's no marital distinction at all in the other European countries. As far as I know, England and English-speaking countries are the only ones which preserve that today. Let's talk about what we say when we're talking about groups of women because we had another listener email in asking, how do you describe a group of women? Personally, I don't like the word ladies, but I feel, for example, you describe a group of women personally i don't like the word ladies but i feel for example when addressing a group of women mourning ladies that ladies fits

the bill and women doesn't to say girls isn't quite right either so i'm seeking clarity as i'm often addressing women on social media and i know some people don't like ladies either so what's the best way to address a group of women and another another listener, Fiona Clark, asks about the ubiquitous use of guys as a collective noun for any group of people. Once again, using a male term as a normative. Once you're aware of it, you notice how common it is. Hey guys, what's the problem with guys? I don't know what the problem with guys is.

What do you think, Amy? Well, I think that normative male use is exactly why we have problems finding a word for groups of women. I mean, how often do you address a group of only women? In what context would that be? So if we think of good morning women as exactly the equivalent of good morning men, good morning ladies, exactly the equivalent of good morning gentlemen. Those are the words and either we choose to reclaim them or we think of something completely new which is which

is um harder in some ways um we could try good morning people good morning people okay we'll try we could try that um um we just had a message in saying i want to be called a woman not a lady not a girl can we discuss why why there is such reluctance to call women women ladies is so archaic a girl is so disempowering a girl is a child hope you'll take the time in the program to give this some air we are indeed stella what can we change it to because obviously you spent a lot of time 34 000 words you said you've talked about titles 2 000 women you've interviewed what's the alternative what can we use what about mx mx is the newest newer title on the block It's still been around since the 70s.

But I think there's still a lot of confusion still around Ms, introduced or popularised by Sheila Michaels in the 60s. I think if there's still confusion around Ms, which some people think means divorce, some people think means you're a lesbian, some people think it means that you are a spinster, then we've still got a long way to go when it comes with MX. I think you've proved my point brilliantly on this radio show, Anita,

which is that you introduced us ever so politely. You've talked to us so nicely, so warmly. And why can businesses not just do that? That is my solution. It's not very groundbreaking. I know, how radical. I called's not very groundbreaking. How radical. I called you Stella. Radical.

And Ava. Yeah, exactly. Say no title at all. Check you're speaking with the right person and then just speak to them. And this topic really got you going. So many got in touch. Anna wrote in to say,

I've been a teacher, Miss in class, now married for over 50 years. I'm in to say, I've been a teacher, miss in class, now married for over 50 years. I'm proud to be known as Mrs. That my husband's initial is on some correspondence does not bother me. I've never been owned by him and think that some people are oversensitive about this. On discussions like this, you need to include all viewpoints, not just the feminist one. And Jill says, just to say, I'm a miss and I'm proud of it I'm not married and I hate it when people just assume that because I'm of a certain age then I should be married and they address me as missus especially in shops don't assume please ask me I'm proud that I've

achieved everything I've done on my own and without a man I'm also proud of my title and we had a suggestion for how maybe we should refer to each other. How about Citizen? Yours as ever from Citizen Wolf in Kettlebridge, Fife. Now, Barbara Marshfield has been a painter and decorator for 25 years. She commented on a Woman's Hour Instagram post and asked if we could discuss women's experience of working in trade, saying, I'm a painter and decorator. There are a growing number of women in all, saying, I'm a patron decorator. There are a growing number of women in all trades.

Can we encourage more girls to join us? It can be a good life. I would put a positive spin on this. It's not all about sexism from the lads. Well, Emma spoke to Steph Lees, aka the pink plasterer, and Barbara herself tells us why it is such a good life. Young girls often go for hospitality or retail.

And those areas are great. But there's a world of other stuff out there, practical stuff, where you can earn much more money. And there's the potential for running your own business, working for yourself and just having a good life. Yeah, well, the figures don't lie. A recent survey by the builders merchant Selco revealed that tradespeople are £35,000 better off than university graduates. Only 14.5% of the construction workforce as a whole is female, but that drops to just 2% when it comes to skilled manual trades, according to the Construction Industry Training Board.

Barbara, how did you get into it? Well, I was actually in my 30s and I was doing murals for people, but I went to the local college to do a course on specialist paint effects. And they said to me, why don't you do the decorating course? I did that and never looked back. Got work straight away and have had constant work ever since. And that was 25 years ago. I've been able to make good relationships with clients, which men aren't always terribly good at. So you get a lot of repeat business and then you have to put less effort into finding work. No, I mean, relationship with a good decorator is definitely one you should always have if you can.

Let me bring in Steph at this point. The pink plasterer. Tell us about this. It certainly gets a few raised eyebrows and people remember the name. So it's always a good gimmick, really. But, you know, pink female, pink plasterer, it's all there. OK, so it's not actual pink plasterer, but I like to check the root of the name. You got into this from a different career, is that right? Yeah Yeah I was working in a law firm and I got made redundant my ex-boyfriend years ago was a plasterer and I always thought wow I'd like to do that because I used to you know see him come home with roll the cash in his hand and I think oh why am I doing this and you're doing that and getting that type of money so it inspired me when I got made redundant to invest that money and go and retrain and you

know go and look at being a plasterer and I haven't looked back it is very hard to do it's a very hard job and it took many hours and many years to train but now I'm really chuffed that I did it. So hard in terms of actually you know getting the skills to do it? Oh yeah physically it's hard mentally it's hard. Mentally, it's hard. It took me at least seven years to be able to be proficient in all areas of plastering. I have two guys who work for me now. They've both been working for me for 12 years.

I'm just checking. Pink overalls? I'd love them too, but unfortunately not, no. Just trying to build up a picture here. Do you think there is anything you could say to anyone listening now? I'm very aware of what we hear from the government certainly about skills shortages and gaps in the market and what we're able to get people

to go into. Is there anything you could say to women and girls listening to encourage them, do you think? What would have made you think about this earlier? I'm the same as Barbara. I went in it when I was 30. So for me, I now go around colleges and schools and do workshops for kids who are GCSE age and below just to try and get them involved show them

that there are options you can use your hands and do other things in life you know it is a good game to get into I'm earning way more money than I did when I was working in a law firm um we turned over a profit of 120,000 this year uh which is great. You know, and I certainly didn't earn that when I was working at a law firm. So, you know, built on about £60,000, £70,000 on top of what I was earning before. I know that you also were, when you were originally starting out, perhaps undervaluing your services a little. You've got to get good at pricing yourself. Yeah, I was terrible at it.

I think as a female, we always underprice ourselves we always undervalue ourselves and I'd come home and you know my customers were richer than me and I couldn't pay the bills because I'd done them a favor and done things cheaper and added extra bits on without pricing for it and the end of the day it was me that was suffering not them uh so I had to have a really good look at myself see that I was worth what I was charging and put myself in a position where, you know, I was market level with people. And that's something I didn't do for quite a few years. And you learn the hard way, you really do. But now we're all about level. I've got great support through British Gypsum. I'm the only female on there, I think, at the moment, or I was, who's one of the certified plasterers.

And the labs on there are fantastic. They really support me. And it's great to find that support because there was a bit of resistance when I first went into the trade. But now I get more and more male supporters that go along. So it has changed. Barbara, is that pricing point something that you also experienced? Yes, certainly when I started, I was probably underpricing. It's easier now that you can go on any forum,

whatever your trade is, and just ask people what's the going rate for your area. And then never, never go below that. Because if you're getting work because of that, it's not worth it. Let me bring in Fiona Sharps, who's the Social Value Director for ProcurePlus, which is a not-for-profit social housing procurement company that supports efforts to make tradeswomen in the UK the norm, not the exception. What do you want to say to anyone listening who thinks, well, maybe I need a career change or I've never considered this? Well, I think the points that Steph and Barbara have made already are quite typical of females in this sector. Typically, the sector doesn't promote itself particularly well to females

within the education sector at a younger age. It's never been something that I was ever spoken to about when I was at school, but people do find the sector when they are a little bit older and make their own life choices later on and come to training and retraining later on, just as Steph and Barbara did. We do a lot of work with local colleges to ask them who they have got on their trades cohorts each year so that we can make sure that any females that find the trades within the education sector don't get lost on that journey and do make it through to actually finding employment. We also work with employers directly to explain the benefits of having

females in the workforce and get the employer's mindset in the right place. And then you link together the females that you've found in other areas, such as the local colleges who you know are training. And also we work with community voluntary sector organisations who help people retrain and get work ready who may suffer barriers to employment. And some of those people are women, and we do quite a lot of work with them to make sure that they do promote the construction sector to these women that they're supporting into employment so that it's not an avenue that is ever not discussed with them.

So they don't naturally go to the sectors such as retail and the care sector that are more associated with female employment. And after the 16, 17 months we've just had with retail, in particular, suffering the way it has, that couldn't be more important, I imagine. Steph, Barbara, thank you to you for coming on. And Barbara, do you think we will have changed some minds? Well, let's hope so. Can I just make one tiny point? Quickly.

There is this idea that working with men is difficult. There's no more difficult men in trade than there is in any other sphere. If you'd like to share a story with us or comment about anything you're listening to, then go to our website and email us. You can also contact us via Twitter and Instagram. It's at BBC Woman's Hour. And remember, you can enjoy Woman's Hour anytime you like. If you can't join us live at 10am during the week,

just subscribe to the daily podcast for free via the Woman's Hour website. Now, a number of people have been arrested at Extinction Rebellion demonstrations in London over the past four days. One of our listeners, Fiona from Kendal, got in touch to say that she's joined the group at the age of 65 and was at the protest on Monday. She emailed and said, I would love you to cover the women involved in the climate crisis debate slash protests and focus on how it will affect our children and grandchildren.

I've been in real despair for years listening to the lacklustre, timid BBC coverage of the climate. I joined because I'm frightened for my granddaughter's future and I find the fear more bearable when I feel I'm doing something and that I'm with people who share my fears. I'm also angry about the slowness of the government and media to spell out the implications of the silence. Well, Emma started by asking Fiona why she was protesting. pretty concerned about all of this and then my granddaughter appeared and and weaved the magic that grandchildren do where you start to think that um as you get older um one of the biggest consolations is this beautiful child um and you just want the best for them and you feel like a mum as well like yourself you want to protect them and my sense

of helplessness that I can't protect her from what's coming down the line and this isn't just about my grandchild and the UNICEF report that came out a few days ago said there's a billion children right now facing the impact of climate change in terms of just access to water, air, the fundamentals. And I'm appalled that as a human race, we have got to this point where children are in such danger. So you feel such a doom merchant here. But I want to say to you, you know, why are people asking me why I'm in the street? I want to say to you and to everybody who hasn't got out into the street, why aren't you there? Well, they might not think protest is the best way of doing it. It doesn't mean that they don't believe what you're saying. There are different ways to protest.

And it seems to me there aren't enough people doing that. There's ways to vote, which are a form of protest. Are people really happy with what this government is doing? We have one of the most shambolic governments ever at a time when we need governments to be planning ahead and to be taking on the problems. Our government is late with everything. I don't trust them with this. Well, the majority certainly of voters, of those who voted, did want this government. And there will be, of course, another time to vote, as you say,

and perhaps use it in a way that you may or may not be happy. But there will, of course, be government, people who do support this government around the climate because of COP26 coming and some of the promises made there. But I'm actually quite keen and we can talk more about that. But I'm quite keen to understand whether you think, especially in light of Covid, that these demonstrations are wise and will have the desired effect. Because, of course, people are trying to get back to work. And it's been a rotten time for a whole other reason that wasn't there when Extinction Rebellion came to prominence.

One of the problems with the situation that we're in is how to protest, to go back to that protest idea. And despite the nuisance and despite the problems that we cause, we're very apologetic about that. We feel driven to do it. There doesn't seem to be any other way of getting the message across. I was at home in the first protest. It was one very warm Easter, I think. And I monitored the media. And it started so slow, it was hardly covered. By the end of the third night, when the arrest numbers started to increase, XR were on Newsnight, we were getting fantastic interviews, fantastic coverage, and people were joining XR as well and starting to get interested in what we were doing.

And what we find is whenever we do actions like this, yes, we do hack off a lot of people. But on the other hand, membership increases and awareness increases. Are you prepared to be arrested? I haven't been yet. Are you prepared to be, do you think? Yes, I am. I have taken risks that might have led to arrest, but I've got a lot of brave friends out there today, some of whom are being arrested. I ask that because, of course, it's been calculated how much money this has cost the taxpayer. £50 million so far. That's the calculation from the police, from the gold commander, Rachel Williams. They would also argue it takes them away from looking after those who are suffering domestic violence,

who are suffering violence in the streets in other ways. You say very apologetic about that, but especially after the pandemic, do you think that there is a concern that people will find you more of a nuisance than otherwise? I think there will always be people who find us a nuisance. But if they were to actually engage with what is coming down the line, the nuisance of us in the streets would start to pale into insignificance. One of the problems we've got is getting people to engage, to move beyond the science, to see the implications of it for their children and their grandchildren.

On the money side, I would just like to say that we have spent, as a country, £568 million supporting fossil fuels, investing in fossil fuels since Paris. And that's investing in fossil fuels abroad in countries where the biggest impact of climate change and the climate crisis is going to be felt. The irony that that's from our taxpayers' money. That's shocking to me.

Let me bring in Marion Mulcher, who is also part of Extinction Rebellion. I believe, Marion, you were of Extinction Rebellion. I believe, Marion, you were arrested on Monday, but not charged. Yes, I was arrested on Monday and released under investigation for a public order offence. What were you doing when you were arrested? I had been locked on in a tube in the St. Martins in Cranbourne Street. So lying down and... I was lying down in the road, yes. Actually, I was attached to a suitcase full of concrete. And I was reading the detail of that, and I wondered from your perspective,

do you think that changes anyone's mind? That in itself doesn't change anyone's mind. My objective for that day was to be part of a team who were creating a space for where people could come to the table to talk and you will have seen perhaps the the pictures of the large pink table that was erected so that was my role on the day to to help make that space because at the moment we don't really have a space where people are talking about climate change and there is so much to do um that we really need to start talking about it.

We need to get beyond the politics and stuff and really get people to the table and have some crisis talks. And that is our aim for this rebellion. What would you say, though, to people who do not think this is the right way to do it, who are angered by you wasting those police officers' time? They may well be angered, but I think that they're probably going to be far more angered

when their houses are flooded or they can't get the nice food that they like in the supermarket because crops have failed. They might still be angry about that, but they might not think you lying on the road with your arm in a suitcase in concrete is useful. They may not think that. But then Extinction Rebellion, we say,

we're not here to be liked. We're here to draw attention to the problem. So it isn't really about me. It's about the problem that we've got of climate and ecological emergency not being addressed. Do you think, though, that your messages are clear enough? Some compare Extinction Rebellion to the suffragettes. But of course, that was a very clear slogan, votes for women. The concern is there. But do you think people know what you want clearly enough? I think that people would know very clearly what we wanted if we actually got reported more accurately in the media. I think that would be a first step.

But our first demand is that the government and the authorities and everybody should tell the truth about the crisis that we're in. Do you think you've got a slogan that cuts through to people or a line that cuts through in what you actually want? Do you think if you went up to a load of people on the street? We're not actually solutionary. We don't know what the solutions are. We're just ordinary people out here. We can see there's massive problems and we can't solve them all. We're not here to say what people should do. And our third demand is that we should move beyond the traditional politics of left and right and the sort of, you know, some of the playground stuff that we see going on and get ordinary people to talk and work together in citizens assemblies who come up with

the solutions that work for ordinary people, that people can get behind. Fiona, in terms of people on the ground, there's a message that's just come in here from one of our listeners. He says, extinction rebellion protesters should face unlimited fines. When these middle class layabouts see their savings hit, they might start to see sense. What do you make of that? And how do you afford to do what you do? Is it because you're retired? I am. I'm a retired teacher. And what I say back to that is i have a right to be very angry about how my pensions my pension that i'm being paid is invested and it's currently being invested in um fossil fuels um and i have every right to fight against that for the future of my grandchild

and i also would say to anybody who feels angry with XR, do you actually understand what is meant by code red and an existential threat? Are you taking that seriously? Because I am. Another message here as well, to be fair, you might also enjoy knowing the Twitter name of this person, they're called Grumpy Old Man. And they say, I find the methods of extinction rebellion to have the reverse effect. I do what I can by running a business focused on energy efficiency. It has a direct effect rather than sitting in a road. And that's true. And that's fantastic. However, we need systemic change for real impact. And by us all retreating and into our homes or our businesses and doing everything we can, that's fantastic. And and we will have results but we need systemic global change to address this now for our next

item the joy of being average you heard right with non-stop updates on social media airbrushed photos and the constant need to climb the career ladder. It seems that we are all under strain to be special, the best or at least better than average. But what about the joy of just being average? This has been prompted by a listener called Sarah, who wrote this. There is huge pressure to have a career, look great, own a big house, drive a new car, be brilliant at something. But I'm really boring and ordinary. I'm not a hero. I don't excel at anything. And I'm just tootling along.

I have a boring admin job. My looks are average. I drive a three-year-old car and live in a two-bedroom house. Maybe we should celebrate the average as well as the brilliant. Well, Emma spoke to Sarah Steen-Lebrano. She's a faculty member and former head of content at education company, The School of Life. She also spoke to Eleanor Ross, author of Good Enough, The Myth of Success and How to Celebrate the Joy in Average. She started by

pointing out to Eleanor that she's not exactly average herself. Well, yes, but I just want to really say that, first of all, I don't think Sarah sounds very average either. I think those accomplishments, you know, a humdrum life, calm, healthy car, all sound pretty good. And I think a lot of this is just about reassessing the starting blocks and, you know, thinking, oh, well, I'm actually, the fact that I'm able to communicate and get by is actually pretty good. And I would say that is a very successful thing that we're here alive speaking with each other.

So let's be optimistic about the small things. Being optimistic, but what drove you to write about the joy of being average? I think for me, it was the dinner party test. I, you know, when you go to a dinner party, and that sounds very middle class. So, you know, anything really, I wasn't going to dinner parties, going to the bar and a stranger asks you what you do and there's a lot of pride I think in in I'm in my 30s and you know career is seen as so important and you

you want to say oh I'm doing I'm a journalist or you want something that makes you sound impressive but actually what I was doing was making me very miserable I was extremely overworked and underpaid I didn't have any time for my friends and I realised that by basically pursuing something I thought was not average I was and me and my friends were all in the same boat we were all suffering from anxiety stress depression and actually taking a step back and realising that there's more to life than simply staying at work for 14 hours a day has really made a huge difference to me and my peers, I think. Because now what do you do? So I work in communications.

So in journalism, it has a bit of a bad rep. If you can't hack journalism, the story goes, you go into comms. And frankly, it has been wonderful and liberating because I work a brilliant nine to five. I have time to go for runs and look after my dog but but really it's it's awesome I do want to say the other thing that made me want to write this book and research this topic was that I think in journalism and entertainment I became disappointed that I kept saying people had a leg up before I'd even got started I'm from the north of England

I'm from Sheffield whenever I wanted to do experience, I had to rent a hostel in London to do that two weeks of the coveted magazine job. And all those things I was more than happy to do. And it was so worth it. But all those friends I had whose parents already worked in media, and I think it was just redefining what success meant. It's different for different people. My starting blocks were different. And I think, yeah. I was just going to say, I think that's really fascinating, you know, how much privilege and luck play a role that people do not acknowledge when they're talking about achievement. And luck is actually a huge, I mean, you can argue one comes from the other,

but luck is a huge part of that, even if you've worked really, really hard. And there's been quite a lot of people talking about needing to acknowledge that. But the so-called quote unquote dinner party test, having a job that's really easy to explain and sounds very cool indeed. Sarah, let's bring you in at this point. When you've been educating people and you've specialised in putting on courses for adults, is that something that they come to you about? It needs to sound good, their life, which is part of the pressure. Absolutely. At the School of Life, we have a course on how to find a job that you'll love. We have a course called How to Fail. And both of these speak quite a bit to this problem. We have people come in and they're really miserable, just like Eleanor was, but they feel like they should

keep going in this particular profession because it will impress people, because people will pay attention to them in a social event or because their parents will be pleased with them and the reality of course is just that ours is a very achievement-based culture and we think about that as the center of our identity there are even interesting psychology studies that show that more than almost any other culture on planet earth that we can measure people define themselves not by their relationships to others like I'm so-and-so's mother but rather by their achievements themselves they say i'm a lawyer and that's the first thing they say in a dinner party so one of the things we focus on in our in our classes in our books of the school of life is to remind people that this is a very particular

thing about our culture and that other cultures in the past have a much more robust sense of what might constitute a successful life, which includes, of course, being average. And also, you found in your research and what you've looked at that it depends on where you live in the world. If you asked, are you a success living in certain countries, it will all be about what you have achieved. And in other countries, it will be about your bonds and your connections. Absolutely. It's about your relationship to other people, about how you fit into the community. And I think this is something that we can try to adapt in the way we think about ourselves.

You know, today we think success basically means something that sounds good on LinkedIn and maybe a mortgage. That's sort of conventionally how the word success is used. But as we say, you know, we could be a success at looking at clouds. We could be a success. It just means being good at something. And interestingly, it doesn't mean that you actually have to be above average at that thing. I think something that we haven't yet figured out, partially because competition is so useful to capitalism, and capitalism is a bit implicit in all of this, to put it mildly, is that we can measure our achievements in ways other than

comparing ourselves to other people. And when we do so, we can experience other kinds of joy, including collaboration and mediocrity, which is quite joyful, really, because the pressure is so much less intense. The pressure is off. I love pressure, you see. So that's a slight problem. I sympathize, but I'm trying to reform myself. I'm trying to reform as well. Not least because I recently learned I'm not even breathing properly. I breathe in the upper chamber and you should breathe from your diaphragm. I'm an apical breather apparently because I'm an adrenaline junkie. Eleanor, let me bring you back in on this. We've just had a brilliant message come in from someone who is called Mrs Lawson. She said that comparison is the thief of joy. That's what she's taught her children. And it sounds like a brilliant lesson.

And what a great line. Is that really at the heart of this now, do you think more than ever, that the ability to allow yourself just to be whatever you are has been taken because of things like social media? Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's a great title for another book. Thank you, Mrs Lawson. But I think social media plays a part, but it's not to blame. We've always had keeping up with the Joneses as part of our capitalist narrative. You know, who's got the bigger car, et cetera. But I think one of the things that is really important to just consider is how even our hobbies are becoming competitive. You know, people bake off a brilliant show, but, you know, it's not just about baking a cake to relax. It's about making the best cake. It's not just about sewing. It's not just about baking a cake to relax it's about making the best cake it's not just about sewing it's not just about running a 10k it's about winning a medal

everything we do has uh you can win at it isn't that isn't that quite good though sometimes that that energy and that that desire that it can be a huge engine in your life i mean i'm just looking at this message saying hello i'm 86 partially sighted with a heart condition, but I'm still competitive. I'm fiercely independent and I would hate to be considered average. That person sounds wonderful, but I think we just have to be very realistic. If you look at where we sit in the universe, we've got persons at zero, we've got person at 100. We're not person zero, we're not person 100. Everyone in that area of people, we're average you know Einstein was Einstein but I bet he was not great at doing dishes he was average at that I think we just

have to cut ourselves some slack and you know if this 86 year old person who sounds phenomenal is is sprightly and energetic that's great and I would hate to take any of that away from them but they've obviously got a great control of their life and they've driven their own narrative. Whereas I think the idea of being successful drives women in particular to try and be successful at every single aspect, which is quite exhausting and can lead to burnout. Well, I was going to ask you also about this, Sarah, when you were running these classes. Did you see more women sign up? Was it more of an issue for women? I'm minded to also mention, we've had another message saying, I noticed people crippled by excellence, they felt they have to be the best worker, parent or friend. And then I came across the idea of the good enough mother. Being excellent can be a problem. Yeah, that's wonderful.

We don't have precise statistics on the gender attendance, although I do think we might have slightly more women. But the good enough parent is something that we're obsessed with at the School of Life. We love the term. It's from the psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott. And his basic point was that people would come to him with their children and they would say, you know, but maybe she didn't eat the right peas. And when should she start, you know, doing this developmental task and so on? And he would tell them, look, really, as a parent, your job isn't to be exceptional. You don't need to be constantly pushing the child to do things. And you don't yourself need to be particularly better than any other parents. All the child really needs is for you to be there

regularly, to be reasonably calm, reasonably attentive, and so on. And that's the foundation for a good life. I think good enough can be transposed into a lot of other areas of life. Of course, we can be good enough workers, and that's enough. We can be good enough can be transposed into a lot of other areas of life, of course. We can be good enough workers and that's enough. We can be good enough partners, not perfect, not even exceptional, just good enough. And we'll be quite happy if we're able to embrace that. Eleanor Ross and Sarah Steen-Lobrano there, and so many of you got in touch. I'm ordinary in a family and amongst friends who are not. Deciding to allow myself to be ordinary rather than to try and be what others want me to be has freed me enormously, but has also caused conflict with those who cannot see

that not everyone is like them and are unable to accept me for what I really am. Be honest, be yourself. Thank you. And that's from Happy Dollard. Amanda said, I have no skills or brilliance since I retired from teaching. I feel under pressure to be good at something. And Mary Ann says, I like to underachieve in peace. Brilliant. And finally, the attic or those cupboards stuffed full that you can't bear to open them. Let's talk about them, shall we? Because there have been a lot of emails from you about your family memories

and artifacts found whilst clearing out the attic, all those cupboards and what to do with them. When a parent or in-law dies, we're left to sift through their belongings and ask the questions we wish we could have asked when they were still here. Why did my mum keep this? Who are all these people in this black and white photograph? And crucially, what should I do with all this stuff? Well, one person who got in touch and has been able to have this conversation with her daughters is Vicky Edmonds from Bridge End in South Wales. Why did she decide to clear out the attic in lockdown? Well, it wasn't my idea.

I was sitting there minding my own business. And my daughter said to me, she said, Mum, when you're dead, we're going to have a lot of stuff to go through in the attic. And I said, oh, lovely. I said, I think we should make a start now. I said, oh, OK. And then she comes down with all these suitcases and black bags and filled my living room with stuff.

And I thoroughly enjoyed it. And I thought, I'm glad I'm alive to see that. And I thought, more people should be alive when you go through your attic like. What did you find? Was there something that really you'd either forgotten you had or now's out on the sideboard? I had a little china coloured tortoise. What on earth that was doing in the attic? I don't know. That was very dear to me and then so I've got that on my in my bedroom now and of course it was a typewriter my dad gave to me when I was about 11 because I said I

wanted to be a journalist he died shortly after that actually in a road accident so that's uh very dear to me that typewriter but that was in the attic is that now downstairs oh no no no it's back in the attic right that's gone back up but the tortoises live to see another day downstairs. But I also imagine there was a lot of laughter as well as some emotion. Oh, yes. Oh, loads of laughter. Oh, my goodness me. There was a dolly. This suitcase had been shut for 24 years because it had the date on it. And when we opened it, there was this little scraggy looking dolly in there. And she opened her eyes when we picked it up and my

daughter said oh that's the first time she's opened her eyes in 24 years and she looked dreadful dreadful she had terrible hair not a stitch of clothing on her she was in a terrible state well does she belong to you when you were younger no that was my oldest daughter's uh little dolly that was i don't think she even had a name, but she put her in the suitcase 24 years ago, and there she was. So tell me, what have you done? That's a good example. What have you done with that doll?

I would imagine it's in my daughter's garage now, because I refuse to put her back in the attic. So wait, it's moved from one attic to the garage? To my daughter's garage. Have you actually got rid of anything? Oh, yes, no, we did. Yes, we did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was because they had the bright idea of putting some stuff on eBay. You know, an old camera went to Germany for £65.

An old keyboard went for over £100 and it didn't even work. So it is literally cash in the attic? Well, yes, I suppose it was in the end. I was saying, I'm not throwing that out. And so they said, well, how would you feel about putting it on eBay? And I said, all right, because as they were pulling stuff out, I was putting stuff back in, you know? Well, that's the thing.

That's probably the only downside of you being there is they probably can't be as ruthless about some of that stuff because you're the one that's got the sentimentality attached to it. Lovely to hear your story there, Vicky. Thank you for getting in touch and to have you on the programme. Let me bring in Mariam Shah from Rotherham in South Yorkshire. And I know, Mariam, you did this in a different way, didn't you? Yes, I did. I've absolutely loved hearing Vicky's story. And I only wish that I could have done something similar. Unfortunately, I lost my mum and we also had an attic full of stuff and over the years it accumulated a huge amount of things. But there was one thing in particular that I remember from

my childhood and that was the suitcase of my mum. She had one of those big trunk chests and every so often she would disappear into the attic and she would look through it. In the 60s, she came over to the UK during the Commonwealth to join my dad and begin a family. She brought some things with her, obviously, to settle in a new place. I can only imagine what went through her mind when she was packing for this journey, because she was going to a place that she had no idea about the culture, about the place, about the weather. So it was completely unknown. So over the years, my mum accumulated quite a few things that she would keep in her suitcase, such as old clothes.

There was a silk scarf. My dad was in the Navy and on his travels, he picked up a beautiful silk scarf and she kept that, you know, it keeps it for it for many many years and there were old letters that in those days you didn't get the post as frequently as you wanted to so when she heard of relatives passing away especially a mother it was about three weeks later so some of those letters held some really sad memories and um and then she kept all of that in her suitcase wow it must have been really really emotional to look through all of that and powerful yes it was and to be honest I have so many questions I wish I could have asked her um you know just just as a young woman what was she thinking that she needed to go and start off in a new country how was she going to feel about leaving her her her village in Kashmir so um so yeah I've got so

many questions I would have loved to have asked her but but didn't get the chance unfortunately so I kind of envy you Vicky I think it's a wonderful thing that you've got this opportunity to spend that time with your children to go through all of this because what I've done what I've learned from this is I now keep a memory box and as I'm going along and as I do things and I get involved in things or there's something that I can put in my memory box, I'm gathering this for my children. I have four children and I'm gathering this

so that when I'm not around, basically, they can look in that box and see and learn more about me if I don't get the chance to tell them. What have you done with your mum's suitcase there? So a couple of friends and I, we had a lot of conversations around, do you remember what was in your attic? And do you remember those big silver trunk chests? And the conversation started from there.

And a close friend of mine called Zena Brassoul, she came up with the idea of designing an exhibition. So I'm an oral historian. She's doing her PhD research in communities. And we've got another friend who's called Shaheen and she is a visual artist. She was the visual artist. So we went round and we collected lots of artefacts,

as many as we could from the 60s. And what we found was there were quite a few people in the community who arrived in the same way, who migrated to the UK, who were still holding on to some of these wonderful artefacts. people in the community who arrived in the same way, who migrated to the UK, who'd got some, were still holding on to some of these wonderful artifacts. So we then created an exhibition and it was called the Suitcase Exhibition. And it's to describe the journey of those women that came over in the 60s, the sacrifices that they gave, how they raised their children. And those children are now doctors, lawyers, dentists dentists you know they came from rural

parts of pakistan and kashmir were uneducated themselves but have raised professional children and contributed to society so much so we we don't want to forget that so we wanted to share that story and it was first um the exhibition was held in in a place called wentworth house which is in rotherham. Beautiful place. And people were invited from all over the community, different, different communities to come and have a look at those things that perhaps women would have brought, such as clothes, spices. You wouldn't have been able to get spices in the UK in the 60s. So they brought spices, perfumes, books, a whole manner of things. And now we are very fortunate that there's a local park in my hometown,

Rotherham, which I love. And Clifton Park have given us a space to have the exhibition in their museum. And we're hoping to launch it over the next couple of weeks. Mariam Shah and Vicky Edmonds there. Now, lots of you got in touch. Linda says, unlike our parents' generation, we keep so much clutter online. So our kids will need to sort through this, trying to decide what's important and what isn't. We do our kids a favour by keeping an online file of special documents to keep and

read. And Rebecca says, I cleared out my mother's house last year. I'm an only child and she'd lived in the same house for 60 years. It was easy to start with. Keep, charity, daughters, etc. It was the items I didn't have room for but didn't want to part with. They're now in storage. My husband reckons they'll never come out and has a real go at me for putting them there. A year on, he's so far right and every month I get a bill. Help, Rebecca. Have a wonderful Bank Holiday Monday.

This is citizen Anita Rani signing out. 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.