Woman's Hour - Listener Week: Tummies, Later in life lesbians, Long Covid

Episode Date: August 20, 2024

Listener Week is when all the topics, interviews and discussions are chosen by YOU!Why do so many of us feel bad about our tummies and why are the rounded or wobbly ones never celebrated? That’s what listener Carole wants to know. Content creator Lottie Drynan created the IBS blog The Tummy Diaries and #mybloatedwardrobe and has learned to love her rounded stomach. She joins Nuala McGovern, along with Charlotte Boyce, Associate Professor in Victorian Literature and Culture at Portsmouth University, and columnist Pravina Ruda to discuss our historical and cultural relationship with our tummies.Four years on from the start of the Covid 19 pandemic, many listeners have contacted Woman’s Hour to tell us about their experience of Long Covid. Nuala hears from Lexi Boreham who says she’s been “flattened” by the condition and speaks to respiratory physician Dr Melissa Heightman about the latest treatments and research. Listener Lottie contacted Woman’s Hour because she wanted us to discuss later in life lesbians and what happens when you embrace the sexuality you secretly always knew you had, or perhaps you have only just acknowledged. Nuala speaks to psychotherapist Miriam, who has researched and written about later in life lesbians, and to Georgia who came out around eight years ago after 20 years of marriage to a man.Listener Sarah Palmer from Farnham in Surrey tells us how her life has been transformed through her volunteering work with the charity Pets As Therapy. She’s one of the 4,000 people across the UK who take their dogs and cats into care homes, hospitals and prisons every week. She’ll speak to Nuala about her life and work with Haggis, a two year old cockapoo.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Lottie Garton

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to Woman's Hour and to another programme of Your Ideas for Listener Week. We're going to talk about tummies in a moment, our much maligned middles. That story coming in from a listener called Carol. We have another listener, Lottie, who got in touch. Now, Lottie wanted us to discuss coming out as gay later in life. My guest this hour has done just that after 20 years of marriage to a man. Maybe this is an experience that resonates with you, whether or not you are or were in a long-term

relationship. If so, I want to hear your story. Was there a catalyst for the change? How did your circle of family and friends react? Or maybe it's an issue that you're grappling with right now. Well, the number to text is 84844 on social media. We're at BBC Woman's Hour or you can email us

through our website for a WhatsApp message or a voice note. That number 03 700 100 444. More of your ideas with Listener Week. Many of you got in touch wanting us to update you on the latest on long COVID. And I think COVID is somewhat forgotten by many, but obviously not by those that are still suffering.

So we have that coming up. And we'll meet Sarah, who wants to share the joy of volunteering with her dog, Haggis. He is a pet therapy dog, working with Sarah in hospitals, care homes and children's libraries. Really lovely stuff. So that is all coming up. But I want to begin with the message that we got from Carol. Could you do something on women's relationships with our tummies girdles shapewear and finding

ways to conceal our wedges muffins madriff bulges post-pregnancy post-menopause it is a lifetime of struggle and sometimes shame can we make peace with our tums asks carol big bums are okay but not big tums now I am over 60, I no longer get asked, when is my baby due? I'm thin all over, but always had a big tum. Carol the barrel is what I was called in school. Man, kids are mean.

Please can we have a respectful ode to the female tum? Well, Carol, your wish is our command. I have some people here to discuss tummies, bellies, whatever we want to call them. Content creator Lottie Drinan created the IBS blog, The Tummy Diaries, and the hashtag My Bloated Wardrobe, and has learned to love her rounded stomach. Good morning, Lottie.

Morning. Thank you for having me. So good to have you with us. Also with us to discuss all things tummy are Dr Charlotte Boyce, Associate Professor in Victorian Literature and Culture at Portsmouth University and the columnist Praveena Rudra who is going to tell us about cultural differences when it comes to our midriffs. Lottie, welcome Charlotte, welcome Praveena. I'm going to start with Lottie. When did you first begin to think about your tummy or possibly it, as I put in this in inverted commas, a problem? As long as I can remember. I grew up in the days of us having like the heat magazines and all those magazines that were sitting in my mum's bathroom with our bodies so cold and sort of villainized and showing us that these areas were a problem

and tummies were always one of the biggest ones. I mean, I'll caveat and say that I have grown up in what would be considered in air quotes, a societally accepted size, but my stomach has always been bigger. I've always noticed it. It's always where I've carried my weight and I grew up with IBS and bloating. So my stomach was always changing. And for as long as I can remember, I used to stand in front of the mirror, holding my stomach, squeezing my rolls, trying to suck in and trying to sort of distort and change my body to be something that I'd see in the magazines. And now we see in social media. And IBS is irritable bowel syndrome, which can cause bloating, I imagine.

That's it, yes. So your body's constantly changing, specifically your stomach area. You know, when I was coming to speak to you this morning, Lottie, I just had a quick search, right, on Google and I put in tummy. Here's a few headlines that came up to me in newslines. I'm conscious of my tummy but brand name. £32 summer dress is perfect. It makes me feel so comfortable. Another one, brand name.

New cardigan is very flattering and hides my tummy, says shoppers. Next one. Flattering and lightweight. The little black dress that's perfect for hiding a tummy. The tummy control swimsuit taking, brand name, by Storm. Those, they were first four.

Here's another couple. Kendall Jenner shows off her taut tummy in a crop top and leggings, blah, blah, blah. Jennifer Lawrence gives us a peek at her toned tummy. I mean, that's this morning. Yeah, it's absolute madness. And all of that is around women's bodies as well, right? Was there a single one about a man's body? The one about the man was a health concern. Right.

When to be worried about. Yeah. So it is, that doesn't surprise me at all because it's all either how to make your stomach look a certain way or if it doesn't, how to hide it. I mean, if we look at Trinny and Susanna days, it was all how to wear your tight Spanx to cover it

and we've grown up to feel ashamed of this part of our body that actually most women, almost every woman has. Maybe not Kendall Jenner, but apart from that, I'd say all of us have a bit of a tummy. And what changed for you then to embrace it? And as I think of embracing tummy, I'm actually sitting here kind of holding on to mine. I feel you. Do you know what?

I think it was so I tried to change my body for so long to really dramatic things to do that I'd been on every diet. I've done dangerous things and I suffered with an eating disorder. And even when I was dangerously thin, I still had a little bit of a tummy. It still didn't look like what I was trying to get my body to be. And I thought, if I have put myself through all of that and I still don't look this way, that's just not how my body's supposed to be. And I started on this journey of actually social media for all of the things that are bad about it. It really helped me in following women of all different shapes and sizes and seeing that they're still beautiful, but not even just the way they look. Just like what what's on the inside it's so much more

important and it took a lot of learning and practicing and it does sound cheesy but it's something that I sort of had to fake that confidence until it genuinely practice it just like you you would with anything else that you're trying to change and eventually I believed it and realized that my stomach or any part of my body is the least important thing about me. Like we don't sit and prod our elbows or our, like, you know, or our, I don't know, our wrist and say, I can't believe my elbow. It's just another part of our body.

Yeah. Although there are certain parts of the body that definitely get a very hard time. And they're the parts of the body that the diet industry can profit off of. They can't really profit off our elbows, but if they can tell us that we need to change our tums or our balms or our boobs, they can make money. So a good relationship with your tummy now? Yeah, I would say I still have some days where, you know, like we all do, poor body image,

but at least it's neutral, which I think is a really positive place to be. We don't have to love every part. If we can just accept it's part of us. Let's bring in Dr Charlotte Boyce. Charlotte, our listener Carol asked if we can ever make peace with our toms. Has there always been this ongoing war? Well, I think the first thing to say is what counts as a large stomach isn't fixed or stable. It's changed over time. And also the meanings that have been attached to fat bellies also shift and change sometimes within a historical moment. But belly fat has always tended to come with a lot of cultural baggage, particularly for women. I mean, we can look back as far as the Middle Ages and the

Christian churches' attitude towards an excess of flesh. You know, it was considered to denote an excessive appetite, which was a sin. And for men, forgive me for stepping in on you, but for men and women? Well, I was just going to say women as the kind of daughters of eve are seen as particularly susceptible to the temptations of appetite so there's always been i think this particular cultural baggage for for women um a crucial point is the 19th century with the development of a mass media, women more and more being surrounded by the kinds of images that Carol and Lottie have talked about, which really promote a very slender beauty ideal.

And we start to see evidence in this period of women expressing dissatisfaction with their bodies and particularly with things like belly fat. The editors of the Girls Own Paper, which was a really popular magazine for young women in the 1880s and 1890s, they wrote that their readers seemed crazed on the subject of being, as they supposed, too fat. And they blame these anxieties on women wanting to live up to the imagery that they saw in fashion plates and in adverts. Incidentally, the girls' own paper also carried these fashion plates. So I think that is indicative of the mixed messaging that women get, that we're supposed to be content with our bodies, but also here is this very unobtainable ideal.

And, you know, Lottie was mentioning there about various shapewear, as it's sometimes called. But what about back in the day? What did people do? I was thinking it was definitely corsets, which makes me lose my breath even thinking about them. Well, I think corsets get a slightly bad rep in the imagination. Because I think when we think of the corseted body, we think of Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara being tight laced into an incredibly small corset to give her this exaggerated hourglass figure. The practice of tight lacing wasn't something that every woman would have practiced it was very much for a kind of a fashionable elite um for most women throughout most of history their corsets

or their stays they were just a form of underwear that provided um support and structure and depending on the materials they were made of and their construction they could actually be quite comfortable for larger women. There was also pushback against tight lacing at the time that it was popular. Doctors wrote articles warning women against doing this saying that they'd end up causing harm to their bodies, displacing their internal organs and in the second half of the 19th century you see the development of the rational dress movement which promoted looser fitting undergarments they saw them as more hygienic yeah because there's a thing called tight pants syndrome isn't there well go ahead there yeah sorry um so even just wearing a tight pair of

jeans um can cause gastro issues so it can affect your digestion and cause more bloating. So shoving yourself in those sort of spanks and tight jeans can actually make you more bloated, which I only discovered a couple of years ago. So when we do that, it's actually causing like a bit of a vicious cycle. But I'm thinking back as well, like, you know, if you look at Renaissance painters, the belly was in full glorious display. All those statues of the Greek goddesses with their gorgeous roles. And I love that.

Like, was that, how was that seen? Charlotte? Yeah, so what's been held up as the physical ideal for women has definitely changed over time. So we can see, as you say, in Renaissance art, if you look at paintings like Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, Venus has a defined, you know, stomach, you can see it. And even more so in the paintings of Rubens, the Three Graces, paintings like that, there's a very visible overhanging belly. And yeah, that was very much the sort of ideal in Western art in the Renaissance period. Art has also been used, though, to fat shame women. And a good example of this would be Emma Hamilton, who's perhaps

best known today as Nelson's Mistress when she was in her late teens and early 20s she was actually a very celebrated muse of artists like George Romney she was held up as the epitome of female beauty but then when she got into her sort of late 30s and 40s after a couple of pregnancies her body was subject to some quite cruel public mockery by cartoonists like James Gilray who depicted her performing the poses that she'd done when she was a younger woman but this time with a very large rounded belly and she's portrayed very much as a grotesque so there's definitely shifts over over time and i want to bring in praveena here who is listening to our conversation praveena ruda because you say that culturally things can

be somewhat different um perhaps what we're talking about is a more western view of tummies what do you think praveena welcome hi morning uh so yes and my parents are sri lankan and um i've spent a decent amount of time in sri lanka and india certainly growing up have some family in india as well and yeah i guess like what the west sees of india quite often is bollywood and priyanka chopra and things like that, all of which have very specific Western influences. So you will see more women with super flat bellies and fair skin and all that kind of thing. But I would say growing up,

I was around a lot of women wearing saris of all sizes. And saris obviously mean that you're showing quite a lot of your belly on a day-to-day basis and I really think that influenced a lot of my beauty standards because I didn't think that you can't have a wobbly belly if you want to put it on show um and I saw yeah women with like folds of fat just like happily having their bellies out and I think that is something that is quite different from here where I think there's a feeling that you almost can't wear crop top or get a picture of yourself in a crop top and put it on Instagram

unless you um you have a kind of washboard stomach I see a comment came in uh we're talking about you know making peace with with stomach, although some people might have an issue with that term as well. I don't have a name, but she says, I believe, I did a belly dancing class to make friends with my ample tummy and it worked. What about that, Lottie? I absolutely love that. I think that's that's practising, isn't it? Practising, enjoying our bodies and having fun. I love that idea. Why do you think, Lottie, that larger boobs or smaller boobs or a big bum or a small bum, that's gone in and out of fashion? I never understand why thighs and tummies have not.

Or upper arms for that matter. I do. Like I say, I think it is down to diet culture. They know. I mean, the diet culture is a multi-million and billion pound industry across countries. And they can make so much money out of profiting. And unfortunately, you know, we're seeing, I think we do see it less now, but diet ads have been part of our life every single day. I grew up, my mum always on a diet and she grew up with her mum.

And our stomach is an easy target for that. I'm wondering about that Praveena I've just talked about you know whether it's boobs or bottoms and bellies is there a difference that you've seen there as well with other body parts in the sense of being celebrated or shamed? Yeah that's interesting and I think I think I notice it most with the belly specifically because with the sari, it's the one bit. It's really funny. We're very modest about this area and covering it up. So you're talking about kind of clavicles, chest.

Yes, exactly. And growing up, relatives would always tell me if this bit of the sari was falling down. And I'd be like, hang on a second, the whole of my stomach is on show and I'm looking at you I'm looking at you on a screen but just to describe to our radio listeners so that is the part just above your breasts kind of your chest always needed to be more covered than a belly yeah as in even if you were wearing the essentially the crop top there if the shawl on top of the crop top was falling such that you could only see the crop top there if the shawl on top of the crop top was falling such that you could only see the crop top covering your chest that that was a problem but it wasn't a problem to have

yeah your whole stomach showing I have to say it is just fascinating um I want to thank Carol so much for getting in touch oh here we go my four-year-old granddaughter recently asked me why I had little cheeks on my tummy. Bless her. It makes the bulges sound rather sweet. Well, I want people, yeah, hopefully that we've given a little bit of time and attention and love, Lottie, to the tummy. Yeah, my little girl, she's nearly two and she prods my tummy and goes, Mummy's beautiful tummy. And I think that's how we were all born. We weren't born to

hate our bodies. So seeing it pure, our bodies pure before we get sort of all the societal beauty standards sort of brainwashed by those. It's so lovely to go back and just appreciate what our bodies do for us. Lottie Drinan, Dr Charlotte Boyce and Praveena Rudra

thank you all so much for sharing your stories. Now, it is four years since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown. But in March last year, 1.9 million people in the UK reported they were still suffering

the after effects to varying degrees with a condition known as long COVID. And this is an issue that so many of you got in touch with us about. It has been forgotten maybe in the headlines, but it's something that people are still suffering from. Here's some examples we were given. Sammy says it smashed through her and flipped her life upside down. Sylvia says she's still trying to adapt to the dramatic effect it has had on her life and wants to hear about the latest research in this area. This we can do. I'm joined in the

studio by the consultant who runs the Long Covid Clinic at University College Hospital in London to talk about the latest therapies and thinking on Long Covid. That's Dr Melissa Heitman. Good morning. Good morning. But I want to hear first from one of the people who contacted us, and that is Lexi Borm. She's 31. She lives in London. She was working as a solicitor when she became ill with long COVID and is now on long-term sick leave.

She emailed us and said that friends and family used to nickname her the Duracell Bunny because of her ongoing energy levels, but that she has been flattened by long COVID. Welcome, Lexi. I'm so sorry of what you have gone through. How long did it take you to realise that you had long COVID? Hi, good morning. It didn't take that long, to be honest, because it hit me like a ton of bricks. It was sort of a few weeks of thinking, gosh, I'm feeling quite tired. But given the amount that I was doing and my job, I thought perhaps it was just a bit of burnout.

And then it was almost overnight. I woke up and I just felt like my limbs were weighed down by sandbags and my head had been pumped full of fog and I just couldn't think straight and I really struggled to get out of bed and not just in a I'll snooze my alarm a few times that a lot of us experience sometimes like I was sort of lost in this foggy weight in my bed. And it was really quite scary. And when was that, Lexi? That was in September 2022. Oh, my goodness. How are you doing now? I'm very lucky. I'm doing much better. I probably had about four months, maybe five months where I would regularly not be able to get out of bed before four. And that's me sleeping on and off, drifting in and out of sleep until four, getting up and having breakfast and then

either going back to bed or lying on the sofa. So that lasted for a few months. But thankfully, my life is now mostly just limited by my energy and by my brain fog rather than other symptoms as well. But you still have to pace yourself, it sounds like. I still have to pace myself. I'm still not able to work. I'm still not able to do a lot of things that I used to be able to do. I haven't exercised since I became unwell. So there's a lot in my life that is completely different. So dramatically different um you know there was skepticism as you will know um Lexi and also Melissa uh around long Covid particularly at the beginning was that something you came up

against or did you have people around you that were supportive? I think I was I mean lucky yeah I'm not lucky but I am I am lucky because there were people who became unwell with long Covid at the very start of the pandemic and at that time the focus was really on acute infections and saving people who were in intensive care. And that was where the focus was. And there was this sort of forgotten group of people that were slowly, I hate to use this word, but rotting, like really losing their lives quietly in the background, and nobody knew what was wrong with them. So at least by the time I got long COVID, there was two years of patients who had been reporting these symptoms. And, there was two years of patients who had

been reporting these symptoms. And so there was a little bit more known about it. When you got a diagnosis, was there any specifics with it? I mean, was it something with your lungs or your blood or? No. So unfortunately, long COVID is multi-symptoms, so it can affect every organ in the body and people report up to 200 symptoms. I probably had about 20, which ranged from my heart to my lungs, to my head, to my gut and my bowels. So there was a bit of everything. And unfortunately, there's no magic pill for long COVID. And all doctors, I mean, Melissa will probably tell you a bit more, but my understanding is that really all we have at the moment is symptom management. And there's not much that can be done to address the root cause

because we don't really know enough about the root cause. Hold that thought, Lexi. I will come back to you. Let me bring in Dr. Melissa Heitman here. Lexi's story, is that a familiar one? It's a really familiar story and she's given a brilliant description of the condition. Absolutely. But what about the treatment for long COVID now? I mean, Lexi was describing part of it there. That doesn't sound incredibly optimistic for treating it. Yeah, so I mean, the first step is to confirm that the diagnosis is long COVID. It's really important that those symptoms are considered. And is it hard to diagnose it? It is hard. And it's a condition where having good amount of experience in it really increases your confidence

as a clinician and whether long COVID is the right diagnosis. And sometimes we need additional tests to work out if we've come up with the right label. And when we see someone in clinic, they see a team of clinicians from different backgrounds and training so that we can work out how long COVID is affecting that person and work out this management plan, as we call it, for each of those different elements. And that's usually a combination of therapy approaches. And we do use medicines for certain symptoms. But as Lexi says, there isn't a magic pill that returns someone swiftly to usual health. And this is Women's Hour. And there were so many women that got in touch because we know many that were hospitalised with the disease were men that were of an older age. But many long COVID sufferers are often female and somewhat younger than the men that have been severely affected.

That's right. Any idea why? So, I mean, the long COVID illness doesn't correlate very closely with how severe your first infection was. That is so interesting, right? You imagine you would get this totally like layperson. You'd imagine you were more likely to get long COVID if you had a really bad bout. But that's not the case. No, absolutely.

You can actually have quite mild COVID and it still trigger this illness, which we think is due to an immune reaction to the virus, it is absolutely more common in women overall. And we don't have a very good answer for that. There are many inflammatory conditions that are more common in women, and presumably it's part of that story. But it's one of the big questions for us to address with the research. Because I imagine medical trials are taking place. Is there anything new that people can look at? There is. We would love more research to be happening. But in our centre, we've recently completed recruiting to a clinical trial looking at three medicines for long COVID. There are other clinical trials happening in this country looking at immune changing treatments for long COVID and around the

world there is research. I think within the field we would like more of it. We're continuing to advocate for more funding for that research and it's obviously frustrating for our patients how long that takes to do a study well. I hope we'll start to get some initial answers by early 2025 from some of those studies. And I'm talking about the Stimulate ICP trial in particular. What does that do? So that's the one that we've been running, looking at three for long Covid that we've that are in use in the NHS for other conditions and we're trying to get some early answers about which types of medicine are useful and which people are helped by them and what kind of long Covid is helped by different medicines you know we're just at the beginning

of answering that and medicines are only one part of the way we can help a person. We definitely see that people who get the right help get better more quickly. So we really would advocate for a person to come forward. Don't ignore your symptoms. Talk to your GP. Talk about whether you should get a referral for more support. A lot of messages coming in just in the time that we are speaking. Here's Meryl. She says,

thank you for running an item on long COVID. My life has also been completely changed. I was a busy freelance musician and cannot do my work anymore. I've been able to start an online choir for children living with long COVID in collaboration with long COVID kids. Children with long COVID are often forgotten.

Indeed, I have not heard about that as much. Thank you for that message. Here's Julia. She says, like almost two million people, I'm still stuck with long COVID are often forgotten. Indeed, I have not heard about that as much. Thank you for that message. Here's Julia. She says, like almost 2 million people, I'm still stuck with long COVID after a mild COVID infection three and a half years ago. The days are often like Groundhog Day and it's difficult to see a way forward.

Treatment consists mostly of advice about managing symptoms and learning to live with it. I used to have two jobs, go to the gym, enjoy cycling and walking. I can do none of these. There is a hidden pandemic of people, mostly women like me, who are living half a life. What do you think when you hear those, Lexi? It's such a familiar story. I actually set up a social media account specifically to share my story online. And the number of people that message me and that I speak to where it's all

just so familiar, these were young, ambitious, driven women who are progressing through careers that they had worked hard for. And almost overnight, it's been taken away from them. And it's heartbreaking. Some of these people are young mums. Some of them are people who have had to give up their careers that they worked so hard for and they're not getting better. And it's really difficult, especially when, you know, there are wonderful medical practitioners like Melissa who were fighting the long COVID cause, but so many GPs who patients interact with as a first port of call don't understand the condition, don't know enough about it and don't really know what protocols to follow. So once their blood tests come back as normal, they're sort of just shrugged at and told to, you know, rest more,

try not to do too much exercise and maybe drink more water, you know, that sort of thing. And it's heartbreaking because you feel like your body is breaking. And yet you're met with a blank stare from a doctor. And that's, I think, part of the really difficult aspect of it. I understand that post-COVID services have been devolved from central NHS funding to regional health foundations and the money has been ring-fenced. Melissa, do you think that will help people like Lexi and the others that are getting in touch this morning? It's an important first step and there's also been guidance released about how a long Covid clinic should operate and what support should be available to a person. But we need to continue to track in each

of our local areas the extent to which we're succeeding to provide the care that a person needs. Long COVID was recognised as a disability in the United States. Do you think that would help? I think that would be a positive step. There are some of my patients where I think it would count as a disability. Absolutely. What about that, Lexi? As a disability? I think, well, long COVID exists on a scale so technically under the definition of long Covid someone who has a slight level of fatigue feels slightly more tired than normal and maybe loses their sense of smell and taste that would I think technically fall within

the definition of long Covid but then at the extreme end of the scale, you also have people who have long COVID, which meets the criteria for severe ME. And so they can't get out of bed to do anything, and they struggle to eat and they struggle to live at all. They really just lie in a dark room, surviving day after day. And so when it comes to that end of the spectrum, 100% it should be classified as a disability. I want to thank Dr. Melissa Heitman, who was here with us in studio, who is working on long COVID. And also to Lexi Borum, who brought this story to us. So many people getting in touch. Thank you very much, Lexi. I wish you all the best in your continuing recovery. Thank you. And thank you for covering this topic.

Not at all. You're so welcome. Let me see. Here's and the delay in diagnosis because I could not get an appointment with the GP has made my recovery more difficult. As when the brain fog goes, I then have to worry about my income, my home and my future. Another, I lost my job because my employer could not make reasonable adjustments for my long COVID.

I lost my much-loved career, my health and almost lost my home due to failure to understand the condition and the reluctance to get on board. Thanks for getting in touch, 84844. If you want to talk about that, and if you get in touch about tummies as well, we will talk about that.

Read some of your comments a little later. 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. Programme. But let us look back as we look forward.

When we asked what you'd like to hear about in Listener Week, Sue Turnbull wrote and said, how about covering women working in heritage crafts? Well, yesterday on the programme, we heard from Rachel Ragg, a heritage stonemason at Lincoln Cathedral. Our reporter, Martha Owen, went to find out what Rachel gets up to in the Masons' Workshop.

So I've got a piece of Lincoln stone here, and this is going to make a small roll for a piece that is damaged on the chapter house. I'm halfway through doing it at the moment, so I've just got a few chamfers left. So we use our pitcher to remove as much stone as we can. Our Lincoln stone is really hard for limestone. It's very tempted to just smash through it but that's when you can pluck the stone. How much has changed in the hundreds of years that people have

been stonemasons at Lincoln Cathedral? Not a lot has changed. I'm pretty sure a medieval mason could walk in here and pick up a template and a mallet and just crack on. Rachel Rag, known as the Ginger Mason on social media. You can listen back to Monday's programme on BBC Sounds to hear more about Rachel's unusual job. And if you're wondering what the lovely Lincoln limestone Rachel is carving there looks like, just head over to at BBC Woman's Hour on Instagram, where there is a fantastic video all about her life as a heritage stonemason.

It's really gorgeous. Just had a look at it before I came on air. So why don't you do that? Also, while you're listening to us and to the story that listener Lottie brought to us, she wanted to discuss later in life lesbians and what happens when you embrace the sexuality you perhaps always knew you had

or have only just acknowledged. 84844, I was asking for your comments on this. Many of them coming in. Miriam Grace is a psychotherapist who specialises in working with women in midlife and has researched and written about later in life lesbians. Georgia came out about eight years ago after 20 years of marriage to a man. Georgia, Miriam, welcome. Georgia, let me begin with you. You were living with your husband and three children, I understand. And then you had what you call a catalyst relationship. What happened?

Yes, I think it's very common when you've been married a long time to someone of the opposite sex for it to just be completely pushed down and not hidden, but just totally ignored. And then something comes along to wake you up. And that's what happened to me. I fell passionately in love with a completely unavailable woman and realised I was 100% gay and couldn't stay, even though I had a you know a very lovely husband I had three lovely children but I had to be honest and there was no choice. I'm just thinking though how difficult that conversation must have been with your husband. It was awful there isn't another way of putting it just awful actually to be fair he was great and kind of almost said I knew that he knew almost.

But yeah, telling the children was really hard. How did they react? Can I ask? You know what, they were absolutely amazing. And I'm sure that there were issues kind of behind the scenes at school. The youngest one when I came out was only about, I can't remember, 15, something like that. But they're great now. They are champions of being gay, won't let anyone say anything other. And everything's fine. But it has taken a very long time to get to this stage where things feel calm. Was that the most challenging part of it, do you think? Probably no. I think there were, it was definitely challenging and difficult because, well, it's just, it's

your children, isn't it? You just feel like you're completely blowing up the family for, as far as anyone else is concerned, no reason. You know, they're waiting for you to say your husband's had an affair or this or that. None of that happened. And so you are blamed a lot. And for the woman to be leaving, you are, I really was the guilty party. That's been the hardest thing to deal with. So a lot of messages have come in. I just want to read a couple of them. This is Charlotte. She says, I grew up in the 80s with only straight role models and a mother who was very old fashioned in her views. I had always had feelings or what were early longings to idolise

certain women or be like them. I never wanted a boyfriend in the sense of desiring one, but got one going through the motions. Over time, I repressed my sexuality, not necessarily with a great deal of conscious thought. I convinced myself that everyone has curiosity about what it would be like to be with the same sex, but didn't act on it. I met a man in my early 20s, grew to love him. We got married, had a child. And although the same longings never went away,

by the age of 30, I came to realise I was probably a lesbian. My husband went on to have an affair, which ultimately brought the marriage to an end. I then came out to my friends and family. and although I barely spoke to my mother for about two years after coming out she eventually came to accept it I am now in a same-sex marriage and my daughter spends time between me and my ex it all worked out okay in the end uh let me bring in Miriam at this point because I'm getting the stories coming in Miriam uh at this point, because I'm getting the stories coming in, Miriam. Is this a common story that you hear?

Absolutely. And I just wanted to appreciate Georgia and your listener for sharing their stories, because it's so important and healing for us to find community and understanding. I'm wondering, though... There's a real lack of that in my profession. As I go back to you, Georgia, for a moment, I mean, do you think you always were a lesbian but just denied it or didn't recognise it? Yes, I mean, like your previous, like the person you just read out,

I grew up in the 80s, in the 90s. It just wasn't discussed if you were a lesbian or it was just then a bit, you were very other. Whereas now, you know, there's nothing more fashionable. And let me turn back to you, Miriam. What do you think are the barriers that prevent women from understanding their sexuality earlier? Well, I think that this applies to all women, whether they're straight or gay. I think that we're socialised to be invisible to ourselves and our sexuality isn't relevant except in terms of how we might please others

or gain love and so on. So, you know, my belief is women are socialised into either invisibility or objectification, and that when they reach a point of stopping being part of becoming invisible, stopping objectifying themselves, that all kinds of magic or surprises can happen. Because the part, I suppose, of life that we're talking about is often perimenopause or menopause. Why is that? Is that what you're talking about? Well, I think, you know, I might be generalising here, but I think that most women, again, straight or otherwise, reach something during midlife where they might experience something from difficulty to rage at the con, what I call the con, when they realise that they have not been aware of themselves, they've not been able to see themselves, they've not seen the importance of understanding

what do they want. So we find that with women in midlife, they might change career, they might retrain, they might, you know, decide to go and live in a caravan or change country. And I think for women like myself and Georgia and the people writing in is that it also comes to us that, you know, that our sexuality is for us um and i'm gonna read another few might be able to explore that and something i've really picked up from georgia was is she was talking about her her kids being in their teens and as a therapist i think that therapy can give us this space to go through developmental phases that might have been missed or not done so well in our lives. So part of Georgia's story might really be that she was able to pick up and learn from her kids that she could. I don't know, Georgia, did you feel like you were 19 at times when when you first

realized you were gay yes when I first came out I came out on a cloud of rainbows yeah the most fantastic community and world that I just had been in my mind well truthfully had been missing out on and I felt I I belonged. And I understood so many of the issues I'd had in my life previously, just disappeared. Because I just thought, yep, this is where I'm supposed to be. This is who I identify as. But it did cause drama, you know, it really did cause a lot of drama. And I lost friends. I lost some family members. And I mostly because they couldn't understand why would you leave a perfectly nice man who hasn't had an affair?

That's right. You know, which is all our conditioning. Yes, that euphoria. The euphoria is a buzz, isn't it? But you need more than a buzz to get through the relationship consequences. Sorry, Nuala. No, no, not at all. I'm fascinated listening to both of you. Because Miriam, this is something that you went through as well?

Yes, yes. That's why I work in this area now, because so much of my passion is to provide understanding that I couldn't find at the time. I want to come back to that. I also want to read some of the messages coming in because there are many. 8-4-8-4-4. After the childbearing years, the obvious choice for women in their 40s, 50s and beyond is to partner with another woman. Similar physical and emotional outlooks and likely longevity. I came out at 50 and I'm about to marry an amazing woman who has changed my life. I intend to spend the rest of my life with her. That's one.

Here's another. Where I live, it is rather common for women to divorce their husbands in their 40s and start a relationship with a woman. The town, Hebden Bridge, is LGBTQ friendly. So these relationships are accepted not sure if there's something in the water or if it's reflective of what happens to women during perimenopause menopause I'm tempted to try myself now that I'm newly single women are brilliant and beautiful so I can totally understand this local phenomenon any thoughts Miriam or Georgia the fact that it's after you've had your children often.

And I think that for our generation, it's after you've had your children, then really, as you say, why would you be with a man? But the sexual attraction, right, to be with a woman. But was that something you always felt, Georgia? But just, I don't know, what stopped you acting on it previously? I'd always felt it, but I, like Miriam said, thought it was normal.

I thought everyone thought this. And we just, you know... But you never encountered anybody that made you really want to act on it? No, I think I was head down bringing my children up. That's all I was doing. I was absolutely doing what I was supposed to be doing, not unhappily, but just doing it. And I thought

all the things I was feeling, experiencing, I thought was just normal. And it wasn't until something so dramatic happened that I just couldn't ignore it anymore. The catalyst relationship. Let me read another message. This is Becky, 57. My husband took his own life at the age of 47 after almost 25 years of happy marriage.

I'm sorry to hear that, Becky. Becky went on to say we had two children who were 18 and 16 at the time. It was devastating. But with the gradual realisation over a couple of years that I was ready to meet someone else came the enormous surprise that I was looking for another woman.

I hadn't realised that I was interested in women in that way as I had been so happy with my life the way it was. I've now been happily in a relationship with my female partner for seven years. My friends and family hardly skipped a beat in their support. I'm glad to hear that, Becky. What about that story, Miriam? I think that some, you know, I can certainly relate to not even realising that I was gay until midlife. And I think that it is, it's about this. There can be, some of us have fluid sexuality

and develop that or It's actually the question that I was hoping you wouldn't ask because I don't know the answer to for myself. But I think that some of us may be bisexual, but get a bit fed up with men at a certain point in our lives. And I think as well that, like Georgia, having children for me is what fulfilled me and made me happy. And this was the only way for us. If you think, I think the first test tube babies ivf was about the 80s and i was born in the 60s and um having children was completely fulfilling so um let me jump i i hope that um women feel more that it is a bit easier to come out these days but it's not it isn't for everybody and because i think we have to remember um that we've internalized um through our upbringing those of us in midlife you know the the homophobia and

the sexism of the 60s of the 70s of the 80s and that that's that's what we're living with um not 2024 when you know as as georgia was was saying, it's quite a popular thing. That things are more able to perhaps be discussed. Let me turn back to you, Georgia, though. Did you, have you a relationship? I'm just wondering in our last ministry, so what that was like to have your first... Now, yes. Yeah. No, no. I've been married to my wife now for, well, we've been together for eight years and we've been married for, she'll kill me. I don't know, since 2021.

So, yeah. So, so you are in a long-term relationship now. Oh, definitely. Yes. for life. That's it. But it's, yeah. So it's been amazing. And obviously there were relationships before that. But yes, this is perfection. So interesting to speak to both of you. Miriam Grace, psychotherapist, and also Georgia,

who came out about eight years ago after 20 years of marriage to a man, but now married. Thank you very much to both of you for speaking to me and also to our listeners who got in touch, 84844. I began by talking about tummies though. Shall we read a couple of these?

This is Kate. I've had a large tummy all my life. I'm now in my 70s. This is why I so admire Nicola Coughlin as Penn in Bridgerton. She is the curvy girl who gets the handsome hero, who loves her for who she is intellectually and also her luscious curves.

She insisted that she was filmed in a way that celebrated her shape. Facebook posts are full of women saying it's the first time they've seen the shape portrayed positively on screen. Another one actually on just our last segment there. Ginny says, I came out of the age of 45 after leading a life that never questioned my sexuality until I fell in love and had a relationship with a woman. I'm a playwright and got enough confidence to approach other women through a Facebook group

to talk about our experiences. It's never easy, but every woman has shown fierce strength. Keep them coming on any of the topics we've been covering today. 84844. Now, one of the topics we've been covering today 84844 now one of the joys of listener week is hearing about the rich tap rich tapestry of your lives my next guest got in touch to tell us about the volunteer work that she does with the charity pets as therapy

her name is sarah palmer she joins me on the line from Farnham in Surrey. Welcome to Women's Hour, Sarah. Good morning, Nuala, and thank you for having me. Now, I understand the other person who's your partner in crime in what you do is your dog, Haggis. Oh, I can see him. He's popping up into the screen as I speak to you. He's right here and he's very keen on the whole thing. He's very cute. So you have told us that your life has been immeasurably improved because of the wee chap that's on your lap there and the work that you do together visiting local hospitals and also care homes. Tell us a little bit about what you do with Haggis as a therapy dog, really, for others.

He's not a fully trained assistant yes who helps people take their tablets and so on and so forth he's there for cuddles and confiding your troubles and just being a really delightful non-judgmental he's never going to look at me and say my god what have you done to your hair or are you really going out like that and when we go to hospital and the care homes uh he sometimes is a trigger for people to remember their past lives uh think about things in the past and how happy they've been and even idly i can be chatting to the patient or the resident and they can be just gently cuddling his ears or something and I can see people relaxing and unbending and even if they've been a wee bit suspicious of a perfect stranger

coming into their hospital bedroom when you've got a wee cuddly dog sitting on your knee or putting his head on their knee and looking just adorable and lovely and totally non-threatening, it does seem to have a very, very beneficial effect. And so does Haggis have a particular temperament that you knew he would work in this way? The lady who bred them told me that there were two puppies in the litter who she thought would be ideal for Pat. Well, I was so ignorant, I didn't know anything about the organisation at all. And Sarah, let me just interrupt there because Pat is pets as therapy. Sorry, continue. Pets as therapy. Thank you very much.

I didn't know anything about the organisation. So I spent the first few months of his life with me, just bringing him up and training him to be a sensible, obedient, lovely dog. And I noticed that he is very calm and quiet and gentle. He has his moments, obviously. And so last spring, I looked into it and received tremendous enthusiasm and support and encouragement it was very very easy and enjoyable to get him trained and assessed and he knows when he goes into hospital or the care homes or the

or the library we do sessions for the children in the library, which is great fun. He just knows that he is quiet and walks nicely and sits partly on people's feet or people's knees or wherever they would like to interact with him. And he thoroughly enjoys it because who wouldn't enjoy

a lot of attention? But he must be a particularly sensitive dog because you know yourself, it's not every dog that wants to interact with many, many people. You're absolutely right and I'm obviously very biased.

But I do get people remarking on how calm, gentle and intuitive he is. He does seem to know. I mean, I was at hospital yesterday and there was a gentleman who was obviously feeling appalling, in pain, tired, exhausted, disorientated

and very ill at ease with life. And Havis just went and put his head on this gentleman's knee and just, I could tell the chap was just delighted to have something tangible, a lovely soft drink. And by the end of our conversation, he sort of unbent and relaxed and was not talking quite so much about how awful he felt, but looking forward to the future and going home. And his daughter was going to look after him. So he's an extraordinary little dog, actually. And a de-stressor, it sounds like.

I just want to read you, Sarah, a message that came in. This is from Patricia. She says, my retriever, Belle, who is Pets as Therapy Assessed, and I regularly visit a primary school. It makes a real difference to the children's day. The first visit I ever made to the school, one of the children was having a meltdown and the presence of Belle turned the situation around. Just stroking Belle made the child calm and changed that child's day

for that child and also for the staff. But I do understand that you go in to meet children in libraries. What's that like? That's a wee bit of a different situation. The first time was rather chaotic. And then I talked to the young woman in charge of activities. And I said, could we structure it a wee bit more? So I devised a little story about Haggis, about getting up in the morning and having his breakfast and brushing his teeth, just as the children would be doing. And when I was discussing these various things and he brushes his teeth and then we did little actions. And then I put him on the lead and he walked around because we had the children in like circle time at nursery. And so we walked around and said, here's Haggis and he's going to the shop

and here's Haggis, he's going to the post office and here's Haggis going to the children's playground. So they all had a little go at interacting with him. And that was a little bit more structured and it worked really well. And even the children who were not terribly keen, I think what we tend to forget that every family has a pet, a cat, a dog, a goldfish, a budgerigar, but a lot of children don't have contact with animals. And I think this is where children who are not terribly confidentising their reading to the dog.

Indeed, the non-judgmental one with unconditional love. And thanks for telling us about pets as therapy, one of the stories on Listener Week. We're going to have more of your stories tomorrow, including a listener who wants to speak about her experience of widow's fire, sexual hyper-arousal

following the death of a partner. Why does it happen happen i'll be discussing that and decluttering do join me at 10 a.m tomorrow for woman's hour that's all for today's woman's hour join us again next time hello lovely listeners i know i know you're busy well let me help you my friends with my brand new friday night comedy, Catherine Bohart, TLDR. Too long, didn't read. I'll be going beyond the headlines to get to the bottom of one big news story each week. You know that story that is huge and constantly being discussed,

but you miss the details and now it feels like it's too late to ask? Yeah, that one. I'll be speaking to people who know what they're talking about, then we can pretend we know what we're talking about when it comes up at a family dinner. So join me for Catherine Bowhart, TLDR, a new Friday night comedy from Radio 4, available 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 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.