Woman's Hour - Lockdown babies, Breast cancer study, Femgore, Chess Masters

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

Five years on from the first Covid lockdown, what can be done to support the 200,000 ‘Lockdown babies’ born when lockdown was at its most restrictive, between 23 March and 4 July 2020? These babies have extraordinary young-life stories: Mums giving birth alone; doctors in hazmat suits; babies meeting fathers and grandparents for the first time online; no health visitors; no family cuddles; no baby groups. Now aged four and approaching five, lockdown seems to have had lasting effects on some. What can be done to help? Nuala McGovern is joined by Nicola Botting, Professor of Developmental Disorders at City St George’s, University of London and co-lead on The Born in Covid Year – Core Lockdown Effects (BICYCLE) study, Jane Harris, CEO of Speech and Language UK, and mum of three, Frankie Eshun.Girls Aloud singer Sarah Harding died of breast cancer in 2021 at the age of 39. Inspired by her desire to find new ways of spotting the disease earlier, the Breast Cancer Risk Assessment in Young Women (BCAN-RAY) study was set up in May 2023. Led by Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust with funding from the Christie Charity, Sarah Harding Breast Cancer Appeal, and other charities, it is one of the world's first research programmes to identify breast cancer risks in younger women without a family history of the disease. Nuala speaks to Anna Housley, who has taken part in the study.Nuala talks to Emma van Straaten, whose 10,000 word entry, This Immaculate Body, won the inaugural Women’s Prize Discoveries in 2021, an award set up to inspire unagented and unpublished women in the UK and Ireland to write their first novels. That submission is now a published book - It is about Alice, who has been cleaning Tom’s flat for over a year, and becomes infatuated with him, a man she has never met.A new TV series, Chess Masters, started last week on BBC2. It’s badged as Bake Off with kings and queens. Camilla Lewis, the woman behind the new show, was inspired to create it by her teenage daughter, Jasmine, who became obsessed with the game during lockdown. They join Nuala to talk about how to turn a board game into must-watch television.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Rebecca Myatt

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petruzzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme. Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2. And of the risks it will take to feel truly alive.

If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. BBC Sounds Music radio podcasts. Hello, this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to Monday's programme. Now, if you gave birth five years ago, you will no doubt be familiar with the term lockdown baby. Yes, it is five years since we went into lockdown. lockdown baby. Yes, it is five years since we went into lockdown and those that had a baby during that extraordinary time all have a story to tell. But what about those children now? What impact

did it have on their development? Been born during a global pandemic? What we're going to hear from mothers and also about an ongoing study on the effects of lockdown about what is known so far. Some of you may have thoughts on this, the number to text 84844, I'll give you more ways to get in touch in a moment. Now during that time, many of us turned to various pursuits to stave off the monotony. Chess was the game that one of my guests turned to. She says it alleviated her depression. Her mother then decided to pitch chess masters as a TV show. Yes, it's on air now, so we're going to speak to both of them. Also today, the author Emma van Stratton, who wrote The Immaculate Body.

Her debut novel is Where a Cleaner Becomes, Obsessed with the Man She is Cleaning for, Although She Has Never Met Him. Here's just one tidbit. She uses his toothbrush. cleaning for, although she has never met him. Here's just one tidbit. She uses his toothbrush. Okay, that is definitely crossing the line. Now Emma says when she was a cleaner, she walked the line a few times.

If you have experiences as a cleaner, please get in touch. If it's about walking or crossing the line, you can share anonymously if you so wish. But Emma has not only been a cleaner, but also a client. And she says, when you think about it, really think about it. Both positions are impossibly strange. So any thoughts on that?

And of course, you do not have to be have been a cleaner or a client to comment. OK, to get in touch, the number to text 84844 on social media or at BBC Woman's Hour, or you can email us through our website for a WhatsApp message or a voice note. The number is 03700 100 444. Looking forward to hearing from all of you. But let me begin on the topic of breast cancer. You'll remember the Girls Aloud singer Sarah Harding died of breast cancer in 2021 at the young age of 39. Inspired by her desire to try

and find ways, new ways of spotting the disease earlier, the breast cancer risk assessment in young people is called BCAN-RAE. It's a study that was set up in May of 2023. You may know that breast cancer is the leading cause of death in women aged between 35 and 50 in the UK. There's an estimated 10,000 women a year diagnosed that are under the age of 50. And this study was led by Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust. It had funding from the Christie Charity, the Sarah Harding Breast Cancer Appeal and other charities and it's the world's first research program to identify breast cancer risks in younger women without a family

history of the disease. And to this end I want to bring in Anna Housley, she's 38 she's from Manchester and she took part in this study, the breast cancer risk assessment in young women. And Anna, let me speak with you because I saw your story online when I was reading about Sarah Harding and this particular study that talks about 88 women have been found because of this study and you are one of those people that was invited to go. Tell us your story. Yeah good morning. Yeah I just received a letter one day from my GP surgery

saying that because of my age I live in Greater Manchester and I am obviously female that I was eligible to be part of this study. So I just emailed the research team back and said, yeah, I'd be interested in being part of the study and take it from there. I was then just invited to the Nightingale Centre at Winshaw Hospital, which is a breast cancer specialist unit, to meet with the research team. They went through a family history to establish whether there was any family link of breast cancer in myself and my family there isn't that we know of. I had a saliva sample done so that they could do some gene assessing for me and then they asked some lifestyle questions to try and establish what my

lifestyle was like and whether there are any lifestyle factors that would put me at increased risk. And then the last part of the study was to go and have a low dose single sided mammogram so that they could assess breast tissue density. And that was it really in terms of what actually needed to happen. And then quite a few months later, I kind of got updates, I had to answer a few questionnaires during the coming months just to see what impact they thought that the study might have had on me. And then I got a letter with all of my results on and I was quite surprised to find that it said that I was at increased risk because I never really considered myself to be someone who would

be at increased risk of breast cancer and I'd never entered the study thinking that it would be me that they were looking for so that came as a bit of a shock but it was a really interesting study to be part of and I'm really glad that I did it because now I know that that risk is there. I can take steps and help my family take steps to try and decrease any risk going forward in our lives. And that headline, as I mentioned today, is that this study has spotted 88 women that are at risk. And you have said that you're one of the lucky few that was invited to take part in the study,

but that is quite a roller coaster, isn't it? To kind of be taking part in a study kind of for the greater good and then for them to come back with this news. Yes, yeah, it was a bit of a roller coaster. When I first got those results, I was a bit taken aback and a bit a bit shocked because it just it wasn't something that had even really entered my head when I signed up for the study and said I was just doing it to kind of help out because I was I'm interested in science, I'm a physiotherapist, I have a medical background, so I, I would consider us to be the lucky ones because we know that that risk is there now and we can try and help change that risk and move forwards more positively in our lives. So what is the advice you're given at that point? And I know every breast cancer can be different, for example, for people who are

listening and of course always go to your GP if you have any questions about this. But with you, what was the advice given? Well, for me, the issues that had increased my risk were mainly genetic. There was one of them, well I suppose one of them was the fact that I'd had children over the age of 30, which I didn't know increased your risk of breast cancer, but apparently it does. So I'd had my children slightly later in life. I'd had, although I didn't have any of the kind of scary genes, the ones where you need to go and have immediate mastectomies, I did have genetic kind of precursors that would put me at

increased risk. Obviously I can't change my genetics, they are what they are. But in terms of any lifestyle factors, there isn't really much that came up from that that I could necessarily influence. I eat a very healthy diet, I exercise regularly, but all of those things can help decrease your risk. So if you're one of those women who has been found to be at increased risk or if you would like to try and decrease your risk further, trying to eat as healthily as possible a real food diet, trying to exercise regularly, yes it's what the government always tells us to do, but actually in terms of breast cancer risk it really does decrease your risk quite significantly. So there are things that I can still do

and change even though I can't influence my genes. But the genes, I mean, that is a big thing to take on as well because obviously if they're your genes, they're your family's genes. Exactly, and I have two young children who are both girls, so there is a high chance that they have inherited some of those risks from me also. So as much as they dislike me making them do it, they eat a lot of vegetables, they're not allowed to go to McDonald's. I try and keep them as healthy and as active as I possibly can, knowing that I'm trying to give them the best start in life to decrease any risk that they might have inherited from me and although my sister doesn't live in the Greater Manchester area so wasn't eligible to be part of the study

knowing that I am at increased risk obviously she might also be at increased risk so she's been able to go to her GP with my results and then have some some screening done herself to be able to see whether she might also be at risk and also start to take any lifestyle steps she can that will decrease any possible risk for her further as well. So it has had an impact across our whole family. Yes, very much so. And I suppose also it makes you more, I suppose we all should be, but on the lookout for lumps, bumps, changes with your breasts, etc.

Yeah, absolutely. I do regular checks of myself and I'm sure a lot of other women do as well, but it didn't really occur to me that that was quite so important until having been part of this study. I think one thing that also kind of raised awareness in me anyway was that a friend of mine lost a close friend of hers at the age of 37 from breast cancer and unfortunately this woman had known that there were changes in her breast there but was too scared to go to the GP and by the time she kind of plucked up the courage it was too late. So if you notice any changes it's taking that step early on even if you think oh it's probably nothing, GPs are really good now at just checking and referring you onwards to have things checked

because they know the risk is so high. Well thank you so much for sharing your story. That is Anna Housley and if you have been affected by anything you've heard please go to the BBC Action Line for support links and of course your GP for advice. But that is the legacy that Sarah Harding has left, the Girls Aloud singer, identifying more than 80 young women who are at risk of developing breast cancer and have been one of them. And the second phase of the study, that BCAN-RAE, that assessment study that's been ongoing, is setting up

a fellowship which will include a research lab dedicated to examining the factors which put younger women at risk. So those women under 50 years of age. 84844, if you would like to get in touch. I want to turn to Covid. This week marks the fifth anniversary of the first UK lockdown due to COVID. In 2020, of course, we'll all remember that year. Well, I'll probably all remember this week, five years ago.

So the BBC this week is examining the lasting effects of COVID restrictions and special programming entitled Lockdown Legacy. There were over 200,000 babies born when lockdown was at its most restrictive in 2020. These were babies born with extraordinary birth stories. For example, mums giving birth alone, doctors in hazmat suits, babies meeting fathers and grandparents for the first time online. No health visitors, no visitors at all, no family cuddles, no baby groups. I could go on as there are so many examples. But the question we're asking this morning is how has being born in lockdown

impacted those babies? And also how can we support those lockdown babies now aged four in reception class or P1 in Scotland? Well, I'm joined by three women in studio with me. Nicola Botting is Professor of Developmental Disorders at City St. George's, University of London, and co-lead on the Born in COVID Year Core Lockdown Effects, Bicycle, which is a lot easier to say is the name of the study. We also have beside Nicola, Frankie Eshun,

who's the mum of three. Welcome back to Women's Hour, Frankie. And we have Jane Harris, CEO of Speech and Language UK. Welcome, Jane. Hello. Well, I want to begin actually with a clip. And it's a little insight into the effect on some children that were born during lockdown.

This is Sarah Baraclough, who is a teaching assistant at Queens Drive Primary School. She is part of BBC One's Panorama programme that will air tonight. We've got children who are coming in now who don't have the vocabulary or if they've got some of it they don't know what it means. Blue, green, yellow or pink? Good boy. So you're looking at a quarter of your class who have got some sort of speech and language need for your mummies and daddies. You can colour whichever bit you want. Language has been declining for years as they've come into school. The impact of COVID has been huge because it's made that decline really steep.

If you can't talk to your peers you're not going to play with them and so you're lonely. Lonely, gosh if ever there was a word that sums up lockdown it probably would be lonely but here we are five years later with some little kids experiencing it. Frankie, you took part in our 2020 program about mums giving birth during COVID. We want to know how is your lockdown baby? Not a baby anymore, now four and in reception. Yeah, he's going to be five in two weeks. He's in reception. He's like any other child. However, he's interesting. There's certain things that you can tell he's a lockdown baby. Very quiet little boy, very quiet. I wouldn't

say his speech is the clearest either at all, if I'm honest. Compared to my eldest, I also have a two year old as well. Which is really interesting. You've actually got a control group in your home. I do. I have an experiment going on right now. And Delay Speech, in reception at some point they give the kids books, you know, to help them with their phonics and loads of this, some of the kids got it earlier. I've noticed some of them didn't and he just got his like after Christmas, just because we've been working so hard with him to get his speech, you know, up to where it should be. Obviously, every child is different and just his phonics up to speed and yeah, he's just not the greatest talker. He's, you know, he can express himself in several ways, but his speech is just not

clear. It's interesting though, isn't it? Because that teaching assistant Sarah that we heard there, that's exactly the bit she was picking up on and that communication. I'm wondering how you feel about the term lockdown baby? Personally, I'm not bothered by it, but they are lockdown babies. And if we actually think about it, when has there ever been a time where the whole world was on standstill, and we've had these babies come into this world who would normally socialise, meet different people, go to clubs, you know, he didn't even get weighed, you know, things like that. I had a c-section, unplanned one, and normally they'll come day one and day five, someone will come home. I had no one come home. And I understand, obviously,

it was on lockdown, you know, everyone's scared of contamination and stuff like that. So at day five, I had to go somewhere, but it was literally empty. You couldn't sit down. I had a section. I was holding this brand new baby. Pain. He wasn't even, he was born in March. He did not get registered till August. So you can just imagine. It's astonishing, isn't it? When we take a moment now just to look back. No doubt he has little kids his age as well, his peers. Do you talk about that with the parents? Are there similar behaviours do you think? Well, I think I kind of know more because I'm a parent governor in their school. So just without saying this, I think their cohort this year probably has the most kids with needs.

And we're not talking, you know, like all ASD or anything like that, just actual learning difficulties in that year compared to you know the different courses they've had the year before and many believe that it is because of COVID you know during that time. Nikki and Jane are nodding along here let me jump over to you Nikki. So what do we know for sure, now I know your study is ongoing. That's right. But you have some findings that you're looking at. So we've got findings emerging actually from other studies from these babies as they grew

up. So we know that even when they were really little, at six months and at 12 months, they were behind where we'd expect on their very early communication. Things like pointing, which is a super important skill. Why? Well, I think that Frankie hit the nail on the head when she said they didn't go out and have that social diversity. So obviously babies talk to their caregivers and their parents, or not talk to them, but their brothers and sisters.

But in fact, going out and hearing background talking, different voices, different accents, different roles of people in the world was all missing. And so that lack of diversity in their very, very early months actually is super important for babies. Because I suppose so many of the babies will have been meeting people, even when they did meet people in real life, behind a mask or whatever that may or may not mean, and others will be on a screen. That's right. So very different forms of communication. I mean, I think screens helped communication in lots of ways. So it's not that they were all terrible, but we've certainly heard from

parents who were holding their babies up to see other babies on the screen at toddler groups online which is a very unusual way for babies to see other babies and babies love looking at other babies they learn a lot from just that socialization of observing other babies communicating touching other babies that was really missing in those very early months and they miss the other babies. Heartbreaking. Right, because they're probably surrounded with adults or maybe brothers sisters but not little people like them. Jane let me bring you in here because as I mentioned at the beginning you are a CEO of Speech and Language UK. What evidence is there about the specific challenges when it comes

to speech and language? So we know that the numbers of children who have speech and language problems, who have some difficulty with talking or with understanding words, are quietly and steadily going through the roof. So we ask teachers every year how many children in their classrooms are having problems with talking and understanding words. In 2021 they said 1.4 million, the last time we asked a year and a half ago it was 1.9 million, so that's an increase of almost a third which is terrible and what's really worrying is that that has a huge impact on children's futures. So we know that they are twice as likely to be unemployed when they're young adults, 60% of young offenders have speech and language challenges and they have greater mental health problems. So

we are really just storing up problems for the future by not doing enough about this now. So let's get back to these children that are now in reception or P1 as it's called in Scotland. With the language, speech and language, I mean Nikki was kind of outlining some of the issues there about why the communication isn't what it is or the socialization. Is that what it is for speech and language? Oh yes, it's the same thing we're talking about.

I guess it's also, we should say, the cost of living crisis has a massive impact as well. How? So speech and language problems we've always known are connected with disadvantage. So for example, as well as not seeing other babies and other children, those babies and children were not going out, say, to a farm and seeing a cow and have somebody saying moo when pointing at the cow. And actually the real way you learn language is having lots and lots of new experiences and lots

of new reasons to use language. When parents haven't got as much money and probably haven't got as much time because they're working more and they're more stressed, they are just less likely to do those things with those children and that's why it's so important that we equip nurseries and child minders better to fill in those some of those gaps because in those really disadvantaged areas that parents are not skilled up to do this. Well the thing is the lockdown I mean it felt like a very long time but the children have been out in the world over the past couple of years and people might wonder You know, they're little sponges aren't they? How come the catch-up hasn't happened?

So I think what we don't know and what we're looking at in bicycle is exactly what's happened with these four-year-olds That's why we're looking at them now to see how much has changed whether they've caught up or they've lagged behind. I think the answer is going to be that it's going to be very complicated. So it's very likely that some families, for some families and for some children, there will be significant impacts of COVID and for other families actually it will be less. By significant, some of these issues, let's think of those kids that are in reception right now. We're thinking about maybe having less vocabulary like Sarah on your clip was saying. So not understanding words as well,

not following instructions. That's really important when you get into a classroom. And also some aspects of self-regulation, which we're looking at in Bicycle as well. Well, following instructions, do you think Jane, that comes under speech? Absolutely, because if you don't understand the instruction you are not going to follow it and that's one of the real worries is a lot of these children get labeled as having

behaviour problems. 81% of children with emotional behaviour problems have a speech and language problem so it's not they don't want to follow the instruction, they literally just don't understand it. Other governments across the world have done more to help these children. So for example, actually in Ireland, the government has put a program called early taught boost that we helped to run into preschools in every single disadvantaged area. Now at the end of that program, it takes nine weeks. It takes about 14 hours of group work. Children have gained five months of speech and language skills, of language skills.

Five months in what time? In, in, uh, after nine weeks, nine weeks, so 14 hours over nine weeks. That's fantastic and you can do it in groups of about eight. We haven't got that in this country. It's interesting you mention Ireland there that I do know quite well because their lockdown was actually more restrictive than the UK and went on for a lot longer as well and particularly in those early months I know women were giving birth for much longer for example than they were alone than they were here for example. Frankie I'd like to come back to you you've heard a little of what Nikki and Jane has been saying. How do you feel the intervening years particularly that catch up that people are trying to do I think is what I'm hearing? I think the kids, they are trying to catch up, but obviously as they're catching up, everything else is moving. So as a parent, if you don't have that time to maybe sit down

with your child just that bit more and give them the support they need, and then that's where the child misses it and they do go into reception and they are struggling. I use my son as an example, we noticed that he had a reading problem. So we were like, me and my husband was like, okay, we need to knock her down with him. We need to get him up to speed. And he has caught up. And now I worked with the teacher, but not every parent has the resources or has that time are around.

I'm a stay at home mum, so I'm at home, I work from home. So I'm able to have that time to do that. But not everyone has that advantage. And they are catching up and that's all they can do. They're young. Things like going out and pointing at a bird, even on a walk, we couldn't go out. So how is this child meant to, you know, learn to point? People say they didn't wave. Who are they waving to?

If you live with someone in your house, you don't need to wave at them. But if you used to go outside, kids constantly wave at strangers. They wave at dogs. They say hello to people outside. We didn't have the opportunity to do that. They couldn't go to the normal, you know, children classes that we all went to. Let's listen to a little of what the government's take is. This is a clip from Panorama, which will air tonight. The Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Philipson.

I worry about the youngest children and children who were born during Covid and it's why that we've set as a government our milestone about making sure that more children reach a good level of development at the end of reception year because those are the children who were born during the pandemic and in the aftermath of restrictions where I'm really concerned about their life chances. And what would you say to parents about what their child should be able to do by the time they're starting in reception? I think it perhaps used to be clearer in the past about the things that you can do as a

parent ahead of your child starting school to make sure that they're ready to go. And that is areas like being able to put on your shoes, being able to go to the toilet independently. Of course, some children will need extra help and schools will step in to do that. But I think we do need to consider each of us the responsibilities that we have. And I just want to add a little to that

from the Department of Education spokesperson said, despite our difficult inheritance through our plan for change, the government is determined to get tens of thousands more children a record proportion school ready by the age of five. That means hitting key targets on personal, social and physical development, as well as supporting children and young people navigate any impacts on their mental health. We've started this work by extending early language support,

investing 15 million pounds to deliver thousands of school based nurseries and strengthening and joining up family services through a continued investment in the family hubs and the Start for Life programme. So some of the aspects that are there, you hear Bridget Phillipson also talk about her concerns, they're very concrete things, aren't they? Putting on your shoes or whatever those little daily achievements might be. You mentioned the Irish program that I think you'd like to see here Jane. Absolutely. What else? Well we'd really like government to bring back a program that actually ran under the previous

government and frankly we're baffled that this government has discontinued it which is called the Early Years Professional Development Programme and what that did was it worked with childminders, with people working in nurseries, to improve their skills in helping children with communication and language, maths and personal, social, emotional development. We honestly just do not understand given this programme had great results, you know, improved things like Ofsted ratings in nurseries, it improved staff wanting to stay in the earlier sector, which is a huge issue. We just think it's baffling and it's horrendous that the government is risking children going into these new nurseries without the staff

with skills in this area. It's just wrong. Have they given you a response? We've talked to government about it. Everybody seems to recognize it was a good program. I think it might just be stuck between Treasury and Department of Education but given that government has said one of its five top priorities is early years, you would think this would something, you know, this is in the low millions of pounds to fund, we are not talking billions here, and it's about our children's futures. And of course, I can just refer, of course, to the money that they say they have invested, which might be more of a priority for them. Don't quote me on that. That is an aspect, of course, that they are highlighting. I want to

come to the study again, Nick Nikki. You co-lead Bicycle, you're in the process of selecting children to follow now until 2027. That's right. So what do you want to find out? So what we're looking at is their talking and thinking skills. So some of the things we've been talking about, how well they can produce words and sentences, how well they can understand words and sentences, but also how well they self-regulate and how well their higher school. Self-regulate, so let's talk about that a little bit.

So staying on task, paying attention, but also multitasking, which doesn't sound like something a four-year-old might do, but actually in a classroom and in life you need to sort of be able to hold information and work on something at the same time. Those sorts of very early, we call them executive functions in the research world, are super important for later development in terms of social development, in terms of language development, in terms of academic achievement. So we're really interested in looking at those because we think those also might be something that was affected by that lack of early social diversity and a lack of public self because if you're just in

your house you don't regulate as much necessarily if you go out you you need a different sort of you know your mum's doing a different sort of persona outside than she is inside. I love my mum's telephone voice. So there's sort of a whole lack of very early modeling of those sorts of behaviors, which we think might be affecting, in fact, that's what teachers are telling us at the moment is happening in schools, is that the whole classroom feels busier and noisier

and less regulated. And I think that's the challenge, that you've got a whole group of children. So if you're a child who's got slightly lower language skills or slightly more difficulty staying on task, you're also in a classroom which is also struggling with those. So we've sort of got a vulnerable classroom situation. Yes, which of course Frankie, you bring back that story as well of what it's like within that classroom for some of those four

turning five-year-olds. You talked about reading at home, is there anything else that you've been advised to try and do? I think reading, talking to your child, you actually, I know it sounds like it's just talking, but it's actually compensating, asking your child those questions. Often we just ask questions as parents, but you need to ask a question in hope that your child actually gives an answer and not just yes. Because if you ask a child, oh, how was your day? Well, okay, good. But if you actually say, oh, what did you, what was fun about your day?

Me and my son, name me three good things that happened in your day to day. Things like that actually trigger conversations. I just think as a parent, just be more aware as well and just invest in time in the things your child does around, you know, actually give them games to play that will aid them in reading and understanding. Because let's be honest, they are four, so they are young as well. But obviously we also know there's a level at which they should be and some of them are not. So it's just it's just having that time and the resources, which we all know it is hard as a parent. Jane just has a finish up, if it happened again

briefly what would you like to see done differently? I'd like there to be a really clear plan from the moment that lockdown is lifted as to how we're going to recover things and that just hasn't hasn't been in place. I'd also like to make sure we don't blame parents too much. There are free resources on our website for parents at speechandlanguage.org.uk. There's a free advice line you can and language.org.uk. You can, there's a free advice line you can call this free webinars you can attend. There's a free progress checker. So you can check how your child is doing. And there's also free training for people running nurseries.

But I think we have to be also be really clear that a million children have a genetic condition that damages their language called developmental language disorder. And it's really important that parents don't think, oh, this has just happened because I didn't do enough chatting or whatever. There's some children who really need specific speech and language therapy. And we should do as much of this as possible, because then that means the children with the sort of, you know, the fewer needs get help from their parents.

And it frees up the speech and language therapists to see the children with real needs. But let's remember they exist, too. Yeah, yeah. Nicola Botting, professor of Developmental Disorders at City St. George's University of London and co-lead on the bicycle study looking at the effects of lockdown on the little kids that were born then. The mum of three Frankie Ishaan and Jane Harris, CEO of Speech and Language UK. I want to let you know this is part of special programming that's taking place across BBC Radio

examining the long-term impact of COVID restrictions five years on, especially on children and young people. At four o'clock today Catherine Carr presents Lockdown's Legacy and also you can watch the panorama film that I've been referring to, Lockdown Kids, five years on, at 8pm on BBC One this evening and it also will be on iPlayer. and it also will be on iPlayer. What do Bridgerton actor Adjoa Ando, nature presenter Rae Wynn Grant, and TikTok sensation Mama Siebs all have in common? They're all guests on Dear Daughter's Stars

from the BBC World Service. I'm Namulanta Kombo, and for the new series of Dear Daughter, I'm welcoming an all-star lineup to share stories of parenting in the spotlight. Listen now by searching for Dear Daughter wherever you get your BBC podcasts. I just want to read a comment that came in as I was speaking to my guests. Covid birth, says Sue. I as grandma delivered my grandson due to local maternity unit being closed that Sunday evening and the midwives delayed due to busy time scales. All thankfully went quickly and well.

Such a magic moment. Drinking tea with an ambulance team that arrived and then the midwife after the birth. In retrospect now, I do have anxieties about this moment due to my daughter having a very traumatic first birth experience. But Sue, I bet she was delighted that you were there. Thanks very much for getting in touch 84844 if you would also like to add your voice on that or indeed on my next story. I'm just going to read one that came in when I mentioned cleaning this morning and cleaners. Oh my goodness as a cleaner I'm now dreading cross examinations from the people wanting to know heaven knows

what I can feel myself blushing already I know everyone I clean for and to be honest I'm just frantically trying to get as much as possible done before my time is up. No time for fantasising. I do enjoy soaking up the beautiful places I clean at, especially the Riverside houses while having a tea break. But that is as far as it goes, says Yvette in beautiful Cornwall. Now, why that comment? Well, because sitting with me now in the studio is Emma Von Stratton,

whose debut novel, The Immaculate Body, has just been published. Her book began life as a ten thousand word entry for the inaugural Women's Prize Discoveries in 2021, an award that was set up to inspire unagented and unpublished women in the UK and Ireland to write. Well, it won. I've read it. It's brilliant. And it's about Alice, who has been cleaning Tom's flat for over a year and becomes infatuated, I think I'd go as far as to say, obsessed with him. It's a man she has never met. Emma, welcome to the Woman's Hour Studio.

Thank you very much. I'm very excited to be here. Well, let's get straight into Alice, the Clean Cleaner's Head with a reading. You have a little bit where Alice describes her feelings about her client, Tom. You think you know what love is I imagine but you don't. It's not holding hands and feeling safe, fond smiles and tender kisses, bringing home silk petaled flowers on a Friday, picking up that green and bone dry wine, sorry, hands and feeling safe, fond smiles and tender kisses, bringing home silk-petalled flowers on a Friday, picking up that green and bone-dry wine you know he likes. I spit on that. Love is this, when it is your greatest desire to slice open his chest and crawl inside him

to rest, a compulsion to drink his blood, great copper gulps of it, to press yourself to him, limb to limb, palm to palm, so that you might be absorbed. Borrowing inside his bones, becoming his very marrow, it is disappearing entirely into him. This is the way I love him and the way he must surely love me. Surely, surely, I say, because we have not met.

Face to face, that is, although our correspondence is lengthy and a meeting of true, true minds. I clean his small one bedroom flat once a week and I know every inch of it and so every inch of him, that hard body that I have studied so diligently in photographs. It begins to give us a little idea of what this cleaner Alice is like about Tom. And as I was reading it, and it is a real page turner, I was wondering where you got the idea. And then I begin to read that you were once a cleaner and that you find the relationship between cleaner and client, whichever you are, many, maybe both during their lives,

impossibly strange. Tell me a little bit more about your experiences. cleaner and client, whichever you are, many, maybe both during their lives, impossibly strange. Tell me a little bit more about your experiences. Yes, well I was doing law after leaving university and desperate for extra money and so I put a notice in our post room with a block of flats I lived in, basically saying I'd do any menial labor and a couple got back to me and I met the woman once and she said, would you clean our flat every week? And so I did and they were my one cleaning client and I went every week, I never saw the woman again,

I never met her husband and yet I felt week after week as I kind of dusted the books on their bedside tables and kind of cleaned the shelves in the fridge and noticed the kind of things they ate I just felt like I began to know them and also like them. Yes and that kind of strange knowingness that I felt as I moved around their things kind of never really left me. So the familiarity with a stranger's home. Yes exactly and what's more on more, on top of that, the fact that they didn't know me and probably had no interest in me at all. We never spoke, we just communicated with kind of money left on the counter. So it was this strange imbalance of power

almost. But there was an intimacy because you learn things about them. Yes. I basically learned that when they got pregnant, essentially, from an ultrasound scan, they'd pinned up on their corkboard. And that was one of the moments that I thought, maybe I know this before any of their friends have even been told. And kind of multi vitamins for pregnancy on the counter appeared. And then later, estate agent broch the on the worktop and I was

like okay they're going to move soon and they did. So I'd also kind of their habits so they were both quite messy and I knew what clothes they wore and folded their underwear like it's really intimate. Definitely and you said you you never crossed the line but you walked the line. Yes there are two times I look back on and think, oh maybe if I hadn't been a kind of early 20s poor student I wouldn't have done this. And one was she was very prestigious about the best before dates on food, so she said please just bin anything automatically if it's out of date, bin it. And there was one time I kept some cherry tomatoes from their fridge and I thought as I took them home, they were Waitrose and I thought I'm not going to buy these

myself. They look fine. She wants me to bin them. I'm going to eat them. I think that's fair enough. So I did. And the other time is I fell in love with a dress that I washed and folded and or every week for her. And I bought it myself in my own size at a later date sort of thing. I mean that would only be strange perhaps if she bumped into you and knew who you were. But you did bump into them. I did, yes. Oh I think I did. I'm kind of 99% sure it was them. Many years later when that pregnancy scan was a kind of eight-year-old child, I think I saw them very close to where we used to live and I kind of clutched my husband at the time and he had no idea what because he'd never met them or anything

either and I looked and looked and looked at them and I thought I recognized them from the photos and where they'd be kind of eight years later and they had two children and it all kind of matched in my head but I don't know for sure. That question mark. But no question mark with Alice. Let's turn back to her, your protagonist in your novel. I think that really stayed with me that I mentioned at the top of the programme as well. I'll just read a little. Moving through to the bathroom, I slide his toothbrush into my mouth and absently suck. I think that's the thing that most people, I think, have been horrified by this idea. And yes, that is a definite boundary crossing.

And Alice's obsession, I mean, as in the part I read, she kind of wants to almost be him or be inside him in some way. And so it's just one extra horrifying little detail. And horror you mentioned there because this genre is Femgor that I wasn't very familiar with beforehand but describe it. Femgor is a kind of a sub genre of horror and it often involves a strong female protagonist who is kind of plagued by various things. The unhinged woman trope kind of falls under this as well. There's often elements of body horror, violence. And body horror meaning? Body horror meaning a disconnect with the body that you're in and that's something that I was really interested

in. So firstly I was surprised that it was pulled under the femgo umbrella, but kind of looking into it more myself, I understand why it is in the kind of periphery. She doesn't want to be in her body. She doesn't want to be in her body. Which is a disturbing thing to read. Yes, yes. Even though it may be some parts of it familiar and resonate with many women. Yes. Alice's relationship with her own body is something that I drew upon personal experience from and it is one of, it's quite telling to me that all of these thoughts, the kind of vitriolic thoughts in the book came so naturally to me as I wrote them that when my editor, one of the first things she said to me was you need to really tone them down and maybe

cut out about a third of them because it's just too much. I was kind of shocked and appalled at the thought that I'd never, I hadn't written anything that I'd never thought about myself in the past. And so it was a strange cathartic journey to realize how awful my own thoughts were about myself and also to delete so many of them. I think that's great that it was cathartic for you, but I think it must give pause when you realise there is a disconnect between how you feel and see things if these words pour out of you and instead somebody's like, whoa, that's like too much. Yes, it's kind of heartbreaking really, because some of the thoughts kind of go back to when I was a preteen really, just this hatred of oneself. And now I'm kind of an adult and much more kind of even minded about it all. But yes, and some readers have said that resonates with them as well. So, yeah, it is a sad thing to think really, that I've moved on.

Yeah, it is a sad thing to think really that I've moved on. Yes, yes. And you put it down for others to read. Even if this is toned down, I'm wondering what the original was. But I was fascinated reading a little bit with Fem Gore that sometimes with the femininity, you know, whether it's rom-coms or other genres of fiction that are often assigned more to a female reader and that some say, you know, Femgor allows us to explore another side, that anger or rage that many women can feel and be able to express it.

Yes, I think Femgor has come at a time, or the way it's kind of been grouped together with this kind of large genre, I think quite different books all fall under Zambrala, is this desire for autonomy in a hostile world still. And for that kind of rage not to be the more traditional kind of revenge thriller, were popular or still are popular but in a more almost introspective way. Yeah and she is very much the protagonist you know I can kind of see her has anybody approached you for tv on this yet for a netflix? I'm not sure I'm allowed to say anything about that yet. Oh so I'm right I have a feeling feeling of height when I was reading it. Plenty of people have said that they can see it, and I would love to see it personally. Yeah, I think I can see it as well. It's so descriptive the way you write.

When you talk about he or him, you have a capital H. Or H, as some people might say. How come? I wanted to make Alice's love for Tom to be worship, basically. Like a deity. Yes, exactly. He's a deity to her. She sees herself as his disciple or his apostle. She sees the very purpose of her life as being to serve him. And I think that I kind of try to feed through some religious imagery beyond that too. Emma, definitely, particularly with some of the, flagellation is the word that's coming

to mind. But how do you put yourself, Emma, into the mind of a sociopath? It was surprisingly easy. I probably shouldn't admit that. But no, it was just the voice always came first and with the voice was this single mindedness and unpleasantness. And so I just kind of followed that path to its natural conclusion, which to me was an overwhelming obsession. And drawing all of the kind of most unpleasant things anyone could think about most things was kind of exhausting to do and I think also exhausting to read, I think, which is why it's such a short book. But The Voice was so strong that I

kind of couldn't really do anything else. It made itself easy. She has so many facets though, because she is thoroughly unlikable and unpleasant in so many ways, but you have a lot of compassion for her too, because obviously she's tortured. Yes, she has suffered a trauma in her past and really struggled to move on from it and it's a traumatic event that has almost stagnated her at the time it happened to her. So something happened to her at school when she's 16 and I wanted to make her mindset very sort of 16-ish the whole way. Like Arrested Development, yeah. Exactly. And kind of all the books she references, although she's widely read,

she's all kind of on the school syllabus really, or nothing much beyond that. So she never really moves past it and never really moves past her understanding of what kind of a 16-year-old might want or how a 16-year-old perceives love. Here's a comment that came in from Ali. As a domestic cleaner it was hard not to notice people's family photos or photos of their younger selves dotted around the place. Cleaning their space was an intimate thing. I often found myself making up stories about their past

selves or trying to piece together parts of the puzzle about their past lives. It was an insight the majority of people don't get. You learn a lot about people. Yes, that's very, yeah, I think that is completely true and also unusual because I've spoken to a few cleaners, professional cleaners since then and most of them kind of like the first person who wrote in about this said that it's a job, you just get it done as quickly as you can and that's it. But I think because it was my one role, my one couple I cleaned for, I could almost luck-gloriate in it. And I was kind of a student, I'm a naturally nosy slash curious person. You couldn't help but let these

things come into your head. And I think for the client, they're often trying to, and I know you talk about this, make their home seem as dehumanized as possible and maybe for the cleaner coming in they're also not thinking about, at times humans are just emptying the bins, cleaning the floor, whatever, almost in a vacuum if you can do it that way. I need to ask before I let you go, did you have any more jobs as students that I should be looking out for that's going to be in your next book? There is a next book coming but it is a very very different 14th century medieval book. So no but I did cat sit so maybe there'll be a cat.

You did cat sit, yeah no definitely there could be something in that as well. Thank you so much for coming into us Emma van Straaten whose debut novel if you're intrigued is called This Immaculate Body. It has just been published. Loved reading about it. 84844, if you would like to get in touch. Going back to cancer at the beginning, listening to the breast cancer gene lady, that was Anna, who had been part of a study that discovered that she was at a

higher risk for breast cancer than she expected. Please, can you also emphasize that this also applies to boys men who need to be vigilant. I have the bracket 2 gene defect and my son has inherited it but not my daughter. Thank you for that information 84844 if indeed you'd like to get in touch. Okay talked about lots of things that you're getting in touch in. Here's another one. Chess. Are you watching Chess Masters, which started last week on BBC two? It is, has been called Bake Off with Kings and Queens. Camilla Leslie, Lewis, excuse me, Camilla Lewis, the woman behind the new show,

was inspired to create it by her teenage daughter, Jasmine, who became obsessed with the game during lockdown. We have both Camilla and Jasmine with us. Good morning. Good morning. Good to have you with us. Well, let's start first, perhaps, with Jasmine. Why and how did you get into chess and welcome? During COVID I think like many young teens and I mean everyone struggled a lot with my mental health and I needed something to kind of drag me out and I was you know seeking lots of support and my family were incredible but I was really that and I was, you know, seeking lots of support and my family were incredible but I was really suffering and I've always known how to play chess but when I was, you know, during

Covid it turned into more of like an obsession and it was almost a bridge for me to kind of communicate with the people around me because I was really struggling because obviously during the pandemic all of my social bubbles kind of weren't really there and I wasn't really able to see extended family and friends and you know whoever it was and I was really struggling to communicate with the people around me. At what age were you Jasmine sorry when when during that time approximately? 16, 17. Yeah interesting because we were just talking earlier in the program about little kids you know that are five now that were born during lockdown. And just to let people know, I'm speaking to you.

I can see you on a screen and over one says Cheskoon and on the other is Bobby Fisher against the world. I film so I can see you are very much immersed in that world. But that is wonderful that it was an outlet for you and your mom, no doubt, Camilla, who's here with me, that was watching all that happen. It was a catalyst, a spark to create something. I think seeing someone become so obsessed by it and you try and communicate with your children when they're unhappy and actually initially she was very unhappy and it was a great way of me communicating with her.

So it was our language of communication. So I had to get Jen up very fast on chess and I knew how to play but I was nothing like my daughter who's exceptional. So I really just had to quickly get to the lingo but she was she studies it as well. She mean she studies it, she'll tell you the social history and the kind of the background of it which meant that I had to kind of start knowing about Bobby Fischer's games in 1972. And are we talking about board game or are we talking about chess online, Jasmine? Well, I was playing during COVID, I was playing obviously online because there was no way of... Your mum wasn't enough for you, huh? Absolutely not.

I was playing obsessively online. I was probably playing, I mean, there were days where I would play like 12 hours a day. I would stay up all night and just play, play, play, play because it was all I had to do and it was all I could do. I mean, now obviously it's different. Times have changed. I'm playing much more in person. I'm yet to play competitively, but it's for the future, possibly after my degree. But the love is there. And, you know, we've spoken about chess before on this program, and we know this being Women's Air, there's significantly fewer female chess players than their male counterparts, even at the highest levels.

Out of, I thought this figure was quite startling, out of over 2000 international chess grandmasters, only 42 are women. So that's just a little over two percent off the figure. But Jasmine, I read that you're not a young woman online or weren't at that point. No, I created a chess.com account under a male name. I mean, maybe that was subconsciously because I want to avoid any, you know, mean comments about me being quite a high rated female chess player.

And yeah, I mean even today when I go into a casual chess club or whatever it is or just playing on the street, like I do kind of have this feeling of like, oh people don't really, you know, have faith in me as being a good chess player, but I proved them wrong, obviously, over the board. Obviously. But I mean, that tells us a lot that you even had the wherewithal to create a persona to try and avoid trolling, to be quite frank, because you're good. Back to you, Camilla, you have taken this idea, you've ran with it, you've created Chess Masters on TV, it's on BBC2. Now there there's a real range of people, young, old, different ethnicities,

different genders etc. But is that really it in the in the real chess world? Well I mean the real chess world, it's really interesting you say that. I've really come to realize that people in their little pockets in the chess world think they are the chess world but being a producer I look at the wider picture and seeing what I can see emerge is that everyone's playing chess. Lots and lots of young people are playing chess because of the various different chess apps that there are but but not just young people all different sorts of ethnicities and backgrounds this was an

effortless program to cast I mean in television terms it often takes months and months to cast an excellent range, in television terms, it often takes months and months to cast an excellent range of people on a television program. It took five weeks from beginning to end. That is exceptional, and it was easy. And we didn't go into it with a sort of sense of like, we must tick boxes.

We've got to get people from different backgrounds and diverse people. And it was easy to make it. It was effortless. And the reason why is because all different sorts of people play it. So although you're right in terms of the grand masters and there being a limited amount of women, that's in kind of like one chess world. That's the kind of formal professional chess world.

Maybe that's the case because it's quite male orientated. But however, in the world outside of that world, it's very wide ranging. But as we're hearing from Jasmine, she had the wherewithal to create that other persona because she is very aware being in that sphere. And that's online, that there's gender bias. Oh there's, I mean I think that they're certainly in that world can be gender bias. I mean in our program we have the joy and luxury of creating a set of rules which are you know in line with the ECF and the English Chess Federation and that are appropriate

and correct but those rules you know we're not interested in the gender bias, we're interested in who's the best players. The people we've got on the program are for the group we're looking at. They're within about 200 or so points of each other. And they're excellent amateurs that are playing against one another. But I need to get to some romance, a love story. Jasmine, tell us what happened in my last minute or so. Yeah, so when I was, you know, during COVID, late COVID though, so this was more towards

the end of it, I was playing on my chess.com account under a male name. And I started playing with this person more and more and more because I loved their chess style. And we started speaking about the games, but nothing was personal. And eventually we kind of like decided we were going to do some like calls and talk about the games. And I was like, Oh, by the way, I should warn you, I'm not actually a man. I'm a teenage girl because I didn't want to, you know, jump scare him thinking I'm like a, you know, middle aged man. And he was like, Oh, like, okay. And then we started calling each other and other and then the rest was history. I mean, he came to London, he's based in New York.

He came to London, I went to New York, I'm in New York right now. Yeah, now we've been together for almost about two years and we're completely in love with each other. Jess, I mean, we don't think of it as such a romantic game. I know they're wonderful geeks together, aren't you, darling? We are. We are. Well, thank you for sharing that story.

And I'm so glad. Lovely to see something because we're talking about lockdown today as well as something beautiful that has come out of it. Thanks so much to Camilla Lewis and also her daughter, Jasmine, who joined us very early in New York this morning as well. Do join me tomorrow. We'll be talking to the 2025 Women's Prize long listed nonfiction author Kate Summerscale and also with Camila Shamsi. Her novel won the 2018 prize for fiction and looking at crime and punishment

and what happens when politicians and the media becomes involved in criminal justice. I'll speak to you then. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Which at birth discovered with the gift of a home DNA test. The so-called brother that we grew up with wasn't a brother and there's someone out there, if he's still alive, is. A race against time. I don't want this woman to leave this earth not knowing what happened to her son.

The gift from Radio 4 with me, Jenny Clemon. Listen now on BBC Sounds. What do Bridgerton actor, Adjoa Ando, nature presenter, Rae Wynn Grant, and TikTok sensation, Mama Seabes, all have in common? They're all guests on Dear Daughter's Stars from the BBC World Service. I'm Namulanta Kombo, and for the new series of Dear Daughter,

I'm welcoming an all-star lineup to share stories of parenting in the spotlight. Listen now by searching for Dear Daughter wherever you get your BBC podcasts.