Woman's Hour - Louise Candlish, Domestic abuse, Samara Joy, Women and gaming

Episode Date: July 17, 2025

The bestselling author Louise Candlish joins Anita Rani to talk about her latest novel - A Neighbour's Guide to Murder - which explores the practice of sex for rent and a trial by social media. Louise reflects on her career and explains why she’s so interested in writing about the homes and streets we live in.The Government has announced it will spend £53 million on a new programme to tackle domestic violence. Anita discusses the plans with Kyla Kirkpatrick, who works with the charity Safe Lives and is the Director of the Drive Partnership Programme that works with perpetrators, and Ellie Butt, Head of Policy at Refuge.The American jazz vocal powerhouse Samara Joy has five Grammy awards to her name and is quickly gaining superstar status in the jazz world. She is making her debut at the BBC Proms on Saturday 19 July, where she will be backed by the BBC Concert Orchestra, in a special tribute to the Great American Songbook. The Prom will be also be live on Radio 3, on BBC Four and iPlayer. In the next in our Women and Gaming series we look at the wider impact gaming can have on society. Anita talks to the BBC’s Technology Editor Zoe Kleinman, and Emily Mitchell, winner of the BAFTA Young Game Designer award in 2017, and creator of Fractured Minds, an immersive puzzle game which confronts the daily challenges of living with anxiety.Presented by Anita Rani Produced by Louise Corley

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. deal ratings and price history. So you know a great deal when you see one. That's cargurus.ca. Cuba's Minister of Labour has resigned after claiming that there are no beggars on the Caribbean island. That's just one of the myths surrounding the communist-led country. So what's life really like there? I'm William Lee Adams. On What in the World, we're lifting the veil on a frequently misunderstood country. What in the World? is an award-winning podcast from the BBC World Service. We go in depth on a different topic every weekday in under 15 minutes. Listen wherever you get your BBC podcasts. BBC Sounds music radio podcasts.

Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Just to say that for rights reasons, the music in the original radio broadcast has been removed for this podcast. Good morning and welcome to the programme. Samara Joy at only 25 has won five Grammys. She's a classical jazz singer from a new generation. She'll be here ahead of her first ever BBC Prom which will be taking place on Saturday. We continue looking at women and gaming today, focusing on how games can help with mental health and Louise Candlish will be telling us about her new book, A Neighbour's Guide

to Murder. In it, two women become friends but they're from different worlds and very different generations. Gwen is 70 and Pixie is in her 20s. So this morning I'd like to hear about your intergenerational friendships. People in your life who are older or younger, how did you become friends and what value do you add to each other's lives? Do your young friends keep you young? Your older friends offer you great life advice? What is it that connects you? Your attitude to life? Maybe like Gwen and Pixie in the book, you're just simply neighbours. Whatever that relationship is, get in touch, tell us all about your friend from a different generation.

The text number is 84844. You can email the programme by going to our website and you can WhatsApp us. It's 03 700 100 444. And if you'd like to follow us on social media, it's at BBC Woman's Hour. That text number once again, 84844. But first, the government has announced it will spend £53 million on a new program to tackle domestic violence. Over the next four years, the scheme will work with perpetrators in England and Wales to try to fix the causes of their abusing. The government has committed to halving violence against women and girls within a decade. Here's Home Office Minister Jess Phillips speaking to my colleagues on the Today programme earlier this morning. This isn't just about being kindly and putting people on nice behaviour change programmes,

this is about moving the burden from victims who are sent on courses, who are made to move out of their homes when they become a victim of domestic abuse and putting that burden onto the perpetrators. Some of it will be about behaviour change programmes, some of it is about orders to stop them being near people, but it is a sort of year-long interruption and behaviour change programmes for these people which has evidence to show that it reduces violence and abuse. Well Kyla Kirkpatrick works with the charity Safe Lives and is the director of the Drive Partnership Programme that works with perpetrators. She joins me now along with Ellie Burt, who's

head of policy at Refuge. Kyla and Ellie, welcome to Woman's Hour. I'm going to come to you first, Kyla. Tell us more about this programme and how it works. Thanks, Anita. So I think Jess put it very well there actually, but the DRIVE project really focuses on seeking to protect and increase the safety for victims of domestic abuse, adults and children. And we do that by focusing specifically on the person causing harm, the perpetrator of that abuse. And we really focus on holding them to account and challenging them to stop and where we can working to change that behaviour in the long term.

Does it work? Yes, it does. As Jess noted, we have been running this now for 10 years, and that's 10 years of development and evaluation. So the evaluation is founded really in the first three years of this work. We piloted the programme. The University of Bristol carried out really extensive research, one of the largest research projects on perpetrators of domestic abuse. And the findings were clear that over time whilst perpetrators were engaging with the programme and holding afterwards for up to a year afterwards, there were reductions in all categories of abuse. So physical abuse reduced, coercive control and behaviour reduced, and harassment and stalking. We did also see

reductions in sexual abuse that wasn't as significant as the others and there are a lot of reasons for that. We're aware that this isn't a magic bullet, but it does work and it significantly reduces harm for women and children. And crucially, behaviour can be changed. Yes, and I think that, but I will caveat that, I think we'd reach for a third, a third and a third. We know, and your listeners will know, that there are some people who will not change their behaviour. And I think that's part of what works on this programme. We will work with perpetrators wherever they're at. So some will be referred

to us and they will not be ready to change their behaviour, either in the short term or maybe not in the long term. Some do have some recognition of the harm that they're causing, but need work to really fully take responsibility and get to the point of attitude and behaviour change. And others, the referral to us might be a moment of, right, it's time to change, I want to improve my relationships with my children. And we will work with each of those scenarios. For those who are not ready to change, we will work in different ways with a lot of different agencies to really

focus on preventing the opportunities to abuse. And that also works. Ellie, let's bring you in here, your head of policy at Refuge. The Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, said that the rollout of these new programs mean the relentless pursuit of perpetrators and intervening early to prevent further harm. What do you make of the focus? Thank you. So, of course, everyone across the country, I'm sure, but everyone involved in the domestic abuse sector welcomes interventions to disrupt perpetrators and stop them abusing.

But we also need to think about the survivors that services need. And we have this ambitious, highly welcome commitment from the government to half violence against women and girls, which we want to work with them and make work. But at the moment, the sector of services for survivors is on a real knife edge. There's been chronic underfunding that's really been exacerbated by inflation, national insurance contributions, and there's not really a week that goes by at the moment that we don't hear of another service closing. And in our experience at Refuge, when perpetrator programs are rolled out,

they often lead to an increased demand on the specialist sector, because more survivors are getting in touch, needing enhanced support. And we want to provide that support. But there's a real, I think, imbalance at the moment between what we're expecting the domestic abuse sector to be able to do and the funding

it receives. So while we welcome the expansion of the DRIVE project, which does have some important positive outcomes and works, as Kyla says, it works sometimes for some people, but what we also really, really need is some significant serious investment to stabilise and develop the violence against women and girls sector so that all survivors can access the support they need, which at the moment, sadly, is just not happening. Just picking up on something you said there, Ellie, that perpetrator schemes often lead to increased demand on local services.

What do you mean by that? It's what we've seen where in a local area a perpetrator program has been rolled out, that's often led to more referrals into the local specialist service. It might be from survivors whose perpetrators are in that service that needs some enhanced support that are also at that point reaching out for some help for themselves. So there's a real risk if this is rolled out in an uneven way and it isn't matched with the investment that refuges, that community-based services for survivors really need, then it could lead to more survivors seeking support and not always being able to get it, which is something we really want to avoid.

Isn't it beneficial to work with those who are inflicting the violence though to Sort of nip it in the bud if you can or stop it Yeah, of course. We need both as Kyla said some perpetrators Can and will change their behavior and we have to take that opportunity And we have to focus on perpetrators and disrupt their behavior where they won't But the the levels of domestic abuse in this country is staggering.

One in four women will experience and be subject to domestic abuse in her lifetime. There's millions of people every year that need support. And so this program alone will not deliver it. It is a piece of the puzzle. So what we at Refuge are calling on the government as part of the Violence Against Women and Girls strategy, which is due to deliver this halving of Violence Against

Women and Girls, which we're eagerly anticipating, is to match this commitment with investment in the, in refuges, in community-based services, in helplines, in all the services that women and children need to be safe. Kyla, a piece of the puzzle, not the entire solution, as I'm sure you're aware as well, but I think for our audience it's quite important to try and understand how this works. And I know you can't talk specifics about cases, but I mean if you could tell me about some of the cases you've been involved in, I think that would be very useful. Yeah and just to say, I absolutely agree with Ellie and we also stand with those calls to

increase the funding for victim survivor support across the board and also to see that flow through all government departments. We know that for perpetrators and victim survivors often the first port of goal, for example, is health. And we want to see more money flow into this sector from everywhere. I think in terms of how this works, maybe if I just give two short examples, I think in principle, I think what works is the fact that we work with all scenarios. So if people aren't ready to change, the disruption happens and the prevention happens. So that's one underpinning factor. Also, we do provide victim survivor support in every case. And what is also welcome about

this investment is it does include uplift and funding for victim survivor services, exactly in recognition of what Ellie describes. So, we're really pleased about that. And I think the other thing that really works is the way that we work with a lot of different organisations around the victim survivor, the perpetrator and the whole family, because that level of collaboration is I think really where the difference is. So for example, I would encourage listeners to go to our website and you will see on the front page of the Drive Partnership website a short video and it's in the words of a victim survivor who will tell the story much better than I. And what you will see

there is a very brave victim survivor talk about their journey. The person causing harm to them was involved in the Drive Project and she talks about the impact of the abuse on her mental health and feelings of suicidality and fear of murder. And talks through how different interventions, the drive project working with the perpetrator, but also the health interventions and the mental health interventions that wrapped around and came alongside that and where that brought her and her family. It's not a redemptive arc. It's not, you know, it's not, things don't turn out perfectly, but they were in a much better place, safer, and had a safer way to carry on a relationship with their children.

One other quick example that I can give that I think is helpful more on the criminal justice side of things, we have examples where victim survivors continue to be abused from perpetrators who have received a custodial sentence. We know that this happens. And the way in which the DRIVE project works so deeply with a range of partners, we have cases where we can disrupt that abuse happening from within custody. It's easy to say, but actually in practice, you don't often get different services and organisations working so closely together to enable that to happen. But that's the kind

of thing that the DRIVE project puts its resources and a lot of time and energy into joining those dots and keeping the victim survivor at the centre to increase that protection. And now it's being rolled out, so how's that going to work? Yes, so we're really pleased about this investment and primarily because it's a four-year plan. And we know that the government has a mission to have Vogue in a decade, a hugely ambitious plan. And I agree with Ellie, we need to see a lot more coming out around the other pieces of the jigsaw puzzle and the rest of the funding. But the fact that we've got four years ahead of us to do this is incredibly significant. We've worked for too long on 12-month funding programmes. It's really efficient. It's not good for victim survivors with projects starting and stopping. So we'll be working hard now to look at that long-term rollout.

It will make it easier because we've got a longer period of time and it will make it safer. We have a plan for the first year, but the announcement about the four-year plan is relatively new news to us. So we're looking forward to working hard with all of the stakeholders locally in areas across England and Wales to plan what that will look like for them. And finally, Ellie, the government's violence against women and girls strategy is due to be published at the end of the summer. What do you hope is going to be in it? Well, at Refuge, we've been advocating for investment and sustainability for the specialist

domestic abuse sector, which like I said is really on a knife edge. We've really got to seize the moment to put these services on a sustainable fitting. But we also want to see more on prevention. We've been talking about prevention today, but that's repeat prevention. But we also need to see primary prevention. If we're going to have violence against women and girls, we can't just focus on some of the perpetrators that are known to services, we need to tackle the inequality and the misogyny which means that domestic abuse and other forms of violence against women and girls are just so common in our country so we want to see action

there, action around how harmful attitudes form, action around the explosion in online abuse that we've seen. So it's a real, it's a big task, but it's the right time to do it. And we've got high hopes for the Violence Against Women and Girls strategy. Ellie Burt, Head of Policy at Refuge, thank you. And Kyla Kirkpatrick, thanks to you too. 84844 is the number. Now, the American jazz singer Samara Joy has won five Grammy Awards including Best Jazz Vocal Album. She's been described as the next generation jazz sensation, a legend in the making and is regularly

compared with the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. She tours internationally with her own band, headlining festivals and performing a mix of timeless jazz standards and her own original songs. She's making her debut at the Proms this Saturday, but not before she's joined us here at Woman's Hour HQ. Welcome, Samara. Thank you so much. How are you feeling about Saturday? I am equal parts excited and nervous. I know that it's going to be a wonderful show. We're in preparation for it right now with all the rehearsals.

It was sold out in minutes, so the people are excited and yeah, I'm ready. Yeah, I'm excited for you. What can people expect to hear? What are they're gonna get? What will they be treated to? Ooh, so I enjoy singing a diverse set of music. I enjoy variety, giving people different things to sort of hold on to, making sure there's something for everybody. And so there will be standards familiar to most like Misty and like Stardust, but there are also songs that I kind of want to use to expand my repertoire and expand other people's understanding of what jazz can be and what it can sound like. So there's a song by Billie Holiday that we're going to do that she never got the chance to record.

But it's a beautiful song. There's Thelonious Monk, there's Duke Ellington. And yeah, there's going to be equal parts, you know, exciting but intimate songs that I think will overall capture my experience as a vocalist and as a musician so far, but also a balanced set of music for people to enjoy. So they can have something for everybody who loves jazz. Recording a Billie Holiday song or singing a Billie Holiday song that she didn't get to record, what was that like? It's so beautiful because you hear all the other songs that she does and you can hear the power, you can hear the pain that she went through in her life and how she kind of sort of

maybe evokes emotion in others when she sings, but to hear the lyrics and to hear how powerful that is and to try to interpret it basically from scratch, you know, without any sort of reference to imitate is, it's fun, it's fun, it's beautiful. It's like, it makes me want to be a better writer and a better lyricist to be able to really tell a story about love and about heartbreak and about something personal and being able to say it in words without even having the chance to kind of about love and about heartbreak and about something personal and being able to say it in words without even having the chance to kind of record it. It's a beautiful thing. Your latest album is Portraits. The lead single was You Stepped Out of a Dream. Tell me about that. You stepped out of a dream. Oh my gosh that's been recorded by so many. I would consider that a

jazz standard. We decided to put our own little bossa nova feel onto the song, onto the arrangement. Everybody in my band arranges and so this is kind of like our take on a jazz standard, making it new and fresh again. Yeah, it's been recorded by everybody and this is our rendition. Let's have a listen. Samara, wow, Absolutely incredible. When did you realize that you had that voice? Oh my gosh. When did that appear? I don't know. I don't know exactly when. I know, I knew that I love to sing because all of my family does. My dad and my aunts and uncles and my cousins. And I would listen

to music with my dad to and from school, driving us to and from school, harmonizing with different songs, introducing me to different music. Same thing with my mom. She's a music lover and used to have, I grew up in my grandmother's house, but she also lived there growing up as well. And she had her own room dedicated to all of her records and her vinyl is just her listening room.

So I knew that I wanted to sing. I knew that I loved it. I loved it as a way to express myself, but it's hard to pinpoint when, maybe when I was like eight years old. Because your musical lineage, you mentioned your parents and your grandparents, but the lineage is gospel. Yeah, exactly, exactly. My dad grew up with his siblings, my aunts and uncles playing in church, singing in church, singing together, harmonizing together, writing together. My grandparents had a choir in the 60s

and 70s called the Savets of Philadelphia, and they led that choir. And you can hear recordings of them singing together. I was like, oh my gosh, hearing my grandmother sing almost operatically, you know, in gospel. It's like, it's an incredible, incredible form of music and expression. And lots of great singers have come from the gospel tradition. I'm thinking Whitney and Aretha. Beyonce, but what is it about that particular style, like growing up singing gospel that brings something out of it? Is it the performance? It's more than just the voice, isn't it? Yeah, I think in a way, it's like you're getting training, you're getting education, you know, on how to sing with other people, on how to listen and sing in tune, you know, playing with musicians, singing with the choir,

singing communally, but also being taught that what you're singing for is not for yourself and so it's not about, you know, all the crazy cool stuff that you can do but how you use that to bring people together and to bring them together for a higher purpose. So I think a combination of the two is it's a well-rounded education I feel like. And so when you take that into you know a professional career you have a real a strong basis and a strong foundation from which to grow. Now you grew up in the Bronx in New York. You went to a specialist art secondary school. How did you come to focus on jazz specifically then?

That kind of happened towards the end of high school because throughout my middle school and high school years I was kind of involved in musical theater and like choir and really anywhere that I could just sing, you know. And jazz sort of came about maybe my end of junior year, beginning of senior year as I was thinking about what college to go to. I knew I had been singing all this time throughout school, but not sure of which genre to go towards. And at first I wasn't really interested in it, but I sort of became immersed in it once

I used the songs that I sung in high school to audition for a college in New York, a state school. And although I would hate to listen to my audition tape right now, I'm very thankful that the head of the conservatory at the time saw some potential in me and he accepted me into the jazz program because I just used that as an opportunity to completely absorb everything that was happening around me, which goes back to the foundational, you know, singing in church, singing around people, getting into a style of music to the point that it becomes a part of your identity.

And to the point where it doesn't seem like you sound like anyone else, you may hear influence, but really you're just filtering it through your own voice. And so with jazz, I wanted to absorb as much of the language as I could so that, you know, the more that I listened to it, the more that I sung it, the more I was able to filter my ideas through this new lens of a genre. So yeah.

Some of the great jazz singers, we mentioned Billie Holiday there, they had incredibly turbulent personal lives and they drew on their own pain to give their storytelling and their songs a real poignancy and tenderness. You started singing at such a young age, just a teenager, what was it like interpreting those songs? Oh, it was a bit of a challenge maybe because I didn't have any personal turbulence to draw from and I was even asked this in another sort of interview where they were like, And I was even asked this in another sort of interview where they were like, you had to have had some sort of struggle. And I'm like, I really, I mean, it wasn't the most rich, I would say, upbringing, but it was rich in love, and it was rich in music, and it was rich in like community.

And so I feel like because of that upbringing and because of that embrace, that warm embrace, I felt like I could do anything. And so now, at least in the form of interpretation, interpreting songs, hearing the way people interpret songs by taking it from the page and making it come alive, I feel like I have my own way of doing it, maybe not drawn from any personal experience, but drawn from the tools that I've heard other people use with dynamics and orchestration and trying to do that. Also I think I really like what you just said that you were surrounded by so much love that

you had the confidence to just do anything. There was nothing to hold you back. I think we need to hear some more of you singing. So we're going to hear a clip now of Now and Then, which is a tribute to your late mentor, Barry Harris. Tell me about this. So this song is written and composed by Barry Harris, but I wrote lyrics to it after he passed away. There's not a lot of mentors that you can connect with who were there at

the time jazz was being created, and they contributed majorly to it. And so the fact that he was so accessible was an unforgettable opportunity. He was 90 years old, still teaching, still loving music, still loving people, you know, get revelations, the same kind of revelation that he had when he first heard it in Detroit in the 60s, you know. So this song is not only for him, but for all the mentors in our lives who change our perspective as soon as we meet them and direct us on a path with as much integrity as they live their lives. Samara, incredible, so beautiful. I really enjoyed how you were talking about Barry,

your mentor. Ninety, did you say? Because we're going to be discussing intergenerational friendships and that wisdom that he passed on to you. The New York Times praised you for helping jazz take a youthful turn while NPR named you a classic jazz singer from a new generation. How do you feel about bringing jazz to Gen Z and are they your audience? I would say they've become a very big part of my audience now. It's an honor to be recognized as such, you know, and to maybe be past the mantle in a way. I think that, I don't know, I don't want to credit myself as one of, as the only voice because there are so many in radio and in festivals and in, you know, all the promoters and they that have been doing their part to to keep artists working

and keep the I guess the economy of things you know continuing so it doesn't because the genre can't really die you know especially if there are artists who are living and creating it and contributing to it but I'm grateful to just be an entry point, you know, a way for people, a way in for people to experience this music and love it the same way that I do, you know. You've won five Grammys. You're 25, yes. You pulled it, yep.

It's incredible. What's it like navigating such rapid success at this stage in your life? You seem incredibly well grounded. Family. I'm so thankful for them because otherwise I think I would have been off the ground a long time ago. How did they do that? I would say the fact that I I don't necessarily talk about business with them. I just spend time with them and and keep it, I don't want to say pure but just I Keep it about family time. I think now that I'm Entering adulthood or I've entered adulthood at such an alarming accelerated rate

and I've suddenly become a leader and sort of the Boss or the head of my own career. Yeah, it took a little bit of adjusting. It took a lot of boss or the head of my own career. It took a little bit of adjusting. It took a lot of It took a lot of saying no and like being confident in myself and in my artistic vision and being confident in my creative You know sort of independence, which is what portrait is about and I think they have helped me to have sort of discernment and awareness of people and awareness of myself and being able to watch and observe and kind of take everything in that way. Because otherwise I would just be way too aware of myself and way too like, oh, look

at me, you know. Which is okay too. There's plenty of time for the diva to reveal herself, Samara. I'm looking forward to meeting her in the years to come. Yes, maybe this Saturday. Maybe this Saturday, exactly. The perfect opportunity to step out onto the stage at the Royal Albert Hall for your first ever Proms, which I want to wish you the best of luck with. It's been an absolute joy to speak to you. Thank you. Thank you. That's Samara. You can catch her at the BBC Proms this Saturday, which will also be broadcast on BBC4 and iPlayer, and her latest album Portrait is out now.

Cuba's Minister of Labour has resigned after claiming that there are no beggars on the Caribbean island. That's just one of the myths surrounding the communist-led country. So what's life really like there? I'm William Lee Adams. On What in the World? We're lifting the veil on a frequently misunderstood country. What in the World? is an award-winning podcast from the BBC World Service. We go in-depth on a different topic every weekday in under 15 minutes. Listen wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Now coming up shortly is listener week. Over the years, you've come up with so many interesting subjects including this one from a teacher who'd been struggling with the uncontrollable urge to shoplift throughout her life. She shared the impact this criminal activity had on her and her attempts to get her help for a diagnosis of kleptomania. The actual taking of something gives you a psychological boost for want of a better word. And for that short amount of time, you actually feel good. But then that's taken away pretty much immediately by shame and fear of being caught.

Just walking home, feeling that everyone's looking at you, everyone knows that you're not who you say you are and then actually when you get home if you have got away with it not even being able to eat or prepare some of the stuff that you've brought because the guilt is so much. So have you got a confession or a difficult experience or even just an interesting personal story that you'd like to share with us? Maybe you're one of those people who says, oh, you know what, they should really discuss that on Woman's Hour. Well, now is your opportunity. All you need to do is get in touch with the programme. It's the usual way. Text number 84844 or email the programme by going to our website or contact us on social media. It's at BBC Woman's Hour. It's one of my favourite weeks of the year, listener week, where every single topic we discuss, we cover, is led by you. You essentially become the

controllers of the program for that week, so get in touch with us. However weird and wonderful you think it is, just let us know all about it. Now this week we've been taking a deep dive into the world of women and gaming in a new series. So far we've spoken to female gamers and heard from the women at the heart of the games industry. Today we're having a look at the wider impact gaming can have on society. In a 2024 study by Yuki, the trade body representing the games industry, 50% of respondents said they believe games are an important and influential cultural medium and 39% said they thought games are an important and influential cultural medium

and 39% said they thought games were more important culturally than film, music or TV. So what impact can games have on the world around us, particularly for women? I'm joined by the BBC's technology editor Zoe Kleinman who's here to tell us more. Welcome Zoe. Thank you. So what impact can games have on society? And We're obviously thinking through the lens of women. I think we should start with looking at how many people play. There was a survey by YouSwitch last year which suggested that nearly 11 million people in the UK described themselves as gamers and about 50% of them were women. So lots of people playing games and around 7 in 10 of them said that playing games helped them to feel happier. So I think there are some clear benefits there. Let's also not forget

it's a big industry, about seven and a half billion dollars last year. So it makes a lot of money, it generates jobs, it's useful for the UK to have a gaming sector. And I think there are lots of positives too if you think about what people are doing within games. You know, there's creativity, there are big communities that get created, they're relaxing, they're learning skills, they're solving problems. Sometimes, not always, but sometimes there's a physical element as well, isn't there? You know, I play a game with my son called Beat Saber where you have to hit big cubes. And I swear it's helped my biceps enormously.

Tennis, golf, they're the ones I get involved in. Exactly, there are lots of elements where you can build in physical activity if you want to. I think there's this perception isn't it that it's you know laying in your bed and there is that, let's not deny it, but it doesn't have to always be like that. The downsides of course are how you choose to use gaming, you know, are you choosing it to use it to escape from something or someone that you really need to be confronting. There can be an element of addiction, are people spending too much time doing it, not enough time looking

after themselves. It can be isolating, you know, you can have all these online communities but not actually see people in real life. Some people it affects their sleep because, largely because they're gaming and instead of sleeping. And then of course the perennial problem that the gaming sector struggles with is violence and in particular misogyny, you know, hatred towards women, which is an issue that's been around for so long and there've been so many efforts to tackle it, but it's very much still there.

Well, let's pick up on that. What about the violence and misogyny within video games? We've spoken about it on this program at length. What impact does that have? So I think it's not exclusively a gaming problem. It happens all over the online world, doesn't it? We know that. But in this case, it happens both in terms of how women gamers are treated within the games, how they're spoken to, how male gamers respond to them.

There's also lots of complaints about how overly sexualized female characters in games can be. You know, do they really need to have big boobs if they're fighting monsters? Probably not. And we know that women who work in gaming can describe very toxic masculine cultures because it's an industry that's dominated by men. And the biggest current concern, if you like, is the rise of this community of incels. So these are generally young men who are unable to form relationships with women and therefore start hating them. And they do tend to form

communities on social media, but also within online games. I mean, that has said not every game is going to put you directly you know, directly in the firing line of a bunch of incels, but it is a significant problem within the gaming world. Earlier this week we spoke about two of the most popular games amongst women which are The Sims and Animal Crossing which both involve money. What role can games have in teaching us financial literacy? I think that I could sit here and reel off a list of, you know, specific learning games, but actually we know that learning happens through play with children and throughout life,

and it doesn't have to be overtly signposted. You learn financial literacy from managing your digital currency online in the game. You learn to read a map if you have to read a map to navigate a complex world. There are all sorts of skills that you can pick up from playing a game without it feeling like you're in school. And what about the conversation around mental health? How is that being tackled? There are some really interesting games

which have specifically been built with mental health in mind. The best known one, it's a little bit old now, I think it's about seven years old, but it's a really lovely game. It's called Celeste. There's a character called Madeleine who climbs a mountain and incorporates a whole range of mental health challenges along the way. And it won an award for its portrayal of mental health issues. And there are some others. This one doesn't sound very fluffy. I know it's called Hellblade, Stenwar's Sacrifice, but actually it was developed with mental health experts and it's based on experiences of psychosis and it's had a lot of really

positive feedback in the way that it deals with quite a serious mental health challenge. And there are a couple of other games, there's one which focuses on PTSD, with a main character that starts to hallucinate as he goes through a war zone and again it's just something that you know portrays mental health in a new way. Zoe, thank you so much. That brings me on to my next guest, actually, Emily Mitchell. Well, because Emily created her first game, Fractured Minds, when she was only 17, the immersive puzzle game

confronts the daily challenges of living with anxiety and won her the BAFTA Young Gamer Designer Award in 2017. She joined me earlier this morning and told me why she chose to make the game. So basically I wanted it to be based on my own experiences with mental health at the time that I was making it. It's quite a short but kind of thought-provoking experience type of game because I know a lot of people suffer with mental health issues, so I wanted people to be able to relate to it. Yeah.

To give you an idea, the first level begins waking up in a bedroom where everything seems very normal. But as you play through the level, you begin to notice that things are a little bit off, and that theme kind of carries on throughout the game as each level basically becomes a little bit more disorientating and uncomfortable. And that's kind of meant to provoke like negative and anxious feelings for the player basically to get a sense of how people with mental health issues might feel and as you said there are six different levels so I gave each level a very different atmosphere and theme and each one basically focuses on

a different aspect of mental health. So just as an example, chapter two is called emptiness and basically focuses on how isolating it could be to have a mental illness. Another example could be chapter five is called sinking and the whole level is set under water, which makes everything quite slow and frustrating for the player. And you said you made this because of your own experience and suffering with anxiety

and your own mental health issues. So just, and you were only 17, incredibly young to take on a task like this. What was your own situation at the time? I created it alongside going to school, which took about nine months to make. And at that time I had very severe anxiety, which basically manifested as a complete school phobia. So it was a massive struggle for me. And I was also the only girl in my IT class, which was quite daunting, as you can imagine.

It definitely didn't help. So were you having problems going to school? Yes. My attendance was the lowest in the whole year. Yes. So basically, I would spend a lot of time working on the game which honestly helped me so much because it basically just like provided an outlet for all of my anxiety and just gave me something to focus on and channel all of my creativity into really. Yeah it's an

incredible achievement. I'm surprised that even with your generation you were the only girl in your IT class. Also very proud Emily that you were the only girl in your IT class. Also very proud, Emily, that you were the only girl in your IT class. Thank you. Daunting, yes, but you did it, right? Yeah, that's true. Music plays a big part in the game and creating an atmosphere. How important was the music? Very important because music and audio in games can really bring out certain emotions and feelings in people,

of course, which is very important at creating the right atmosphere and invoking the right kind of emotions. It took me such a long time to find all of the music. I really carefully picked it out. And like you say, it does have a huge part to play in creating the right atmosphere. It took you nine months to make it. How did you do it? How did you even know what you were doing? Because this wasn't it was this was your own quest and your own endeavor, wasn't it? Yeah, I basically learned everything from YouTube tutorials. Amazing. Yeah. Well, that takes some dedication. Well, I always loved creating things on my computer. So I had, before I made the game, I had done a little bit of 3D modeling and just like

little, little things. But then, yeah, I decided to just completely learn really. It's been eight years since its release. What's the reaction been to it from people who've played it? It's been really good. Some people have emailed me and I've also had some social media comments about how the game really resonated with them and helped them feel less alone, which was absolutely lovely to read. And then when the game was published, a mental health charity called Safe in Our World was created alongside it, and half of the game's profits go towards that charity. So that charity has basically been working to destigmatize mental health issues through

games and try and create more safe spaces for gamers basically. What do you think it is about games that can tackle subjects like this and reach people in a different way? Well I think that games are just a really fantastic medium for experiences like this because you are put directly into the world and into the perspective of the character which can really help the person playing feel more connected and it's a much more personal experience. And it's also just a really good form of escapism because of how the person is interacting with it and experiencing it all firsthand. So it's a lot more personal than viewing just viewing it like in other forms of media. And you can kind of get that message from from interacting and playing your game but you also have safeguards

to protect players as part of your game, including a message in the start-up sequence, which signposts where they can find help. Some people might find the subject matter difficult, especially if they've got personal experience of anxiety or mental health conditions. So what message are you hoping that gamers will take away from it? You're right, but it's a very difficult subject matter. And the game might make players feel quite uncomfortable, especially if it resonates with their mental health struggles. And I did try to end the game on a much more hopeful

and inspiring message that basically, you know, you're not alone and there is hope and you are actually very brave for battling this mental health condition. And it's being made by someone who knows exactly what they're talking about because you are living the, well, we're living the experience. How are you now, Emily? I'm really good. So there's just so many gaming communities that have helped me feel more comfortable with myself and have provided me so much support by connecting me to other gamers that have similar struggles with mental health issues, which I think is really important.

have similar struggles with mental health issues, which I think is really important. And now I'm working on my new game called Block Feet, which is very different to my previous game, much more colorful and cozy feel good type of game, which I would ideally like to be as welcoming and inclusive as possible. So I hope that that could help encourage more safe and welcoming communities for all different kinds of gamers. And very quickly, if somebody doesn't know anything about gaming, but listening to this conversation feels very inspired and wants to give it a go, what's your top game?

What are you playing right now? Entry level, great fun, Get the Radio 4 listeners gaming. A perfect one would be Animal Crossing if you've never gamed before. They're very inspiring and for another very talented 25 year old on the program, Emily Mitchell there. I'm going to read out a couple of your messages about intergenerational friendships. Helen says, I met my friend Anne when she was 60 and I was 27. We've been close friends and walking buddies ever since. We still have long walks now. Anne is 85 with a new hip.

I love her very much. Onto my next guest. A Neighbour's Guide to Murder is the title of the latest psychological thriller by author Louise Candliss. She helped launch the property noir genre with her books, Our House and Those People. And now she's back with the story of Gwen, a 70-year-old woman who lives in a nut market block of flats She helped launch the property noir genre with her books Our House and Those People. And now she's back with the story of Gwen, a 70-year-old woman who lives in a nut market block of flats called Columbia Mansions in South London. She sparks a friendship with Pixie, her new, much younger neighbour, renting a room in

Alex's flat. But a scandal around sex for rent rocks the foundations of those that live in the block, one that then turns to murder. Louise Candlish has spent the last two decades writing and this is her 18th book. She's a resident of South London herself and has had one of her books, Our House, turned into a four-part series on ITVX. And so we're very lucky Louise that you found the time to come and talk to us here about your new book. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Thank you. I feel very old compared to your talented young guests before me. No, no, no, it doesn't work like that. Can we start off by having a reading? I think

we should just get the listeners straight into this new book of yours. Yeah, absolutely. So this is the very beginning of the book. Her hands are pleasingly steady as she makes the call. Not that she's completely without nerves. In all her decades, she's never had to dial 999 and she hopes she never will again. But it's important to remain level-headed in an emergency. The last thing the authorities need is a hysterical female, especially one of a certain age. Police please. She glances at the still silent figure by the window and it strikes her that she'll be interrogated about their interaction,

not only by the police, but also by the media. After everything that's gone on in the building this last year they'll all want to know how it came to this, this awfulness. She gets a grip of herself, returns her attention to the question being repeated in her ear with some insistence. What's the nature of the emergency? It's my neighbor, she says. He's been murdered by his tenant. What happens next? I'm going to read one of the quotes off the back of your book by Cara Hunt who said,

psychological suspense has a new adjective, pure candlish. Oh my God. How good is that? Yeah, that's an amazing quote. Thank you, Cara. Yeah, that was pure candlish. Best known for your domestic noir thrillers. Your books feature some of those really standout houses, but this book

sets in an iconic block of flats. Why flats? What was the reasoning behind this one? Well, it's a mansion block, one of those sort of beautiful, iconic old Edwardian mansion blocks, which I have always loved and kind of fantasized about living in and I was down in Richmond walking my dog probably about 18 months ago when I saw this absolutely stunning building on the river and I thought I have to set a book in a building like that. I've transplanted it to a lesser area of South London. But the visuals and the layout of that building are Columbia mansions, right down to the various bells and whistles on the architecture and the doors. And also the formalities of living in a mansion block. I really wanted to explore that kind of world

within a world. And they do have quite strict rules and regulations That appeal to a certain kind of resident and so I wanted to have that as a backdrop To what is actually quite an unsettling crime or set of crimes So tell us about some of the characters tells about Gwen and her relationship with pixie Well, Gwen is 70 and she's been living alone. She's not rich, even though she's in this kind of swanky block. She's living quite frugally on her pension. And she was quite happy living alone, but recently her son has bounced back following the breakdown of his marriage and he has regressed totally to his teenage self. And you know, I'm finding this resonates with a lot of readers. He is taking epic showers, and then he's

sort of strolling in and saying, what's for breakfast? And he's a real pain, and she's not that pleased to have him back. She also has a daughter who has recently set herself up as a sort of trad wife. And Gwen is this kind of first generation feminist, so she's really, really embarrassed and ashamed by her daughter's career choice. She doesn't understand what an influencer is. And against this backdrop,

she meets this lovely girl who's just moved in next door as Alex Lodger in the government rent a room scheme. And they just feel like kindred spirits. They just have this really lovely connection, you know, sort of shared sense of humor, shared values, all of which lasts for about five minutes before things start to go awry and Gwen becomes far too involved in Pixie's life. Why did you want to explore that intergenerational friendship? I think it's, it's not really sort of covered that much in fiction and we don't really talk about it that much, but I find it just really enriching. I've got an older friend myself, in fact my first boss, so I'm now in my 50s and we've been friends since I was 21 and she's now in

her 80s and I just get so much from our interaction. I find it just you know the wisdom an older person can give you and then you know as you age yourself you hope that you can pass that on in the other direction. But yeah, I also think, you know, I write about neighborhoods and I write about, you know, neighbors' relationships. And I think these friendships do occur out of convenience and the fact that, you know, in the UK, we're very scattered from our family. So not only has Gwen got a gap to be filled by Pixie in terms of a nourishing sort of

mother-daughter or even granddaughter relationship, Pixie in terms of a nourishing sort of mother-daughter or even granddaughter relationship. Pixie's mother has died many years ago, her father's not in her life and she's very ruthless and she's very vulnerable and so you know Gwen is very appealing to her and so they kind of just filling each other's gaps I think it's quite in a way it's quite heartbreaking. Yeah you've mentioned it you also took the pick up on the fact that it's pretty much unaffordable to live in London and it's becoming much of a bigger issue today. Why? Why did you want to look at that?

Well my readers will know that I do love to write about property but I've tended to focus on home owning and all of the pitfalls that come with that and the various sort of envious interactions that can come with owning a beautiful property. But I've never really thought about renting and maybe because my daughter is now in her 20s, she's 22 and starting to think about where she'll live. I started to think, hang on a minute, it's not that easy for Gen Z at all. I remember being in London at 21 and I just found a flat. You know, it wasn't great. You know, there was mold on the walls and I slept on a bit of sponge in the corner. But I found a flat in a nice area very easily. And it seems like it's almost an impossible dream, like a fantasy now. So I thought, right, I'm going to explore, you

know, how it feels to be looking for a roof over your head in your 20s and the various sort of compromises that need to be made sometimes. It's just not that easy. And that led me into this sort of murky world of Sex for Rent, which Pixie is embroiled in. And a lot of the plot is sustained through the neighborhood WhatsApp group. Lots of fun. Tell us about using WhatsApp in your book and your own personal dealings with it. Oh my god, I love those neighbourhood WhatsApp groups. How many are you in? Are you in quite a few? I'm only in one, which is my street and it's quite a long street so you can remain quite

anonymous and sort of lurking, which is very much my role. There are people who are literally offering a cardboard box they've just unpacked, should anyone want it. And, but I'm not that person, you know, I'm in many ways kind of mining it for ideas. But I really love the kind of absurdity of the extremes of it. So, you know, you might have a thread that begins with people alerting each other to, you know,

a criminal, you know, Prowler, working his way down the street, trying everyone's gates and doors and looking for somewhere to break in. And we're kind of following this happening in real time. We're like criminal, you know, we're like vigilantes. And then within 10 minutes, you might have someone offering a punitive apples because they've just, you know, their child's just picked some apples from their tree. And lots of passive aggressive texts as well in there. Yeah, yes, it's very passive aggressive. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of, there's a lot of hidden agendas and, you know, if you know the relationships between some of the characters on the street as well,

I shouldn't say characters, I should say, because they're real people, real neighbours, you can kind of read between the lines and, you as a writer I really love that. But I also feel you know quite ambivalent about it because I think you know what a shame we're all doing this on our phones. You know would it be healthier and actually more fun to go out onto the street and chat. And just have a chat. Yeah or meet in a garden actually. Someone in the office who will remain nameless said that they have their neighborhood WhatsApp group and then a splinter WhatsApp group just for the gossip. Imagine sending the wrong message to the wrong text.

Oh my God and imagine discovering you weren't in that elite in a group. I wouldn't like that. And you, this is your 18th book Louise. Where do you find the time? How do you do it? What's your process? Are you constantly writing? You must have no time to do anything else. Well, it is my full time job. So I find the time by just, you know, trying to work proper office hours. Writing is now, you know, only about 50% of what I do because there's so much other stuff. There's stuff to do with the TV adaptations. There's a lot of admin, there's social media, you know, there's gaining inspiration and doing research. But where do you write?

I write on the sofa and I write mostly in the mornings. That's my kind of most productive time. So I'm very loose. I'm just on the sofa with the cushions, looking out the window, got my dog beside me, probably, you know, a few snacks and coffee. Yeah, I don't have a desk. Don't have a desk? No.

Oh my goodness, what a moment to end the program on. We will pick up tomorrow. Join me then at Louise Candlish. Thank you so much. And her new book is out now. It's called A Neighbour's Guide to Murder. I'll be back tomorrow to discuss not having a desk. That's all for today's Woman's Hour.

Join us again next time. We pulled into what felt like an old compound. You think, wow, this is a very old property. I'm Danny Robbins and Uncanny is back. We have three brand new summer special episodes and things are about to get scary. I could feel something moving up the side of the bed and I can't quite believe what I'm seeing.

A trip to a tiny medieval town in central Spain turns into a holiday from hell. I could make out its long matted fur. And I am absolutely petrified. Absolutely petrified. This was just pure terror. And we'll investigate more spine chilling cases in an episode recorded live at the Hay Festival. Uncanny Hay audience, who is feeling?

Team Believer, and who is team skeptic? Listen now on BBC Sounds. Cuba's Minister of Labour has resigned after claiming that there are no beggars on the Caribbean island. That's just one of the myths surrounding the communist-led country. So what's life really like there? I'm William Lee Adams. On What in the World, we're lifting the veil on a frequently misunderstood country.

What in the World is an award-winning podcast from the BBC World Service. We go in- depth on a different topic every weekday in under 15 minutes. Listen wherever you get your BBC podcasts.