Woman's Hour - Lyra - His Dark Materials, Talking about abortion, Grandmothers

Episode Date: November 8, 2019

The central character of Lyra from ‘His Dark Materials’ lives in the alternate Oxford imagined by the author Phillip Pullman. She is tough, curious, and able to lie with impunity. The children’s author Katherine Rundell and the script editor of the new BBC 1 series Xandria Horton discuss what makes Lyra so inspirational and appealing to girls. Listeners talk about their experiences of abortion. Four children under the age of 3 seemed impossible to a woman we are calling Louise who had an abortion 18 months ago. She spoke to reporter Henrietta Harrison. Novelist Salley Vickers celebrates the key relationship between children and their grandmothers in her new novel 'Grandmothers'. Why does she feel this bond has been so taken for granted? Rising soul artist Celeste talks about her music and her upcoming tour with Michael Kiwanuka. And she performs her single, Strange, live in the studio.Presenter: Jane Garvey Producer: Dianne McGregor

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. This is the Woman's Hour podcast. Welcome to the programme. My guests today include the novelist Sally Vickers, who has a fantastic new book out called Grandmothers. And you'll want to be with us round about 20 past 10 this morning, definitely, for a live performance from a fantastic new British singer

called Celeste. I think this might be one of those mornings that we all remember on the programme. Celeste is fantastic. And another listener tells us about her abortion 18 months ago, why she and her partner decided it was the only option for them. These abortion stories that we've been playing out over the course of the week have really, well, they've just not unnaturally caused a lot of interest from you. A lot of people saying, yes, I really want to hear these experiences. I appreciate that these decisions are not made lightly. So please listen intently this morning if you can. And you can contact us via the website bbc.co.uk slash Women's Hour or on Twitter and Instagram at bbcwomanshour.

So we thought we'd start today with something a little bit different. Did you know that 362 baby girls born in the UK last year were given the name Lyra? Now this is because of His Dark Materials. The show kicked off on BBC One last Sunday night and got incredible audiences for today's standards, actually. Over 7 million people were watching His Dark Materials on BBC One last Sunday night. Some characters in fiction really do have the power to influence a generation.

What is so special about the central character in this show, Lyra? Let's hear a quick clip. If you know nothing about this, and I confess I didn't know a great deal, Lyra lives in an alternative Oxford universe where people's souls appear as animal demons. Do you ever think about what animal Pan will settle as when he

stops changing form? I think about it. Pan and I talk about it. Pan thinks he will be a lion. I don't. I think he'll settle as a sloth or a guinea pig. You said you wanted something cunning like a fox. That's just you a tiny insight you might might have seen the program it might mean nothing at all to you. With me this morning is the children's author Catherine Rundle. She wrote The Explorer and Rooftopper. Welcome to the program

and the TV series script executive Zandandria Horton, is here too. Now, Zandria, you're a good person to start with because you hadn't read these books by Philip Pullman until relatively recently, so tell me about that. Yes, I'm ashamed to say that I came fresh to the books when I came to work with Jack Thorne and Bad Wolf on the production. Since then, I have paid my penance by doing what I consider to be a PhD in them and been living and breathing them for the last two and a half years.

And they are the most fantastic and wonderful books you can imagine. But it's brilliant to come to them as an adult and experience what it is to come of age of childhood all over again. Tell me about Lyra. Lyra is a, she's an extraordinary heroine. I mean, she grows up in a world that is quite different to our own, and yet she, in terms of it being a patriarchal society, a sort of very oppressed society, she is inherently herself. She is spirited, she is a liar. She has many flaws. But she's also brave. And she's driven by not only the alethiometer, which is also the alethiometer, which is a compass- with her when she's going through the experiences of the book that she does.

Now, Catherine, you had read the books, loved the books. You're now a children's author yourself. Why is Lyra so significant? I think so many people love her in part because, as you say, she's this mixture of incredibly normal, you know, she's got dirty fingernails and she lies, but she's also got a kind of wild authority because she has access to knowledge that no one else does because she has this device that tells her truths. But I think also it's because she has a demon, this little animal which can change in a reflective mood.

Has, ooh, a podcat? Oh, no, when it settles. This might be a spoiler. So the difference between adults and children in Pullman's books and what unlocked the entire theme of innocence to experience for him was the idea that children's demons

could change into any form to reflect the identity and the character of the person that they represent. But an adult's demon becomes fixed at a certain age. Now, OK, the age at which your demon becomes fixed, is that significant? It's around puberty. OK, right.

And at the moment, Lyra has, I thought it was some sort of, well, I'm not particularly keen on it, but it's some sort of vermin from what I can make out. Am I supposed to find it cute? Lots of people do. I do, personally personally i think it's very very cute but it can be i mean pantalimon uh lyra's the name of lyra's demon can be many many things and we'll see that as the as the series continues it's interesting um looking at some of the comments uh from listeners on instagram um weatherstorm says my baby daughter lyra Aurora, was born six weeks ago.

Both my partner and I immediately agreed it would be our chosen name for a girl. Fictional Lyra is headstrong, curious, principled and loving. Our Lyra will become her own person, but the world of his dark materials is no bad place for her to have as her heartland. Catherine, these books mean so much to some people, don't they? They do. I think that they get under people's skin because they are about a young girl facing down the world and having to rise to become a heroine. Lyra isn't born a heroine. She has no magic powers. The books are a part about how we step into ourselves and how you peel away the layers of yourself to discover the bravery that is at the

core of you. But how many children's books are there or books written for children I suppose I need to ask Sandra who have young girls at their very heart when I was growing up I actually loved books by people like Arthur Ransom actually oddly although it wasn't from a sort of sailing or boating family there were girls but they tended not to be entirely driving the action. What would you say about that? Well, this might be a question for Catherine as well, because it feels like she's potentially the expert. But I think that there's often in fantasy, grounded or otherwise,

there's often a chosen one. But yeah, it does feel like having a young girl at the heart of it, certainly when Philip was writing them originally, felt quite novel. Obviously, in the later books, Lyra is joined by a boy called Will. So there's a balance in the gender as time goes on because you have two heroes at the heart of the story. And here's Helen, who says,

I named my daughter after Lyra. It means so much. The strong, rebellious, determined female character like this exists in children's fiction. And actually, she was sadly very unusual when the books first came out in the 90s. Is that true,. And I think one of the things that is wonderful about His Dark Materials is it is known across the world. And Lyra has started to take her place in a pantheon of, you know, Alice in Wonderland and Matilda. And she is adding to this fantastic list of young women characters that we have. She is, as a number of other listeners have pointed out, she's a liar or she learns to be a liar. Is that such a bad thing? What would either of you say about that, Catherine? I think that her lying is often a kind of fairy tale spinning that children do.

And of course it gets her both into and out of trouble. I think it's one of the things that makes her very, very real. Have you got a demon, Zandria? I do. It's a meerkat. I see. And when did it settle? I mean, was it something else before it became a meerkat. I see. And when did it settle? I mean, was it something else before it became a meerkat? I think I probably decided that it was a meerkat quite early on. I think that they're social, they're curious, they have no poker face.

I mean, it feels like that was me probably quite early on. Right. And when you get jobs like the one you've got on this series um you really have to treat the texts with a certain amount of reverence don't you i mean i think we've the comments from our listeners illustrate just how much these books matter to people absolutely um as another uh as a production the uh entire crew all have the books by their desks i mean not every adaptation adaptation always sort of takes the text as wrote, but we were so determined to realise the spirit of the books and hopefully we've done that.

Thank you both very much indeed. It's Andrea Horton and Catherine Rundle and the next episode of His Dark Materials is on BBC on Sunday night, BBC One One at eight o'clock. Now more than 200,000 women in England and Wales terminated a pregnancy in 2018 and this week we've been hearing some personal stories from our listeners, some of the women behind those statistics. In a YouGov survey published by Mary Stokes International this week in fact 79% of the women they surveyed felt abortion should be talked about more openly.

So we asked you, have you had an abortion? How did you feel about it at the time? How do you think about it now? And the women whose stories you'll hear or have been hearing have all had very different reasons for choosing to end a pregnancy. Henrietta Harrison met a woman we're calling Louise who had an abortion 18 months ago. We had had an episode where the contraception had failed and I knew that I was ovulating that weekend or I was two weeks into my cycle so it was a Sunday evening so the Monday I spent the morning phoning around the pharmacies trying to get the morning after pill. Because the condom had split yes that's right

nobody would give it to me over the counter they kept saying that I had to come in at a certain time and see the pharmacist and had to come after 2 30 and I had to do the school run so it wasn't there was other pharmacies who didn't have it so in the end I phoned my GP and my GP gave me a prescription so I could go and get it from the local pharmacy without any of the fuss and I think it must have been a week later I started to feel unwell I slept for about three hours in the morning I woke up and I felt awful and I just said oh my god this can't be happening like I've got to be pregnant there's no other reason and I obviously Dr. Google confirmed my worst fears that the morning after pill wasn't 100% effective so I did a test it was positive and I think I just went into shock at that point actually I came downstairs and looked at my partner and he just knew that it was positive as well and I think I just broke down into tears and I just said,

I don't want to do this, I can't do this. This is not what was supposed to happen. So you just immediately felt completely distraught? Yeah. There was no second thought in my head about what needed to happen. I fell accidentally pregnant with our third child and we he was only 10 months old at this point I'd had a really bad struggle with postnatal depression after having him and I had just been discharged from having the counselling

and I was just getting my life back on track. And it literally was the worst possible time that I could have fallen pregnant. There was no other option. If I had those babies, my family wouldn't be happy. We wouldn't be in this house. I wouldn't be doing the job I'm doing. It's that kind of effect, isn't it? Like, you know, one thing happens and it just spirals. And I knew that if I had continued that pregnancy,

then life for us, as we knew knew it would have stopped. So what actually happened from finding out you were pregnant how did you then seek a termination? So I immediately phoned the GP that day that's how sure I was I spoke to the abortion network and I spoke to my GP but I was informed that because I was hadn't missed a period and I was still not even four weeks pregnant they wouldn't be able to do anything until I was six weeks they had to be able to scan you to make sure there's a pregnancy so a bit a long wait a really long wait because I have really bad morning sickness when I'm pregnant and I had to get through life for another two or three weeks whilst feeling rubbish and knowing that there wasn't going to be the outcome at the end of it, that you don't mind when you're continuing with a pregnancy,

you don't mind the sickness, you don't mind those kinds of things, but when you know that it's all going to go at some point, it's just a bit, I just wanted to feel better. I was off over Christmas with the children and spent a lot of the time sleeping and feeling rather rubbish. How was your partner throughout all of this? Amazing. Yeah, really good. There was never, like, you must do this or you shouldn't do this.

He just held my hand and just said, we'll get through it. Whatever happens, we'll get through it. How did the procedure take place? You arrive and then you're sort of sent to a waiting room where nobody talks to each other, nobody looks at each other in the eye. But what struck me the most actually while I was there is that it wasn't what I thought it would be like. There were people in the waiting room just like I was

and there wasn't, you know, the typical teenage mum. They could have been anybody. You could have sat next to them on the bus and you would never have known that they were sat there waiting for an abortion I think I waited for like 20 minutes and then they called you through and they just do a series of questions and they just ask when your last period was you know do you understand what's happening is it definitely what you want to do they ask why you're doing it they ask about your family and I guess it's just that last check that but it was it was lovely because there was no judgment and she I think she even said to me at one point I would do exactly

the same thing and it's just nice to have that reassurance that you're not I guess like hormones and you know just feeling overwhelmed with emotion and you just there's always that am I doing the right thing but it just kept coming back to my children deserve the best mum they don't deserve a half mum who you know is really struggling who's on antidepressants who needs to go into hospital because she's having a bad episode they needed really strong mum who could actually devote time to each of them another baby would have just meant that they got less time I got less time and yeah it wasn't really what I wanted for them so who took you there my partner yeah he drove me down there unfortunately we couldn't get anyone to have the

children so he had the children in the back of the car so he just dropped me off and then took them to drive around for an hour we hoped that I obviously wouldn't be there a long time I think it said a couple of hours so they they were having a sleep I think we timed it just right that they were having a nap in the car so he could drive around with them for a bit and then just waited outside take me back to being in the clinic so you got called and then and then what happened so I had that first interview and then they send you back into the waiting room and then you're called through into a scan room a bit like when you have your 12-week scan so having an internal scan was probably the lowest point I

think of the whole time because you're just like I don't want to be here again I don't want to have this and I don't really want to be in this room doing this but I'm doing it for for the family so I was having the scan and and she said to me I think it was either during or before do you want to know if it's a multiple pregnancy or not and I kind of wasn't prepared for the question I hadn't even considered that it might be a multiple pregnancy I you know all I could think about was I was pregnant and I hadn't even considered that it might be a multiple pregnancy I you know all I could think about was I was pregnant and I didn't want to be so I was just oh well yeah okay um it doesn't really change my opinion but I guess it's interesting to know and um she was there for

quite a long time actually I maybe was five weeks four days or something so I was super super early so she was struggling to see the sacks and then she sort of stopped and we finished she was like um so I think you're pregnant with twins and uh that I was not expecting I cried at that point but I'm not sure why probably because it was another thing I had to think about. Although it didn't change my decision, it was suddenly, actually, if I did carry on, that is even worse. I would have been in an even worse position than I would have been just with one baby.

Twins would have meant I had four children under three. So in that moment, it was a harder but easier decision to make. Yeah. It felt real, did it? Really real, yeah. And I guess that at that moment, it was just harder but easier decision to make yeah yeah it felt real did it really real yeah and I guess that at that moment it was just a bit more clarity but sadness at the same time that had it been the third pregnancy or the second pregnancy it would have been totally different yeah it was a bit of a shock to say the least so eventually you went back what sort of 10 days

later that was actually at the local hospital rather than a private clinic. That was a bit more daunting, actually. There were a lot more people in the waiting room and it was a lot more public. It was a sexual health clinic, so there were people there for all sorts of reasons, having counselling, having STD tests, abortions, getting their pill or their injection. So is that where you had the procedure? What actually happened? I had my partner with me that time. Someone had the children, so he was in the waiting room with me. They ask you one last time if it's definitely sure that it's what you want to do.

Again, I said yes. I was anticipating the worst, but just keen for it to kind of be over, really. Was there any doubt in your mind that you had made the wrong decision or the right decision, perhaps after the event? No, no, no. I never ever felt anything other than sheer relief that it was all over, to be honest. I was done bearing children. I wanted to find my passion and my voice and I didn't want to be just a stay-at-home mum with five children like that would have just been the worst possible situation I needed to have a reason and a job and I had to have something that I loved one of the reasons why I didn't want to continue with the pregnancy is that I had just began setting up my business in the December while I was off from my regular work I'd spent two weeks designing logos finding websites deciding on a business name and I just

knew that that was where I wanted to focus my efforts and so the day I came out of hospital I actually went and did a photo shoot because I'd lined it up for somebody before this had all happened and I didn't want to let them down and I didn't want to tell them why I couldn't do it so there was me with my large sanitary towel at somebody's house taking photos of their newborn baby that felt okay yeah no it was fine I I think because I was so sure of my choice that it didn't I didn't feel anything. And it was like, this is why I've made the decision. I want to be here and I want to be photographing babies and families.

I just got on with life. There were times where I found out that people were pregnant. So maybe like a couple of months afterwards that people had had their 12-week scans and they were announcing that they were pregnant and I was like oh I would have been like at this point now but it did not make me want to think oh I wish I'd gone through with my baby like just no not there. Do you feel ashamed? No I'm not ashamed of it I do worry about who I talk to about it. I do worry about upsetting people. I know there are people that maybe can't have a baby or maybe have lost babies or even people that their religious beliefs or, you know, they just don't think that's the thing to do. So I,

I am cautious about who I tell, but not because I'm'm embarrassed but more because I don't want to upset people or make them feel uncomfortable in front of me I will talk to anybody about it if they were to ask me about it I'll quite openly say it I'm just cautious about whether or not I'm the one who brings it up first and do you have any sense that you ended a life or in your case two lives do you feel that at all? No. In my eyes, it was a cluster. There was just some cells and they were never going to be a baby

because they were never meant to be a baby. They were an accident. I'd taken the morning after pill. I think maybe it had been different if I hadn't realised, but I knew from the minute that we realised there was an issue, I didn't want to have a baby, so I don't feel like I ended a life. They wouldn't have had a very good mum. They wouldn't have had what I would want for my children.

My mental health would have deteriorated and I would have ended up, I think, either on long-term antidepressants or even as far as to say that I would have ended up in think either on long-term antidepressants or even as far as say that I would have ended up in psychiatric hospital. So the pro-life lobby would say that you ended a life. Yeah. How do you respond to that? They can't say what I did was wrong because they weren't me and they've never walked a day in my life they've never been in my shoes they don't know what it felt like to to realize that you're pregnant when you're not you don't want to be pregnant I mean I can't imagine what it's like for anybody who's not in a loving relationship to go through that because that was hard enough and I had someone there the whole way I had my partner

I had his mum I had my mum I had my sister I had everybody there for me I had so mum, I had my sister. I had everybody there for me. I had so many friends that were behind me. Imagine doing that on your own. I don't think anybody has the right to say that what you've done is wrong or wicked. You've said that you were certain that you made the right choice at the time. Do you think in the future that might change? No. We are very clear that we don't want any more children. Within about a month of me having an abortion, my partner was booked in to have a vasectomy. Our family is very complete and we are very happy. We have three very lovely, wonderful children. I don't think that we'll ever think that we made the wrong decision. Well, our thanks again to that woman prepared to tell her story. And our reporter was Henrietta Harrison. If you need help or support, you can visit the BBC's Action Line website, bbc.co.uk forward slash Action Line.

And next week on Women's Hour, two more women will take us through their own experience of an abortion. And I know many of you have been really, really moved by just those voices, just hearing those very real voices, just explaining in great detail, to be honest, about their abortions and why they made that decision. So two more for you on the programme next week. On Monday, we'll also be discussing sickies, copping a sickie, as people tend to call it. What do you do, though, if it's your child claiming that they've got one of those tummy aches that always seems to start on a Tuesday morning when you know it's double hockey and at about eight o'clock they just don't feel up to it? What do you do if you strongly suspect

they're not actually ill at all? Email the programme via the website bbc.co.uk slash womanshour. Now, last week, this time last week, actually, we were at bbc music introducing over in the tobacco dock in shadwell and we thought it was high time we got on an artist on the program who has had fantastic support actually from bbc introducing that's true isn't it celeste is here good morning to you hello good morning now you actually did what we

described on the program last week you uploaded a performance of yours and the rest could be real musical history. Yeah, well, I did do that. I think Phil Taggart was one of the first DJs on BBC Introducing to pick up one of my pieces of music. And since then, the support has been quite overwhelming and I'm really grateful for it. Annie Mack has been supporting and DJ Target from One Extra has been one of my biggest champions too. And you need champions, don't you? Because you can't kickstart a career in music

unless you've got people who are on your side. 100%. It helps a great deal to have people who are respected to say, I like this and this is something I actually listen to. And also, once you get that encouragement, that must buoy you up and give you much more confidence to keep going. 100%. I think the acknowledgement just kind of encourages you and motivates you to carry on. And yeah, something I really appreciate.

Well, I'm really looking forward to your live performance because our studio engineer this morning, Bob, has been here since, I think, since the Battle of Hastings, actually. He's quite difficult to impress, but I'm looking at him now. He says you're really, really good. Okay, this is good. So before you start, I just want to hear a little bit about you and where you come from. And I know you actually were born in L.A., but moved to Dagenham at 18 months old.

Yeah, that's it. So my mum and her family are from Romford and Dagenham. And so my mum had been living and working in the US. And after a while, she decided she wanted to move back to the UK. And that was the first place that we went. So that's where I ended up. And I do have some fond memories of there. And some of my first musical memories were there, really, from about the age of three. And then when I was five, I moved to Brighton,

and that's where I spent my whole life, really. And when did you first start performing? Well, there were different points growing up where I realised I could sing. I think as young as ten years old, I went to a dance school every weekend, and one of the teachers... You sound faintly embarrassed about that. Yeah, it was embarrassing! We've all been to dance school. It's all right. Yeah, one of the teachers, You sound faintly embarrassed about that. Yeah, it was embarrassing. We've all been to dance school.

It's all right. Yeah, one of the teachers, she was called Miss Ross, and she was the singing teacher. She sort of heard my voice, I think, in the corridor, and she mentioned it to my mum, and then a few months later I went there full-time on a scholarship. And so that was one of the moments where I realised that maybe my talent was different to some of the children around me my age. But still, it wasn't something that I really pushed until I was about 18 and I could make that decision by myself, really.

How old are you now? 25. Right. And what have you done in the intervening years then? Initially, I just was writing by myself and I would put my music on YouTube and I'd put it on SoundCloud and all those places which were sort of my era of music and making music. And I started to collaborate with other writers too. And during that time, some of my songs were picked up by some other producers, which was really cool for me, actually, because it just gave me a little bit more time to work out what I wanted to be for myself. And then in the last two and a half years I started to release more of my own music. What I noticed about the track that you're going to play for us live was just how you are very young, how world-weary you sound, sort of as though you've been really emotionally, you've been through the mill.

Yeah, I think I've always sort of written from that place from a really young age and sometimes probably for people hearing my music when I was 17 and 18 it was probably quite weird for them to hear someone so young singing from that place um but I only really started writing from a place of heartache and um yeah so that's kind of the way it carried on. Have you written any upbeat, jaunty stuff? Yeah, there is some, but I mean... Your accompanist, Dominic, is having a laugh at that. Yeah, yeah. Because he plays all my shows with me,

so he knows there's really not that much. OK, I'm going to challenge you to write a happy tune or song at some point in the next decade, if you can. Yeah, yeah. See if you can. In the decade. And you're going on tour with Michael Kamaruka, aren't you? Yeah.

Because his new album, that's what I've been playing all week, actually. That also is, let's face it, it can be quite moody and downbeat as well. Yeah, well, I think... It's great, though. It's one of my favourites, and he's someone I look up to a massive amount, musically and lyrically. I think The Guardian said it was the album of the decade.

Oh, did they? Yeah. They always know what they're talking about. So, for once, I seem to be actually listening to something that is really, really good. Well, I'm going to be seeking you out more in the future as well. You are brilliant. I hope everybody has really had their appetites whetted now for this.

Just tell us a bit about this song this is strange um yeah so I wrote this around this time last year and I was actually working in America at the time and in various different studios and one afternoon we were driving from Silver Lake to Westwood so it was quite a long drive about an hour and a half and I was really thinking that day about what I should write about and what I wanted to write about. And on the way, as we were approaching the studio, we saw this huge plume of black smoke in the sky. And it was from all of these wildfires and forest fires. And we turned on the radio to hear a bit more about what was going on. And we heard all of these stories of people that had sort of had to move from their homes and possessions that they'd owned for generations that they'd lost.

And I think that kind of made me think about my own experience of loss, and I went into the studio that day and wrote this song. Well, you're going to sing it for us now. If you make your way over to the microphone, that would be brilliant, Celeste. Thank you very much. So she set it up brilliantly for us. The song is called Strange, and on the keyboard, it's Dominic Canning. Off you go. Thank you both very much.

I tried for you Tried to see through all the smoke But it wouldn't move Celeste, thank you so much for doing that. That was Celeste performing live. Great pleasure to meet you and to have you on the programme. And Dominic, thanks to you too. And that song is called Strange.

It's out now, isn't it? Yeah, it's out now. And the video came out yesterday as well. All right. Thank you both very much indeed. Best of luck to you. Now, the novelist Sally Vickers is here. And her new novel is called Grandmothers.

Welcome to the programme, Sally. Hi, Jane. Now, of course, when you hear a title like that, you think you're getting a book about lovely grand... Twinkly eyed grannies sitting in cardigans, providing companionship to their grandchildren. And there is an element of truth in that. We have three grandmotherly figures in this novel. One is actually not technically a grandmother, but she has a very special relationship with a young girl called Rose. That's Minna then there's a granny who's taken to drink Blanche who's also doing a bit of shoplifting

yes kleptomania and drink and she is well she'd like to be closer to her granddaughter Kitty and then we have Nan who is a grandmother and looks after her grandson Billy and what's interesting about Nan amongst many other things, is that her son is particularly useless and something of which she is aware. Yes, she's fully aware of that. And I think one of the things I was interested in doing in the book is talking about the ways in which one's children can be, as they develop into adults, can become a bit of a mystery to one. Whereas

their own children will somehow become much closer to one as a grandparent. You have got three grandchildren. I have three grandchildren. I have two lovely girls and a lovely boy. And I have to say they are the loves of my life. And were you surprised by that? Well, I used to say that my children, that everything I'd learned about life, I'd learned through my children. But now I say that if my children were, as it were, my degree in life, my grandchildren are my PhD. Because what I've really learnt about what matters in life is through these three children

and I'm not saying they're exceptional they're not it's just that they have taught me so much about what really matters what my priorities are what I really care about what I'm prepared to do and they've taught me how to love much better

than I ever did as a mother. Okay. You do dedicate the book to your grandmothers and talk about the fact that they gave you time. Yes. Now, time is sometimes a rather difficult thing to give, isn't it, particularly now? Yes. And I think one of the things, time is a theme in the book. Nan, the most significant and central voice of the book is in fact, although nobody but she herself knows it an admired and reclusive poet and she's writing a long epic poem on time

and the thing that I realised as a grandmother was that I was able to give time to my grandchildren which is a single mother bringing up two boys very close together, pretty impoverished and pretty stressed. I was not able to give them. So I feel in a way I'm giving back to my children through my grandchildren, although probably my children don't. I was going to ask, do your children realise that or haven't they? Have they not said it? Well, you know, I mean, I'm sure I irritate them like hell. I can't believe that for a moment.

I'm interested in the fact that things go wrong for the family units in your novel, Grandmothers. And there is a great deal of hope expressed by the parents that, oh, the children will be fine. They'll be fine. Yes. Oh, they're very resilient. Yes. And I've probably said that myself. We certainly want to believe it. Do you think it's necessarily true? No, I think it's very untrue. And I have a character in the book say, people say that children are tough, they get over things. I wonder if it's really true. And he goes on to say how he doesn't know. I worked for many years, as you know, as a psychotherapist. I think people don't get over things. I think they believe they

should get over things. So they suppress things. And I think one of the central things about grandparents, and I'm not talking just about myself, because of course, I have faults like anybody else, is they can see the kind of hurts and traumas that children are suffering and maybe concealing in order to protect their own parents. So I think one of the things I wanted to work through in the book is the way the grand parents understand those inner distresses and stresses and strains of the children that the parents can't really afford to take in. I know we have lots of grandmothers in particular listening to this programme.

Many will want, actually, and will not be able to have, a much closer relationship with their grandchildren. Geography is a problem these days. People move away from home and then family breakup as well plays a part, doesn't it? And also hostility I mean Blanche the most fragile of the three women although she's the poshest and the most moneyed interestingly she has a difficult relationship with her daughter-in-law and that of course can happen and particularly if you have sons it's not uncommon I think for these sons to move away from the sphere of the mother into their partner's lives and very understandably

because as you and I know women still really run homes and are in charge of times and how the family will spend their time so I think there's too, that you can lose touch with your child and therefore your grandchild. And I mean, I know working as a psychotherapist, that can cause an enormous amount of distress. So in a way, my Blanche character was there very much against the twinkly-eyed, apple-cheeked, cosy grandmother. She's the alienated woman.

Yes. And she feels under attack. And she's also relative. She's only 62, I think, isn't she, in the book? I can't remember. She's 62, yes, because she's, yeah. I only read it this week, Sally. I think my memory, I'm sure she was 62.

I love knowing people's books better than the people who wrote them. Oh, yeah. You can catch me out on any number of things in my books. No, I'm not trying to catch you out. What I do want to say is we've got, I'm really excited, I was excited to meet you, but next week we've got Elizabeth Strout on the programme talking about her new book, Olive Again. A great favourite of mine. Well, I'm not surprised because I was reading both books this week and you're both absolutely brilliant, but you are both slightly put in the category of, how do I put this, deceptively simple writers. Yes, I know. It must be infuriating.

What's really infuriating is to be described as cosy. This is not a cosy book. It's a quiet book, but there's a ferocity and fierceness underneath. And there's a great deal, I hope, of it's not strident. I wouldn't want to be strident. It's not proselytising. But there are things I care about. I mean, like the ludicrous kind of education our children are subjected to at the moment

with these terrible oppressive SATs and examinations. There's quite a lot about that in the book, as there was actually in my previous book, The Librarian. There's quite a lot about the kind of competitiveness that children have to face. So there's quite a lot about the disregard for the old ways and the old wisdoms. Quite a few of the conversations are about that. There's quite a lot about the lack of time because I think that's an increasing problem. That is Sally Vickers, whose book Grandmothers is out now. And it looks from the cover, actually, it looks like you're going to get one sort of book. It isn't actually that sort of book. As I say, it's a brilliant book, actually. I thought it was really, really good and incredibly

incisive and knowing about some of the trickier aspects of family life in the 21st century. So Sally's book is out now. Now, thanks to everybody who has contacted the programme today. This is from Chris, wonderful author on Woman's Hour Now. This is Sally. If our children are our degree course, our grandchildren are then our PhD. It might be a slightly cranky analogy but yes we learn so much from our kids and our grandkids just so long as we give ourselves time to listen and that's the key isn't it just having the time and being willing to share it when you've got it lots of views on his dark materials this is from Sue pan in the book of dust sequel to his dark materials. This is from Sue. Pan, in the Book of Dust sequel to his dark materials, is a pine

martin. Definitely not some sort of vermin in our own 21st century, although nearly rendered extinct by such prejudices in less enlightened times. He is both cute and acute, says Sue, putting me right on my clearly old

fashioned views of demons. So I'll take that one to heart, Sue. Thank you very much. Jenny has sent a very... I'm of an age now where I appreciate a picture of a cat. And Jenny has sent us a picture of her new black cat. It's interesting, she says, I've just named our fearless little rescue kitten Lyra, after Lyra in his dark materials as well. Yeah, Lyra, she does... his dark materials as well um yeah Lyra she does what can I say she looks lovely no more cat pictures for the time being thank you very much Anne when my son was young he was a keen reader and I also read a lot to him including Philip

Pullman which we both loved it brings back really happy memories to see it on tv well clearly Anne it's striking a chord because an audience over 7 million for a BBC drama on a Sunday night is really good going these days. Lots of people are enjoying it, clearly. And from Eileen, it's interesting to hear you question Zandria Horton and Catherine Rundle on the prevalence of female characters in children's fiction. In picture books for children aged nought and up,

there is a great imbalance, with female main characters still being outnumbered by males by two to one. Yes, that's been the case for a while, hasn't it? And I think it is annoying to many people. To the interview we had with the young woman talking about her abortion 18 months ago, this listener says, Today, listening to your program, so many emotions that I felt I dealt with resurfaced. After many years of feeling okay about my previous decisions, I'm feeling guilty and emotional about something I thought I'd sorted.

I'm sure I won't be permanently affected, but I just thought I'd let you know that by airing this, though cathartic for some, it may have negative consequences for others. And from another anonymous listener, thank you for talking about abortion, with the focus being upon the women's feelings rather than the normal news about morals and legislation. I recently had an abortion and had no idea how it would impact me emotionally, having made a rational decision and having no moral objections to the process. This was in August of this year and over the last couple of

months I've struggled with overwhelming feelings of regret, sadness, shame and guilt to the point that I am now on antidepressants which I never expected to be on and I'm finding it hard to function at work and at home. I'm sobbing regularly and feeling as though I have denied a child their right to be in the world. Programs like yours make me realize I'm not alone in these feelings which are often not recognized as the grief is forbidden. I have now spoken to a number of other women who've been through the same and there is a theme that this experience however thought out can have a deep impact upon women. Thank you for helping me with my journey towards recovery.

I suspect it will be a long process, but I'm feeling more hopeful that I may get there or at least accept what has happened. Thank you, everybody, for being so honest in your emails about what you've been through and why you made the decision that you made. I appreciate a lot of people feel very passionately the other way about abortion. I get that completely. Nevertheless, this area is one that sounds, judging by the reaction to what we've put out this week, it's been unexplored or underexplored in the past. So I'm very glad that Women's Hour is playing a part in bringing these women's experiences to the fore. Thank you very much for listening today. The highlights of the Women's Hour week will be on Radio 4

at two minutes past four tomorrow afternoon. And then the podcast will be available, of course, shortly after. And we're back live Monday morning, two minutes past 10. I'm Sarah Treleaven. And for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know.

It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in.

Available now.