Woman's Hour - Maggie Oliver, Alison Rayner Quintet, the history of the breast, and shortbread

Episode Date: January 16, 2020

A report on child sexual exploitation in Greater Manchester says police and social workers were aware and failed to protect victims fifteen years ago. We hear from Maggie Oliver, the former detective who blew the whistle on the failure to tackle grooming gangs in Rochdale, why she thinks little has changed in that time and why prosecutions must follow. When she turned 60, bass player Alison Rayner formed a jazz band. She also set up Blow the Fuse, an organisation to support women musicians. Alison talks about her choice of instrument, why it’s never too late to take up music and the reaction she gets from her audience. Professor Joanna Bourke looks at the history of ideas about the breast from beauty to age and function to sexual pleasure. She also discusses what happens when we turn our attention to the male breast.And, in Flora Shedden’s new book Aran, each chapter follows a day in the life of the bakery of the same name which is located below the highlands of Scotland. She joins Jenni in the studio with Granny Joan’s and Angus’ shortbread.Presenter: Jenni Murry Producer: Ruth Watts

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. Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to the Woman's Hour podcast for Thursday the 16th of January. Flora Shedden was the youngest ever finalist in the Great British Bake Off. She now owns her own bakery in Scotland and has published a book, Aaron. Today she has cooked the perfect shortbread. Men have breasts as do women. Why are they perceived in totally different terms? Professor Joanna Burke explains the history of the breast and live music from the Alison Rayner Quintet, a jazz band she formed when she was turning 60.

Earlier this week, the first part of an independent review into failures in the investigation of the sexual grooming of children was published. It made shocking reading. It was commissioned by the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, and found the police and social workers were aware that children were suffering the most profound abuse but did not protect them. Maggie Oliver is the former detective in the Greater Manchester Police who resigned from her job in 2012 and became the whistleblower who first exposed the force's poor handling of the sexual abuse of girls in Rochdale. We spoke earlier. What was her response when she read the new report?

Relief, really. It was personally a momentous day for me because I've spent 15 years trying to be heard with the truth. And although the truth about Operation Span in Rochdale has now been heard, Augusta was actually a South Manchester investigation, not Rochdale. Long time ago, but finally I feel vindicated. Operation Augusta was shut down in 2005.

Why had it been set up originally? A young girl called Victoria Agolia had died actually in Rochdale. She'd been administered an overdose of heroin by a 50-year-old Pakistani man. She was in care, and she'd been horrifically sexually abused and raped. At the same time, Channel 4 were transmitting a documentary called Edge of the City,

in which they uncovered a problem in Keithley of Pakistani men sexually abusing and grooming vulnerable white children. In hindsight, I believe that Greater Manchester Police set up Operation Augusta to head off criticism and the spotlight when there was public outrage about what had happened in Keithley. When the Ferrari died down, by that time we'd got over 97 men, paedophiles, on a database. We had a list of well over two dozen children, but nobody had been arrested or interviewed at that point. And the report makes it very clear that the decision to close Operation Augusta

was based on resources and they just buried it. But if there were cases that stood a chance of success, 97 potential suspects, 26 victims, why were those victims not a priority? I feel that this is still a pattern that exists today, 15 years later. There is an attitude towards these kinds of children that come from difficult backgrounds, that they don't matter. I've got four kids of my own, Jenny. Every child matters.

These children were being abused. The powers that be in Greater Manchester Police the Chief Constables, the Assistant Chief Constables resourced a full major incident team when I wrote a report together with the other officers on Augusta making it crystal clear what the problem

was but there was an attitude that these children were making a lifestyle choice, that they didn't matter, the resources weren't worth putting in to investigate it. And you know that the statements yesterday, what they're very keen to stress is that things have changed. Well, I've become a focus for people to contact when they have been abused, when they are being failed. And I can tell you categorically that this has not changed. If you speak to people around the country, not just in Rochdale, Jenny, there are thousands of survivors of abuse and current victims of abuse that are

still being failed. And the whole focus of the of the statement from greater manchester police yesterday was to minimize what had happened and say that things have changed but there is still an intention to conceal the truth because i will tell you that that greater manchester police have spent nearly a year trying to prevent publication of this report. I absolutely take my hat off to Gary Ridgway, an ex-detective chief superintendent from another force, and Malcolm Newsome, and also Andy Burnham and Bev Hughes, who sponsored this review in the first place,

that they have stuck to their guns. This report blows the lid off it. I never expected the detail that is in this report to be so clear that the police and social services knowingly failed these kids. This wasn't a mistake, Jenny. You seem to be implying that attitudes to vulnerable girls have not changed since your time in the force. Is that what you're implying? I'm not only implying it, Jenny, I am stating it absolutely. I'm currently involved in a case with the Centre for Women's Justice and Harriet Wistrich, who has won the Sally Challen case and the War Boys, Black Cab Rapist case. She is representing three of the girls

who were failed in Rochdale in 2013 because of the failures of the police, the CPS, and the authorities to deal with the offending against them in an ethical, in a thorough and in a proper way. That is today. Things have not changed. You know, as I say, I'm contacted every day about failures. I have felt forced in many ways to set up my own charity foundation now,

in which I aim to give help and support to everybody who has nowhere else to go. I wish I didn't have to do that, but there is a desperate need out there for help. And I sound a little bit like a broken record, keep repeating the same things again and again. But my firm opinion is that without legal consequences for the people in the positions of power in these organisations, legal accountability, we will continue to see this in another 15 years with another review. And people are fed up hearing the same thing. You have called for prosecution of leading officers. Yes, I have. How likely is that to happen? I'm just one voice. I know that is the only thing that will change this pattern. If a chief constable today knows that if he knowingly

neglects his duty, that if he closes down a job like Operation Augusta, where we have over two dozen victims and 100 offenders, they knew what was going on. If the Chief Constable today knew that if he did a similar thing today, that in 10 years time, he could face legal consequences for that. He could lose his pension. He could be charged with misconduct in a public office. I believe then we would see real change. But the man who was in charge at the time when Operation Augusta was closed down was Mike Todd. He's no longer here. Chief Constable today will say this was not his responsibility, and it wasn't. So we need accountability for the people who make the decisions at that time.

There was an Assistant Chief Constable who was still in post when I was working with the review team for two years. He's now retired as well. So we keep hearing the same things. There has to be personal consequences for public servants. Why didn't they listen to you? I've asked myself that question many times. But when you consider that the previous chief constable, Peter Fye, tried to dismiss everything I was saying by saying I was a woman who had lost the plot. I had become too emotionally involved. I had become, I was bereaved. Basically, that I was a silly woman who didn't know what she was talking about.

But he knew that what I was a silly woman who didn't know what she was talking about. But he knew that what I was saying was the truth. This has in many ways destroyed my life, this journey. It's been 15 years, Jenny. Every day I have a different message. I have fought tooth and nail to expose the truth. This report absolutely vindicates everything I have said officially. I always knew I was telling the truth. This report absolutely vindicates everything I have said officially. I always knew I was telling the truth. The people who have tried to cover up the truth also knew I was telling the truth. So it's vindication for me but more than that it's the kids who have failed.

They will now feel that they have a voice too but it's really too little too late. How free are grooming gangs to operate now? They still go in very large swathes of the country unchecked because this report makes it clear that Operation Augusta was closed down because of the resources needed to investigate and prosecute these men. That is still the case today. And if you look at the national picture about the way that the whole criminal justice system is being squeezed, the CPS acknowledge quite openly that they are now only prosecuting the very easiest rapes to prosecute. None of these trials would ever come to court.

We have high court judges criticising the criminal justice system. We are at crisis point. There is no legal aid. These kids are trying to seek a little bit of compensation. It is like pulling teeth. It takes years. The girls from Rochdale in 2012, whose hand I am still holding, are still fighting that battle for compensation. on those kinds of actions should be redirected at addressing the criminals need to be targeted and stopped. They know it's easy to get away with. They're very sophisticated networks. We talk about county lines and gangs.

These are organised criminal gangs. When the men in Rochdale were charged with trafficking and conspiracy to commit commit sexual activity with a child that is not what they were responsible for. They are rapists. The man who got a 13 year old child pregnant was out of prison within three years. That man who got her pregnant he was having sex with her when she was 12. She met him one month ago, walking around the supermarket in Asda. I bumped into him face to face, right in front of her, in sole control of another little child.

These are the things that I want to change. And the authorities have quite clearly shown that if they can bury it, they will. I was talking to Maggie Oliver. Now, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police told us that claims they'd tried to stop the review of Operation Augusta could not be further from the truth and that last year Operation Green Jacket was set up

and the scope of its investigation has grown from the original 25 victims to 53. He says the attitude towards investigating this type of crime has completely changed since Operation Augusta was concluded 15 years ago. Now Alison Rayner's instrument is primarily the double bass and throughout her life she's made her living from music. She's played with other people and she's taught but it was not until she turned 60 that she decided to set up her own jazz band. They are the Alison Rayner Quintet. Thank you. Alison, that was just a tiny bit of crudging along Bushwalk, which is about a place in southeast Victoria in Australia.

Why did that place inspire you to write that piece? The first time I went to Australia, I was completely blown away by the landscape and the ancient people, the history. It's so different from England, of course. The beautiful space and orange earth and the blue skies, just fantastic. I was on a bushwalk in Crow Jingalong. Crow Jingalong is a beautiful area. I was on a bushwalk there and I just wanted to try and capture some of the atmosphere of being there. I really think you did. It's a beautiful piece. But what has happened to it as a result of the fire?

Well, of course, we all know it's been just devastating. I understand that Crow Jinglong itself, which is the most beautiful national park, has been largely destroyed. And, I mean, clearly the landscape itself will recover in time although some of those bush areas will take years and years but of course the decimation of the wildlife has been quite shocking so it's very very tragic what's happening um and there's a lot to be said about the dependence on fossil fuels and all these things that are driving this increase in climate change which is what it appears to be partly.

Let's move on to the music. We've got your band all standing around or sitting around waiting. Someone holding the bass for you ready so that you can get over there to play it. How did you choose the bass as your instrument? Because I don't think it's often a woman's choice. It's an interesting thing because I think traditionally women have been encouraged towards certain instruments in the past, and this is changing. Probably like very many bass players, I actually started playing bass

because I was in a band and we needed a bass player. But I did think at the time, oh, I think this could be me. And that was bass guitar. And I subsequently moved on to double bass, which I absolutely love. It's an instrument to tackle. That's what I found. But I've had a career of playing with a lot of people in the jazz scene, a very nice career, and decided to have my own band relatively recently.

Why did you decide to do that as you were about to turn 60? It was partly to do with composition. I've written for many of the bands I've played with over the years and had pieces recorded. I always had this idea that I was going to record my own pieces with my own group. And, you know, you have these ideas in the back of your head. It just kept going on.

And I eventually thought, why am I waiting? I was in that year coming up to my 60th birthday. I thought, hang on, you need to get on with this. And I asked people who people who I knew were wonderful musicians, but also are great friends, because when you're in a band, there's an enormous amount of social time together, traveling, hanging out. And we actually recorded, I think we recorded our very first album during the year when I was 60. Four of the five, I think, are past 60. I'm looking at them nervously in case they didn't want me to say that, but I've just said it anyway. They don't look it, do they, Jenny? No, they don't. They look just fantastic. They look 25, all of them, there's no doubt about it.

But I know you've set up an organisation called Blow the Fuse. What's the purpose of that? Well, Deirdre Cartwright, who's playing guitar in the band with me here, she and I started Blow the Fuse in 1989. So we actually had our 30th anniversary last year. We'd been in a band called The Guest Stars in the 80s and they'd been actually quite a resurgence then of jazz there was um the jazz warriors started and loose tubes and the guest stars and we did a lot of work when we left the guest stars we wanted to do something we wanted to be playing primarily um so we started running

club nights um and inviting people to play because every musician loves to be asked to play and it's kind of grown from there we formed a record label we've promoted tours we've organized festival events all sorts of things over the years and I suppose because we're women obviously anything we do involves women as well as men and therefore I think we had perhaps played a part in trying to increase the number of women playing in jazz and particularly instrumentalists because we're a bass player and a guitarist. There was more of a role in the past for women as singers in jazz, but less so for instrumentalists. But things are changing.

I do think it still tends to be rather dominated by men, though. Why have women been overlooked? I think perhaps social expectations, traditional roles for women. Music is, a lot of music is very social and based on social networks. So I think sometimes you might, people might invite people they know. And it can just be as simple as that. But, for example, in the last few years there's been a quite a quite a boom in women young women coming out to some of the conservatoires because now of course

there are lots of jazz courses which there weren't in our day and there's more young women coming into the scene and there's a lot of interest from younger people so we are drawing in a younger audience into jazz now you're going to play There's a Crack in Everything. What inspired this piece? Well, this piece is on our new album, which is called Short Stories. My music, I think, is allegorical. Sometimes I'm telling stories about places, sometimes about people. And this piece, There is a Crack in Everything,

is in memory of my niece. It's a celebratory piece, I would say, rather than a sad piece. She was a wonderful cyclist and she cycled around the landscape of Scotland, which is, of course, completely beautiful with the blocks and the hills. And I called it There Is A Crack In Everything after the Leonard Cohen quote, which is there is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in. And I think in her searching, she was searching for that crack of light. OK, off you go, Alison, to your double bass. We've got Deirdre on guitar, Diane McLaughlin on sax, Steve Lodder

on piano and Buster Birch on drums and percussion and away you go. whoa the alice and reina quintet there's a crack in everything that was terrific thank you all very much indeed for playing live for us this morning now still to come in today's program flora sheddon the youngest, finest in the bake-off and two types of shortbread from her Scottish bakery and the serial, the eighth episode of

Exile. Now on Monday Jane is going to be hosting a phone-in on the question of overpopulation and saving the planet. Harry and Meghan said they would restrict themselves to two children. How about you? Have you or somebody you know made the decision to be child-free?

Or is the whole idea of restricting your family size for the greater good rather an assault on reproductive rights? You can email us, of course, through the Woman's Hour website and the programme will be on Monday morning. Now, Joanna Burke is Gresham Professor of Rhetoric and Professor of History at Birkbeck University of London. She was commissioned to deliver a series of lectures about parts of the human body, and she chose the history of hair, the eye, the penis and the clitoris,

the stomach, the foot, and today, the history of the breast. Both men and women have breasts, of course, but whilst men are generally allowed to show theirs, on the whole women are not. And men's tend not to be seen as either useful or erotic, but both descriptions can apply to a woman's breast. So, Joanna, why these different perceptions of the male and the female breast? I think the female breast is just comes with a huge amount of cultural capital. I mean, this is regarded by the female breast is regarded by so many people to be men, heterosexual men, as one of the central erotic elements of a woman's body

in the way, as you say, it's not regarded in that way with men. I mean, I think it's really interesting to think back in history and remember that it wasn't always that way. In fact, it wasn't until the 1930s that men were allowed to expose their breasts, for example, on public beaches. And there was a huge campaign in the 30s for men to be able to free their breasts on the beach, whereas women never had that kind of opportunity. It's also, I think, important to remember that the breast was not always regarded as erotic. I mean, if you look at before pre-ancient a sudden the breast is kind of sidelined and the phallus becomes the important thing. And of course, then we get the 13th century is really when the female breast becomes this kind of erotic part of the body. What kind of protests have both men and women made to argue for the right to expose their breasts? There have been a lot of protests.

As I say, in the 30s, it was men protesting. But women were also saying, well, why should we cover up our breasts? What is it that makes our breasts somehow lesser and somehow more obscene than the male breast? And, of course, women going topless, they can actually end up on the sex offenders register. So women sort of got together and said, okay, let's protest this. So they took off their shirts, they were arrested for this, they were put on sex offenders registers. And they started a group such as Free the Breasts, or Breasts Not Bom bombs. They did lactivist protests. In other words, breastfeeding in public places, again, decide to kind of protest about the sexualization, eroticization of their own bodies. They also, you know, they, it's very, very interesting. They also thought, decided that actually, you know, why is it that my body, the women's body, should be

controlled by the desires of what men think my body is about? So that protesting the objectification of the women's body. Why is the language used to describe breasts? I'm thinking of boob or tit, you know, a word that also used to mean stupid, make a boob or make a tit of yourself. Yeah, it's very interesting to compare the words used for female sexual parts and male sexual parts. So we have this massive number of words, for example, for the penis, hundreds of them, indeed. Some entire dictionaries of slang only have three words for the clitoris, and most of the rest are about the penis. The breast, as you say, they are derogatory words in many senses, in many ways. And again,

this kind of emphasizes the point that women are lesser beings. And you get, you know, the Benny Hill show. I don't know if some of your listeners may remember that. A really repulsive show. But it was shown in 97 countries. It had audiences of 21 million. And the whole show was based on making fun of women's breasts and women's bodies generally. And there's the other thing, of course,

that on the one hand, we're given the message that women's breasts are somehow And there's the other thing, of course, that on the one hand, we were given the message that women's breasts are somehow erotic and obscene and should be hidden, at least in public places. But of course, we have to remember that TV networks have no problem showing breasts. They have no problem showing the breasts of women, for example, in Sudan, breastfeeding their babies. National Geographic has no problem with brown breasts. It's a certain class, it's a certain racist thing as well. It is the breasts that belong to certain men. Now, the word mammal actually means of the breast.

Why was it this characteristic that was used to rather tie us to the animal kingdom? Yes, I mean, we became mammals, humans became mammals in the 18th century, where Carl Linnaeus decided to put all the animal kingdom into these various classes. And he put humans into the class of mammals. And this was actually really dramatic. This was a radical scientific move because prior to that, humans were regarded as the four-legged creatures. So we have two legs and two arms, two hands. And so what he said was actually that is not what distinguishes humans.

What distinguishes us is that we lactate. We have breasts like other mammals. This, of course, put us in with other mammals, but then, of course, he had a problem. He thought, well, okay, so what ties us to the animal kingdom is the fact that we have lactating breasts, but what distinguishes us from the other mammals, from the rest of the animal kingdom, is that we are men of wisdom, homo sapiens.

So in other words, what ties us to other animals is feminine. What distinguishes us is masculine, man of wisdom. But you do describe situations in your talk in which men's breasts can produce milk. How common is that? Yeah. I mean, the ancient philosophers knew that men could produce milk. I mean, Aristotle, you just name any of these ancient philosophers and they understood. They had lots of stories about men breastfeeding babies when the mother died or when the mother wasn't able to breastfeed

for a number of reasons, then that kind of was ridiculed. More recent times, it has been shown that in fact, men do or can produce milk. I mean, I guess the most obvious example of this was after the Second World War, when prisoners of war came back to Britain and America, you know, starving, they'd been starving for years. And when they started to get nutrition, all of a sudden, they started producing milk, they started lactating. And that led to questions about why. And the main reason is that their livers weren't processing the various hormones. So given certain hormones, men can breastfeed. And I mean, I tell my friends that I can foresee a world in the future where in fact the job, the labour of breastfeeding is shared

equally between men and women. I mean, this is generally now done by women, as we know, but why is there still so much phobia about women breastfeeding in public. Yeah, I mean, 40% of people surveyed, men and women surveyed, believe that women should only breastfeed in private. There is this sense of, again, the eroticisation of the breast and that it belongs to a particular man and therefore shouldn't be shown in public. I think one really shocking thing I discovered in doing this research is that nurses tell you all the time that one of the main reasons why women stop breastfeeding is because of jealousy of their partner, which I think is shocking given that everyone knows that there are health benefits both for the infant and

for the mother of breastfeeding. So, you know, there is this idea that women should keep it private. Just one final point. The cosmetic industry has been very powerful recently and a lot of women have wanted to change their breasts. To what extent, because of worries about implants, are women becoming more aware of what a normal breast looks like and becoming happy to just have what they were given? Yeah, well, one would hope so, but you have to remember,

we have to remember that this is a multi-billion pound industry. There is a huge amount of stake in making women feel very insecure about their breasts. And actually the fact that we don't see, heterosexual women don't see other women's breasts much also means that we don't know what a normal breast looks like. We know the breasts of Janet Jackson, but the ordinary average kind of breast that most women have, we don't actually see it often. And that creates a real insecurity that businesses do make use of. Professor Joanna Burke, it's been great to see you again. We haven't seen you for quite some time.

Oh, it's great being back. And your talks can be heard where? They're all live broadcast, live downloaded, and they'll be up on the website, the Gresham website, so anyone can watch it, any part of the world, which is great. Thank you very much for being with us this morning. Thank you. Now, Flora Shedden, in 2015, became the youngest ever finalist in the Great British Bake Off. She lost out, unfortunately, to Nadia Hussain.

Very good for Nadia, obviously, but anyway. She has, though, gone on to open her own bakery in Dunkeld in Perthshire. It's called Aaron, which is the title of her book of recipes and stories from a bakery in the heart of Scotland. And today she has baked the perfect shortbread. Or have you baked them, or have some other people actually done the baking? I did bake these ones today.

But you've done two types. One is the recipe of Angus and one is the recipe of Granny Joan. I can't see a difference. How do they differ? It's a very, very small difference. My Granny's shortbread is your classic recipe. Which is granny's?

This is granny's one here. I'm going to taste that one first and you tell me about the recipe So I weigh it in ounces I think a lot of Scottish bakers as well everybody's got a granny's recipe and I just feel like I can't weigh it in grams, I have to weigh it in ounces because that's how granny does it.

And it's just butter, sugar and flour. So it's a really simple, classic recipe. I think people are always surprised about shortbread in Scotland, that it's not this very powdery, quite dry thing that you get in a tartan packet. You know, the shortbread I've grown up with is covered in sugar and it's crumbly, but it's definitely got a bit of crispness to it. It's got a bit of crispness and the taste is lovely, shall I say. This is such an unfortunate day for me,

having to taste all this shortbread. Terrible. Angus is our head baker at the bakery and along with my granny Joan, he's one of the best bakers I know. And his is slightly different in that he uses corn flour. But why I wanted to include both in the book is they are still very similar results. And I don't think I couldn't choose between the two. You'll find that it's kind of a slightly softer, more melt-in-the-mouth texture. But I think it's one of those things that I wanted to convey in the book,

that there is no wrong or right way to do it. There's ways that you've grown up with, there's new ways that you're introduced to. And I think, you know, I don't believe in saying this is the ultimate recipe. I think it's good to be open to different options. I think they're both lovely, and I honestly can't distinguish between the two I wouldn't have known that there was corn flour in that one and yeah I guess this one is about half corn flour um to normal flour which is considerably more they are lovely where did your love of baking come from I think ironically I didn't have my sister Hebe actually had a much bigger love of baking early doors when we were growing up and I loved cooking. I loved baking as well but I come from

a house where both of my mum and my dad's side were surrounded by men and women that are amazing cooks and it was just such an instinctive thing and a natural thing that, you know, I would go home after school and I would cook something or somebody's birthday and I would make a cake. And it wasn't something I ever really considered as, you know, this is a job or a hobby or something. It was just something that I did. And I think the first time I considered it as this is something that you can do day to day was when my mum said whatever you do don't go into catering so instinctively you go into catering of course. How did you come to own your own bakery when you were all of 21? I ask myself that every single day. I was at the time, I'd finished Bake Off when I was 19.

I spent a couple of years working on recipes, writing recipes. I became really into photographing recipes. I did a column for a while. And I was so kind of in this food environment, I realised that food styling is a really big part of food and publications. And I loved it. And then I remember I found myself I was living in St Andrews at the time and I thought oh my goodness I've you know I've just made three roast chickens trialing them and I've got absolutely nobody to feed them to and since I was 12 13 I've

always worked front of house waitressing or back of house and catering and it was such an unusual thing for me to spend this time cooking and creating recipes and not automatically feeding it or serving it to somebody. And I really miss that. I miss that day-to-day idea of community and I miss the feedback that you get. And I missed cooking food for a purpose, which I think is such a great thing

that you see in restaurants and cafes you're still very very young how do you see the opinions of other members of your generation about food trends and dieting and because you know Instagram is full of people putting their food on yeah I have a very big love-hate relationship with Instagram. A huge part of business for me comes from Instagram. A lot of my work comes from Instagram. The bakery's kind of profile comes from Instagram. And then I spend a fair amount of time on Instagram

viewing things that I do not like seeing and I don't like the attitude towards food. I think there is a fine balance between sharing food and what you care about and sharing slightly dangerous viewpoints. What do you think are dangerous? I think diets and people's kind of body image all stems back to Instagram and people's kind of relationship with food and how they're sharing it. Instagram is such a, you know, minor picture of somebody's day to day life. You don't see every single thing that somebody consumes. And I think particularly I've got a younger sister who's had a completely different relationship with social media to myself. And I think what she sees and

has been exposed to from a very young age is so different and alien to what I saw and my relationship with food because of that. So what is your relationship with food? Probably not healthy running a bakery. However, it's kind of been instilled in me that food is definitely for sharing. It's definitely about kind of coming together over. And also it's hugely about balance. I believe food should be as local and as sustainable as possible. And it shouldn't be eliminating anything from your diet.

You know, I think you should try everything. You should be open to everything. And I think what's dangerous, particularly about Instagram is, and cookbooks, I would would say is more often than not cookbooks are telling you what you can't have and what you should cut from your diet as opposed to nowadays where I want to say try it all. And what advice would you give to a home cook who's helping to start a career in food? I think just get in the kitchen um there's a huge I've got no professional training and I think there's a huge kind of fear that you have to have all these qualifications if you're if you're going

to run a food business um I don't think that's the case I think you just need to practice as much as possible cook as much as possible and enjoy it as much as possible and if that is the case then you know there's you know the world's your oyster there's loads of places to go with that um it's just being in the kitchen as opposed to getting the qualifications i was talking to flora sheddon and tasting her shortbread lots of you responded to the interview with magg Oliver. Someone who tweets a smelled-like white spirit said, compelling interview with Maggie Oliver, facts delivered with complete clarity and without interruption,

thanks to everybody involved. Maggie, keep on keeping on holding the institutions to account. Someone else said, totally agree. Heads of service on 100k per annum and golden sunset retirement packages dereliction of duty malfeasance misfeasance or non-feasance no excuse and that came from Victor. Carol said excellent work by Maggie Oliver to uncover the abuse and the dreadful incompetence that left these poor girls unprotected and being abused. Where does this go next? Public inquiry? And Helen said, thank you, Maggie Oliver, for being like a broken record and saying the same things over and over again.

It's unconscionable that so little has changed. And then lots of you again got in touch about the history of the breast and came up with rather similar points. Kat said, not disagreeing with anything that's being said, but would like to point out that many terms for the penis are also derogatory, e.g. dick, cock, etc., as with tit, boob, etc. John said, hopefully you will make the point that the word dick or knob is sometimes used to describe a male who is acting in a disgraceful or unpalatable way. It's also used in a humorous way to describe a male who is being stupid. It's not just a female human organ name that is used. And Peter said, surprised and disappointed to hear it postulated that the slang words for breasts,

when used in a derogatory manner, constitute a form of sexism. I think this is wrong. No, it's a balls-up, perhaps a complete cock-up. I won't be so rude as to call the professor a knob or bell-end, so I won't. Seriously, her remarks illustrate a complete lack of any balance or academic rigour. All sexual terms, whether male or female, are used as terms of abuse or ridicule. You would need to be a complete dickhead to think otherwise. Well, thank you for all your interesting comments. Now, tomorrow is the bicentenary of the birth of Anne Bronte, the youngest of the sisters. She's the author of Agnes Grey and the tenant of Wildfell Hall. Well, tomorrow I'll be joined by Sally Wainwright, who was the screenwriter of To Walk Invisible, and Adele Hay, the author of Anne Bronte Reimagined.

We'll discuss her most famous novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and its place as one of the first feminist novels. Join me tomorrow if you can. Two minutes past ten. Bye bye. Henry Akeley disappeared from his home on the edge of Rendlesham Forest somewhere around the end of June 2019. They come every night now. The police don't believe me. Please, I just need you to get in touch. What we uncovered is a mystery that has sent us deep into England's past, to an area steeped in witchcraft, the occult, secret government operations.

Now we have multiple sites of five lights with a similar shape. And something that might indeed be altogether otherworldly. This is The Whisperer in Darkness. Available now on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody.

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