Woman's Hour - Managing Money, Domestic Violence and Housing, Bad Bridgets

Episode Date: January 22, 2021

Women trying to escape domestic violence can spend months on end in a refuge or in unsuitable temporary accommodation due to lack of suitable housing. The Local Government Ombudsman has just published a highly critical report about how the London Borough of Wandsworth spectacularly failed one victim of domestic abuse. We hear from ombudsman investigator Cameron Black, women in this situation. And we ask Lucy Hadley from Women’s Aid whether the forthcoming Domestic Abuse Bill will resolve some of these problems. Throughout the 19th century, tens of thousands of Irish women left to make their fortunes in the US. But what happened to these women once they reached the Land of Opportunity? Dr Elaine Farrell of Queen's University Belfast and Dr Leanne McCormick of Ulster University have pieced together their stories. They talk to Anita Rani about drunkenness, sexual deviancy and the lives of crime led by those they call 'Bad Bridgets'. How have young women's finances been over the past 12 months? The lockdowns have put serious financial pressure on lots of people, but others have been able to curb their spending habits as shopping and eating out became impossible. What are the tools young women need to look after themselves? Iona Bain is the founder of Young Money Blog and the author of Own It, and Selina Flavius is the author of Black Girl Finance: Let's Talk Money. Archaeologist turned computer scientist, Iris Kramer, has created an AI tool that can sweep for sites of historical interest that are hidden to the human eye. The entrepreneurial PhD student has secured many grants to found her company Arch-AI.Presenter: Anita Rani Reporter: Carolyn Atkinson Producer: Lucinda Montefiore

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. Hi everybody, Anita here, welcoming you to today's Woman's Hour podcast. Good morning and welcome to Woman's Hour. We have made it to another Friday and today we're talking money, money, money and our relationship to it. So how are you when it comes to finance and And how did you learn to manage your money? Maybe you haven't. Were you given any lessons about how to deal with cash? And what wisdom are you trying to instill in your kids?

And how different is their relationship with money compared to yours? I want to hear your thoughts. You can text me on Women's Hour 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. And check with your network provider for extra costs. And of course, you can contact us via social media at BBC Women's Hour, where the conversation is already happening. Sarah Glaze says, if you can't afford it, don't buy it. But most importantly, you've got to plan ahead for retirement and savings are very important. And I love Aisha's tweet. She says, from my grandmother, always have a post

office account that your other half knows nothing about. Keep it in your maiden name. It could be your running away money. You can also email us through our website. Now, I don't remember my granny ever really talking about money, but she was, along with that generation of Indian women, very astute.

And she would know if she was being ripped off and a bag of onions. So how do we arm young women with the right tools to get financially savvy? We'll be talking about that a little bit later. We're also unearthing a fascinating bit of hidden history. Stories of Irish women who migrated on their own to America at the end of the 1800s and then fell into a life of crime. I'm just going to leave that hanging tantalisingly there for you.

Plus, do you sometimes wonder how on earth people come up with brilliant tech solutions to solve problems and make life easier? Well, I'll be talking to an archaeologist turned computer scientist who's invented a fascinating new piece of artificial intelligence. But first, the women desperately trying to escape domestic violence who are spending months stuck in refuges or other temporary housing as they fight to find somewhere safe to live. The local government ombudsman just published a highly critical report about how the London borough of Wandsworth failed one victim. And Woman's Hour has been told of others

stranded for months in refuges because there's nowhere for them to move to. The overriding problem is a lack of suitable permanent housing. Now, in a moment, we'll ask whether the long-awaited domestic abuse bill will make any difference. But first, our reporter Carolyn Atkinson is here. Carolyn, what did Wandsworth Council get so badly wrong? Well, pretty much everything. The Ombudsman's report reveals a catalogue of errors and traumas that all began back in 2018 when this woman was brutally assaulted. She fled to her mother's home where she and her child had to share a bedroom with a sister and she's been living there or at her uncle's ever since. Now, her words, which you

may find disturbing, are spoken by an actor. When you get into a relationship with someone, you don't expect it to end with you fearing for your life. But that's exactly what happened to me. I love this man and he abused me. The night of the assault, he trapped me in a flat and wouldn't let me leave for hours. He dragged me around by my hair, strangled me until I couldn't breathe and hit me multiple times to the point I was unrecognisable. That night I mourned for my child as I didn't believe I was leaving that flat alive. I was lucky. I escaped and went straight to the hospital. I filed a police report later that morning and was told that the perpetrator had been arrested

and would be held on remand until his court appearance. They were the ones who advised me that I was deemed as high risk for further harm or death. I was advised that as I was fleeing domestic violence I could contact the local council who would be able to help me get into a safe space with my daughter. I approached the local council, explained what had happened to me at reception and was told that under no circumstances would they rehouse me in the same borough the domestic abuse took place in, as it is deemed unsafe. But any neighbouring borough would be able to help rehouse me safely. I felt let down and so sad and angry. I was the one that was assaulted and I was being told I had to move away from my family and support network because it wasn't safe for me anymore.

But I approached ones with counsel. They accepted that I was fleeing domestic violence, although this didn't stop them from treating me appallingly. And they didn't see this as a reason to help me. I left feeling completely let down by the system. I never asked to be attacked and put in a situation which left me and my daughter vulnerable. Little did I know at that time, it was the start of a period for me that I am still having to fight

to this day. I mean, she was just treated so badly, pushed from pillar to post. But the existing government guidance is clear, Carolyn, isn't it? If you're fleeing domestic violence and you have a child, you should be prioritised. So why didn't that happen? Well, that's right. And basically, the council just didn't know the rules. In fact, the woman gave them a copy of government statutory guidance at one point. They also muddled her up with someone else. And she says they nearly sent letters that were intended for her to the perpetrator. The ombudsman investigator was Cameron Black. It's hard to imagine not only are you homeless with a young child, but also in fear for your life. And any reasonable person would expect that when they go to the council to ask for help, that they would receive it. And Wandsworth failed really at the first step.

She went, asked for help and was told that she wasn't homeless. And that goes wasn't homeless. And that goes against the legislation. It goes against government guidance. There should have been support in place to help her find accommodation. There should have been offers of interim accommodation to immediately remove the risk to her. What happened after was then a catalogue of errors, if you will. We've got being passed from pillar to post, being told to stay with her relative when she was at risk at that address. The woman had to chase for assistance from the council. She was

given the name of six different officers who helped her over the time that she was dealing with them. She was advised that she was entitled to apply through a certain council scheme, but then it turned out that she wasn't. She was told that she had no connection to the council's area so couldn't apply through its housing register. Then she was told she was able to apply. When the council accepted it did have a duty to assist her in rehousing. It offered virtually no assistance at all. Councils are supposed to produce homeless prevention plans for homeless people which lists not only what the council will do, what the person can do to find housing for themselves. There was very little

assistance given. In fact, she was told to go and check websites like Gumtree and Spare Room, I think, to try and find accommodation herself. What we would expect the council to do is to try and provide a bit more practical assistance in exactly how to find housing, especially for a very vulnerable woman who not only found herself homeless with a young child, but was in fear for her life. At a time when she should expect to get help, none was given, and instead barriers after barrier was put in her place. Now, the ex-partner did go to jail, but he was released four months later. It's now two years and three months on. The woman is still living with her mum and the perpetrator intimidates her. He drives by or he gets out onto the pavement when she walks to work for example. I mean it's absolutely shocking.

Now the council's been given three months to remedy its mistakes so what's it doing? Yes well the Wandsworth council told us it does accept the ombudsman's findings. It's apologised to the woman, it's agreed to pay her some compensation, and it's also put her in the correct category of housing on the waiting list now. They also point out it was a highly complex case with some unique features. They say they've taken on board all the lessons, they've tightened procedures, and they're working really hard to ensure a situation like this doesn't happen again. I mean, that was one appalling example, but how is this lack of suitable housing affecting other women who've been abused? Well, you only have to look at refuges because this morning, right now, around 4,000 women are living in refuges in England alone. But the problem

is many end up staying so much longer than intended. And that's the same reason there's nowhere for them to move on to. Listen now to the desperation of this woman, Yasmin, that's not her real name. And for her safety, her words are also spoken by an actor. She fled physical, mental, financial and controlling abuse by a family member. And she's been in a refuge for 17 months. When I first came to the refuge I was promised to be housed by the refuge and helped to secure affordable social housing. They later changed their tune and said I wasn't eligible for anything but shared accommodation which was untrue or private rented. I suffer from depression, extreme social anxiety, poor eating habits and panic attacks.

I suffered two bereavements which added to my depression. I haven't received any support thus far despite being here one year and five months. I was referred to various services who either rejected me or put me on a waiting list. I'm currently trying to pay for my own therapy despite being on universal credit. During the time at this refuge I've experienced issues with the state of the refuge itself from lack of heating to maggots in the kitchen when I first arrived. Many of the women have found the weekly meetings depressing and not catered to their needs as we're all told to go to private rented and we've all been told at one point that we're not a priority for social or council housing. A lot of women

including myself find private renting daunting considering many of the women as well as myself fear being homeless again which has prolonged my stay in this refuge because I fear being in unstable housing, which only furthers my anxiety. And both women do say they feel bullied about being pushed towards what they see as private rented accommodation, which they feel is unstable. And Yasmin told me that some women in her refuge have actually given up and returned to their danger areas and the people that they were trying to escape from in the first place, which is appalling. And what does the government have to say about all of this? Well, as you'd expect, we wanted to speak to a minister, but both the Home Office and the

Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government declined our bids. They sent us a statement instead, though, saying it's vital that victims of domestic abuse know they can continue to leave home to escape a risk of harm. They say refuges remain open during COVID with spaces available. And they point out that during the pandemic, they've invested millions of pounds to keep helplines and counselling schemes accessible. And they say they've also just launched the Ask for Annie code word scheme, which gets people help in pharmacies. Okay, Carolyn, thank you very much for that. We can speak now to Lucy Hadley, who's the Head of Policy and Campaigns at Women's Aid. Lucy, welcome to Women's Hour. We've just heard

about a council letting down one woman and another woman stuck in a refuge for approaching two years. How are these women being so catastrophically failed? It beggars belief, doesn't it? How common is this? Yeah, it was really harrowing to listen to those women's experiences and and you're absolutely right sadly they do just demonstrate the multiple issues and housing barriers that survivors of domestic abuse face is very very common for women experiencing abuse after escaping to experience homelessness and you know we know local authorities are grappling with the housing crisis, but sadly, far too often we see these very poor responses,

poor understanding of the trauma that survivors have experienced and these appalling refusals to support women with no local connection to their new area because they've, of course, had to escape there in order to be safe from their abuser. It's a massive issue. And then alongside that, we've got a continuing funding crisis facing refuges. 10 years of austerity means we're still around 30% below the recommended level of bed spaces in England. And that means many survivors, particularly survivors with insecure immigration status or disabled women

or those with mental health problems, face real barriers in accessing a refuge space in the first place. And then absolutely, as that example showed, refugees face huge issues in moving women on to long-term housing. That was made even worse during the first lockdown when there was a complete ban on moving, but it continues to be a real struggle for refugees. What is the process supposed to be if you've finally managed to gain the courage to escape an abusive relationship? What is the system in theory if it's going to as we have it right now? There's a number of different options and not one route would suit all women. For some women that have exhausted all other options to be safe and

need to be in a confidential location with wraparound and holistic support for them and their children, we'd want to see them be able to access a refuge space that meets those needs. The other option, if you needed to move houses, is to present as homeless to your local authority, whether that's your local authority or a different area because you need to escape to be safe. And currently that council should give you emergency housing if you are homeless, if you meet immigration and local connection restrictions, which are obviously very unfair in cases of domestic abuse. And if you're in what's called priority need. And currently, it can be very difficult for survivors of domestic abuse if they don't have children to prove that they're in this priority need.

Yeah, I think that's it, isn't it? You know, to prove that you're in the priority need. But as we just heard, there's no debate about the fact that our case study there, she was a victim of domestic abuse, but the council just didn't prioritise her, did they? So what do you hope that this new domestic abuse bill will do to ensure that the priority is given? There's a few important measures that aim to improve access to safe housing for survivors in the new domestic abuse bill. The first is a legal duty on local authorities to actually fund support in what they call safe accommodation. That could help to fix the funding crisis that's facing refugees,

but we are still really worried that nowhere in that duty does it state that councils need to fund specialist women's refugees. Do you think it will resolve it? We're worried that without that, we might see local authorities funding poor quality and safe and unsuitable forms of accommodation. Yeah, it's all very well having this new law for councils, but what practical use will they be for women? I mean, the councils, like you say, are already struggling.

The government says it's put a lot of extra money in. Will it make any real difference amongst this housing crisis that we've got? There's another important part of the bill, which will clarify that all women, all victims escaping domestic abuse are in priority need. But absolutely, is that going to tackle the social housing crisis, the housing crisis we face in this country? That is the real issue. It's the supply of housing, affordable housing for people to move to. So without, you know, real action to tackle that, you know, these changes in the bill, they should clarify a local authority's duties,

but will they actually make a difference in terms of the safe and sustainable housing survivors can access? So what needs to happen? What would you like to see happen, Lucy? We'd like to see some further changes to the bill itself. We'd like to see a complete ban on those local connection restrictions that just completely ignore women escaping abuse often have to travel across the country in order to be safe from their abuser. We'd also like to see changes to the bill to ensure that all survivors can access safe housing and support, including victims with insecure immigration status. Currently, many of those migrant women are completely locked out of the system of support and safety. And that's really important. And of course, we need not only funding for this new duty to ensure refuges are sustainable, but we need action to tackle the social housing crisis.

OK, Lucy, thank you very much. That's Lucy Hadley from Women's Aid. Now, a fascinating piece of hidden history. Irish women who emigrated to America at the end of the 1800s, but their American dreams often ended up with them behind bars, working as prostitutes or suffering from addiction. But their stories were unknown until now. Thank goodness for social historians Dr. Elaine Farrell of Queen's University Belfast and Dr. Leanne McCormick from Ulster University, who spent years scouring through archives to uncover the stories of these women who they call Bad Bridgets.

It's also the stories of these women who they call Bad Bridgetts. It's also the name of their podcast. Welcome to you both, Elaine and Leanne. Leanne, let me start with you. Bad Bridgetts, what's the name all about? Well, Bridgett was a very popular name for Irish women in the 19th century. Anddy the shortened version of Bridget really became a generic term and quite a derogatory term for Irish women who worked as servants in America and we had sort of been informally calling it the project bad Bridget we thought this sort of summed up what we were we were looking at and we decided then you know actually let's make it a formal name for the project we did then have a bit of a panic and a bit of a google to check it was

it was nobody's porn name. Nothing came up. But of course, we were on university firewall computers. So that was that was probably the reason. And then, Bridget, the project was born. So tell us a bit more about it. What period are you looking at? And who was going to America and why were they going? So we're looking at the period 1838 to 1918 and we started in in 1838 really to to get the period just before um the great irish famine which which took place in ireland in the 1840s and running it right up to the end of the first world war and i suppose one of the the the important things and

why we were we were interested in doing this project is that Irish women's migration in the period, particularly in the decades after the Irish famine, is very unusual. It's unusual in a European context. You've got large numbers of young, often 11 and 12, women migrating on their own. And this is very different because most European countries, women would migrate in family groups or it would be young men who were migrating going to look for work. So the fact that you've got large numbers of young women, often the same equal numbers of men and women, some years actually women outnumber men leaving Ireland, going and migrating is really unusual. And we were interested to see what happened to these women. And also the fact that sometimes the historiography had looked at them quite a rose tinted view of migration. And the idea that women went and worked as servants, things worked out very well.

And we were pretty sure that things didn't always work out so well. And that was where the project and the idea of the project really came from. Elaine, girls as young as 11 and 12 is so young, isn't it? To leave a country and travel all the way to a land that you know nothing about. So why were they going? What was life like for them in Ireland that meant that they had to leave and try at such a young age and find a better life elsewhere? Yes, absolutely. So for many of them, they were definitely escaping poverty, that Ireland just couldn't offer the opportunities in terms of jobs.

Others, you know, once the migration started, I suppose, they're travelling over to maybe older sisters or aunts, they know people over there. So it encourages the migration. But I suppose for some, they're also, of course, going going for opportunities abroad there's more jobs there, there's also the sense of adventure and I think that's why we see the younger girls and women going as well and families needed that support, they needed the girls and women in the US and Canada to be sending money back in order to fund their survival at home in Ireland as well. And you've both uncovered some fascinating stories about what happened to these women when they got there. I mean, the Irish are very, very popular in America right now, but that wasn't always their reputation, was it, back in the 1800s?

Yes, there was sometimes that kind of stereotype, I suppose, of the fighting Irish or the drunken Irish as well. And we can definitely see, you know, we have Irish women involved in all sorts of crimes. You know, it is ranging from drunkenness and right up to serial killing and everything in between. But I think when we're thinking about these Irish girls and the women, you know, we can think, OK, well, some of them found themselves on the wrong side of the law. They, you know, they kind of got in with the bad crowd or they were so young and naive. But I think it's really important that we also recognise women's agency here too. For many of them, they were making a choice to commit crimes. Let's hear some examples, Elaine. What did you find? Yeah, absolutely. So we have, I can tell you about one case and we have

Maud Murrell, who's a sex worker in New York in the 1870s. Now, Maud is doing very well for herself. We we have details of where she was living. She had her own bedroom in a nice house. It was luxuriously furnished room and she was attending balls and, you know, being seen with important people. And her sister, Charlotte, who was who had also migrated to New York, begged her to leave the sex industry. She was really upset about it. And we have some quotes, you know, from Maud. And she says, oh, yeah, I will, I will, I'll leave after Christmas. So she's making, clearly making a calculated decision there to remain in the sex industry. And she's likely, of course, thinking about economics, but she might also be thinking about

her past negative experience working as a domestic servant when she went over to the US first. And if you'll indulge me, I can tell you another case, which is old mother Hubbard, whose real name is Margaret Brown. And she's a fascinating individual. She's a legendary pickpocket right into her 70s and 80s. And she's a notorious criminal. Her wanted ad is up on in police stations for decades. And she really plays on this notion that she's an elderly grandmother and she targets department stores. So she really targets these middle class, predominantly female shoppers in the department stores. She admires their their purchases or she pretends to catch to catch a wire from her basket on their clothing.

So there she is fumbling with the wire, pretending she's fumbling with the wire. And in the meantime, her other hand is dipping into their handbag or dipping into their pocket and she's stealing their money and their goods and she also had a self-styled cloak that was filled with um little pockets on the inside um and she would hide the money and the goods that she stole and in that cloak and that's where she got the nickname old mother hubbard oh elaine leanne she's crying out for a screenplay i definitely need to see how i hope that's going to be your next project but i'll let you think about that um let's get why were theyanne, turning to these lives of crime? They'd gone to make money, but what was waiting for them when they got to America?

Yeah, I mean, as Leanne said, for some women it is situations of poverty that they end up... A lot of examples where we see with women where they will talk about how they met with people, they ended up drinking, they end up and we see a lot of Irish women been arrested for crimes relating to being drunk and disorderly and we see them often drinking in big groups on the street they're very visible and they're often targeted by police

because of that and because they're making a nuisance of themselves so there are lots of different dynamics coming into this. And for some of them, they are, it's their youth, it's their fact that they are recent emigrants. And that can often lead them to be caught and to be picked up by the police. And did the fact that these women came from, they come from very religious and patriarchal country, did they make the

crime this all that make the crimes much worse um yes in some some ways that it will have have done and i think that one of the things we see very much is is about um we often wonder to ourselves really is about how much families back at home know anything about these crimes that anything about these these lives of the women that we are investigating. And I would say very often it's very likely they don't tell these tales because these examples and finding out that your daughters were involved in sex work, for example, would be something that would ruin not only the reputation of a woman but also the reputation of a family. And we do have

one example of a woman called Marion Canning, who her story, and she's my favourite Bad Bridget, that I try to shoehorn into every conversation we have about Bad Bridget. But we know a little bit more about her because her father actually writes letters whenever she's sent to prison for theft. She was a sex worker in New York and she's sent to prison for theft. She was a sex worker in New York and she's sent to prison for stealing. Really, she defends herself in court. It's quite clear that she didn't actually commit the crime.

But he writes to both the judge and then the governor of New York asking for her release. And we get this insight into a father finding out about his daughter's crime. We don't even know how he did find out, whether she wrote and told him or somebody else told him. But he's telling a story about, you know, how upset and heartbroken he is about this

and also asking that, can my daughter come home as well? I'll take her away too. And did she go home? Yes, she did. This is one of the stories that, and I'm always glad, because often our bad bridges don't necessarily have happy endings and we don't know really what happens to a lot of them but Marion was pardoned she'd served she was sentenced to prison for uh seven years um she served 19 months and she was

pardoned and we know that while her father her father then had said I'll come and get her I'll bring her home and he then writes and says know, actually times are a bit hard in Ireland and I can send some money and I'll meet her in Liverpool. But she does go home and we know that she does subsequently get married as well. So there is a happy ending there. And in a strange sort of way, if they weren't committing these crimes, we wouldn't know about their stories, would we? Yeah, exactly.

And this is sort of the sort of the the the part that that does tell us reveals all these really really really fascinating insights but but often and why marion's story and and stories like maude are great where we get a little bit more insight into their lives because very often we just see a line in a register and a crime so it's amazing whenever we can get to hear more about these women and find out a little bit more about their backgrounds too. Yeah, Elaine and Leanne, thank you very much. And you can listen to the Bad Bridget podcast if you want to know more. Now, on Wednesday, broadcaster Clemency Burton-Hill spoke to Emma and gave us her first interview a year after a brain hemorrhage that put her in a coma for 17 days and took away her ability to speak.

If you missed that remarkable interview, go to BBC Sounds and search for Woman's Hour. I can highly recommend it. And keep your texts coming through 84844. You will be charged at your standard message rate and you can also get in touch via social media at BBC Woman's Hour. Now, a report by the Women's Budget Group found that women, young women, have been hit hardest by unemployment during the pandemic.

In fact, a third of all young women in the sectors least able to function during lockdown, like hospitality, leisure and tourism, have lost their jobs. So throw into that an already existing gender pay gap and then an ethnic pay gap for young women, and you don't end up with a great picture. So how do we help young women acquire the right tools to look after themselves financially in a time where that feels almost impossible? Well, Selina Flavius is the author of Black Girl Finance, Let's Talk Money, and Iona Bain is the founder of Young Money Blog and author of Own It. Morning to you both. Iona, let me come to you first. We know the pandemic

doesn't hit equally and that women have been facing more financial burdens as a result of it. But what is the picture for young women? Well, Anita, you summed it up in your introduction. If you're a young woman, and in particular, if you're a black, Asian and ethnic minority woman, you are the most likely to have suffered economically as a result of COVID-19. So you mentioned those statistics from the Women's Budget Group, but the picture is also backed up by other groups like the Institute for Fiscal Studies and a couple of other statistics which may prove how difficult it's been for young women, particularly young BAME women over the past year. Around 1.5 million young women have lost income since the

pandemic began. And that was before the second and third lockdowns. And about 69% of young women who are claiming universal credit are doing so for the first time. And I mean, the reasons for this are deep and complex, and we could debate them all day. But the easily identifiable reasons are that young women are not only working in those industries that are most likely to have been shut down, but also because young women are more likely to work part time, to be on short term contracts. So they're the most disposable in the labour market, if you like. And also they're more likely to take on the bulk of childcare responsibilities. So they may have had to go on furlough or leave work to look after children during this period.

And that can have a scarring effect, not just on their job prospects, as we know, in economics, there's this phenomenon known as scarring, whereby if you spend time out of the workforce, that can be very damaging for your long term prospects, but it can also be very damaging for your finances. So we not only have the gender income gap, but we have the gender investment gap, the gender saving gap, and the gender pension gap. So it's not the case for all young women. There are some who have managed to pivot into new careers, keep working and actually consolidate their finances, not least because they haven't been spending money in the same way as they used to. But overall, I think we

need to remember that it has been a really, really tough year for so many young women out there. I'm going to bring Selena into this because you've written this book, it's a financial self-help book, isn't it? I mean, why did you decide that now is the right time to write this? You know, I set up Black Girl Finance in the first place after looking at the statistics. So some of the statistics that Iona mentioned around the gender and ethnicity pay gap, so it's why I kind of created the platform in the first place. And then

also, I had read loads of personal finance books, you know, most of them written by, you know, white men, white men from the US. And slowly, there have been more personal finance books written by women in the UK. But in terms of, you know, a kind of black female perspective, I had to kind of look at books from the US. So there's loads of female personal finance books by US women. And when the books start talking about 401ks, or the, you know, the student finance system in the US, that's when I kind of glaze over because obviously, you know, in the UK, we have pensions, we have ISAs, we have a different system set up. So it just felt like there was something missing. So I wanted to write the book for, for women who

kind of look like me, you know, ordinary black women from South London, East London, with parents who have migrated as well. I talk about kind of my mum's experience of coming over here from the Caribbean to the UK. And I just think it gives a different kind of lens to personal finance in terms of that kind of cultural aspect and the cultural influences and that shape our kind of financial habits. Yeah, that's all really interesting because you do talk a lot about culture

because you talk about your own upbringing and that you really didn't have the language and the tools to speak about money so just explain why that was. So it's really funny actually I had an extract from the book In The Guardian just over the weekend and my mum called me and she was cracking up she was laughing her head off because one of the things I speak about is the fact that you, she came over here and no one spoke to her about money. So how to save, invest. She had to kind of just wing it and get on with it. And she did a great job. And she got herself on the property ladder and constantly worked. And, you know, she was able to pass on that kind of work ethic and wanted to get on the property ladder was something that I wanted to do at quite a young age as well because of her example that she set but um in

terms of how to do it and in terms of doing it with any kind of fanfare she didn't speak about money and she called me laughing because when she read the article that kind of outlined her her journey um seeing it in print I guess for the first time for her you know she laughed because she said Selena you know one of the things that we never spoke to two of the things that we never spoke to our children about was money you didn't speak to them about money and you also didn't tell them um your age as well so there's loads of things going on there I don't know why the age thing but definitely she didn't speak to us about money and age you just wasn't supposed to. Timeless um so what impact did that have on you and your own finance you said you got on the property ladder, but did it affect you? Yeah, absolutely. Because I mean, I talk about

it now, but at the time, there was a whole lot of secrecy. So when I first went out into the working world, like I said, I really wanted to get on the property ladder and managed to achieve that. But I still can't say that I knew what I was doing in terms of, you know, saving, budgeting, investing was a complete kind of no-go area for me and that's because there were no conversations about it I talk about in the book the fact that when I hit my kind of rock bottom I didn't speak to anyone about it because you just don't talk about you know particularly when things go wrong you don't talk about and you don't necessarily talk about it also when things go right when you're doing really well

um just the openness and and talking about money it's just not something done within our within the culture in a caribbean household at all iona you're nodding how do we overcome that iona how do we start talking about it well firstly we have to acknowledge that if we have had these factors in our upbringing in our background that maybe make us feel that money is a taboo subject or a cause for shame, then we have to face up to that. Because a really interesting statistic that I came across a while ago was that we tend to form most of our attitudes to money by the age of eight, which is quite scary. But actually, we need to bear in mind that we can overcome that and we can develop a healthier, more balanced relationship with money. And Celine has shown that in her work and the fact that she has gone through her own

journey. And we obviously need to be much more honest and have these open conversations. But I think women in particular need to perhaps see that what I call big money is for them. It's not just for the guys, it's for them. Because traditionally, I think that women have been often confined to the realm of household finances, this idea that women know how to keep a tight grip on the purse strings, that they know how to manage the day to day budget, but that really, we need to leave pensions and investments and all the really big stuff to the blokes. And what was really interesting was in the course of my career, I've spoken to a lot of financial advisors, most of whom are men. And it soon became apparent that actually most of them never came into contact with women professionally from one month to the next. Most of their clients are men. And when they see their clients, they don't bring their wives or partners along with

them. And if they do come into the building, the wives and girlfriends tend to sit outside in the reception area and talk to the receptionist and have tea and biscuits. They're not brought into the room to have the really important conversations. And then we wonder why women tend to retire with a much smaller pension pot. One study reckoned the average pension pot of a woman in the UK is about thirty five thousand pounds, as opposed to a man's pension pot which is about 179 000 pounds right so what what can we do to change that how can we all kind of give us some top tips i'm going to come to you as well as selena but iona what's your top tip so anyone listening who's who's fuming now at the thought that they're they're not so well firstly i i would say just engage and get involved and

start thinking not just about the short term but but the long term, too, because your future is going to happen and you want to be ready for it. You want to be financially independent wherever possible and build up what one of your listeners called a running away fund. And to do that, you need to save, invest and maximise your pension contributions wherever possible. And Selina, very quickly, top three tips or top tip? Absolutely. You know, identify your lessons that have been, you know, given to you by family culture and, you know, ask yourself, are these lessons serving me? So, you know, if you're from a background whereby, you know, all of the assets are in the mail name or, you know,

you're not making those decisions around, you know, what asset to invest in or what what insurance to have or you know what you know make sure your name's on the kind of deed the mortgage deed all of those kind of conversations as well like um Iona said make sure you're involved and taking charge of those I'd say brilliant uh thank you both Selena and Iona now archaeologist turned computer scientist Iris Kramer has created an AI tool that can spot for sites of historical interest that are hidden to the human eye. Her space archaeology software has detected around 140 historical sites on the Isle of Arran. The entrepreneurial PhD student has received grants from the UK Space Agency and an enterprise fellowship from the Royal Academy of Engineering. And she's also successfully secured some funding in a Dragon's Den style pitching events for her company that

she's founded, Arch AI. She's very impressive and she's obviously onto something major here. Congratulations, first of all, Iris. So how does your AI tool work? Yeah, thank you. So it works kind of like how a self-driving car works so that self-driving car is trained by just hours and hours of the human driving the car and then yeah changing left and right and avoiding a pedestrian and so with the archaeology we we've known we have many archaeological known sites that we have discovered in the last hundred more years. And how we trained in our artificial intelligence model is by those known archaeological sites and satellite images and LiDAR data. And so on the Isle of Arran, we looked at little elevation differences, and they revealed to us roundhouses and prehistoric roundhouses and medieval

shielding huts and cairns. And there were about 900 known that I was able to train my algorithm on. And yes, we found something like 140 sites that weren't known before. So it was very successful. And what's the practical application for this tool going to be? Which sectors will it help? So it's mainly in the construction industry, because before any housing development or road is being built, we need to do archaeological research,

and it's part of the environmental impact assessment. And so at the moment, this process can be quite long, and it's only at the very late stage it becomes very accurate. And what we can do with AI is to have very early on a better understanding of what archaeology might actually be there, so that when you're building a road, you can avoid it and you can say, okay, we'll build it 10, 20, 30 minutes to the side and then we have less impact on the archaeology.

And this is doing so well for you. Like I said, lots of people are interested in what you've developed, but you started life as an archaeologist. So why did you go back into academia to study computer science? Yeah, I think it just suited me really well. So I did archaeology, but I was more and more interested into the computer side of it.

And so then after I did a master's in archaeological computing, I dreamed of the idea that maybe I could do a PhD in artificial intelligence specifically. So I learned how to code and got funding. I was really happy with that. The Ordnance Survey saw the potential of what it could have and they funded me together with the University of Southampton so that I could do this PhD for three years. So did you have this sort of eureka moment

where you thought I've had the idea for the AI and then went back to learn how to code to create it? Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's quite impressive. Seriously impressive. I mean, and only 17% of the tech workforce in the UK, Iris, are women, despite it being a highly lucrative environment. Is this something you've noticed?

Yeah, definitely. So it's not a common thing. The PhD students as well in our group are actually quite mixed so that is a great thing but it's not something commonly across the sector and I think it's starting to change so more women are empowered and said okay you can do computer science and they see as well like how like high salaries there are in this field so there is a lot to gain for women in joining this. Well, you're leading by example. Very best of luck to you and let us know.

And good luck with selling it as well. We'll be following your story. Thank you for speaking to us. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. 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's 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.