Woman's Hour - Margaret Atwood, Harriet Harman MP, Joanna Scanlan, Sportswomen's urinary incontinence

Episode Date: February 23, 2022

Margaret Atwood's latest collection of essays, Burning Questions, gathers together her essays and other occasional non-fiction pieces from 2004 to 2021. She is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her novels include Cat's Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, and The Blind Assassin which won the Booker prize in 2000. Her 1985 classic, The Handmaid's Tale, was followed in 2019 by a sequel, The Testaments, which was also a Booker Prize winner (with Bernadine Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other). Margaret joins Emma to talk about culture wars, free speech, feminism, grief and being in your 80’s.The Labour MP Harriet Harman has called for a full investigation into how a housing association failed to realise that a female tenant had apparently been left dead in her south London flat for more than two years. Harriet joins Emma to talk about this happening in her constituency, and also how she has been coping since the sudden death of her husband Jack Dromey last month."There was urine flying through the air" - a new report out today in the Telegraph lays bare what it calls the ‘incontinence crisis’ blighting elite women's sport. Female athletes are overwhelmingly at risk of pelvic-floor dysfunction, leading to urinary incontinence which has, according to this report, become normalised in certain sports. Anna Kessel, Women’s Sport Editor at The Telegraph, joins Emma.The actress and writer Joanna Scanlan is known for her many roles in TV shows such as Getting On, No Offence and The Thick of It. She’s just been nominated for a BAFTA leading actress award for the film After Love. Set in Dover, she plays a white English woman called Mary Hussain who converted to Islam at marriage, but following the unexpected death of her husband many years later uncovers a secret about him across the channel in Calais.Image: Margaret Atwood Credit: Luis Mora

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to the programme. Today, a literary giant stops by, Margaret Atwood, and in our conversation, I had the pleasure of recording a few days ago, we talk about, well, how we talk, how we ask people how they are at the beginning of emails in a sort of Jane Austen way or in real life, without perhaps even taking the time

to read it or care for the answer. Polls have shown women often caveat more and are more polite in writing when they're communicating with others. What would it be like then to write and speak more plainly without such caveats, without saying, oh, I don't suppose I could. What do you think? Or but, and yet, and because, maybe, all those sorts of things that you could be familiar with. Perhaps you're not like that at all. I recognise there's always a generalisation when you go for this sort of idea, but perhaps it does speak to you. There you go. I'm caveating it already. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Saying what you think instead of what you think you ought to. It might be like if you did it just for a day like that film, do you remember Lie a Lie or Jim Carrey, where you just

spend a period of time saying exactly what you thought without any caveats. Have you ever done that? Radical candor is also what some people call it. I'm quite a big fan of that. Quite a big fan. There you go. I'm a big fan of that. We also, Margaret Atwood and I, get on to what it is to be a good feminist. And in line with this discussion, how freedom of speech has always had its limits. But where are you with the whole saying or writing exactly how you think without pushing in caveats? What do you think life would be like if you did that perhaps a bit more? Perhaps. 84844 is the number you need

to text me on here at women's hour text will be charged at your standard message rate on social media we're at bbc women's hour or email me through our website but that conversation with margaret atwood to come very shortly also on today's program a new report out lays bare what it calls the incontinence crisis blighting elite women's sport. And I'll also be talking to the actor and writer Joanna Scanlon, of course known for her memorable roles in television shows such as Getting On, No Offence and The Thick of It. Well, she's just been nominated for BAFTA Leading Actress for the film, and what a film it is, a beautiful film called After Love.

She'll be joining me shortly too. But first, the Labour MP and mother of the House of Commons, Harriet Harman, has called for a full investigation into how a housing association failed to realise that a female tenant had apparently been left dead in her South London flat for more than two years, despite repeated calls from neighbours. In a completely separate case, you may recall earlier this month, it was reported that a woman from East London, who had been missing for more than two years, was found dead, surrounded by piles of rubbish in a kitchen. Her name, Lillian John-Baptiste. So what does this tell us? And in light of these two women in this scenario,

in this very, very tragic and sad scenario, Harriet Harman joins me now to talk about her constituent in Peckham, South London. Good morning. Good morning. Why have you decided to call for an investigation, and how did this case cross your path? Well, I first saw it when it was reported in the media on Monday, and incidentally, that's the first time that her neighbours

and the other tenants in this little block also heard about it. Nobody has been in touch with them since. And I think that that is the core of the problem, because this is quite a neighbourly block, a small block of only 20 flats. And constantly the neighbours had been contacting Peabody, one of them even going up to the office in Elephant Castle to say, we're really concerned about what the situation is here because she wasn't an elderly woman. She was in her 60s, early 60s. She was working and seemed in perfectly good health. And when they didn't see her, they were very concerned.

But despite all their efforts, nothing seems to have been done except in early 2020 her gas was cut off so clearly because they couldn't service her gas they cut it off um i mean the whole thing is very very disturbing indeed you mentioned peabody there that's the housing association and the quote that the statement I've just got in from them, which says, we are incredibly upset by what has happened. Quite rightly, everyone wants answers and so do we. No one should have been left like this. We must understand what went wrong so this never happens again.

We had listened and responded to the neighbours' reports, repeatedly trying to make contact and had called the police back in October 2020 who reported everything was fine. Clearly, we didn't do enough. We need to understand how and why this happened. We're carrying out a full investigation and will involve the police, authorities, our teams and residents. We will leave no stone unturned so that we can learn from this. What do you make of that response, especially in light of how you said the fellow residents found out about this? Well, I think the fact that really up until this moment, Peabody still have not been in touch with the other residents in the block.

So, you know, the problem was they were not listening to the residents. And even after this awful situation, which is horrific, they still haven't been in touch with the residents who are their tenants. So I think that it raises a big question about the relationship between this very big social landlord and their tenants. I mean, they're there to serve the tenants. They should listen to the tenants.

And clearly, they should talk to them and understand what's going on. So I think they've got very big questions to answer. But this is a really long time. This is right from March 2020 that concerns were being raised. And, you know, you have to feel so sad for this woman herself, what happened to her, but also the horror for her relatives. And also the, you know, the sadness and sense of dismay from those other tenants in the block who were living the other side of the wall from this, and who were noticing the smell, who were noticing the post building up, and who were worried about this fellow resident of the block of theirs. And you say what we know about her at the moment,

in her 60s and and is that it at the moment is there anything else that's out there publicly um not as far as i know um except that you know that that people knew her and saw her going in and out and you know that she was a perfectly neighborly person not a sort of recluse or a hoarder or anything like that, and not somebody who seemed to have any evident health problems. So there is a big question mark about how she died. There's also a big question mark about the police and what they did. I mean, at one point in October 2020, an ambulance was called, but there was still no entry to the flat. I should say, we haven't been in touch with the police for a statement on this,

but we do have that statement from Peabody, who say they were in touch with residents. So I suppose, if that's the case, is there anything here which perhaps also points to something else, which is there's a gap in the system here about community and about who can actually go in and check somebody's okay well i think that there's there's no gap in the rules and regulations about ability to do entry that's not the problem the problem was it didn't actually

happen but you're right there are questions around the police and i have raised this with the borough commander i i raised it um right away on monday um and they are looking into it because they thought initially that they hadn't had any contact or involvement and it turns out they did um peabody are saying the police assured us that they'd been in and seen her and everything was fine which clearly can't have been the case because this was at a time when the other residents of the block were already reporting a terrible smell and reporting the post building up and reporting not having seen her so um there is issues for the police to answer as well but above all for Peabody and I just want Peabody now to just not only just go into defensive

mode and try and blame the police or say it wasn't our fault or we're awfully upset and we didn't know. They've got to rethink how they see their tenants and how they deal with their tenants. Well perhaps that may happen in light of this. There is in their statement that line

we will leave no stone unturned so we can learn from this. And I should say, we are going to ask the Metropolitan Police, that's the police force, of course, involved because this concerns London for a statement. So if we have one, we will get back to our listeners, all of you with that before the end of the programme. I did mention that other case that was reported. I know it's not in your constituency, that also involved a woman who was missing for more than two years, also found dead in a kitchen. And I know that, you know, you can't answer anything specifically about that case. But that is something that is quite striking, isn't it? And also, when we're thinking about the couple of years we've just had, and people being alone,

and a lack of community. Well, I don't think there was a lack of community in this block. And it actually started before the pandemic. I think the community and the neighbours were doing everything they could. And I don't want people to think it was just a sort of block where nobody cared about each other and nobody looked out for each other. That wasn't the case. They raised their voices repeatedly, talked to each other about it with great concern and talked to Peabody, but they just hit a brick wall. Yes, I suppose I was also making the point, and I think

your point is very important to make and not to misrepresent that block. But are you struck by two women, I suppose, being in this position? And is there anything to take from that? Well, I just think it's horrific. And nobody wants us to think that in this day and age that that can happen to two women in London, that they can die on their own. And obviously, we don't even know what she died of, whether it was natural causes. No, it's very, very disturbing indeed.

Nobody wants to think that that could happen and yet it's happened twice. Will, of course, as I say, if we get an update on a statement from the Metropolitan Police, we'll share it. I'm just also minded while you're with us, Harriet Harman, that it has been just over six weeks since the sudden death of your husband, Jack Dromey, also a Labour MP. And I would feel remiss not to say how sorry I am, but also to ask how you're doing. Well, thank you for your condolences. And everybody has been so, so kind and sympathetic.

And quite frankly, I just don't know what the answer to that question is because I'm still in a complete state of shock. So, you know, I'm back at work as from Monday. Are you? And last Monday, you know, because I'm the elected MP and the constituents need me to be on the case for them. But yes, it is a very, very shocking situation. And I keep thinking, you know, for everybody who is widowed and widowhood happens to most women who are married. It's a it's a different landscape that you enter into and very shocking. You know, it's if I may, it's it's just a a point that we couldn't have known

because we we you know asked you to come on this morning it's such as the news and reacting to it but my my next interview or what our listeners will hear is a conversation with Margaret Atwood and she actually talks about widowhood right at the end of that conversation because she lost her her partner um a couple of years ago now and she talks about having a circle of widows and and they check in on each other. And that's a common experience amongst women and how to navigate it. I think female solidarity in this is absolutely important. I sort of slightly grimly joked that there was the WAGs, not wives and girlfriends of footballers, but the widows advisory group, who immediately circled around me

and were there to support me but i think that widowhood now is very different than what it might have been in the past because we've all led much more independent lives um and also we're going to live much longer i mean my mom bless her lived till she was 100. So, you know, I might have another 30 years in my new incarnation of widowhood, which is, and of course, I've never lived on my own. You know, I lived in a shared flat. Then I lived with Jack and we were together for 40 years. So it's a very different situation us widows go out into but you know with solidarity and with our family support well we just have to crack on but thank you for your sympathy well i'm very happy to hear you you've you've got all that and also got those those wags which i i think in

in true harriet harman style is a brilliant way of naming it and and putting it out there. And I'm sure you will have provided some comfort to some of our listeners this morning. And thank you very much indeed. And it's great, if I may say, to hear you back at work as well, representing your constituents, for which I know you care about so deeply. Thank you. Harriet Harman, Labour MP, of course, mother of the House of Commons, longest serving female MP, if you aren't familiar with that, parlance in Westminster, talking about the need, as she sees it, for a full investigation into how a housing association failed to realise that a female tenant had apparently been left dead

in her flat for more than two years. And we will keep you up to date with that story or any updates throughout the programme. But now to that literary giant, Margaret Atwood, author of more than 50 books of fiction, poetry and critical essays, including, of course, the classic Handmaid's Tale, written in 1985. I still can't quite believe that. Well, she's back with another book, this time a doorstopper of a tome, nearly 500 pages, pulling together her essays and her other occasional

nonfiction pieces from 2004 to 2021. It's called Burning Questions. And I had quite a few of those for her as we caught up with her at her home in Canada. I was still here in the UK and we galloped. I think that's a fair way of describing it through the times that we live in. Margaret Atwood is now 82. And that's where we started with me asking how that was going. Well, so far, so far, so good. But my cohort seems to be falling off the pear tree, pear by pear, apple by apple. Yes, I'm afraid that some of my erstwhile pals and cronies are no longer on this planet. But maybe on another, which actually did bring me to one of your essays about aliens. When you write one of your pieces from the vantage point of an alien, looking around the world,

looking at how women are viewed, or trying to understand why women are viewed the way they are viewed. And what were you trying to say there? Well, women are discriminated against for being women. And I'm just reading again this book called Sapiens, and he has a chapter on that, and he can come to no conclusion. There is no agreed-upon explanation as to where it went off the rails. And I'm here to tell you that in some cultures, that was not the case and is not the case because they are matriarchal or matrilineal and women have a lot of influence on things like war councils. So it's not universal and people try to go back to the origins of these splits and when women started getting treated like an inferior part of the human race. How do you think we can reverse out of it? How do you think we're doing?

I think we're doing fairly well historically and considering the long view, partly because important work on keyboards does not require a lot of upper body strength. So women can work a keyboard just as well as men can. I think you probably have noticed that. Indeed. So in the era that we are living in, this is part of the reason why you think we're making good progress. Well, we're making progress. And's lumpy because when we say we, who are we talking about exactly? So we cannot be taken to apply to every woman everywhere in the world. There are national differences, there are state differences. Welcome to Texas. There are state differences. Welcome to Texas. There are class differences, and there is racial discrimination. So all of those things, when you say we, which we are you talking about,

and what sort of progress have the people in that we've been making? And, of course, there's lip service, And then there's how things are enacted. You know, whether these wonderful ideals are actually having practical results. Well, keeping with the internet for a moment, in one of your other essays, you describe or certainly ask the question, am I a bad feminist? And you share some of your concerns about the Me Too movement. So this goes back to a case at the University of British Columbia in which people piled on without knowing anything at all. So I got in trouble for signing a letter saying that UBC should examine its process, the process by which it allowed this to happen. And a huge wagon circling took place and immediately the focus segued from examine your process to you're a rape enabler. So that's what happened. It must have been quite a thing to have been called that. You know, I'm old.

I've been called lots of things. But, you know, calling people names, it does not mean that you're going to stop looking under rocks and stones. And when there's a name-calling thing like that, you really want to know what is behind it. If I may, just coming away from that case for a moment, I think what you're describing is also a phenomenon that we're seeing more and more,

not just in the cases of women versus men or otherwise. It's more that people are not necessarily going to find out what really happened and that something can be said and then that person, something can happen to them, they lose their job or they're shamed and then that's the story that stays with them forever. It's very true, but it's not new, Emma. This has been going on like forever,

but with different groups of people being the targets or with different individuals being the targets. So it's nothing new in human history. It's a different medium, namely the internet plus social media. But the actual phenomenon is not different. It is singling out of an individual and starting a story. Let us pretend that it is an untrue story. And sometimes the stories are true, you know.

Yes. A lot. an untrue story. And sometimes the stories are true, you know? Yes, but I suppose people are even more aware of it now because it can last online forever and be seen within the click of a button. Yes, that's true, but so are the counterfacts. So if an allegation like that is made and then it is proven, that too will last forever. Are you optimistic about where we're coming out of this now? Because of course, there's also huge threats to, or some people view it as huge threats to free speech. Okay, so the free speech is another hot button issue. And let me just propose to you a truism

in military history. If one side develops a weapon that works, the other side will get hold of it as soon as they can. So you invent cannons. Oh, goody, let's have a cannon too. So looking at social media, Obama won the first election using social media because the Republicans didn't know about it yet. But then they found out. So the free speech thing is similar. Free speech was fought for and defended and prevailed upon by the left in the early part of the 20th century.

And you can look up the history of that. And a lot of these free speech issues didn't come from the right at all. They came from the left. It was the right trying to shut them down. And there have been different foci of that, but it was originally political. And what freedom of expression originally meant is that you shouldn't be put in jail for expressing a political opinion in a reasoned way. But it came from the left, and then it was used by, I would say, the left and the center. And then the right has now got hold of it.

But free speech never meant that you could say anything you liked about anyone at all. It never meant that. There are defamation and libel laws. And I don't know about your country, but we have hate speech strictures. And so the right has taken free speech to mean that they ought to be able to say anything they liked about anyone. But that is now shifting again because they have taken the, shall we say, the progressive idea that there should be safe spaces and people shouldn't be made to feel bad by other people saying bad things about them or their group in educational institutions. The right has now taken that as an excuse for kicking out of the curriculum anything having to do with the 19th century history of the United States.

Well, I mean, talking of the curriculum. Not a happy story. Or anything about gender or anything about issues that they don't like. They're kicking them out by saying that it's making some people feel uncomfortable. So again, they've taken something that was working from one side and using it against them. And there's been a spate of book bannings. Yes, well, The Handmaid's Tale has been attempted.

Oh, it's a regular. That's a regular, but from the right and the left. You know, some trying to get rid of The Handmaid's Tale on the right, some on the left, to quote you, busily trying to shut down certain manifestations of speech that it doesn't like. Well, both sides do that. And they both define free speech as them saying what they want

to say, but not other people saying what they want to say. But let us just say again that there have always been limits. And some of those limits are legal. Do you ever get bothered by any of the names you've been called or attempts to ban your work. I wonder if it ever gets to you because I'm just minded to mention the best-selling author Anthony Horowitz has said in an interview in a UK publication that writers are under siege from cancel culture and should be able to express their views without the world falling in on them. He was actually responding about his fellow novelist Sebastian Fawkes, who'd said that he had left physical descriptions out of female

characters from his latest novel. I don't know if you saw this, because he was concerned about being accused of objectifying women, and also this trend for you're not allowed to write about what you aren't. And I just wonder if you can relate to any of that. Does that ever get in your head? It causes one to think. I follow these kinds of conversations, as we're supposed to call them. Sometimes they aren't conversations at all. They're just shouting matches. But I followed that. And it's a wave. So waves have peaks and then they have troughs. The fact is, if you followed all these strictures to the letter, you could not write a novel at all unless it was a kind of inner monologue without any people in it. You're very good at taking a step back and seeing where we are, sometimes also saying where we might get to in the future. I think some think you're a prophet, Margaret Atwood. No, no, no, Margaret Atwood, at times. No, no, no, no, no, no.

Let me finish this point. Let me just understand, have you, though, been affected by this latest wave? Have you changed things you may have written or thought twice and perhaps not censored yourself, but changed what you're writing because of the time we live in? You know, I think I am in the area of embarrassing older person who doesn't know that you're not supposed to any longer say fill in the blank. I think it's more likely to be men, I have to say, who get into the older man position. Well, why can't I say fill in the blank anymore? We always used to say that.

I think it's being aware of the ways in which language changes and also what the accepted politeness is. So I don't know if you've noticed in your emails, you always have to begin, I hope you're well. It's sort of a Jane Austen thing. It's like what the Jane Austen characters say to each other. I trust you're well. And the little Mrs. Burnaby are well, too.

Oh, yes, thank you. And what about, and then you inquire after the health. And then you make some comments about the weather. So we've sort of done away with the weather, but we're doing the health big time because of COVID. And these are manners. And you'll probably have noticed yourself that if you start an email without saying that,

you'll probably go back and put it in because it seems too abrupt unless you say, I hope you're well. Well, it's been shown in certain studies that women put a lot more caveats in their writing as well to soften requests, certainly in the workplace. You know, I'm terribly sorry to ask, but could you, and I don't suppose,

and they do make those excuses, it's been said more as well, to soften language. I think so, and I think Naomi Alderman in her novel does a very good job of that because she envisions a future in which women have the ability to electrocute people by pointing at them. Be careful what you wish for.

And in this future, a male writer is addressing a similarly polite and deferential letter to a female one. So she gets the drill and just reverses it. I've never much been like that, Emma. I think it's because I wasn't properly socialized. So I've never much been like that, Emma. I think it's because I wasn't properly socialized. So I've tended not to be like that, at which point people think I'm a powerful, evil old witch. Well, you do read hands, though. You did do that the last time I met you in person. Yeah, that's not witchy stuff.

It's just renaissance science. Well, you have also said it's your party trick. I did go back and actually watch what you said to me. And you said, there's more woo-woo in me than I like to admit, which did make me laugh. But do you actually believe all of that stuff? It kind of doesn't matter whether I believe it or not. Well, you sounded very knowledgeable. You even corrected yourself as you made an error, apparently.

Absolutely, yes. I'm very knowledgeable, but that doesn't necessarily mean you believe it. Will you not tell me? No, I'm not going to tell you. Let us say that it is a very interesting way of getting to know somebody. Well, because people want to hear about themselves, don't they?

Of course they do, yes. You're quite hard to get anything out of, though, about you personally. I know. I'm an old clam. Do you still have your place or an association with Norwich? Well, we never owned a place there. We used to come over in February, and if you looked out the window here you would know why. You just told me about having snow drops. I'm so jealous. Yes, we used to go over

in the teens of this century and spend February and part of March there because we could go for walks more easily. When the sidewalks are covered with ice it's slightly hazardous. I love the fact that you came to the UK in February for better weather. That shows the extremes. People laughed a lot but think about it. Norwich, it's far enough away from London so that you're not tempted by the flesh pots all the time such as going to plays.

And you could go walking, and it was a great place to write. So I did a lot of writing there. Well, when you say we, though, of course, I imagine talking about your late husband, Graham Gibson. Yes, he loved it. He loved going to Norwich. And he actually died when you were here in the UK in 2019. I know, wasn't that a shocker? I'm again so sorry about that. I remember writing to you not long after.

But there was something very powerful that you said about that, that you carried on with your tour and some people were surprised by that. But you wanted to avoid the empty chair at home. And I just wonder how that has been now these years on about what that was like to confront and how you are about feeling. Well, wait, wait for it, Emma. So I seem to know quite a few widows at the moment. And we seem to have a kind of little widow's circle in which we send each other emails, visit one another. And I would say it's much the same for all of us. We're kind of too old to say, oh, well, you know, that's that one, and now we'll get another.

It's a bit old for that. So I don't think it gets any, and let me say that there's a big difference between being depressed and being sad. They're two different things. There's a big difference between being sad and being traumatized. Those are really different things.

So of course we are sad. How could we not be sad? Do we pull ourselves together for social occasions? Yes, we do. We're all pretty tough old boots. We know that we don't want to boohoo a lot in public and make other people feel terrible.

So that is one of the obligations of being a social animal. Or at least it is in this Scottish-influenced culture that we have in certain parts of Canada. Yes, pull yourself together. So like that. So that's about what it's like. And what else can I tell you except that may you live a long and happy life. Emma. Well, I hope you continue to do so.

Well, that's very sweet. With those widow circles. You know you have a piece of hair sticking up out of your head that makes you look like a kitten. I do. My headphones really accentuated that. Thanks. Well, just finally, Margaret. It's very, very sweet.

Thank you. Thank you. It's a kitten look. Not everybody I interview calls me sweet, so I'm happy to have reached that conclusion with you. I'm very grateful for your time. Thank you very much for galloping through so much of what we're living in. We did gallop, didn't we? We did. Thank you. Well, good for us. Yes. Thank you. Margaret Atwood there with, well, talking about a great

deal of things, some of which covered in her new book, Burning Questions, which is out next week. And I have to say, many of you getting in touch off the back of my conversation, my interview with the Labour MP Harriet Harman, who actually came onto the programme primarily, as she's now back at work after the death of her husband, the fellow Labour MP Jack Dromey, to talk about what's going on in her constituency with a particular story, a very, very sad story about a female tenant that had apparently been left for dead in her South London flat for more than two years, despite repeated calls from neighbours.

She's now calling for a full investigation into how she says a housing association, in this case Peabody, had failed to realise that the female tenant had been in this situation. We read a statement from Peabody. I said to you, if we heard from the Metropolitan Police, we would bring that to you. I would bring that to you. A statement just in says police attended the address on two occasions in October 2020 after they were contacted by a local resident

and the Housing Association. It was not deemed by the officers that there was sufficient grounds to enter the premises. The Met's Directorate of Professional Standards have looked at the officers' actions and not found any reason to launch an investigation. And Peabody says they're now going to leave no stone unturned to see what happened and so they can learn from it. But actually, we went on right at the end of that interview, Harriet Harman and I, to talk about what we just ended that conversation with as completely unplanned about widowhood and about grieving and about how she is very, very soon,

only nearly six weeks or so after losing her partner, losing her husband, Jack. And so many of you here writing in with either your experience or offering condolences. Andrew says, excellent interview just now with Harriet Harman. Thank you both for speaking so movingly and candidly about widowhood. It was open, generous, and I'm sure a great comfort to millions.

Rachel says, beautiful words from Harriet on women's hour and totally unexpected. Her dedication to her constituency after the loss of her husband shows the incredible politician she continues to be. Another message here saying, listening with interest to Harriet Harman on widowhood, says Anne. We're a group of four women who did not know each other at all continues to be. Another message here saying, listening with interest to Harriet Harman,

on widowhood, says Anne, we're a group of four women who did not know each other at all before losing our partners young. We call ourselves the skittish widows and we moan, commiserate and drink wine together regularly. Nobody else gets it. She talked about the WAGs, as she put it, the widows advisory group that were getting her through in part, not least also her family as well and other friends. Anne says, I've been a member of the Liberal Party all my life, but I very much admire Harriet Harman. And I also admire Jack Dromey. I've been in her situation to some extent and can empathise. It will eventually get a little better. But for the next few months, it will be a struggle to get through. And I just also wanted to read this from Sarah, who says, Harriet Harman's final comment about living alone for the first time ever

rings so true. It must be the same for so many widows as so many shared accommodation with friends before marriage. I still remember clearly shutting the door after my family left me for the first time after my dear husband died, realising that I would be living alone for the first time ever. I really hadn't realised how many jobs we both had and just got on with them without fuss, or how much our talents

were woven into our everyday lives. Ranging from bins to world trips, we both knew that certain jobs just got done. Thank you to the wonderful family and friends who supported me without fuss. I got through and I'm now able, and I'm able so many to go through the same on their own. I'm so sorry so many are going through the same on their own. My condolences to Harriet Harmon and to the many new widows around the world. Sarah, thank you so much for sharing that and also for your message. You can keep your messages coming in on 84844. Just a word on tomorrow's Woman's Hour. I'll be speaking exclusively to a woman often seen and spoken about and definitely written about but rarely heard. Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall,

is sitting down with me for an extended interview so do tune in tomorrow to hear what she has to say. But let's get back to today's agenda. There was urine flying through the air. A new report out today in The Telegraph lays bare what it calls the incontinence crisis, blighting elite women's sport. Female athletes are overwhelmingly at risk of pelvic floor dysfunction, leading to urinary incontinence, which has, according to this report, become normalised in certain sports. Anna Kessel, Women's Sports Editor at The Telegraph, joins me now.

Good morning, Anna. Good morning. Tell us what you found and what we didn't know perhaps before. The whole experience has been quite shocking, researching this article. Fiona Thomas has led the research. Initially, when she told me that she wanted to write about this subject and we went on Google, the main thing that we found was either extremely dense medical reports in journals which were very difficult to penetrate or porn and fetish websites frankly um with examples of female athletes who had leaked or urinated during high profile competitions and

were being ridiculed or or fetishized um and there seemed to be very little um information and very little discussion about this issue and and then what shocked me further was how widespread it is and that it that it affects pretty much every sport particularly sports where there are jumping involved such as trampolining or gymnastics but also sports like rugby or football and any sport where you might have to accelerate at speed and weightlifting too, cross-country skiing. And what's going to happen, do you think, as a result of this? Are there certain sports more affected? Tell us a bit more about that.

I think what we'd like to see, if you take the case study, for example, of the Wales Rugby Union, who are one of the few governing bodies who actually volunteered to speak to us and were really open and transparent about the work that they're doing with their female athletes and a couple of years ago their lead physio spoke to the players and asked them about their experiences with their pelvic floor and many of them told her that they were experiencing pain for, when they tried to accelerate on the field. They found it painful to insert a tampon. They leaked upon jumping, for example, in the lineouts. And they decided to do something about it.

But they are really one of the very few governing bodies who are openly talking about this and helping their athletes. Well, if any of the governing bodies would like to come on Women's Hour to talk about this, I would love to welcome you. I'll just say that here and now. Do we know why this is happening or how it's happening? So there are three main types of pelvic floor. There's your healthy pelvic floor that supports your organs and prevents leakage. There's what's called a weak pelvic floor, which tends to affect postnatal and older women or menopausal women. And that's still a massive taboo but more known and then there's a hypertonic pelvic floor which is a tight pelvic floor which holds the

organs and has similar effects to do with leakage that you might find on the weak pelvic floor but also involves a lot of pain and what athletes don't understand, what they're not educated on, is that all of the exercise they're doing is tightening their pelvic floor. And they're not doing any exercises or they're not instructed to do exercises to relax and release that pelvic floor. So that down training isn't there. And it's affecting even very young girls teenagers for example who are doing gymnastics and parents are reporting that their daughters have started bed wetting and they don't know why and it's simply because the information isn't out there and it's still such a taboo so you mentioned gymnastics there and there are other sports of course

tell us the main ones and so rugby, football, netball, weightlifting, gymnastics, trampolining, skiing. And what is it about those that creates a hypertonic pelvic floor? A lot of it is about the jumping or the accelerating of speed. But it's also about, to be frank, there's still a lot that they don't quite know. They think it's to do with the constant working of the muscles, which creates this tension and not doing the down training, which helps the muscle to relax. And that headline there was urine flying through the air pertains to what? Is that a particular person?

Yes, it came from a trampolinist who competes for great britain and she very bravely spoke to us about her experiences and she said it's very common at competitions to see literally urine flying through the air um and what do the commentators just ignore that i mean if i was a commentator i might say hang on a minute what what's that? No, they ignore it. I mean, it's happened at Olympic Games, at World Championships. Yes. And not in a purient way. I would just notice it. It would be something that you would think if it is in plain sight,

you would perhaps talk about. I think it's just such a taboo that people don't want to talk about it. And, you know, meanwhile meanwhile it's an additional layer of baggage for athletes to contend with never mind the fact that they're about to compete in an olympic final they've got to worry have they been to the toilet five times they better not have drank much water because they may leak if for example one british gym trampolinist who spoke to us and was very very courageous she told us about how she uses pads in her leotard and then she worries of course that they might show and there are all sorts of rules around

women's bodies competing in sport and what you can and cannot show it's very strictly policed around what kind of kit is appropriate so showing a pad for example would be problematic never mind embarrassing and taboo yes heaven for fend we uh we show the apparatus that that can allow us to function um are you when you think about this now i suppose just to think because you said there were three uh broad descriptions here of what can happen with with a pelvic floor and i recognize they're broad but just to stress we are not as is often the case we are not talking postnatal here we're're talking about across the sport, all ages, and actually a lot of the time when women haven't had children.

Oh, yes, we are not talking about mothers predominantly. We're talking about young women, young, very fit and healthy women who have not experienced postnatal damage to their pelvic floor. They've not gone through the hormonal changes of menopause. This is a tightened pelvic floor. And you and I, Emma and I, know what a massive taboo it is for older women to go through and how you're just expected to kind of put up and shut up with it um if you go to the gym all the adverts tell you if you go to the gym pop in a pad and then you can happily lift your weights there's there's not that

message about actually you don't have to live with this. Here is the physio. Here is the femtech. Here's what we can do to support you so that you do not urinate. Because we should say if you're listening to this and you're not an elite athlete and you have a hypertonic pelvic floor, people can, of course, look that phrase up. You know, I only recently learned it when I was, in fact, affected by it. You can be helped. We should also say that, you know for for those who this may affect but also just who are interested in sport there are there's physio there are treatments there are breathing techniques there are ways of improving this this and making the quality of life better absolutely and what really needs to happen now is that all of sport educates itself and educates

coaches and physios around women's health issues and not just on this on every single aspect of women's health that it stops becoming a taboo and that the information is out there and and it's important because also the the case of dr larry nassar who abused over 100 gymnasts in america famously he actually used pelvic floor massage as a cover for the sexual predatory abuse that he was inflicting on young girls. So there's a further level of taboo that needs to be exposed there around how you actually treat hypertonic pelvic floor. And it's a very important point to make up because of course, women's health physios are specially trained, and it is a specialism. And those are the individuals

that one should seek out or try to of course there's a whole other conversation which we can't get into right now and about you know nhs provision of that service and how affordable it is but i recognize for the purposes of this conversation we're talking about elite sport and a professional setting where perhaps and it seems that the sporters in in part cause this and therefore in order to continue with it and be able to do your job you should be looked after anna kessel women's sports editor at the telegraph thank you very much indeed uh i should say just in terms of any responses to that do get in touch let us know your take it's it's perhaps something

you weren't even aware of i certainly wasn't in terms of sport hence the report and and us showcasing that this morning and getting into the detail. Let me ask you a completely different question though, which is often how this programme goes, let's not lie. What is the oldest item of clothing that you own? The one that you would never throw away? It may be that old jumper, it may be a school shirt, it may be stuffed in the back of your wardrobe. What are you meant to do with these things? The dress that doesn't fit, but maybe you think it might happen again in the future or it was linked to something incredibly special in your life. Well, we did make a film of the oldest thing I could find,

bar school shirts, which have been signed. It was actually a skirt I wore on my 18th birthday. We've put it over at our Instagram and Twitter accounts. I think sometimes it'll happen again. Will it happen again? It's very sparkly. What about you? Do tell us. Crucially, not just the images. Don't send happen again. Will it happen again? It's very sparkly. What about you? Do tell us.

Crucially, not just the images. Don't send just those. We do want those. But the stories behind the items of clothing that you cannot bear to part with. Why? What does it mean? What would it take for you to part with it? And we will bring some of those stories to life on air and pepper them through the programmes as we go.

So please do get in touch. Email us via the website or on social media. We're at BBC Women's Hour. Look forward to seeing and hearing some of those tales. Now, someone who's very good at telling us stories and depicting them is the actor and writer Joanna Scanlon, known for her highly memorable roles in television shows such as Getting On, No Offence and The Thick of It,

a personal favourite. Well, she's just been nominated for a BAFTA, the leading actress award for the film After Love. Set in Dover, she plays a woman called Mary Hussein who converts to Islam when getting married, but following the unexpected death of her husband Ahmed many years later and covers a secret about him across the channel in Calais, about which we will say no more.

But Joanna, good morning. Good morning, Emma. Hello. Lovely to have you on the programme. Congratulations on your nomination. Do you like awards? How do you feel about them? Yeah, I do like awards, actually. I love watching them when other people are winning them. I love watching them when other people don't win them,

but that might just say more about me. Yeah, I mean, they're a fascinating kind of slightly prurient sort of roundup of people's emotions. I think you're always looking for what's underneath the smile or the frown or the disappointment. And so, yes, I'm afraid the spotlight will be on me. It will. I'll have to train up. I'll have to train up for that moment. I'm looking forward to seeing your face come what may. But I wonder also if it means a little more sometimes

if you've come later to acting. You always wanted to do it, but you didn't perhaps get those opportunities or become fully professional, I've read, till you're mid-30s. So maybe this makes this sort of nomination more special. Yeah, I mean mean i don't i don't know that it necessarily endorses a career if you see what i mean i mean we all know there

are so many brilliant actors directors etc who've been overlooked over over their careers so it i don't feel it's like an endorsement and indeed I'd won awards as a child and and so on and and you know in some senses handsome is as handsome does but it it's about what opportunities potentially uh you have for telling that story to a wider public that feels to me the real prize um and the platform perhaps afterwards, because, I mean, let's get to a story then, because I just mentioned Mary and the sort of role that she has.

It's quite a rare person to see on screen in some way and what she's living through and her journey. Tell us a bit about her and what drew you to her. I think it is a very unusual character to be the sort of focus of this much scrutiny, really, in the story. It's the sort of character who's normally on the side or, you know, in the back of shot.

And we suddenly get to see somebody in their full emotional complexity. And I think that's the joy. Well, that was the joy for playing the character. And that's come out of Alim Khan's brilliant writing he's a writer director first time writer director and he wrote something that I think he just wrote out of his spirit out of his inner kind of vision of the world and he has lots of particular things including coming from a family where his mother was a white working-class woman who met her then to be husband when they were in their teens and she converted to Islam so he's writing with full knowledge in in the sense of somebody who

is perhaps overlooked by the rest of society and And that's meant that it's very fresh. It's very unusual. You don't get to see people like this very often. But she, of course, there's nothing generic. There's nothing about, you know, all the tropes that we have around the ideas of converting into Islam or any of those things, because you're looking at a very specific individual woman. And then you get to see the level at which she is made invisible by society, because that's an absolutely crucial

plot point. And it is a bit of a psychological thriller, you're looking at something that's quite exciting, in many ways, even though it's also very composed and beautiful because Alim has made it very beautiful. But inside it, you've got this absolutely kind of, almost like a driver of story and knife-edge sort of stakes, as it were. Well, I think also another element of it talking about the conversion side is that her faith is tested and yet she still keeps her faith without any spoilers how did you

relate to that yes i yeah i i loved that aspect of it i mean there is no such thing as faith without doubt uh doubt is is an element of faith um you can't it's a bit like you know courage and bravery the two things are interlinked in very subtle ways um and you know faith is i mean i come from a roman catholic family was brought up with all the devotional practices i went to school in the 1960s and still participated, of course, in those days with all the, you know, pre-Vatican II, sort of the Angelus Bell at 12 and everything else that went with that. So I have always found faith both as a practice and as a belief a very, very interesting place to sit in our society. And of course, we live in quite a secular world now

where those considerations are not, if you like, primary to, I think, to our predominant culture. So it was really, really interesting to be in that. And of course, for her, faith is hope and faith is love and faith is respect. So she doesn't want to let go of those elements, even though much of the architecture of it has to fall away. People should say it's called After Love. Let's say no more. I think they need to see it now. We've done as much as we can without spoiling. I've got to ask you about a former role, Partygate going on at Downing Street at the moment.

You've played head of press in the thick of it. You've been in charge of how to channel the message. How would you feel about being in charge of some of what's been going on in Downing Street? Well, do you mean Joanna or do you mean Terry Coverley? I mean, Terry Coverley. Well, you could answer it as either. But I do think of the thick of it sometimes as someone who covers politics. Yeah, well, I think Terry, she would have, she was formerly head of press at Waitrose. So I think she would have had a deal, you know, already for many cases of discount, good quality wine.

I think she would have put those into action and she would have justified this. You know, it's very important that the wine is a good quality. She would have justified it on the basis that everyone else in the country was downing bottles and bottles in their own homes. And effectively, she could call number 10 home at this point, because she was never getting to go home and sleep. This is how she would have justified it. Of course, you know, not a joking matter. But there was that detail about the amount of wine, I think being dragged in in a suitcase of some description. And, you know, the Prime Minister has been given this questionnaire of which there's a reported leak of to get an insight into. But I

think your linking of her working at Waitrose, as you say, it could have been a very good plot line in the thick of it and could have been covered very well. I believe you're speaking to us from rural Wales at the moment where you're filming. How's your Welsh? Oh, it's improving. It is improving. I'm playing a Welsh character and I was brought up in Wales and all my family are in Wales.

And I have indeed in the past tried to learn Welsh and I'm now getting a lot better with a lot of help. But this character is has been a wonderful thing to play because it really, really gets underneath some of the language issues. I've had to ask, you know, precisely, well, how does this, what does this work? It's almost like an extraordinary form of a grammar lesson. I recommend it for learning a language. Play a character.

But I read you were finding it hard and you were about to pull out and your husband apparently sensibly talked you down. That's correct, actually. About three weeks before, I said, listen, I need to pull out right now because I need to give them a chance to cast somebody else. And he said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Hang on, hang on, hang on. What you really like doing is basically giving yourself a hard time and you feel better when you've done it so um go and do it and you'll feel better on the other side and we are very close to the other side now and i can actually concur with his view now but it has

been the most wonderful thing i love being in wales i've had the most wonderful time during this production and i have loved learning wel Welsh and I will continue to do so and I can tell you you know the one word that I've had to repeat is cloddra which is murderer so um you know it's it's a so should I encounter any crime I've got a vocabulary yeah just scream that I mean I'm really happy you said that and not me me because there's no way I'm getting my lips around that with only 20 seconds on the clock to go. Joanna Scanlon, thank you very much indeed for talking to us.

All the best with the completion of that latest project and the film we were talking about, which is very beautiful and moving, is After Love. Thank you so much for your company today. Back with you tomorrow at 10. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC,

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