Woman's Hour - Maternity services, Resigning as a bridesmaid, Mica Millar, Poet Safiya Sinclair

Episode Date: October 20, 2023

A new report out today from the CQC - the Care Quality Commission - says that almost two thirds of maternity units provide dangerously substandard care that puts women and babies at risk. It has rated 65% of maternity services in England as either "inadequate" or "requires improvement", an increase from 54% last year. And yesterday saw the first debate in Parliament about birth trauma and the injuries suffered by some women in labour. The Conservative MP Theo Clarke has campaigned for better support for mothers following her own traumatic experience after giving birth to her daughter in August 2022. She gave her powerful testimony to Parliament in an effort to get birth trauma added to the women's health strategy and improve perinatal care for women. First we hear from Chief Executive of the CQC, Ian Trenholm, and then consultant obstetrician Dr Daghni Rajasingham.After Ruhama Wolle took on the bridesmaid mantle three times in the space of 18 months, she decided to never say yes to the role, ever again. She penned an open letter resigning from all future bridesmaid requests, addressed to all her family and friends in Glamour Magazine US, where she works as Special Projects Editor. She joins Anita Rani to talk about why she’s opted out of the type of friendship being a bridesmaid requires.A prize-winning poet and currently Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Arizona State University, Safiya Sinclair, has now written a stunning memoir, How to Say Babylon. It looks at her childhood and teenage years growing up in an ultra-strict Rastifari family in Jamaica, and how literature and poetry changed the trajectory of her life.The soul/jazz singer Mica Millar has amassed almost five million streams on Spotify, and her debut album has been championed by the likes of Trevor Nelson and Jamie Cullum. This summer she’s had sold out shows, festival appearances at Love Supreme and the Cheltenham Jazz Festival, plus opening slots for Gregory Porter and Lionel Ritchie. Mica is to perform at the Union Chapel as part of London Jazz Festival’s opening weekend in November. She discusses recording her new album, Heaven Knows, during lockdown, while recovering from an accident.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Kirsty Starkey

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to Friday's Woman's Hour. Now, to my dear friends, cherished family and maybe even future friends, consider the bouquet tossed. Spare me from future bridal party, please. I adore you all and I mean it when I say I'd do almost anything for you. So, can you relate to this? Have you been a bridesmaid and duties forevermore. So, can you relate to this? Have you been a bridesmaid and loathed the experience?

Did you share your despair or did you suck it up and slap on a fake smile for the sake of your friendship? Maybe like Rohama, you've been asked to be a bridesmaid on multiple occasions and it is costing you a fortune and you wish you could avoid another hen weekend and all that comes with it. The organising organizing the expense the drama the hangover or do you love it are you the person who cannot wait to get into the coordinated dress have your hair and makeup done and feeling like you're a very important part of the wedding day i would like to hear your bridesmaids stories this morning where they've gone wonderfully well

but especially where things haven't gone according to plan. Get in touch with me in the usual way. The text number is 844. You can email me through the website, or you can drop me a voice note or a WhatsApp message on 03700 100 444. Remember to check all the terms and conditions. So your bridesmaid stories, please. If you've been the bridesmaid, if you've been the bride, whatever went on, the more dramatic the better. Also on the programme, Safia Sinclair has written a stunning memoir about life growing up in Jamaica in a Rastafari family. She'll be here to tell me all about it. And talking of stunning, soul jazz singer Mika Miller will be singing live in the studio. I was listening to her rehearsing and it's going to be spine tingling. Lots coming up. That text number once again, keep your bridesmaid stories coming in 84844. First,

maternity care in England is in sharp focus today. Yesterday saw the first debate in Parliament about birth trauma and the injuries suffered by some women in labour. The Conservative MP Theo Clark has campaigned for better support for mothers following her own traumatic experience after giving birth to her daughter in August 2022. Then after a difficult 40 hours of labour, I began bleeding very heavily after delivery. I was separated from my baby and rushed into the emergency room for surgery. I remember the trolley bumping into the walls and the medical staff taking me into theatre

and being slid onto the operating table. I spent over two hours awake without general anaesthetic and I could hear them talking about me and obviously it was not looking good. It was the most terrifying experience of my life. Will my honourable friend give way? Yes, I'll give way. Theo Clark's colleague Dame Andrea Ledsen interrupting there to give her a moment to

recover. She gave her powerful testimony to Parliament in an effort to get birth trauma added to the women's health strategy and improve perinatal care for women. We'll be discussing this more later. At the same time, today a new report from the CQC, the Care Quality Commission, says that almost two-thirds of maternity units provide dangerously substandard care that puts women and babies at risk. It's rated 65% of maternity services in England as either inadequate or requires improvement. That's an increase from 54% last year. As well as maternity services, the CQC's report highlighted a notable decline in mental health and ambulance services. Well, I spoke to chief executive of the CQC, Ian Trenholm, earlier and he began by explaining what they'd found.

This year, we've been doing a very focused set of inspections to try and give us a really up-to-date view of maternity services right across the country in a post-Covid world and we found a number of things. I think we found some good practice it's fair to say we found that things like additional consultant cover so that we're finding that now the consultants are present more often in services which obviously is a positive thing. But we did find in a number of places real concerns about governance and oversight, whether or not the board of the trust was really interested in what was going on. We found some real issues around team dynamics in some places.

And we found one of the things which comes across again and again was women simply not being listened to. And we found that women from ethnic minorities in particular struggled to have their voices heard. And again, we're seeing that the experiences of women from ethnic minorities are just not where they should be. Why is that? It's a range of things. I think we've been doing some specific work to look into that. And we interviewed a group of ethnic minority midwives and asked, what does it feel like to work in those services? What does it feel like to deliver care in those services? And what we found, they said a number of things. But one of the things which was quite striking from my point of view was one midwife said, look, the NHS is amazing, but it was designed by white people for white people.

And the world has moved on. And the people that work in the service are now much more diverse. And the people that they're delivering services to are much more diverse. And the service needs to move on. But we were finding, you know, there's a number of quotes in our report from that group. And, you know, some really disappointing racial stereotypes and a lack of real cultural awareness and sort of name-calling and this sort of thing,

which is just not what ethnic minority women deserve, frankly. So what are the pressures facing maternity units at the moment? I think the pressures facing maternity units are in many senses typical of the pressures facing the broader NHS and indeed social care, which is one of workforce. We've got a workforce who every time we go and talk to a group of people in the NHS, they talk about being exhausted and stressed and they talk about a feeling that they're being overwhelmed

by the demand that's being placed on them. So I think that at its heart is the thing that we're most concerned about. If a service hasn't got enough people, everyone feels overworked. And that means that people are not able to deliver the quality of care that they really, really would like to deliver. It's not like this is new news. We've seen several maternity scandals across England, a number of trusts with reports into these making urgent recommendations before improvements have been suggested in maternity care. Has there been any improvement at all in maternity care in the UK or in England? I think there are examples, there are specific examples in some trusts and every time we go into a trust we write a report

which you can see on our website. So there will be specific examples where things have improved but in overall terms we are still seeing that half of maternity services are requires improvement or or inadequate in using using our ratings and from our point of view we want to continue to shine a light on it and and we know that working with that the people working together will make a difference so we we are working with NHS England and other people to try and improve things, but the improvement is simply not fast enough. And that's why we've highlighted maternity services as one of two main services that we're concerned about in our report today. I'm sure there'll be people listening to this thinking about their own experience

and pregnant women thinking about what they're going through right now, how should they feel? I think in some respects pregnant women should feel reassured that we and other agencies are very focused on maternity services at the moment. I think there are a number of people working incredibly hard to deliver good care. And I think we inevitably in these reports talk about what's not going well, but we equally know that many women will have as good an experience as possible

having a baby. And I think women should be reassured that if we see unsafe care anywhere, we take action. And in each of our reports, we detail the action that we take. And I think women in the main should feel reassured that there's real focus on maternity services.

So what do maternity units in England need to do in order to improve their levels of care? What needs to happen? I think a number of things. I think the first thing at a local level is individual boards, individual leaders in the trust need to be very cognizant of their maternity unit. They need to be present in that unit. Where we've written a report and we've made recommendations, they need to be on top of those recommendations. I'm conscious that other people have also looked at maternity services and made specific recommendations. Again, those boards need to be on top of those recommendations.

And we know that many of the better services absolutely are. At a national level, though, we've seen the NHS workforce plan this year. And again, we would really welcome that. But there's got to be follow through on that. There's got to be continued focus on making sure that the right number of midwives are being recruited, that they're having the follow on training, that the national efforts around improvements in culture and team working continue. I'm just coming back to thinking about the pregnant women who might be listening right now and you've said that they should feel reassured but listening to you speak it's very difficult for them to probably feel that. What kind of power can they have in this situation when you are in such a vulnerable place? I think you saying this morning in, you know, you should feel reassured.

It's just it's probably not going to cut it. No, I understand that. I mean, I think one of the things that we offer is what we call a give feedback on care service. So at any point in a woman's journey, whether that's being in primary care, in the hospital or even postnatally, they can come and talk to us. I think they should also feel confident to talk to the hospital or their GP directly if they've got any concerns. Because I know many, many services are receptive to women's voices, are receptive to hearing the concerns that women raise.

And as he's mentioned, recommendations are being made. made in fact ministers have just announced a new national NHS plan to tackle birth injuries and trauma. They're telling hospitals to offer greater aftercare and say it will be run by specialist midwives and physios. If we're already seeing inadequate care levels provided at maternity units do they have the capacity to take on provisions for more services i think one of the things which which we're seeing more broadly in in nhs services is these services involving uh multi-disciplinary teams different profession professionals coming together to look after women and i think you know this is a really important part of of of postnatal care and it is the sort of thing which is obviously been neglected for a long time now.

So this service we would really welcome and we would see that as a real positive step forward. And I think it is an indication of women's voices being listened to. This is a topic which is often hard to talk about and women haven't been listened to in the way they probably should. And I think this is a real tangible manifestation and you know and women should feel that they they are being listened to by by the by by NHS England and other other professionals. And if they still don't feel they are they should make make more noise? I think so I think I think I you know we would as a regulator the reason we have included maternity in our report as one of the two main services, the other being mental health, the two services that we're most concerned about is we want to continue to shine a light on these services.

We know that when we shine a light on services and we talk about it and other regulators talk about these services, things do improve over time. That was Ian Trenholm from the CQC. Well, we contacted NHS England for their reaction to the CQC report and Professor Sir Stephen Powis, NHS National Medical Director, said, while the NHS has made improvements to maternity services over the last decade with fewer stillbirths and neonatal deaths, the NHS is also increasing investment to £186 million annually to grow our maternity workforce, strengthen leadership and improve culture and working closely with select hospitals to ensure they make the necessary changes following recent maternity reviews to ensure safer, more personalised and more equitable maternity care. Well, as I mentioned in my question to Ian, ministers have told hospitals that they need to offer greater

aftercare to women who have suffered birth injuries. They've also said maternity services will be required to assess women's pelvic health as early as possible in pregnancy. Well, Dr. Dagani Rajasingham is a consultant obstetrician speaking to me on behalf of the Royal College of Obstetricians to discuss this new plan, as well as the CQC report. Dagani, welcome to Woman's Hour. Let's begin with the report. How do you feel after hearing what Ian had to say? So the first thing I want to say, Anita, is that women should feel reassured. And that's very, very difficult when you have the scrutiny that is being placed on maternity services and health services in general. But England is a safe place to have your baby, but we have far to go to make

it as safe a place as it possibly can be, and the best experience for all women, not just certain groups of women. So I think there are several things that have been highlighted, and I'd like to start with what is always mentioned in some ways as an afterthought, our services are inequitable. There is inequity in how we provide it. But if we get services correct for the global majority, if we provide safer, higher quality care for them, we will automatically provide safer, higher quality care for all women. And finally, I want to say that the patient voice is incredibly important in this and funding the ability for the patient's voice to be heard at every level of the system is key and critical. The variation in which that's funded is at the moment unacceptable. So as someone who works on the ground,

how would you go about improving the services for the global majority? What needs to happen? So we need to address the basics. We don't have enough of the workforce. We don't have enough midwives. We don't have enough obstetricians. We don't have enough neonatologists, neonatal nurses. There is a workforce crisis. And whilst I welcome the NHS workforce plan, I'm unsure about the funding to make it sustainable and to ensure that we really make improvements. So making sure that we have the resources, not just in terms of the clinicians on the ground, part of the maternity team, part of the team providing women's health services. We need to make sure that our estates are really fit for purpose. And that's a big issue across

all hospitals. What is it like working on the ground? What are the pressures facing maternity services and the people working there? It's really hard and it's challenging because almost every clinician I know goes to work wanting to provide stellar care for the women that they're looking after. And when the barriers around you, when you have a workforce that's exhausted, sickness levels that are high, burnout that is high, you go into a shift and you don't know if the whole team are going to be there. It is incredibly challenging. But we want to work with each other. We want to work with our women to ensure that we're doing the right thing. But this, again, is a systemic issue. The biases in funding for women's health care, and the report does cover not just maternity services, but gynecological services as well, relates to issues which are societal around how women are valued, how women

are prioritised, both in terms of politics, health care, and almost every sector that I can think about. I'll ask you the same question that I asked Ian, actually. How are women meant to feel? There'll be lots of women listening, lots of pregnant women listening. How are they meant to feel after hearing what they're listening to this morning? I empathise with them and I understand their anxieties, either if they're currently using our services very acutely or if they're booked to have their services provided by a hospital, or if women have had babies and not had ideal experiences or had very traumatic experiences. It's incredibly hard. And to some extent, it's easy to say, well, we're doing things, things are improving. But as a clinician, they're not improving fast enough, quickly enough for as many women as possible.

So whilst I understand anxiety, I want to reassure you that services are safe. And if you feel they aren't, and if you feel your voice isn't being heard please talk to clinicians please tell them and if one clinician doesn't hear it please say it to another person services are incredibly stressed and we're probably not listening to our women in the way that we should be but that's something that has been there pre-covid it was exacerbated by covid and our current situation doesn't make it any easier we started the program with that very powerful testimony from um theo clark who who spoke about her own very traumatic experience and um i'm sure lots of people really paid attention to that um

and off the back of that ministers have just announced a new national nhs plan to tackle birth injuries and trauma they're telling hospitals to offer greater aftercare do you agree is more aftercare needed for women absolutely um so it pregnancy needs to be looked at as the bit before you get pregnant when you're thinking about it the pregnancy and then the period after and that period normally clinically is six weeks when you have postnatal care. But actually, it goes way beyond that. When you're introducing your child, when you're looking after your child and your own health, so pelvic health, pelvic health injuries in pregnancy, sadly, are not uncommon. And that isn't just within the English NHS, that's globally. And we today haven't paid attention

in a timely manner to the issues that women have. And this then has a knock on effect on your perinatal mental health and your mental health as a woman, not just over that period, but potentially it has a lifelong impact. So addressing issues in that postnatal period, which for many women of reproductive age is also the prenatal period of the next pregnancy is absolutely critical and we've got to understand that it is a key part a key part of the services that we're providing um dr dagny rajasingham thank you so much for speaking to me this morning and we will absolutely be coming back to this topic um and lots of you getting in touch about your own experiences hello just listening to your piece on birth trauma nothing has changed or or improved. I had a very, very traumatic birth

27 years ago. I'm type 1 diabetic. They should have known the risks. I nearly died and had to say to my husband, save the baby. No one should have to do that. Dear Anita, my daughter is a senior midwife.

She, like her colleagues, are dedicated and work so hard. She's exhausted. And the biggest reason is lack of staff. When the Conservative government came to power in 2010, David Cameron made a commitment

to recruit more midwives. This has never happened. Plus, the current chancellor of the Exchequer took away nursery bursaries when he was the health minister. Result is lack of staff, exhausted workforce. My daughter does her best all the time, and her father and I find the situation intolerable. And that's from Rob.

Keep your thoughts coming in. 844 is the number to text, or you can email me by going to our website. On your thoughts coming in. 844 is the number to text or you can email me by going to our website. On to my next guest. Thrilled that she's sitting right in front of me. Prize-winning poet and currently Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Arizona State University, Sophia Sinclair has now written a stunning memoir, How to Say Babylon, about her childhood and teenage years growing up in an ultra-strict Rastafari family in Jamaica. The rule of Sophia's father was absolute, and Sophia and her siblings lived in almost complete isolation. They were saved, to some extent, by their mother, who fed them books, poetry, and education.

And, Sophia, welcome to Woman's Hour. Hi, thank you. Can I just say, my goodness, thank goodness for your mum, feeding you all that culture, because the book and your way with words is magnificent. Thank you so much. So evocative. I'm going to start by asking you about the title,

How to Say Babylon. Yes. What does it mean? Well, for the Rastafari, Babylon represents everything that they are against, everything that they believe is profane, everything that they believe is connected to Western ideology, to colonialism, racism, slavery, capitalism, everything Arastabredrin call isimaskism. That's what they call Babylon. And so the title itself is, you know, evoking this idea of how Babylon shaped mine and my siblings' childhood and adolescence growing up and how it

was everything my father tried to keep us away from or protect us from. And all the different ways I got an education in what Babylon meant until eventually it came to define me, I think, in his eyes. You talk about, you explain all your family, your grandparents, but your parents, and you speak about them with great humanity for everybody listening because they won't have read it. How did your parents become Rastas? Well, your father, let's start with your dad. Okay, I'll start with my dad. You know, he was always a musician when he was in Jamaica.

He was part of this band when he was younger called Future Wind. So music had always called to him. But when he was around 16 or 17, and this was like in the 70s in Jamaica where Rastafari, the movement was at its height of popularity, as well as reggae music. I think he felt called to Rastafari. He kind of always had this amputated sense of his own personal history. He didn't know his father. His mother wasn't around when he was younger. And I think he was always searching for something as a young man. And around 16, 17, he founded in Rastafari and decided to walk the path of Rastafari.

And essentially, it was also connected to his love of reggae music. And for him, reggae music is his form of prayer. It's the Rastafari's form of prayer. Yeah, and so that's how he came to it. And your mom? And my mom, similarly, I think she was also searching for something, you know, like many youth in Jamaica at that time. Jamaica was a newly post-colonial society. We had just gotten our independence from Britain in 1962, which was the year my parents were born. And my mother, I think, was no different than any of those, you know, Jamaican youth searching for something. She was born by the

seaside in Montego Bay. She didn't know her mother. Her mother died when she was four years old. And I think she also felt orphaned in some kind of way. And she always wanted to have children. She was a natural nurturer, natural carer. But when she was 18, there was a nun who was also a nurse in Montego Bay told her that she was infertile and she could not have children. And she thought this was the case. And when she met my father, I mean, this wounded her deeply. You know, she carried this hurt around with her. When she met my father, she told him, you know, I don't know if we should go any further with this because this Catholic nun told me I can't have children. And my father said, don't believe that.

That's just the workings of Babylon. And so, you know, my mother said, OK. And she didn't. She said, OK, then I didn't believe it. And, you know, soon after that, I was born. Yeah. And so to her, I think it was a miraculous occurrence. And it was something that rooted her belief in my father and in Rastafari. And together, you know, they went towards something that gave them a sense of community, of black unification, of black liberation. And they brought you and your three sisters and brother up in,

two sisters and brother up as Rastafari, which we will get to. But you mentioned Montego Bay there. Until the age of five, you lived by the sea in a little fishing village called the White House. Yes, called White House. Yeah. Tell us about that. So White House is a fishing village. It's still there in Montego Bay. It belongs to my mother's family, her father and grandfather, who were fishermen. When my grandfather arrived there, I think almost a century ago, he built his own house on the sand and he painted it white. And that's where the name White House comes from. And that's where my mother was born and grew up.

And that's where I was born and lived until I was five years old. And he didn't sell the land because lots of people sold the land. He did not sell the land. You know, most people don't know this, but most of the coastline in Jamaica does not belong to its citizens. It belongs to the private hoteliers. It belongs to the resorts. And most Jamaicans have to pay a fee to actually access our beaches. And so our little village of White House, you know, over the decades,

they would have a resort, a giant resort springing up on one side, another hotel springing up on the other side, which the citizens were forbidden from going. And across the street, there was an airport that was built, and the citizens were also forbidden from going. And over the decades, I think people have been trying to buy this piece of land, to buy the seaside. But my great-grandfather, he had, I describe it in the book that he had the will so coiled under coral and sea brine and sea kelp that nobody could figure it out. And he never sold. And today, this is one of the only stretches of private beach in Montecope that still belongs to

its citizens. Incredible. I've got the double pleasure because i'm not only i'm i'm i'm listening to the audiobook um which i think you get in the words but you're also getting you narrating it and it's magnificent i think we should give the audience the the same experience would you mind reading a little bit sure the sea was the first home i knew out here I spent my early childhood in a wild state of happiness, stretched out under the almond trees fed by brine, relishing every fish eye like precious candy, my toes dipped in the sea's milky lapping.

I dug for hermit crabs in the shallow sand, splashed in the wet bank where stingrays buried themselves to cool off. I slept under the ripened shade where the sea grapes bruised purple and delicious, ready for sucking. I gorged on almonds and fresh coconut, drinking sweet coconut water through a hole my mother gored with her machete, scraping and eating the wet jelly afterwards until I was full. Each day my joy was a new dress my mother had stitched for me by hand. She and her sisters each had a distinct laugh that rang out ahead of them like happy sirens wherever they went, crashing decibels that alerted the whole

village to their gathering. Whenever the sisters sat together on the beach talking, I clung to their ankles and listened, mimicking their feral cackling, which not even the herons overhead could escape. I never loved any place more than this. Oh, it's spectacular. Thank you for that. It's a love letter to Jamaica. It is. It absolutely is. It's a love letter to the natural landscape of Jamaica, to my family, to my culture, to our language. I wanted the reader, when they opened the pages, to feel like they stepped inside of my life. They could feel the humid kiss of Jamaica. They could feel the bronze warmth of my mother's hands. They could hear the wildfire of my father's song in their head. And if those of you missed the intro, yes, Sophia is a poet.

We will talk about the poetry in a moment. You can just tell. Let's talk about the people you lived with because you were living by the sea, as you've explained, in White House, but you were with your mother's family who your father didn't approve of your aunties, your Auntie Audrey.

He described her as a bald head. What does that mean? Yeah, I mean, it's not his word. It's a Rastafari. It's in Rasta vernacular. To the Rastas, a bald head is anybody who's not a Rasta, right? So anybody that they think is a part of Babylon, anybody who's heathenistic, hedonistic, you know, they call a bald head. So what was his relationship like with your auntie Audrey then? You know, I think it was a contentious one early on because my auntie kind of rejected. I think when my father got to the seaside village where all of my mother's sisters were, he at first tried to convert them to Rastafari. And, you know, part of the rules of Rastafari involves women covering their bodies, covering their arms and knees, not wearing makeup or jewelry, which, you know, they think are the garish trappings of Babylon.

And my auntie rejected this. And I think she was the only one who kind of spoke back. And for a long time, I think my father believed that a rebellious or outspoken woman was an instrument of Babylon. So how did that play out for you then? Because there's a moment in the book where something happens. You've explained that your father was a talented musician, reggae musician, but things didn't go well for him can you explain the effect the knock-on effect that happened on the family yes you know he had this this chance he went to japan and we thought that it was like our family's great hope he went to record his his new album um and we had all these dreams of like moving into our own house having our own car you know a lot of a lot of the dreams that many Jamaicans

have because many Jamaicans live below the poverty line. But when he got there, the record deal fell through, you know, there were fights within the band and we lost that dream. And when he came back, you know, things really changed for my family, I think. He became more paranoid and more fearful of Babylon. You know, he really changed for my family, I think. He became more paranoid and more fearful of Babylon. You know, he kept me and my siblings inside the house, trying to protect us from the outside world. Well, you were treated very differently to your brother. I was, yes.

And so you talked, you were, by the age of five, you were already terrified of becoming unclean. Yes. You know, Rasta Bredrin have this idea that, you know, women who are not walking the path of Rastafari are unclean, or they call them Jezebels. They also believe that women are more susceptible to moral corruption because of our gender and because we menstruate. And so there are some sects of Rastafari that don't even allow women who are menstruating to enter the kitchen or touch the pots. So Sophia, how did you get yourself out of it? When did you decide that I need to live a different life?

You know, I started to question the rules when, as you say, I saw that they were different for my brother than they were for me. By the time I was nine years old, there were rules on how I had to dress. You know, I was told the woman's highest virtue was her silence and her obedience, and I was never a silent or pliant girl. And I began to question that. And eventually, when I looked ahead of me into my future and saw the woman my father wanted me to become, you know, a silent woman bent under her father's rules or her husband's rules, I decided I had to cut that woman right out of me. Oh, far from silencing you, you've written a memoir, and it is absolutely spectacular.

And I want to spend the rest of the program talking to you about all of it, especially your mother who home educated you and homeschooled you. And you're a magnificent poet. But it's all in the memoir, which is stunning. Sophia Sinclair, thank you so much for taking the time out to come and talk to me. Thank you for having me. My absolute pleasure. It's called How to Say Babylon. And it is

quite a read quite beautiful thank you thank you uh lots of you getting in touch about being a bridesmaid um in 1960 angela said i worked as a saturday girl in a chemist in gloucester age 15 one of the full-time staff was getting married one of her bridesmaids was ill and as i looked the right size for the dress she asked me to fill in. I'm now 78 and can't remember much about it. I don't think I went to the reception. Well, the reason I'm asking you about being a bridesmaid is because, well, have you ever wanted to resign from being someone's bridesmaid? Perhaps you thought twice about saying yes to the commitment

once you were forced into a magenta dress and left with no choice but to pay for a hairdo you despised. After taking on the bridesmaid mantle three times in the space of a year, Rahama Vole published an open letter to her family and friends, resigning from all future bridesmaids requests. She's had enough. Well, she joins me now from New York to tell me more. Rahama, welcome.

Thank you so much. It's a very funny letter that you've written. What was the final straw? What made you decide, I just can't do this anymore? I don't even know if I would call it a final straw. I think it was sort of a buildup. Just to give you context, the backstory is that I finally reached that pinnacle time, right? That we as women face as our friends or loved ones are finally getting married and it

comes in that big wave. Mine came in a succession of three and that happened within a year and a half. And so I wouldn't say it was a particular moment, but more of that buildup. What is it that folks say out of the frying pan into the fire? It was a situation that just got worse with time. It started off as a simple I do and ended up as what did I get myself into? So why? I think it's the culmination of, as you would say, the group chats, the time commitment, the financial constraints, and the emotional toll it sort of takes on you. You talk about being granted one or maybe two get out of bridesmaid duty free cards. By this, you mean there's no limit to the amount of time it's acceptable to say no to the bride's request

being branded a bad bridesmaid. So one request that you found difficult was the dresses. Tell us about that. What was your experience of shopping for dresses? In fact, lots of these messages that are coming through are about the dresses. So one of the things that I talked about in the op-ed and collectively as the Glamour team that we talked about was how do you say no, right? Yeah, how do you? Throughout my process, right, of being a bridesmaid three times, I found means of being able to say no to the bachelorette, right? I can't afford this, or it just doesn't work for my timeline. I'm not going to be able to make the bachelorette experience. And so in those moments, there's a sense of awkwardness or a eyebrow raise from fellow other bridesmaids or even the bride themselves. So

for me, I felt like I can only do this a handful of times, right? You can only say no. Once you've said the big yes to being a bridesmaid, you can only say no a certain amount of times. And so the one thing you just cannot say no to is the dress, right? And I think the dress journey has its many nuances. And I commend the brides who allow their bridesmaids are very open and allow you to sort of pick the the whether it's the color the silhouette but

some people have their vision and I respect that I'm like hey but you're allowed to have your vision because all your friends are different shapes and sizes right so one dress isn't going to fit all is it? Exactly. And that's that's the conversation. Right. And I think that's that's the change we're hoping to see that not everyone is get. We're past the point of seeing six, seven, eight women in the same exact dress. Right. I know I always want to reference Sex and the City in the movie where I know Carrie didn't get married in that one wedding but you see her her three best friends with her in the most gorgeous gowns all in different dresses and yet they still don't outdo her or outshine her so I'm like there's an opportunity for us to really just shift that conversation and um and and dress differently

as bridesmaids I can almost guarantee there are people listening who will have had their bridesmaids in the matching outfit. I mean, they look great in the photographs, the beautiful colours. You know, it's all there, perfect. So what happens when you have disagreed, and I know you've disagreed with your friends about certain things, how do you broach it? Because you strike me, Rahama, as the friend who's going to let them know.

You are not going to hold it in. You're not going to suck it up. You're not gonna suck it up. You're not gonna just put on that smile and turn up and do what your friend expects you to do. You're gonna let her know, aren't you? I appreciate you for saying that. That's actually not the case. I have been the one who actually has been biting my tongue.

And so when you asked me the first question of what was the pinnacle moment, I think that was it. I bit my tongue way too long. And so by the third wedding, I was like, I just can't, I can't bite my tongue anymore. So now is the moment. So our collective team at Glamour, we wrote these follow-up pieces. It was a full package of our collective burnout, right? As being bridesmaids. And when you ask about how do you say no, I think it's also about how do you actually be a considerate bride too, right? I think before we think about the big

no, it's how do we, for those who do want to say yes, how can you be, how can a bride be considerate to her bridesmaids, right? Whether that's starting off with Google Forms, right? Whether that's flagging major expense fronts, right? I think we want to have the bigger conversation of if a bride is considerate from the get-go, these no's might not need to even happen, right? Building your own tradition and then also now making space for folks who say no, right? I think there has to be a larger conversation around can your friends show up for you or your loved ones show up for you in a different way than this checklist, right?

Than this to-do list. So I think we just have to make a safe space for our friends and our loved ones to just say no for whatever that reason is, right? I think everybody comes at it differently. Folks might not be in the right financial state. Folks might say, you know what, I have two kids right now and a partner and my financial state is not for me capable for me to take a flight out to Cancun right now. So just just really having those honest conversations. And what's the reaction been from your friends who are the brides who've read the red letter?

I would say mixed. It's it mixed reaction, right? It's one of those things where it's you're between a rock and a hard place the bridesmaid Grinch. I took that and I chuckled because I'm like, I get it. I'm a firm believer that there's something beautiful about weddings. There's something about a union. But I think it's also understanding that having these conversations early on can really outset the frustration later on. I wonder how gendered the responsibilities at a wedding. Do you think the expectation is similar for groomsmen? To an extent, I would say to an extent, I did have a couple of guy friends who came to me and said, thank you. Like we are in full agreement, full solidarity with you. I think, yes, grooms also have to go through the bachelorette experience. Yes, groomsmen also have a certain amount of financial constraints that come with being

groomsmen, right? But I think you also understand that women have a little difference of a nuance in being bridesmaids, whether that's we have our hairs, we have makeup, we have nails, right? There's so many nuances of what the preparation leading up to the wedding day is as well. And you spent an absolute fortune on dresses as well. I mean, thousands of dollars. 4,000. Over 4,000. And in my piece, one of the things that I'm- No wonder you're quitting being a bridesmaid. I mean, you're bankrupting yourself on outfits. Yeah. And I think the context to give behind that is that I'm Ethiopian and I also mentioned that

I'm also from North Carolina. So I have this cultural mix of having Southern traditions, but also coming from this beautiful ethnic culture. And one of the things from our culture itself is that the bride and her family usually cover the bridesmaids expenses, right? we um it's it's sort of like a thank you for joining me in my union in my moment and so it's very much so a western american culture that although i've grown up here long enough to know to know that this is what it is it's just like as someone who someone from an indian background who's born and brought up in the uk it's like now there's a double whammy you have all the indian traditions plus all the western sort of traditions. So, yeah, the expenses, it's out of control. What happens, Rahama, if and when you get married, will you want bridesmaids? And how are you going to? Absolutely not.

I think if anything, it's just got me to really reconsider what a wedding would look like. I think that's also the larger conversation to have. I think just, I've seen some beautiful weddings in today's world where folks are having a block party or, or folks are having very intimate dinners or saying, forget the, forget everything leading up to it. We're just going to throw one big party. So I'm, for me, it's make it your own, make it what works best for you and your partner, have the people that you love and care for you show up for you. And whatever that is that that means to you and to them. No bridesmaids. I can't put my loved ones through that. Should we see what some of our audience is saying? I was a bridesmaid twice, two times too many.

Someone says they're right. They're with you, Rahama. I loathed it. Two times too many someone says they're right they're with you rohama i loathed it and family many i love that and family required my acquiescence i tried to resist but too young to be listened to horrible dresses and hours in the hairdressers being poked and prodded the photo showed a miserable little girl i stopped wearing dresses in my 30s such a great decision for me someone else has said i was a bridesmaid at my brother's wedding when I was 21, had no choice over the dress, green chiffon, I look like a giant cos lettuce. Someone else has said, she made me wear purple, not a good look. The horror stays with me 20 years later. I'm so sorry, Michelle in Nottingham. And another one here says, I've been a bridesmaid nine times, seven times as an adult, twice abroad, at a range of weddings i need all day to tell you the stories well you've got people talking this morning rahama thank you so much

for speaking to me uh you can read rahama's open letter on glamour magazine it's on their website keep your thoughts coming in nine times on to my next guest very excited the soul jazz singer mika miller has amassed almost five million streams on Spotify and her debut album has been championed by the likes of Trevor Nelson and Jamie Cullum. This summer, she's had sold out shows, festival appearances at Love Supreme and the Cheltenham Jazz Festival, plus opening slots for Gregory Porter and Lionel Richie. Mika is to perform at the Union Chapel as part of the London Jazz Festival's opening weekend in November and she has a new album, Heaven Knows, which she recorded during lockdown while recovering from an accident and she joins me now live in the studio and you're

going to perform for us as well. Mika, welcome. Thank you so much for having me. Busy summer for you, Gregory Porter, Lionel Richie. Tell me about those experiences. It's been a very busy summer, yes. We've been touring. We started touring in May and then we toured all the way up until the end of July. But yes, performing at the Royal Albert Hall, supporting Gregory Porter for three nights was really incredible. And then we did the Blenheim Palace with Lionel Richie.

Oh, how stunning. What a location. And you're going to be supporting Gladys Knight. Is that? Next year. Oh, my goodness me. Just been announced for her UK farewell tour. I mean, that is a seal of approval.

I mean, everything I've read about you and all the people that have worked with you, they just adore you. Oh, thank you. It's exact. I mean, how does it feel when you get that phone call to say Gladys Knight wants you? It's fantastic. And it's funny because it's a real full circle moment.

When I first started performing, I used to go to these pubs in the back end of Beyond doing covers gigs when I was 18. In Manchester? Round the north-west. And I remember as part of my set was Gladys Knight, Midnight Train to Georgia. And I saw her perform in Manchester and she was absolutely amazing. And when she did Midnight Train to Georgia. So, you know, and I saw her perform in Manchester

and she was absolutely amazing. And when she did Midnight Train to Georgia, I thought, great. And then it wasn't long after that that I was asked to do the support slot for her farewell tour. That's magic. It's pretty amazing. How did you get into soul and jazz? Tell us about your upbringing a bit in Manchester

and what you were listening to. Yeah, I mean, my parents were really into soul music. My mum was a huge lover of Motown and collected lots of vinyl and they sort of introduced me to music at quite a young age and I sort of fell in love with Stevie Wonder when I was about eight years old and had this record on repeat and the Jackson 5 and all that sort of thing. And my grandfather was a jazz saxophonist, so it wasn't until later that I sort of came to realise that

and then became more interested in jazz and certainly there's still so much more music for me to explore but yeah I was brought up in a very musical family my dad's a drummer and my granddad of course so I feel like the baton was handed to me at a certain point and I always loved writing songs so I was writing songs from a really young age and yeah gradually just sort of started to teach myself piano and you know. Yes self-taught. Yeah. Spite ear and yeah you know I just loved writing songs and I think that's kind of how I gradually discovered my voice and you know. You can tell you love writing songs because of the album and the lyrics on the album. 14 tracks on the album Heaven Now. What are the themes?

I mean, it explores things like love, spirituality, oppression. Oh, gosh, it's a plethora of... And there's a track called Girl. And there's a track called Girl, yes. Tell us about Girl. Female empowerment. Absolutely, you're in the right space absolutely um well that was actually inspired by sitting round I think after doing rehearsals with my backing vocalist and when you work and sing with people you there's a bond that that creates I think that is like no other let's say and we

would sit afterwards and kind of have a maybe a glass of wine or a cup of tea and sort of talk about things and you know that sort of female support that you get around a table like that nothing better nothing better and I remember thinking if you could sort of bottle up that feeling and put that together in a song how nice that would be to kind of you know to be able to do that so that was really what inspired inspired that those conversations around the table talking about female empowerment you strike me as somebody when I was getting to know you from reading about you how powerful you are because you have had a really tough time of it you wrote and completed this album not only during covid but you had an accident I did yes

had a spinal cord injury um about midway through making the record. And it's a self-written and self-produced record. So it was already quite a challenge, let's say. That was the first time I've kind of, you know, put together a body of work of this. It was really serious. Yes. That's a very serious spinal injury. Yeah, I was very nearly paralysed from the waist down, but very lucky to have been able to recover from that

and that it wasn't, you know, spinal cord injuries are, of course, very serious, something that I'm actually, you know, championing at the moment, trying to raise awareness of. What happened? I had a trampolining accident, you know, recreational, enjoying a dry January, actually, which I will never do again. There's a lesson learned. There's a lesson learned. There's a lesson.

And, yeah, so I landed badly, basically. So, you know, it was just a moment of, you know, a mistake in a moment. And it obviously could have, it has changed my life. It certainly changed the course of the record, which now in hindsight was a really, you know, a really positive thing. In what way well

covid came just I had my accident in January 2020 and I think the lockdown was March and so I was sort of just about getting back to walking and then it was like no so all the studios had closed and I had planned to go back into the studio so what ended up happening was that we I sort of reflected on how am I going to finish this record? And I realised that lots of musicians were grounded, of course. So nobody was touring, people were at home in their own studios. And of course, that meant that people were available with Zoom being introduced and all these things. It sort of opened this amazing series of possibilities, which was, well, you can work with anybody anywhere.

And there's loads of great musicians that are around so we sort of you know I sort of contacted various people and I was able to get some fantastic musicians to perform and it is amazing and they are like I say they've all raved about how much they love working with Mika you're going to perform live for us I'm very excited and it's a song called My Lover yes before. Before I get you to go to the microphone, what's, tell us about My Lover. Well, My Lover, I wrote this as a poem originally and it was adapted from a poem, which is probably one of the only songs that I've done that with.

And I've used lots of different approaches to writing. But I, the song is about a short-lived and turbulent romance, let's say. All right, perfect. I'll let you, and how are you now, by the way? I'll let you step over, otherwise we're going to run out of time. I'm good, thank you. Excellent, she looks amazing. She's say. All right, perfect. I'll let you, and how are you now, by the way? I'll let you step over, otherwise we're going to run out of time. I'm good, thank you.

Excellent. She looks amazing. She's good. And I am very excited to be able to introduce you all to this live performance of My Lover with Ben Lee Smith on piano. She's incredible.

Thank you, Mika, in your own time. She's just getting ahead, putting her earphones in, performing live in the Woman's Hour studio for you this Friday morning. We have Mika Miller with Ben Lee Smith on piano. This is My Lover. Oh, my goodness me. Mika, thank you so much.

Ben on piano, thank you. That was spectacular. And if you want to hear Mika perform live, she'll be at the Union Chapel as part of the London Jazz Festival opening weekend in November. That's it from me. Thank you to all of you who messaged in. I'm sorry I didn't get to read

all your brilliant bridesmaids' messages out, but join me tomorrow for Weekend Woman's Hour. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hello, I'm Melvin Bragg and I'm back with a new series of BBC Radio 4's In Our Time. We're celebrating our 1,000th episode,

so there's an extraordinary range of topics for you to get stuck into, from history, science and philosophy, to religion and the arts. This series we're discussing Albert Einstein, E. Mark Bergman, Plankton, the Versailles Treaty and much more. In Our Time is like an audio encyclopedia, we're told, and you can hear it all on BBC Sounds. I hope you enjoy it. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered.

There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this?

From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.