Woman's Hour - Mina Smallman, Flexible working laws, Dr Gladys McGarey, Barbie set design and The Wizard of Oz

Episode Date: July 22, 2023

The law on flexible working changed this week. New rules should make it easier for employees to argue for a flexible working arrangement. It’s the culmination of years of hard work and campaigning for more family friendly workplaces. Anita speaks to the Minister for Small Business, Kevin Hollinrake, and Amy Butterworth from the flexible working consultancy Timewise.Dr Gladys McGarey, cofounder of the American Holistic Medical Association, began her medical practice at a time when women couldn't even own their own bank accounts. She’s now 102 years old and still practicing as a doctor. She started medical school just before the Second World War, married a fellow doctor, Bill and together they practised medicine and had six children. Dr Gladys joins Nuala to talk about her new book, The Well-Lived Life.The mother whose daughters were murdered, and their photographs then shared on a police WhatsApp group, speaks to Nuala from the launch of a new organisation designed to help stamp out misogyny, sexism and racism in the police. Mina Smallman has become an activist since the death of her daughters in 2020, and she wants to see change. The Irish singer-songwriter Roisin Murphy first rose to fame in the 90s as one half of the electronic pop duo Moloko. She has gone on to have a successful solo career and has a new album out soon. She joins Anita live in the studio to talk about her music and creating this latest album.As the film Barbie opens in cinemas today, Set Decorator Katie Spencer and Production Designer Sarah Greenwood discuss how they created Barbieland in a real life space, the invasion of everything pink, and how they approached the film having never played with Barbies themselves.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Lottie Garton

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, Anita Rani here. Welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour. This is where we've curated a selection of the finest interviews from the week just gone just for you. Coming up this afternoon, bestselling author Catlin Moran explains why she's turned her hand to writing about men. When people are angry, it's usually that they're scared. I think anger is fear brought to the boil. And it's like,

why are boys scared of women and the progress they've had? And I was suddenly like, I need to scrap the project that I'm working on and I need to write this book now. The wonderful singer songwriter Olivia Dean tells us all about her debut album, Messy. Plus, Alex South talks about her new book and shares her experiences of working as a prison officer from the age of 22. And we'll be hearing about the hair pulling disorder, trichotillomania and the impact it can have. The disorder has caused me to essentially live with a lake of shame around my inability to control these urges, which has kept me quiet about it.

And I think that it's not an uncommon experience with people with these disorders. All of that to come. You know the drill by now. Grab a cuppa and a biscuit. Settle in. Now, Katlin Moran's multi-award winning bestseller, How To Be A Woman, which came out in 2011,

was a watershed moment for a generation. And you could say it did all right. By 2014, it had sold over a million copies catelyn is i'm delighted to say back with her eighth book this time she's gone completely rogue and turned her attention to the other sex the book is called what about men to traverse to the unfamiliar world of boys and men to say hey literal dudes what's going on here because she suspects that there may be some sexist bullshit afoot. Catlin is in the midst of a 13-day tour of the British Isles to promote her book but she found time to come and join me in the studio on Thursday on publication day and I started by asking her how the tour's going. It's been amazing like

I mean as all writers know you're just sitting in a room on your own, hoping that you've, like, identified the right thing and hit it in the right tone. And the response we've had has been amazing. Suddenly all these men have appeared from nowhere. It's usually quite a lady-heavy audience. Yes. But all these men have turned up, a lot crying,

a lot of older men, men in their 60s and 70s, just giving these amazing speeches, kind of going, I've waited all my life for something like this. Really, incredible why did you want to tackle this subject well I mean as any sort of woman in the public eye or anyone who's a feminist will know if you spend most of your life talking about women and girls and their problems and then you know you start to have these conversations often the second or third thing someone will say to you in response is oh yeah women but what about men and for the first five or six years, I was like, I don't care. I don't have to sort themselves out.

I'm team tits. It's all about the ladies and the girls for me. The ultimate irony of feminism would be, would it not, if women solved the problems of women and then had to solve the problems of men as well. That's ultra emotional load. But then about three or four years ago, I started realising it was the younger men

were asking this in quite an aggressive way and it culminated on International Women's Day two years ago where I was doing an event with half women, half men, were boys and girls, 15, 16 years old. Thought I was there to talk about the problems of women and girls. And the boys hijacked it, basically. They were very angry and they were saying things like, it's harder to be a man than a woman now. Women are winning and boys are losing. Feminism has gone too far.

And using the phrase feminazis and at that point I became fascinated as a subject because when people are angry it's usually that they're scared I think anger is fear brought to the boil and it's like why are boys scared of women and the progress they've had and I was suddenly like I need to scrap the project that I'm working on and I need to write this book now because there is a whole generation of boys as we can see from the rise of Andrew Tate Laura Bates's book Many Who Hate Women just details how big this problem is and I think how generally unaware their parents generation are of just how quickly and how rapidly this has spread. You identify one of the main complaints that as you just said that the

boys are saying it's easier to be a woman than a man now and on page 14 you say I believe them and I think it's true in our culture, at least. This might be surprising based on what you've written about in the past to lots of our listeners. What do you mean? Well, first of all, obviously, statistically, there's a massive, you know, just simply the sexual assault statistics alone. We know that one in four statistic.

It hangs over us. So like kind of like structurally, absolutely. Women still have massive problems. But I see this as a huge extension of my feminism. Because the thing that women have is that we have feminism. So there isn't a problem you could have as a woman where if you just don't type it into Google, you'll find a blog or a book or a movie or an uplifting song by Beyonce. Like, we've got this brilliant, informal, crowdsourced thing called feminism that will solve your problems. And as a mother, I think only half the rearing that has happened to my two teenage daughters

has been done by me. The other half has been done by the village of feminism. They have these resources. I can't imagine what it would be like to raise teenage boys because there aren't those resources out there. There isn't a conversation about this. And when you chunk through, the first bit of big research that I did was sort of like,

what is the state of boyhood and manhood now? And there's a list of statistics where you just go, okay, this is a problem. So boys are more likely to be medicated for disruptive behaviour in school. They're more likely to be excluded from school. They're less likely to go on to further education. They make up the majority of the homeless population,

the majority of the prison population. They're more likely to become addicted to drugs or alcohol or pornography. And the leading cause of death for men under the age of 50 is suicide. Now, were those facts that were in women's lives, feminism would have come up with a huge campaign. We'd be talking about this in the round. What is happening culturally that means not only is this happening,

but there doesn't seem to be anything constructively as a movement happening around it. And we don't yet seem to have found a language to talk about it that has crossed over into the mainstream. There are academic books about this, you know, kind of like, you know, you will have serious things about this, but something that's warm and accessible and something you can put into either a teenage boy's hand or, you know, a middle-aged dad who is struggling's hand and go,

here's some stuff that I think you will read. You'll laugh, you'll cry, but this is about you and let's start this conversation. On this very programme, we were talking to the chair of the House of Commons Women's and Equality Committee who say sexual harassment and sexual violence continues to be a scourge in our schools. I'm sure you know all this, with many girls and women feeling powerless. Their solution was more relationship education for boys. There's a few sort of feminists who are like, why are you talking about the boys now and sort of like forefronting their problems? And as any woman, and particularly a mother will know, half the problems of women and girls are men. You know, it's troubled men, it's angry men, it's abusive men, it's misogynist men,

it's men who don't know how to treat you at work, it's men who don't see that the pay gap exists. So in order to fix the women and girls, you've got to go and fix the boys and men, but like half those problems. So I, and to me, when I look at the definition of feminism, it's about equality between the sexes. And what feminism is really good at in the last 150 years is seeing things that are typically seen as male things, like being able to run a business, being in charge of your own finances, being able to run for parliament, being in control of your own fertility. Over the last 150 years, women have taken those typically male traits and our lives have expanded. We've got this incredible plethora of role models and this feeling of expansion and hope and joy for women in the last 150 years for men they haven't really added anything

to the experience of being men and they particularly haven't taken things that we think of as female so still the massive disparity in parenting in maternity leave and paternity leave in you know in emotional communication and having like a brotherhood around you and friends that you can communicate with one in five men of the age of 50 say they have no close friends. These things that are seen as female, I think are a part of the longing, and in some cases, despair and anxiety that boys and men have that there are aspects of being a woman that they need to come and take for us. We give it with open arms. We've stolen your trousers. And thank you for the moon. Yeah, they're really useful. So come and take some lady things. We give it to you. Another bit that really jumped out at me was when you write about the division between the mothers

of daughters and the mothers of sons when discussing the issue in particular and you describe a situation in which usually you've literally no idea what to say to women when you know her son and maybe lots of our listeners will relate to this because you talk to teenage girls and they are telling you who the boys are at school that are causing problems yes and you think well what do i do do i talk to them what do you do exactly what is the mum code i think this is the first time ever in eight books that i have have pointed out a problem and gone i actually don't have a solution to this usually i like to ask a question and then offer an answer and in this this, I just don't know. I don't know what the etiquette is, the woman code, how we do this. Because as any mother of daughters will know,

you know who the boys are at school, that there are rumours about or stories about and things that they have done. And when they were like five years old and a boy was being naughty, you knew you could go over to his mum and go, he's mucking about with that cat, you need to stop. What is the etiquette? If now, at the age of like 14 15

you actually need to go to that mother and say there is there is there is a story and I believe it to be true that there was a girl who was passed out drunk at a party and you know he assaulted her what do you do we've had a tweet in from someone saying I'm a single dad with a mid-teen daughter I cannot wait to read Catlin Moran's new book my daughter will talk to me and ask about anything but she didn't want to confide in me her problems with bullying at her school, problems to do with boys and jealousy. Oh, God, well, he sounds like an amazing dad. And just the fact that he's aware of that is fantastic. But like, very often, I think dads are not mum, like kind of like and just the way that we talk about dads in culture, like kind of like, you know, daddies are still silly, daddies get

things wrong. Or there's if you go on like, you know, any sort of bookstore, the kind of like you know daddies are still silly daddies get things wrong or there's if you go on like you know any sort of bookstore the kind of books that are called things like no daddy no you know kind of like it's either quite a threatening thing or they're quite silly and the way that we venerate and just the culture around motherhood like mum's net is a massive political force you know every prime minister has to go on to mum's net there is a dad's net but a i just bet you've never heard of it and b there are so few on it, they offer a crate of beer if you register. And that's what I mean about the difference in the culture between sort of motherhood and fatherhood. International Men's Day. There is an International Men's Day. 18th of November, as we know.

But women are good at organising things. Like, we're good at celebrating ourselves. And that's the other thing. It's a very joyful book going, we have really celebrated in such a brilliant way our women and our teenage girls. So some feminists have said come on Kathleen why are you talking about boys and what about reaction from men? I wrote the book in the best of faith

just sort of going you know I'm getting all these men going what about men? There are boys going it's harder to be a boy than a woman now so I was like okay let's take that seriously I'll write a book and there's been a bit of pushback online from people just basically going well don't write about us

we don't like the female gaze on us and there's a bit in the book where I'm talking about how in bookshops there's a huge woman's section in every bookshop massive woman's section but there is no man's section we don't write about men we think of them as the neutral kind of like omni-human like they're so neutral and bland that like they're not worth looking at as a category and that's what I want to do in a very joyful way like a kind of sexy amusing David Attenborough I'm just like okay there's been some noise from the man cage let's go and see what's going on there and and I think maybe men are not used to being written about from a woman's point of view but so I mean as far as I know no one's really done this before so I hope I've got the tone right but it's a very loving very generous

it is loving generous funny very funny I've got you in right, but it's a very loving, very generous. It is loving, generous, funny, very funny. I've got you in the studio and I need to say this because I call it a game changer. How to Be a Woman came out in 2011. Absolutely. When I read that, like a generation of us, and I remember sitting there thinking, how has she done this? I was riddled with shame until probably just two years ago when I wrote my own memoir. As a direct result of you writing yours,

I'm just going to put it out there. I love your memoir so much. But because of what you wrote, because I thought, how did you have the capacity and the confidence to conquer your shame and say it all out loud and say it all so brilliantly? Where does that Catlin Moran confidence come from? And we've got 30 seconds, not even.

Oh, I was riddled with shame as a teenage girl and I think the gland that produces shame just burned out by the time I was 21 and I love busting a taboo and talking about secrets. That's my happy place. And we love it when you're in your happy place, the author Catlin Moran speaking to me there. Now, trichotillomania, or TRIC,

is often referred to as hair-pulling disorder. There is little research in this area, but statistics suggest 1.1 million people in the UK could have the condition, with 80% of them women. Half of those never seek treatment. So what is it? Why do people do it? And what can be done to help them stop?

Claire Mackay is Professor of Brain Imaging at Oxford University. She's doing an academic review in this area and shared her own personal experience with Nuala for the first time. She began by explaining exactly what TRIC is. It is characterised by an uncontrollable urge to pull out your own hair. Most commonly scalp, eyelashes, eyebrows, but it can be from anywhere on the body. And it's a form of disorder that's called a body focused repetitive behavior, another long and slightly mouthful of a term. Other examples are skin picking and nail biting. So these are all things that all of us do to a certain extent. But when they become to an extent that's causing you distress or it's uncontrollable, then it becomes disordered. People who suffer from these disorders often have quite a lot of distress and a lot of shame associated with the disorders. quote of the 80% female. So it certainly is true that about 80% of people who find themselves

in treatment trials or in support groups are indeed women. But actually, the population survey type work that's been done leads to us questioning this. And particularly in children, it seems to be more 50-50. So it may be that there's a difference in terms of the experience of shame that means more women find their way into support groups and trials, but it may be that it's not quite so stark in terms of the actual phenomenology. And Clare, I understand that you haven't spoken about it before, and thank you for coming to Women's Hour to do so. What has been your experience of it? Well, I started to pull out my hair, primarily eyelashes initially when I was about 12 years old.

And I have continued to be unable to resist the urges to do that, eyelashes, eyebrows, and from my scalp as well, all the way until the last couple of years when I have sort of had a little bit of a personal breakthrough with it. And I can say that the disorder has caused me to essentially live with this sort of lake of shame around my inability to control these urges, which has kept me quiet about it. And I think that it's not an uncommon experience with people with these disorders. But with the work that I've been doing on myself recently means that I'm sort of feeling like the shame is actually part of the problem. And that the talking about it can really

help both me and potentially other people with these disorders. How would you describe the urge? I can identify three different sorts of triggers. The first is probably the worst for me, the one I find hardest to resist. And that's a very sensory experience. So I describe it as being like needing to scratch an itch or, you know, the urge to to swat at something that lands on your arm. It feels like an innate urge to pull out a hair in my case. And those urges, when they come, they come in a kind of storm. So, you know, you can you can do your best to resist one urge, but the next one's right behind it and then the next one's right

behind that. So it's it's an incredibly powerful urge that's really difficult to overcome. And often I lose that battle. The other types of urges that I get, I think of these as being the emotional urges. So if I find myself, you know, ruminating or fretting or worrying about something, then that will often be a bit of a trigger for me to find myself pulling my hair out. And then the third type is maybe we could think of them as being more automatic. So they're the kind of or related to boredom. So if I'm reading or driving or just not doing very much,

I find myself often with my hands in my hair and, you know, one thing leads to another. And how do you feel after you've done it? Perhaps it's a different feeling after those three types of triggers i think that it's fair to say that there's a sort of very brief sense of relief when you when particularly in relation to those first type of triggers the ones that feel sensory and in um in nature there is a sort of oh thank goodness i've got that out now that feeling will away. But the shame kicks in really quickly. So I sort of have an immediate sense of relief,

followed by a kind of wave of shame of, oh, God, I've done it again. And I think there might be a very brief reward, if you like, but it's soon overcome by the shame of having done it. You know, there's a couple of things that come to my mind. One, that shame that you talk about coming in, and I'm wondering, is there a way not to be ashamed of it? Is there a way just to accept it? But I am curious what therapies have worked for you? I sought therapy not specifically for trichotillomania. Actually, I just got to a point in my life where I was feeling sort of generally not quite as I normally do. And so

went to seek some therapy to sort of find some inner peace, really. And trichotillomania wasn't the focus of that, but it was always there as an example of a sense of me not having inner peace. And my sort of my skillful therapist found her way through the layers, if you like, and to the kind of lake of shame that lived that lived at the core. And then and then there are kind of strategies that good psychologists can use to um as interventions for shame and so what i found is that having been through maybe we could call it an unshaming process with my my psychologist suddenly everything felt different to me and so without the shame on board you know i am a neuroscientist and i've spent 30 years studying brains, but I've never really applied any of that knowledge to the disorder that's been with me all

along. So suddenly I got interested in the disorder from a completely different perspective. And that really takes away more shame, you know, so it's kind of the more I talk about it, the more I think about it from a neuroscientific perspective, the less shame I feel and actually the less the behaviour is there. So I have a hunch really at this point. I haven't had a chance to test it yet, but my hunch is that shame is actually a really important maintainer of these sorts of behaviours and that shame actually in itself creates the environment within our brains that makes us want to do the behaviour in the first place. I mean, what would you like to see being done? Or how would you advise people to get help? Yeah, I guess I've got three groups of people that I'd like to answer your question in relation to. The first is people with trichotillomania or their skin picking or nail biting disorders themselves.

I really want to say that you're not alone. You know, this is a disorder that you have. It's not a character flaw. It's not something that you should feel ashamed about. This is something that you cannot control. And the best way to start to reduce that feeling of shame is to find community. And the communities are out there. The other two communities I'd like to speak to, one is parents and loved ones of people with these disorders who want the best for their loved one, obviously, but can often inadvertently through their own fear and their own distress and their own shame associated with it, add to the shame for the person suffering. And so I really want to encourage people to get alongside

their loved ones. And the last one? And the last one is my own community of mental health professionals, charities, researchers, etc. We need action. We need research. We need funding. We need to spend some of our resources understanding more about these conditions and starting to help people with them.

Claire Mackay speaking there. And so many of you got in touch with your own experiences of TRIC. Anna wrote in to say, I've been hair pulling since I was 13 years old. I'm now 44. Much of what your speaker is discussing resonates with me. Stress, tiredness and boredom are my triggers too, followed immediately by disappointment and distress at myself. And an anonymous listener emailed in to say,

thanks so much for featuring this. My daughter suffers from skin picking. She targets her beautiful face, now moving on to her neck and arms. She was able to hide it behind a mask during the height of COVID. It's so distressing for her and those who love her. And Hannah wrote in and said, I run an online support group for people with TRIC and other body-focused repetitive behaviours

and have just received an influx of member requests after your segment on Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for raising awareness about this very common but little heard of condition. Now, half of the prison officers in England and Wales do not feel safe at the prisons they work in. That's according to a recent large-scale survey of prison staff by the Cross-Party Parliamentary Justice Committee.

Nuala spoke to Alex South about this statistic. She spent 10 years working as a prison officer for Her Majesty's Prison Service. She was just 22 when she got her first job working inside a men's maximum security jail. She's written about her experiences in a new book, Behind These Doors, which is out this week. And Alex started by explaining what it was like to walk into the prison for the first time. It was really daunting. I mean, I think all the things that you see in the documentaries, you know, you see the big walls. The calls are barbed wire and there's dogs barking. And, you know, I mentioned the book very early on.

One of the first things that I saw was this big sign saying, don't bring in a bomb. Don't bring in a gun. You know, things that seem very obvious. But actually, you know, I learned in my training that that stuff had happened you know the IRA escape in the early 90s example of guns being smuggled into the prison service so yes it was daunting in absolutely every way having said that you know when I when I went into my first prison I was surrounded by staff who probably a minimum had about 20 years experience it was a very low staff turnover,

very high staff morale. I was working with really emotionally intelligent people. I think when you think of prison officers, you think of perhaps physical interventions, restraints, etc. And that loses the focus on the real emotional intelligence of these people, how attuned they become to things like subtle shifts in atmosphere, you know, being able to pick up on a problem before it's happened, knowing when to talk, when not. So it was daunting, definitely, but I learned a huge amount from it. But that was a category, A prisons. They are prisoners that are there for a long time.

But you do paint a positive picture of that experience, some which you've said right there, the people that were around you. Tell me a little bit more about what life was like in that prison and also how those prisoners treated you. There wasn't many new staff. So at the time, I think I came with about, I think it was three of us. So yes, it was a very male-dominated environment, but I was supported from the moment, from the get-go.

As soon as I walked in there, I had huge support. There was a lot of investment in staff, a real emphasis on staff relationships, staff-prisoner relationships, which ultimately is what keeps you safe is investing in those relationships so you know i mentioned the hope and the optimism stuff because that's really what i took from that place and yes you've got really long-term prisoners there at that particular prison i think the average sentence was about 25 years but having said that i think sometimes there's a misconception of what a life sentence

means when actually the overwhelming majority of prisoners, they are getting out, they will be released. I think we have about 65, maybe 66 prisoners in the entire country with a whole life tariff. The majority of these people are getting out. So it's really important that we do as much as we can to support them, to prepare them for our own society and our own communities, because that's where they're going back to be. So this all sounds very much like rehabilitation that you were talking about, which of course would be, I would imagine, a huge purpose of taking up that job. But I am thinking you're female going in, you're much smaller, I would imagine,

than a lot of these people that you're coming up against. How did that feel? Were you physically intimidated at all? You know, not nearly as much as you would think. Why is that? Well, I definitely had that in my head. I would say that was my own kind of preconception. You're going up against people who you can't hide from the fact they have very violent backgrounds. But the skills that you can bring, you know, the overwhelming majority of situations you can

kind of talk yourself into and equally you can talk yourself out of and these are the skills that I learned in that job sort of negotiation and and being very aware of kind of circumstantial changes and different things going on for different people it's a much broader context to it like what I'm just trying to think of what a circumstantial change might be that you're like your antenna or so it'd be things like being aware of changes that are going on in a person's life if you're like your antenna or so it'd be things like being aware of changes that are going on in a person's life if you're approaching the anniversary of their crime that kind of thing you know there's so much more to the prison officer's work than obviously this

just idea of the physical issues going up against people they're big they're very real and in recent years those have exploded really which I think in part probably explains the statistics that you've mentioned. However, you know, the main skills that prison officer develops, in my experience, is the ability to talk to people, is the ability to form really positive, long lasting relationships that offer someone a way out. And I think as a woman, that's a particularly important skill to have. I mean, in very male dominant environments, particularly the prison that you mentioned, if you've got a male prisoner who's having a confrontation with a male member of staff, that can be really charged. You know, there's a lot going on there. There's issues of kind of masculinity and not wanting to back down, you know, versus another man. Or sometimes just a female presence can diffuse that to an extent because you're giving someone almost a

way out, you know, without losing face, so to speak. Gosh, yeah. It's like, I don't know what you call that. Some sort of not backhanded compliment is the thing. It's kind of, it's sexist, but it can be useful because they don't mind backing down. Tell me about Ben. Ben was someone you were assigned to look after. He could be quite unpredictable, I understand. One minute nice, and the next he's raging and screaming at you.

Yes, and that can be quite commonplace. So, for example, the wings that I was working on, they had about 120 men in, all single cells, and some of those prisoners hadn't left there, hadn't moved to a different cell, for example, for 10 years. So you see people in all different situations. You see them when they're having a good day, a bad day. Prison officers are there when they get a bad phone call,

when they wake up on the wrong side of the bed. And they can be really fraught, quite, you know, intense environments. White moor really focused. And, you know, all the prisons do focus on staff-prisoner relationships, and that's a really important thing to develop. But it can be intense, you know. And, you know, in that particular situation, I had someone who, for me, that behaviour was very difficult to predict,

could be very up, could be very down. And that's real life, you know, in that particular situation, I had someone who, for me, that behavior was very difficult to predict, could be very up, could be very down. And that's real life. You know, these are real people. These aren't sort of snapshots in documentaries. I will say that we have changed. You have changed the names in your book. Ben is not Ben. Yes.

No, no. Everything is changed. Yeah. But, you know, that particular example really demonstrated to me the additional weights on people. So that particular individual was at the time under an IPP sentence, which is indeterminate for public protection. So they do not know if, when they will ever get out. Exactly. You try to fathom what that would mean. You're putting someone away and they have no idea when they're getting out. And no idea isn't me kind of bigging up. It literally means no idea.

It's very difficult for, obviously for that individual, it's hard to fathom what that would be like. But also for staff to try and figure out those pressures. You can't offer them a certain regime, you can't offer them a certain course, because you don't know how long they're going to be inside to do it. So it's huge pressures on people. What he did, he accused you of having an inappropriate relationship with him. Do you want to tell our listeners a little bit about that and also the impact that it had on you perhaps? Yes, basically as I said he made an accusation and I was really well supported by staff. You know fortunately there was nothing to prove so to speak.

But it was a bit of a turning point for me because I had gone into prison with this idea that I could definitely try and help everyone I came across and you know I did have very good intentions. And I think there's real room for that. You know, there's amazing work that goes on in prisons every day. But it did have an impact on me. It definitely affected the way that I worked. And you had to prove your innocence as well for somebody you were trying to help. Yeah, it's a hard one, isn't it?

It's very conflicting. There wasn't really so much to prove there. I mean, you know, it was quite easily disproved. But, you know, it definitely demonstrated to me that there's a lot more going on than perhaps the things you see on the surface. So this idea of someone just locking, unlocking doors as an officer, there's so much more context to the people that you're dealing with.

In the book, you talk about a meeting you had with the prison ministry, you don't say which one, about your experience and what would be helpful to make the job better for prison officers. But you weren't happy with the response. Why? I left that meeting feeling very deflated. You know, the wording used was that the things I was asking for were fluffy. I don't think it's one person's responsibility necessarily. I don't think it's one person's poor decision or one government. But we need to do more. So what should they do if you were to give your top number one thing that could be instituted?

Prisons need more time out of cells. I mean, it's hard to, the logistics of that can be difficult. I know we're low in staff in most prisons, I think, but if people are just stuck behind a door, it's very hard to imagine them coming out feeling motivated, energised, wanting to do better. You know, they're bored, they're fed up, tempers flare, and that impacts on the staff who have to deal with it. I'd say some of my listeners would say, so what if they're locked up in the sense of that is the punishment for their crime? The questions we have to be asking, what do you want from prison? Because we don't lock people up for life. You know, they are coming out, that is happening. And how do you want

them to feel when they do? And I think probably most people would have the same answer. You know, we want to feel safer. We want our streets to feel safer. Former prison officer Alex South speaking to Nuala. Still to come on the programme, TikTok Nans. Have you heard of the trend? I speak to 89-year-old Norma and her granddaughter Jess about their newfound fame on social media. And remember, you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day

if you can't join us live at 10am during the week. All you need to do is head to BBC Sounds, search for Woman's Hour and it's free. Now, a bar is due to open in Portsmouth this month, themed on Jack the Ripper. It's described as an immersive cocktail and dining experience with a modern horror twist. The publicity features a young woman in Victorian dress being followed at night by a mysterious man. Objections have been raised to the idea of trading on the at night by a mysterious man. Objections have been raised to the idea of trading on the notoriety of a serial killer. However, their

alcohol licence has now been granted by the City Council, and there's clearly a lot of local interest in the business already. The owner has said, there's always a fine line when working on things like this. We are working really hard not to upset anyone. Well, Nuala spoke to Hallie Rubenhold, author of The Five, a book which painstakingly reconstructs the lives of the five women who were killed by the so-called Ripper in 1888. Nuala first asked her for her reaction to the bar opening. It's just more of the same, isn't it? Turning Jack the Ripper into a fun night out, you know, making Jack the Ripper into a sort of scary costume figure. Not really considering that Jack the Ripper was a real person who murdered real people. Do you think that's it, that people who are going or who are intrigued by this idea don't

think of Jack the Ripper as a real person? Yeah, I think so. I mean, I've heard all sorts of people say things about, oh, well, you know what happened so long ago, who really cares, and, you know, it's just a lot of fun. But then what's quite interesting is that I've also encountered people who've had their minds really changed. You know, people come up to me and who've said, you know, I used to be really obsessed with this case.

I used to be really obsessed with Jack the Ripper and I found it all really interesting. And, you know, I wanted to know who he was and all of this information about him and how he killed the women. And then I read about the women. And then I realized, oh, well, maybe it's better that I actually look at this in the round and understand who these people were and come to terms with the fact that these were horrific, violent crimes which were perpetrated on ordinary women, on people, on real people. And would you name the five victims for our listeners? Yes, they were Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly.

And you reconstructed the lives of these women for your book, The Five. How did you do that? The interesting thing about this is in the past, people tended to just focus on trying to figure out who Jack the Ripper's identity was. And so there's a whole lot of information about that. There isn't a huge amount written. Well, there wasn't very much at all written about who the women were. But the most fascinating thing is actually we know more about them than we know about him. There's more about them in the records, you know, in censuses, in workhouse records, in parish records, in birth and death records, all of these things than we will ever know about the murderer. And what I had to do was piece together these bits of historical detail, do research, figure out who these women were and put them in the context of their era.

So we may not know the absolute precise thoughts and feelings of these women, but we will know the experiences of women just like them who were going through similar things at the same time. And so it was about putting these women within a context of their time and understanding their experiences and understanding who they were through that. How do you understand the obsession with Jack the Ripper? I mean, you know, we're talking about this bar, but there are, you don't have to look too far from where I am to find a tour in London that focuses on him. I think a lot of people are really surprised when I say that I think these tours, you know,

we're never going to stop the tours. And I'm not so sure stopping the tours, and I say this with air quotes, is actually really a good thing. I mean, people have been touring the East End within days of the first woman being murdered. And people have a natural curiosity to understand about what happened. And so I wouldn't want to ban this. But what I would really like is if people really tried to understand who these women were, and the way and to try to tell the story in a slightly different way, which wasn't about figuring out who he was, but understanding the context, understanding the time, understanding the women and their lives, and their lives were mysterious to us, and are still in some ways

mysterious to us, because we don't have all the details of their lives and so if you're looking for mystery there's inherent mystery in in them it's so interesting a lot of the aspects that that you bring up there but it does seem to be that the obsession is on the mystery of jack the ripper as opposed to these women and i believe you for example were on the receiving end of some Ripper fans that didn't like that you were putting the emphasis on the women. How did you understand that? You know, I mean, I've done a sort of deep dive into trying to understand what exactly was going on with this. And I mean, I think it's really complex and it's really about

personalities and it's about stepping on egos. And, you know, there are a whole community of people who feel a sort of ownership over these women and their stories and over Jack the Ripper and the entire narrative. Like they are the only ones who have ever done any research and know anything about this. It's really extraordinary because the moment an outsider, someone like me, comes in and says, well, actually, you know, there's another way of looking at these stories. And you can look at it through this perspective and you can look at it through the women's eyes. And, you know, you can look here and you can put it together like this.

And it was this sort of outrage. How dare this woman come in and tell us we've been doing this wrong? I've been studying this for decades. And, you know, and we certainly would have found this out if it were true. And so I was called a liar. I was accused of just wanting to cash in on all of this. You know, and there's a real lot of gatekeeping going on, you know, that they're the only ones who could possibly ever know anything about Jack the Ripper. It was terrible. I mean, I was trolled for years.

I'm still occasionally trolled. And I had a stalker as well. It's very, very unwell. I think, you know, you can be interested in Jack the Ripper, of course. We all have a kind of natural interest in terrifying things that make our skin crawl. But I think then it gets to a point where you can be too obsessed and too interested. What you're talking about there, I can understand, but it doesn't intersect with going out for a night of cocktails in a bar that has a Jack the Ripper theme. No, I mean, this is a real problem. And it's a real problem with regard to how our culture understands Jack the Ripper and what it means. You know, it's a sort of joke.

It's a gag to some people. It's a Halloween costume. It's not a real thing. You know, the reality is this person or persons brutally murdered five maybe more women but certainly five we know of who were on the margins of society and you know this caused ripples throughout their community and you know it was terrible for their families um and you know and they have descendants alive today and one of them a descendant of Annie Chapman, lives near Portsmouth. You know, he's the great, great grandson of Annie Chapman, the second victim. And, you know, he's not thrilled about this. So we have to think, you know, these were real women.

And Jack the Ripper was a real person. This isn't like, it's not Jekyll and Hyde. It's not Dracula, you know, who were all written about at the same time. This is a real person who killed real women. Do you think that fascination of true crime is more acute when it is a man that has murdered a woman? That's very, very interesting. I think true crime is fascinating no matter who commits it. I think certainly the male crimes, the male perpetrators

seem to have a higher profile than any female criminals. And they seem to be turned in, and I hate to say this, and my toes are curling literally as I'm saying this, they become almost like rock stars. And that's grotesque. You know, so you have, you know, these names that we know, Jack the Ripper, Ted Bundy, you know, Jeffrey Dahmer, who killed men. You know, and we remember these names and we can rattle them off. But why? Why do we remember these names?

What's the point of that? It's horrific. Instead of remembering the victims. Instead of remembering the victims. Historian and author Hallie Rubenhold, who has also made two series of a podcast called Bad Women, which explores these themes. Well, we approached the owner of Ripper & Co. Portsmouth for a statement. Dan Swan told us we're working with Portsmouth City Council and looking at partnering up with a women's rights charity going forward to help raise awareness in the near future. We've moved away from the original plans in terms of the decor in the venue and are theming it more on classic movie horror characters. He also said that the news of the bar opening has been met with excitement and positive comments. Councillor Ian Holder, Cabinet Member for Safety

in the community at Portsmouth City Council, said, Venue names aren't covered by licensing laws. However, we are in direct contact with the owner of the bar to highlight and address people's understandable concerns as part of the work we're already doing with venues to tackle violence against women and girls. We're working with partner organisations in the city to establish a network of businesses and venues where staff are trained to look out for abusive behaviour and support those who've experienced harassment or sexual violence. Now, have you heard of hashtag Nantalk? It's a trend

on TikTok in which people post videos with their nan showing the loving and sometimes spirited dynamic between grandmothers and their grandchildren. If you've come across this before you may well have heard of Jess and Norma. Jess is 27, Norma is 89. They're super close and see each other every day. They're from a small town in Nottinghamshire and they post videos to their 1.4 million followers showing everyday moments of their life. In one video they're eating fish and chips together, in another Norma is critiquing Jess's fashion choices. Well I spoke to both Norma and her granddaughter Jess and Jess told me why she began posting about her gran. So I've always posted my nan on my personal social medias and I was posting them

a lot on Snapchat and everybody would reply and say your nan is so funny and you need to put her on TikTok so I did just that I posted a video of my nan and the video was her um she wasn't very keen on my brother's first tattoos and it did it did really quite well on there and then it just just continued to grow how are you how are you enjoying the fame norma well we've had some very lovely people stop us when we go out we never get very far without someone coming up and saying oh you're less than norma and that's the thing i kind of was used to but you know everyone has been so lovely and so nice. And I have to have a picture taken on some of them, don't I?

Yes, it's been an adventure that has really come to this that I am comfortable with it and very happy about it. Good. That's what we like to hear. And in one video, Norma, Jess bought a very tiny bikini. You didn't seem too keen on it. I wonder what you generally think about the fashion young people wear today. Some of them, I think, look exactly right. But it's things that you think, oh, my goodness, whatever my mum have thought about.

You know, it's so... I mean, the thing that strikes me as much as anything is a young girl in a very pretty summer dress and then she's got boots on. Oh, yeah. That doesn't go well with me. But I like that. This is where we're different, isn't it?

Yeah, well, look at the years. They're a lot different. It's fashion. We had our fashion, wasn't it? Dad. My dad still can't understand the boots things. He just says, oh, you've got your bother boots on. I think we should let everyone hear an example

of one of your very, very funny TikTok moments. Norma, in some of the videos, you're trying to give Jess money and sometimes the two of you bicker over it here's an example nan i'm going to put it in your purse no please don't jessica don't upset me why it's all right but stuff takes money these days come on no you i'll put it back no no no no no please no. Please, no. Oh, Nan! If you could accept it in the way I've given it to you, with love and help,

so put it in your... in here. It's such a lovely moment. It's so relatable. And I have to just give everyone context who hasn't seen it. They're in the car and all you see is Norma eating fish and chips, trying to slip... Jess, is it a tenner? Yeah, it's a tenner, yeah. Norm Norma why do you want to give her money because it gives me pleasure to

see her happy and I don't want her to get you know prices of petrol and things like that yes I love to help back I can't even buy you a pint of milk without you trying to stop it. Well, no, there are other things, Jess, that you bring in, definitely. But, you know, it gives me pleasure. I feel like I've helped her back how she helps me. Yeah. How does she help you? Oh, she's an absolute angel. You know, Jess knows everything as it goes along,

what I'm doing, what I want. Every step I take, especially in the shower, she just knows. You know, if I say something like, could you get me some fresh bread out of the freezer? She shouts back, I've done it. She sees everything and she's a great comfort. I've got a lovely family, but Jess's mum, my daughter, she works long hours.

So Jess does the majority of it. But they're always there for me. Why are you so close, do you think, Jess? I think it's because my mum and dad were divorced when I was quite young. And obviously my mum had to work. That's just life, isn't it? She had to. And I spent a lot of time with you, didn't I?

Yes, you did. We spent a lot of time together. And I think that has just made us have this special bond. and I spent a lot of time with you, didn't I? Yes, you did. We spent a lot of time together, and I think that has just made us have this special bond, and now... It seemed to come like this sort of all of a sudden, but I can't tell you when it happened. I think as I've matured, I've really realised what my nan gave me as a child

and how special it was, and I think I'm now at an age where I want to give her that back, and we are very fortunate that we can spend so much time together it's amazing it is we love it don't we we do all we do is laugh I know that's what I was going to say you've got a very similar sense of humor you do make each other keel over with laughter quite often don't you oh you know sometimes I can't get my breath for laughing. I can't. It's just we answer each other back.

We've got a good banter between us. You really do. We're on the same wavelength, but when me, you and my mum are together, all three of us. Oh, it's just, it's even worse. It's beautiful to watch, you know, the generations and the connection between you. It really is.

Norma, a lot of people feel quite lonely in society, especially older people. I just wondered what you might think about this. What do you think about older people being lonely? It's frightening. It bothers me dreadfully. Someone on their own and probably no relations and something goes wrong and they have to use the phone and they don't know quite who to ring. I don't have any of that. And I think it's sad. I think everybody should love somebody and be loved back.

That's very nice bit of advice there. Thank you, Norma. And I want to know about other advice that your nan might give you, Jess. What about dating advice? Oh, she's very, very good with that. So my partner, Jake, when I first started seeing him I wasn't sure he didn't want anything serious and he made that very clear so I told my nan about the situation we do tell each other everything yes we do yeah and she said no no my love you go he'll soon realise he'll know. And here we are three years later and happier than ever.

And they are so happy. It's just my heart. Good to see that. Is he a nice lad? Is he a nice lad? Absolutely. He's one of a kind, isn't he? He is, yeah.

I never expected you to meet someone like that. No, me neither. I'm very lucky. You two. You're making my heart melt this morning. And what do your mates make of you spending so much time with your nan they know that we've always been like this so it's not um unusual to them I don't think but I don't think they spend as much time with their grandparents I think we're a bit of an unusual well possibly because people have to go

out to work and yeah you know um a lot of people live quite far away from their grandparents. Certainly a lot of my friends do, so it's not as easy. But we've always been so close. Yes. Well, when Jess is at home, she's got her own home now. We're about five minutes away, around the corner, my family. My daughter's still there and my grandson. So, you know, they come around here at the drop of a hat

yeah yeah sometimes you can't really get rid of us can you how heartwarming and delightful was that conversation with jess and norma now the young singer-songwriter olivia dean has collaborated with the likes of loyal karner and leon bridges earned a reputation for her stellar live shows and at the age of 24 has already achieved her three goals, performing on Later with Jools Holland at Glastonbury and she's just released her debut album, Messy, which, if you haven't heard it, is excellent. She joined Nula and told her all about her album.

I'm very proud of it as a piece of work and if you like music and good music for the soul, give it a listen, give it a go why is it called messy um I think I quite enjoyed flipping the narrative of the word messy I feel like it's often used as quite a negative word and um in an age of people pretending to be perfect all the time I thought it was quite refreshing to say I'm a mess my room is a mess my life can be quite messy and and that's okay And maybe yours is too. And just, I don't know, I just enjoy embracing imperfections. I think complexity is the spice of life. So what was your musical background growing up?

I've been singing since I was like eight years old. I was very shy as a child. So I really enjoyed musical theatre because it was like I was able to sing, but other people's stories. You know, I didn't have to talk about myself myself but I could still be a part of it and then I just sort of just fell in love with music ever since then I've never wanted to do anything else and I started learning piano and guitar around 15 16 and writing my own songs and then now I've sort of ended up here on women's that's great and they were delighted to have you you went to the Brit school I did indeed yeah did that help yeah I mean I was there for you. You went to the Brit school. I did indeed. Yeah. Did that help? Yeah.

I mean, I was there for four years and it was the best thing I ever did because it just allowed me to really focus in on what I wanted to do. And I met all my best friends there and they're listening right now. My housemates, we always have women's hour in the kitchen. That's what I like to hear. Let's go to Glastonbury because we can talk about the time you performed when you're back on Women's Hour when you're headlining. Yes yeah okay how was it um again it's something I've wanted to do my whole life and I feel like it's such a stamp of legitimacy to play Glastonbury

and let alone play it not once but three times and then meet Elton John before his before his set how is that I mean surreal it's El, you know. I had 10 minutes with him and I got to sit down. What did you talk about? I mean, I can't really remember all of it, but he just said that he loved the album and that he thought I was going to be a big star. And I said,

how are you feeling for the show? And he said, you know, excited. And then I said, I won't keep you. Can I get a pic for my mum? And then I trotted off. And his, of course, everybody was tuning in to Elton as well. How wonderful.

You know, all these things we're talking about that you've done, Matt, Elton John, have your album out, later with Jules Holland, you did that as well. You're 24. I am, yeah. I don't know what's going on, really.

I mean, I think I've been very dedicated to music for like most of my life. So maybe that's got a part to play. Also luck, I think. You manifest as well. I manifest, yeah. I think you have to be a bit delusional also to do music in this way you just have to go I will headline Glastonbury I will and then you just sort of end up there maybe I love that thinking um you write your songs what inspires them um just people really I wouldn't say I'm a hugely abstract person. I'm more interested in small things, you know, human interaction, terms of phrase, things people say to each other,

and love. I love love and all different facets of it, you know, just not just romantic, like friendship, the love I have for my family. I just... Well, let me ask about that, because one of the tracks on your album is called Carmen. Yes. So this is probably the most proud I've ever been of anything I've created. And I hope it's a song that lives past me and my grandkids, because that's the crazy thing about music. My grandmother,

yes. And she came over in the wind rush when she was 18. Never been on a plane before from Guyana, yeah. And, you know, moved to southeast London, worked in the police canteen, and had my mum. My mum had me. And I just think, what a decision to make at 18. You know, I'm 24 and I'm like, I don't know if I could move alone to the other side of the world.

I have a feeling you could. Maybe. It might be quite nice to go to the Caribbean, hey? Singer-songwriter Olivia Dean. And that's it from me and the team at Woman's Hour HQ Thank you so much for your company as usual Join Nuala on Monday where she'll be discussing female plumbers That's right, just 2% of plumbers are women And she'll speak to two of them to find out the challenges of the job

And ask if there are any positives being a woman in a male-dominated industry That's Woman's Hour on Monday, 10am Have a great rest of your weekend. 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.

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