Woman's Hour - Off the Rails Film, Bella Mackie, Long Covid, #MeToo around the world

Episode Date: July 22, 2021

Jules Williamson has directed her first feature film in her fifties. The premier is tonight. Off the Rails is a celebration of women. It centres round four friends who went Inter-railing when they were 19, who when one of them dies, revisit the same journey later in life taking her daughter this time. It’s a comedy drama with a great female cast - starring Sally Phillips, the late Kelly Preston (in her final role), Dame Judi Dench and Jenny Seagrove. Jules and Sally Phillips join Chloe Tilley to explain how long it took to bring this story to the screen, the messages of friendship and ‘anything is possible’, and why it has an iconic Blondie soundtrack.The number of young people hospitalised with eating disorders in England has risen during the pandemic, a BBC investigation has found. Data from NHS Digital showed the number of under-20s admitted over the past year was more than 3,200 - nearly 50% higher than in 2019-20. Hospitals are warning they are running out of beds to care for these patients, and waits for community treatment have lengthened as the number of referrals has increased. BEAT estimate 1.25million people in the UK have an eating disorder. The condition can affect anyone at any time, but girls and young women aged 12-20 are most at risk. To discuss the issues Chloe is joined by Professor Sandeep Ranote, Consultant Paediatric Psychiatrist in Eating Disorders.What has the impact of the ~MeToo movement had around the world? A new book ‘Awakening’: #MeToo and the Global Fight for Women’s Rights contains stories of women around the world who, inspired by the #MeToo movement have worked fearlessly in promoting the rights of women in their countries, sometimes at the risk of their own safety and potential imprisonment. We hear from Fakhrriyyah Hashim who pioneered the conversation on sexual violence in Northern Nigeria and from the book’s co-author, and former president of the Malala Fund, Meighan Stone.How To Kill Your Family is the darkly comic first novel by Bella Mackie. Grace has calmly murdered six members of her family but is serving a prison sentence for a murder she didn't actually commit. Bella joins Chloe Tilley to talk about female rage and to explain how she became steeped in crime and murder as a small child while reading unsuitable true crime with her Dad.Long Covid is estimated to have affected over two million people in the UK - with the majority being women. The condition is an umbrella term for a whole range of symptoms, from fatigue and brain fog to respiratory, heart and gut problems. But for those hospitalised with Covid-19, post-Covid symptoms can be so serious that a third will require readmission within six months and 1 in 8 will die. In an attempt to find treatments, a clinical trial is underway to test whether two safe and widely-available drugs can make a difference to long-term Covid recovery. A new trial called HEAL-COVID is being led by three female researchers. The lead is Dr Charlotte Summers from Cambridge University who tells Chloe about how people currently in hospital can take part.

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, I'm Chloe Tilley. Welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning, welcome to the programme. Now, how many of us achieve our lifelong ambition in our 50s? Well, for Jules Williamson, that's what she's achieved by directing her first feature film, Off The Rails. It's inspired by her own life, it's a celebration of women and middle-aged women who aren't always visible in film.

It's got a stellar cast, and Jules and actor Sally Phillips are going to be here with us to tell us more. And the film is all about women repeating an inter-railing journey from their teens. And this morning, I want to hear your achievements in your 50s. Jules made a feature film after years of being told the industry wasn't interested in making a film about older women. So what have you battled to achieve?

How satisfying was it? And did it give you a new lease of life? Or is there something that you are desperate to tackle, but something's just holding you back? You can text me now on 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. Do check with your network provider for exact costs. On social media, it's at BBC Woman's Hour. And of course, you can email us through your website. Lots of you getting in touch with us already this morning. Fab Coach has tweeted to say, in my 50s, I set up a coaching business to help people who wanted a new lease of life. And I started climbing and embracing tech. Hashtag, it's never too late. And London City Mum has tweeted saying, I built a new venture from scratch to encompass a passion for cycling,

outdoors and bringing communities together. Now expanding to other sites with a groundswell of support, both local and further afield. Remuneration, zero. Satisfaction, incalculable. Happiness, priceless. Thank you for getting in touch with us

with those stories. You do the same. It'd be really good to hear what you've achieved, you're proud of in your 50s. You can text us on 84844. Now, we've spoken at length about the Me Too movement here and in the US, but we're also going to be looking into

the global impact of the movement. Speaking to one activist in Nigeria who has challenged society's views of women in a religiously conservative region. But has it made a difference to their lives? Plus, we'll be joined by Megan Stone, whose collated women's stories from across the world about their fight to bring about change. Also, we'll be speaking to one of the all-female-led team who've set up a clinical trial

aimed at cutting the number of people being readmitted to hospital with long Covid. And dropping by will be the writer and journalist Bella Mackey. She's going to be talking about her first novel, How to Kill Your Family. That's a dark comedy. It looks at female rage and revenge and was inspired by her watching true crime documentaries with her father as a child. But let's begin by talking about the number of young people with eating disorders in England who are ending up in hospital has risen during the pandemic. This is after a BBC investigation. Data from NHS Digital showed the number of under 20s admitted over the past year was more than 3,200. That's nearly 50% higher than in 2019-2020. Well hospitals are warning they're running out of beds to care for these patients and waits for community treatment have lengthened as the number of

referrals has increased. Well let's speak now to Professor Sandeep Ranute who is Consultant Paediatric Psychiatrist in Eating Disorders. Good morning. Good morning Chloe, delighted that you're covering this very important topic. And it is so important isn't. Delighted that you're covering this very important topic. And it is so important, isn't it? I mean, is it clear at this stage why there has been this leap? Like with everything, it's going to take time to research. We know that COVID and the impact of lockdown and prolonged lockdown, we're learning things every day, but some of the theories and also listening to some of the young people and families, I guess it's not rocket science, but what we're finding is that for many young people and young adults, they have been out of

school, they've been out of further education colleges, higher education, employment, for instance, and they've been under prolonged lockdown, which is not a natural phenomenon for any of us. It's been challenging for all of us. That means for a lot, that's a loss of structure, loss of routine, loss of that timetabled exercise, learning. They have lost their peer group support. And for many, that's a really positive thing. After school activities, creative activities activities all of those things were taken away so that's a really really important point to note um so for some that may have been at risk but never uh may have presented to services it's triggered an eating disorder for those that already had an eating disorder or were at risk

potentially has made things worse the fear the fear of fear of a novel virus, we've all been afraid, haven't we? So that fear can breed anxiety and that can also be an important trigger for people who have eating disorders or who are at risk of eating disorders. And when we say eating disorders, we're generally talking about anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder. We also know that for many many being at home can be a positive but also it can be and has been negative for many people who've been in small spaces, don't have access to green spaces or just outside environments and school for many can be a real

positive. Let's not forget the amazing work that our teachers do, our frontline essential teachers. They have tried to still deliver that education online. But for many, it's been a very variable experience. And that digital divide and digital inequality has been there. So that pastoral care has been lost as well. Often teachers are the first people to recognise early signs. It's easier for some young people to hide away at home. They're in isolation. They're more scared.

And what we're hearing from young people is although social media and the Internet are ways of keeping connected, they can also have a negative effect with longer periods of time available to be on social media, particularly for eating disorders. So not one reason, lots of different things there. Let's talk about how hospitals are coping, because I said in the introduction, hospitals are running out of beds. What does that actually mean for young people who are being admitted to hospital right now? So, you know, a really important question. And for someone who still absolutely works clinically in services

that's really it's really difficult for our workforce it's really difficult for families and young people but as a system we are reviewing our models we're trying to find ways in order that we can still support young people and families in the right way with the right treatment at the right time but we are going to have to work differently so we've seen this surge you mentioned that 50 increase in people presenting hospital admissions we haven't you know grown our workforce capacity and expertise overnight have we that kind of expertise doesn't grow overnight but what we can do is change the way in which we work. We have brilliant voluntary and community sector organisations in our system like BEAT. Working with those kind of organisations in partnership potentially allows us to change, to bring in additional workforce capacity, looking at alternatives to admission. We have our acute paediatric services are under great pressure at the moment because we're seeing the winter pressures arrive early with respiratory infections. So we know that we've got to balance care for every child, every young person.

So that means we're working very hard together across the system with our paediatricians, with our social care colleagues, with our schools and with our voluntary sector, a really huge untapped resource, but also organisations like COOF that we're working with across the board who deliver digital and online interventions. And that's the way we are at pace trying to review the models so that we have to prioritise those young people that are at higher risk, obviously, but still that does not mean if you're a parent, carer, young person at lower risk, that you will just be left on a waiting list. What we're trying to look at is a waiting well approach. What support can we provide that might not be your face-to-face therapeutic intervention

yet, but there are lots of other things we can do. Well, this is the thing because parents will be listening to this. I know that this BBC investigation found out that some of these young people are actually being put on general wards, which is clearly not ideal for these people. And parents listening to this who have a child who is in this situation, it is a desperate time for them. They're going to be really worried because we know that early support is crucial. Is there any advice that you can give to parents who are listening now who are feeling quite alone and quite desperate? But that's about the right clinical assessment if we actually have to stabilise their physical health. So please don't be scared about that as well. It's about the right thing. But for parents and carers, I'm a parent myself of three boys.

So I'm speaking as both a professional and a parent. Please don't feel alone. Do not suffer in silence. If there's one piece of advice that I would give to all parents and carers and young people listening today is get on the BEAT website, B-E-A-T. They have helplines for young people, for parents, for carers. They've also set up a dedicated online chat room service called Sanctuary during COVID in recognition of that increased need and the increased need for support. There is also peer support that is available through BEAT. So please do that and remember that every locality has 24-hour mental health crisis lines through the NHS that are free to call and local mental health services with specialist community eating disorder services for young people. Please find out. Do not sit alone and suffer in silence. There is help available

and you can get better from eating disorders. And I know that one important message you want to get across is it's not anyone's fault. Absolutely. Thank you for reminding me of that, Chloe. It absolutely is crucial. Just as diabetes, asthma and epilepsy are recognised real illnesses, these are real illnesses, neurobiological illnesses that do happen. This is not your fault. This is not your fault as a young person or as a parent or as a carer. What we need to do is see this as illness that we need as a system to come around and be part

of your team in helping you to get better with the right tools. Professor Sandeep Ranoo, thank you so much for joining us this morning. She's Consultant Paediatric Psychiatrist in Eating Disorders. Now, Jules Williamson has directed her first feature film in her 50s. The premiere is tonight. Off the Rails is a celebration of women with a great female cast. It stars Sally Phillips, the late Kelly Preston in her final role, Dame Judi Dench and Jenny Seagrove. It was inspired by Jules' own life and has an iconic Blondie soundtrack. You could tell I was no debutante You asked me what's my pleasure A movie or a measure I'll have a cup of tea

And tell you of my dreaming Dreaming Well, I'm delighted to say we're joined now by Jules and by Sally Phillips, who plays Liz. Good morning to both of you. Good morning. Thanks for having us. It's a pleasure. Sally, I could see you dancing away to Blondie there. Yeah, well, you know, memories.

Jules, tell us, first of all, about the plot so that people can follow what your thinking is in this film? Yes, of course. So it's about four women who had inter-rail when they were 19 and they had promised they would do it again when they were 40, but circumstances, life got in the way essentially. And then when one of them dies, she leaves a request for them to do the same journey, but this time to take her 18-year-old daughter with them. So they go on exactly the same interrail. And as the title suggests, they go off the rails, which has hilarious results. But also it's very moving.

I mean, it's just the perfect film for now because of everything that we've been through for the last 18 months. And, you know, it's very moving, but it's also hilariously funny, which obviously you'd expect with Sally in it. Although I just like to say now she is the most extraordinarily straight actress.

And the more straight roles she gets, the world will be a happier place because she has that wonderful ability to straddle both. And you really see that in the film, along with Jenny Seagrove, who's just wonderful in it. And of course, Lizzie Dormer Phillips, who plays the daughter, who does an amazing, amazing performance for her first big role.

And the late Kelly Preston, which I'm sure we'll talk about, which is an extraordinary mess for us all. So that's essentially the sum up. But it has been described as a warm hug. And it is. It really is but it it celebrates the power of female friendship and I think that is what um we've always truly believed would speak to the audience um and you know they want to go out now to the cinema they want to be out there enjoying this kind of film um and be able to laugh and cry and sing and dance if they can, obviously, and, you know, have a few drinks. It's that, it is that going out feel good evening. Well, you talk about the amazing cast that you've got there. You've got Dame Judi Dench, you've got Kelly Preston,

Sally Phillips, of course, Jenny Seagrove. Let's have a listen and get a flavour of it. I'm hot. It's hot. Aren't you hot? It's a hot flush. A little pass. And the menopause, it is just unrelentingly bleak. It's like puberty without hope. I refuse to accept that. I'm not going to roll over and die just because Aunt Flo has left the neighborhood. This age is the best age. That's complete bollocks. Of the 32 symptoms of menopause, I have 34. You know, I have got old patches on my tuppence. What symptoms have you had? You haven't had that? I get so irritated with people.

I want to kill them if they do stupid things. And I did. I forget what I'm doing right in the middle of doing it. And my breasts are so swollen. Every cloud. I thought you'd had a boob job. They do look good. They are magnificent. Sally, I was chuckling the whole way through that. What I love about this, and we'll talk about your character in a moment, but let's pick up on that, to actually have a film that talks about menopause. Well, that is down to Jules. So you gave me a big fluff there, Jules.

I'll give you one. I mean, it's Jules' first feature and you can see it's incredibly confident. And she's a wonderful person. And it's very tragic, I i think that she hasn't been allowed i think we can acknowledge that there is a bit of a barrier to it's only something like is it eight percent of all features directed by women or something like that it's very very low and so to have managed to persuade some uh because film is run by white men white rich white men to manage to persuade and some of them are absolutely delightful, including our rich white man, Phil Kenwright, who's produced it.

But she's managed to persuade some rich white men to put money in and to back her. And she was very clear that she wanted to be very, very open and honest about the reality of experience of women in their 50s, because otherwise, why bother? And in a world where success is looking young for your age you know I mean if I'm people think they're complimenting me by going oh you look you look younger than you are like I mean why why do we have a world where that is necessarily a

compliment there's sort of two things aren't they they're really wonderful about getting older and and one of them is is friendship the depths of your friendships and the other thing is just how you how you stop caring and start being more open with each other. And Jules was very open, weren't you, Jules? And so was Jenny. And it was a bit terrifying about how horrific menopause can be. In fact, Jules probably spoke to me for many more hours

than I really wanted about her own menopause. And the irony was, so this was Jules' story that had happened in her own life, and I'm sure she'll tell you about that. And it had been sort of written up by a young, completely genius boy screenwriter, 24-year-old, I think, who had two mums and knew a lot about grief in older women,

but obviously couldn't write the menopause stuff. So we had this sort of slot for a menopause scene. And Jules and I kind of sort of bashed it out the night before, didn't we? We did, we did. In a hotel in Paris. Yes, it was. And while doing that,

I discovered that I was too going through the menopause. It was only through reading the reading. I thought it was just a horrific divorce, you know, but actually it turns out through the menopause. It was only through reading the reading. I thought it was just a horrific divorce, you know, but actually it turns out, turns out it was menopause. And yeah, that's the scene. Yeah. You drew the line at atrophying vaginas. I think that was the point where you said, no, I think we can move on from that.

From what? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Atrophy. Vaginal atrophy. Yeah. Kelly wouldn't let me say that. Yeah. And it was awful when I said bald patches on my tuppence, which I don't have. But the whole, because a lot of it was sort of improvised, the whole crew looked at me like in a totally different way after I'd said that line.

And actually until he played it, just then I'd forgotten it was in there. So there we go. That's my next press question. How much of a challenge was it, Jules, to get this actually made? I mean, Sally's alluding to it there. You know, there are so many barriers in the film industry. And I know that you tried for a long time. And there just was a lack of interest in thinking anyone would want to know about middle aged women.

Yes, that's right. I mean, it was, it was at a point, well, 19 years ago, where I was, I've been very fortunate. I'd made my first film. I'd been nominated for BAFTA. I'd won the Palm Springs Film Festival. And I was working with my very, very dear friend, Arabella Page Croft. And had originated this she was producing it and we were obviously being asked to to meet people to talk about what we wanted to do next and this was one of the projects the other one was a war film that was obviously quite tricky for a female director as well at that point but anyway so it was just clear that people weren't seeing the market potential for a film about women in their 40s as it was then so um anyway uh we were cut to about six years later and six years ago rather and i said to

our belly look you know it's clear that things have changed um you know we've seen obviously the success of mama mia but also films like Blue Jasmine, where Cate Blanchett talked about the industry realising that women wanted to see themselves being represented and their age groups being represented on screen. And Arabella has always been passionate about this project and said, yeah, come on, let fell in love with it almost immediately and has been an absolute champion and a brilliant producer alongside Arabella. And, you know, he has fought tirelessly to get this where it is today. And it hasn't been easy for him either. I mean, you know, you could be forgiven because there are now examples for thinking that older women are now on screen. But Nikki Clark, an amazing actress and activist, has just given up running her Acting Your Age campaign because of the total indifference but she sent me some stats through and um she said that in the 20 years the last 20 years 20 years since 2000 the average age of female nominees for the BAFTAs has gone down 20 years from 52 to 32 while the male um uh equivalent has gone down from 48 to 45, only three years, which means that in 2019, Brad Pitt,

as the youngest in his category for nominations for Best Actor, was still older than Laura Dern, who was the oldest. So it is, and although there is sort of, there is sort of parity, there is sort of gender parity, but it's middle- in actually on screen it's middle aged men and young women and this feeling of as they say you know success being youth and um you can have talent as long as it's new fresh talent and um so it has been a struggle for them and and i as a middle-aged woman who hasn't had botox and whose face is collapsing around her neck. That is not true. I can see you. I'm hoping to grow a huge, no, but you know what I mean? I'm very grateful and I've benefited from this.

And I'm really aware that there aren't many of these opportunities. And I'm very, very lucky to have landed it. Let's talk as well, because you did both allude to this. This was Kelly Prestston's last film she died last year and in fact she was ill while she was filming wasn't she did either of you have any awareness of of that no no we didn't know um and so you know it was all the more shocking when we found out afterwards and um the extraordinary thing about kelly was that she had I mean obviously she she's a she was an incredibly experienced actress um uh but but her her vivacity on and off uh set was

extraordinary and her love and and and passion for the project, which obviously has similarities to her own life. And I can only imagine she saw that. And that's one of the reasons why she wanted to tell this story and be part of it. And she just was extraordinary. We all became very, very close, which Sally had talked about previously today. And, you know, we were like a little gang really weren't we sally and i think you can see that on screen you can see the the friendship the camaraderie and the energy of that friendship on screen um what was interesting for me was that jules has you know

through the uh you know the glass ceiling that has prevented her from doing big features, has done a lot of documentary work, which women are allowed to do. You know, yeah, there are still more documentaries about paedophiles made in Britain than there are about films and dramas and comedies about women over 45. So that's really shocking. Anyway, Jules, you haven't made ones about paedophiles,

but you have made a lot of documentaries and so you your way of directing I loved because Jules did quite a lot of allowing us just to exist and capturing the reality so we did a lot of you would call it improv but really it was just sort of being together as those people and so the relationships that came out of it were very real. And so Kelly's loss, it's not just like, it's not, I mean, I know losing a colleague is bad, but it, you know, it does feel like losing a friend. Yeah, very much so.

It's very bittersweet to be bringing the film out, obviously, without her. It's, you know, we all feel the loss terribly. And, you know, that goes for the producers as well, Arabella and Bill. You know, it goes deep within all of us. But, you know, the thing is, she would want this to be a celebration of her life and a celebration of new beginnings. And I think that's what the film gives us um you know it is so I think that um she's a she was a brilliant comic actress and I'm just so happy that she shines so much in the film I mean

we couldn't ask for more really I think apart from obviously wanting to be with us now Sally I'm hoping this might make you smile because lots of people have been getting in touch with us while they're listening to our conversation and Jackie has has just texted to say, I loved Sally Phillips line in the film about having ball patches in her tuppence. I'm very disappointed to hear it's not actually true, as I have got ball patches in mine. And I was glad to hear I wasn't alone. Oh, I'm sorry. Well, you know, it saves on the old laser, doesn't it? This is true.

We've got another message which comes in here. Hurrahrah for this film thank goodness for some straight talking about female rage menopausal discomfort and the importance of relationships in middle age gree has said that society isn't interested in middle-aged women and not even middle-aged women are interested in middle-aged women not true i hope we need to prepare everyone in society for the difficult decade and the potential for a lively life beyond youth. Listen, thank you both for speaking to us today. I know that, Jules, this film came out of a loss in your own life early on. And I know that you wanted to pay tribute to that friend that you lost. And certainly from what I've seen, it is a really moving portrayal of the way women support

each other and um and very enjoyable so thank you both so much and I hope that uh the premiere goes well tonight thank you so much it's an absolute pleasure take care thank you for speaking to us and lots of you've been getting in touch with us about what you've achieved in your 50s because we said there that Jules had managed to achieve this lifelong ambition of getting a feature film being directed after so many people knocking her back. And Madge says, I'm enjoying my 50s so far. I've released two albums of my own music. I composed, recorded, mixed and mastered some marvellous songs.

I'm proud and excited to find out what else I'm capable of this decade. And another one here saying, I will be completing my PhD the month of my 50th birthday and I'm looking forward to starting a new career in my 50s. So many of your messages coming in. I'll try and get through some more of those before the month of my 50th birthday and I'm looking forward to starting a new career in my 50s. So many of your messages coming in. I'll try and get through some more of those before the end of the programme. If you want to share them with us, we're at BBC Women's Hour on social media or you can text us on 84844. Now, what has been the impact of the Me Too movement around the world? Awakening Me Too and the Global Fight for Women's Rights contains the stories of women who, inspired by the Me Too movement,

have worked fearlessly in promoting the rights of women in their countries, sometimes at the risk of their own safety and potential imprisonment. Well, we can cross now to New York City

to speak to the co-author of this book and former president of the Malala Fund, Megan Stone. And also with us is Fakria Hashim, who is a pioneer in the conversation on sexual violence in northern Nigeria,

and joins us now on the line from there. Thank you both for joining us. Fakria, first of all, you were inspired, weren't you, back in 2019? Talk to us a little bit about what it was that inspired you to get involved in this movement and indeed create your own hashtag thank you so much for having me um it's lovely to be here um well this began in 2019 early 2019 and there was a young northern Nigerian woman that opened up, obviously inspired by the stories that were coming out of other countries of the MeToo. So she opened up about her experience of sexual violence on Twitter. And I guess there was a lot of support that was raging in, especially from women across Nigeria and just West Africa. So at that point, we expected to see a lot more backlash than we saw support. But fortunately, I guess people had internalized the stories

and the reactions from the Me Too around the world. So there was a lot of support coming in, and that to me was the biggest inspiration. So at that point, that was when I created the hashtag on Twitter, AriaWaMeToo, which is Northern Nigeria in Hausa. So, you know, that's really how it all came together. And a lot of young women especially started opening up about their own experiences, even as kids being molested within their own communities. So that was really how it all took off.

And just explain for people listening what it is like in northern Nigeria. I mean, the area in which you live is very religiously conservative, isn't it? And for women to speak out like this is not what is expected within that community. Oh, absolutely. As you may know, Northern Nigeria is one of the most conservative parts of the world, both religiously and very culturally, which are sort of intertwined together and it's hard to sort of put them apart. So we live in a society that expects silence and sort of

shredding people's secrets because we assume these events of sexual violence are between two people and not really a crime between the state and the perpetrator. So these are stories that we've been hearing for kids, you know, young children being abused by men. And we always just kept it under wraps. We didn't really talk about it because then, for one, people assume that, oh, you know, you're exposing someone's sin and that's not good religiously. But, you know, we came to a boiling point where it wasn't acceptable anymore. And that is very much, you know, due to all of the courage and bravery we've seen from women all around the world coming out and, you know, taking out the shame that society likes to slam on the experiences of sexual violence. So really just

taking that apart and not being ashamed by your experience being a victim of a crime and opening up to, you know, to complete strangers on the internet and using the hashtag and allowing for even younger women to see those posts and opening up about their own experiences too and just becoming more aware of the realities that surround these issues and understanding that many other people share your experiences. So, you know, it's not unique to you. And that created a lot of safety around conversation. And especially because at that time, we started seeing, you know, young men from, you know, our parts starting to sort of bully young women into silence but then a lot of women came out and they're like no you know this is this isn't going to fly and they you know showed a lot of support and a lot of these men were forced to either stay silent or be uh or receive a bit of backlash

well that's what i wanted to ask you forgive me for interrupting, that's what I wanted to ask you. Forgive me for interrupting, but that's what I wanted to ask you. If by speaking up in the bravery of these women, if it has changed and improved the lives of women in northern Nigeria? So, I mean, that's a very complex question, right? Because we just even beyond the case of gender based violence, we have seen the improvement of safe spaces online. Whether or not that applies to offline spaces is a different question. We definitely have seen improvements around how women interact, especially about issues

like this on the internet. But offline, it tends to feel like not much has changed. We've had politicians and we've had the government actually come out in support of a lot of these movements and conversations around sexual violence. But when it comes to institutional changes and reform, we haven't seen much we've all we've gotten are promises but um the spaces aren't safer for women in universities in communities

and especially lower income communities that do not have access to state amenities like security and medical care um you know in in the event of sexual violence. We haven't seen that because we still have cases where victims do report. We've seen an increase of reporting of crimes, sexual violence crimes, but we have not seen improvement in the response. So we still have cases where the police are victim blaming. We still have cases where you go to court and the prosecution is not taking you serious. And they, you know, they're still reducing these crimes to domestic crimes, which really just undermines the severity of, you know, the crimes perpetrated against women within our society. For Chris, stay with us because I want to bring in Megan Stone, who has put your story into a book and other people's stories from around the world. And Megan, it must be incredibly difficult to

pick the stories to include in your book. Well, Awakening is really about the power of women's voices globally, advocating for an end to sexual assault, sexual harassment, but also demanding their rights, whether it's legal, economic, and political equality. And when we really dug into studying the movement, we found that it went viral globally. It was in over 100 countries. We saw women using this hashtag and campaigning about their local communities and the change they wanted to see. Ultimately, we decided to try to feature a collection of stories that show that women are organizing against all odds in contexts as different as northern Nigeria,

Brazil, Pakistan, Egypt, and Tunisia, you know, after the 2011 uprisings and seeing that there's a lot of hyper localization women are making the movement their own and reflecting their needs but it's also transnational that women are inspiring each other to keep going to keep fighting they're trading tactics they're trading strategies and so we wanted to show the global impact of the movement and that this is a more inclusive and broader movement than it's ever been before. And is it possible to, I mean, we heard there about the impact in Nigeria, it's given women voices, but hasn't necessarily filtered through to making big changes. We know in the West, we know in the US and the UK, there have been some improvements for

women. Globally, is it possible to pick out, has there been improvements for women in other parts of the world? I feel like it's so important to say what you just shared, that we have not cracked the code yet here in the US or in the UK, despite all of the activism, you know, all of the resources that we've brought to bear, we still have work to do. And I think that's overdue to say out loud in international development, that we are not coming to these countries with solutions that we've already achieved fully ourselves. You know, we're trying to find ways to really partner and work together. What we've seen is that women are winning first ever victories or they're the first

women to actually pilot using some of these laws. So I think of May al-Shami in Egypt. She's a female journalist that was just trying to make her way in her career at a newspaper, was groped by her manager, and decided to be brave enough to come forward as one of the first women, a group of only two or three women that have come forward to use a newer sexual harassment law in Egypt. She was ultimately able to get some, you know, fines that were levied and that were paid to her. It was a tremendously difficult battle. She was branded as a terrorist

as part of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which is a sworn enemy of the authoritarian al-Sisi regime there. You know, all of this just for standing up and saying, I don't want to be groped at work. I want to be able to do my job. But she says she would not change her choices, knowing what she knows now of how difficult this is. I think of women in Pakistan that have been able to take to the streets in the Arat marches for the first time. Arat just means woman in Urdu, and really got out into public space and said, these laws need to be enforced. We need to see changes. We need to see you responding as leaders to our needs as a community of women. And so there's real progress that's being made.

I also think about Tunisia. After 2011, they were able to rewrite their constitution, a new constitution that actually made gender, made the rights of women and women's needs front and center. And now they have parity in how they're running for office there. An equal amount of women and women's needs front and centre. And now they have parity, you know, in how they're running for office there. An equal amount of women and men have to be in every party's list for candidates. And these women have passed groundbreaking laws in terms of sexual harassment and sexual assault. So we're seeing some first evers and real victories that we felt were important to chronicle.

And how much do you think digital activism has enabled these women to share their stories and gain strength from one another? Digital organizing has been a game changer. What it's done is it's democratized and opened up the movement. And we would argue in an overdue way, right? In the past, it was only elite women, Western women, white women that were seen as these heroes of feminism. And we say awakening is not about the awakening of women in places like Nigeria to the heroic arrival of Western feminism. It's not that at all. It's shining a bright light on the voices of local activists and really championing what they're calling for and you know being able to organize on whatsapp naming uh you know alleging attackers on facebook and seeing lo and behold there's another person another young woman that may have been attacked or harassed by that government official or that boss has been a

game changer and women are getting access to space that they've been pushed out of for too long maybe the state media outlet wouldn't take them seriously. But now that maybe something that they're posting goes viral, they're able to find other women join together and then join that online organizing with offline presence as well to really push for change. And Fakria, before I let you go, one question I do want to ask you is whether you faced a speaking out? Definitely. I guess the attacks did come in waves and they were directed at several individuals. We had one of the activists, Miriam Awaisu, that was arrested by the by the SARS, which is notorious for abusing, you know, young men in southern Nigeria. So yeah, she was she was arrested. We were accused of furthering the, you know, the politics of the opposition by how, you know, how we were calling out some of the abusers that had been alleged.

And we were accused of furthering a Western agenda, trying to infiltrate our society and promote the LGBTQ rights in our society. So a lot of these things, a lot of the backlash really did have an effect in how the movement actually progressed. Because, as you know, in an ultra conservative society, religious one at that, one of the most damning things you can be accused of is promoting a Western agenda and an LGBTQ agenda. So having done that, we found ourselves to be receivers of constant abuse and attacks. And even during one event in Sokoto, which is like ultra, ultra conservative, we had, you know, protesters during the 16 days of activism actually beating up and arrested by the police. Because the sultan of Sokoto, who is like the leader of the Muslim sect here in northern Nigeria and in Nigeria as a whole.

So it's still very dangerous. So it's still really dangerous for you and for other women to be speaking out. Listen, Farith, for Korea, thank you so much for sharing your story with us and do stay safe. I'm really grateful to you for sharing that. Megan Stone, thank you also for talking to us, co-author there of that book, Awakening, Me Too and the Global Fight for Women's Rights. Now, How to Kill Your Family is the dark comic first novel by journalist and writer Bella Mackey. Grace has calmly murdered six members of her family and is serving a prison sentence for a murder that she didn't actually commit. Now, she's determined to avenge her mother, who was rejected and humiliated by her rich father and died in penury.

Grace dreams up complex, clever ways to pick off each member of her family. Pleased to say that Bella is with us now. Good morning. Good morning. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure. And it's quite funny reading this book. You shouldn't really like Grace, should you?

Because she's essentially a monster. But I'm kind of with her all the way, which worries me. And so, you know, I don't think I'm the first. It's not an original thing to do. But I think there's a real thing of when you see women behaving maybe in ways that are very unlikable or sort of against convention. I think it's natural now for other women to kind of root for them. And I understand that your interest in true crime goes way back to your childhood and your dad's allowing you to watch things that some parents might not allow you to watch. Yeah, he had a real interest in true crime. Sort of specifically the sort of golden age that George Orwell talks about, the sort of Victorian true crime murder, you know, poisoning. So he used to read me lots of true crime when I was going to bed. And we'd sort of, you know, he'd go over the kind of the Crippen murders and the brides in the bath. And I would just be completely awestruck. I don't know how I slept.

And I'm sure that has something to do with why I've got anxiety as an adult but but it was great fun and it really it really started me on a journey of fascination with true crime and fiction and the role that women play because for so long women have been the victim the person who is murdered and I'm guessing that's a frustration for you judging by the way this book is written. Yeah definitely I think as I you know as I got older into the 90s I remember sort of reading the papers every day before going to school and they were always about murdered women in the most kind of vicious detail and and then growing older and reading a lot of crime fiction by men and again the same thing the woman would be the victim often silent often damaged you know

and and I got turned off those kind of books and listening to True Crime for that reason. So I wanted to write something where the woman was in charge. And as a woman, you wouldn't feel exhausted or sort of traumatized reading it. Let's talk about the book, because Grace is, she's essentially seeking revenge, isn't she, for the treatment of her mother.'s the the story of the incredibly wealthy man who who gets a woman pregnant and then basically wants nothing to do with her but grace is kind of angry towards them but she also kind of quite likes the money and the finer things in life there's almost a bit of a conflict there for her isn't there yeah i think it's really funny because she's so disdainful of the kind of super wealthy and the kind of privilege that

comes with that but at the same time she clearly wants some of that for herself and she can't ever quite decide whether she's looking for just pure vengeance or whether she wants the life that was denied to her. And I think she's not quite aware of that. I think she thinks it's all disgusting and terrible, but actually she gives quite a lot of clues that if it was down to her, she'd also be living like that, I think. And I was interested about your portrayal of an influencer because it it's quite sad it's it's a bit grim but yet we look at you

you lead a lovely life on Instagram I'm very jealous of your life I mean my life is just my dog and writing and that's about it but um yeah I mean I think it's really fascinating because accidentally I ended up with lots of followers on Instagram and and I think it can take you to some really dark places I think you could kind of flog flog your entire online presence if you wanted to and and then you have to live a life which is just for your followers and and so I did find it really fascinating to tap into that kind of darker side of that and And I mean, you have spoken there briefly, you mentioned about your anxiety. You've always been quite open about the things

that you find tricky in life. And clearly that's something that you feel important and I guess feeds into the book to some extent. Yeah, I mean, really, I wrote her that my main character is this very sort of strong, you know, slightly psychopathic, slightly psychopathic woman. But actually, I couldn't help but write in traits of anxiety. So she runs for anxiety.

She kind of feels overwhelmed and panicky. And she claws at her neck quite a lot, which is what I do when I feel like I can't breathe. And also, she's anxious about lots of other things. She's anxious about class and the patriarchy and all of these things. So I couldn't help obviously but I think probably because mental health is such a massive part of my day-to-day existence that I couldn't help but bring it in even though you know it's supposed to be a fun book and it's supposed to you know it's not supposed to kind of teach you anything or it's just supposed to make you laugh but yeah I couldn't help but bring it in because I think especially in the modern, you know, everyone is beset by that all the time.

There were some very imaginative murders within the plot. I mean, how difficult was it? Did you almost surprise yourself at how good you were at murdering people within the book? You know what? I was good at coming up with ways of murdering them, but I was terrible at actually getting around to it because my mum would text me and she'd say, are the grandparents dead yet?

And I'd go, no, they're still alive. They won't die. Mum, I don't know what to do. And they just, it was weird. Trying to kill them was really hard. And I'd sort of, you know know I'd get 15 pages into dialogue and they still wouldn't be dead and I'd be thinking oh god they don't want to die and actually there is a character who saves themselves because as I was writing it I could not make them die so in the end I just thought okay you get to live um but it was so much fun because I didn't want to write gory murders as you said because I think so much of crime fiction and true crime is focused on the kind of you know the way a woman

gets murdered and the detail about it and I didn't want to write a book like that I wanted it to be sort of 10% removed from reality and something that you'd read without kind of feeling sick to your stomach so they're funny they're inventive they're slightly ridiculous and and it was a lot of fun coming up with things, you know, like a smart house which kills you. You know, that is something that in the future one day will happen. And I wrote it first. And I guess there's probably a real difference in writing a, well, she is a monster. So a female monster versus a male monster. Yeah, I think it's really interesting writing a female monster because we're so used to sort of likable heroines

and weirdly when men are monsters in books you know we never have any qualms about saying that we were rooting for them at all um so it really turned it on its head and I had a lot of fun with kind of figuring out how to make her terrible but walking that fine line of you don't want the reader to lose interest or feel like this person is too terrible for me to back anymore you know because I do feel like that as a reader myself you know I think you have to have some kind of sympathy or empathy for a character and um and so but yeah I did think you know writing male anti-heroes has been has been a thing forever you know so James Bond is a terrible human being you know why would you want to be friends with him but you root for him the whole way through the book and no one ever said

god you know this guy grim um so so yeah it was a really fun and sort of interesting thing for me to do and an interesting look at female rage as well yeah I think being able to explore female rage without you know without having to pull myself back or feel like it was kind of unladylike or you know it was going to be difficult for anyone so for me writing her was kind of like writing myself if I had no constraints and I hadn't been brought up with kindness and love around me and I was allowed to just be angry and say all the things I wanted to say and again I think that's why women who read crime fiction often rate and root for female protagonists because they they do feel that rage and that anger but they can't channel it in a way that the characters can because it's fiction, obviously.

Bella, thank you for coming on. I've really enjoyed reading your book and it's great to meet you and to speak to you. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. It's always been a dream to be on Women's Hour. Oh, I'm pleased we've fulfilled your dream this morning. Bella, thank you so much. Thanks so much. Have a good day. Bye. You too. Bye-bye. That's Bella Mackey, who has written her first novel, How to Kill Your Family. Now, long Covid is an issue that we've talked about a number of times here on Woman's Hour. Out of the estimated two million people that have been affected in the UK, the majority are women.

Long Covid is an umbrella term for a whole range of symptoms from fatigue and brain fog to respiratory, heart and gut problems. But one aspect we've heard much less about is the way long COVID or post-COVID syndrome is affecting people who've been admitted to hospital with severe COVID infection. It turns out that one in three will be readmitted within six months and one in eight will die. So being sent home after having the virus really isn't the end of the story. Well, three women are leading a clinical trial named Heal COVID, which aims to cut the number of patients being readmitted to hospital with complications as a result of having COVID-19. We can speak to Dr Charlotte Summers. She's one of them. She's an intensive care specialist at Addenbrookes Hospital, and she's on the line now. Hi, Charlotte. Hello. So we've heard a lot about patients being in hospital with Covid, but talk to us about what you're seeing happening after that.

So I think what was most people's idea of what happens is that you go to hospital, you get quite sick, you get better and you leave the front door of the hospital. Oh, thank goodness I made it through. That was all great. But there's been a lot less recognition about the fact that that's not the end of the story and by last summer whether you'd been in hospital or you hadn't there was increasing recognition of the thing that's been termed long covid and it covers a range of different things their long covid patient groups have suggested up to 200 symptoms that people experience in the months after they've had their primary infection. But what we noticed from data that came from the Office for National Statistics and from the United States towards the end of last year was that actually people were dying and ending up coming

back into hospital in significant numbers, as you outlined, and felt that something needed to be done about that. Do we know, is there a link between age or anything? Is there any way that you can work out which groups are more vulnerable to this readmission to hospital? So obviously, as we get older, our risk of dying increases. But worryingly, looking at the data from the ONS, it suggests that your risk is greater if you're below the age of 70 compared to the background rate you would normally have of death compared to those over 70. So younger working age people are at increased risk compared to their usual risk of almost more than seven times greater than their usual risk of dying in the months after Covid. Whereas for people over 70, the risk is just over three times their usual rate. Now, I said in the introduction, you're one of the lead researchers on this new clinical trial.

It's called Heal COVID. Just explain to us what you're doing. So Heal COVID is helping alleviate the longer term consequences of COVID-19. So it's a national, what's called platform clinical trial. So what we're trying to do is to recruit people at the point they're well enough to leave hospital and say if we give you a drug therapy at this point does it make the chances of you being alive and out of hospital over the next one year better? And so the trial is made up with a fabulous team of people and as you highlighted it's got a really strong female leadership team so Ellen Haff Davies who's the chief executive of Aparito that's the digital clinical trials company we work with, Carol Gamble who's the professor of biostatistics at

Liverpool who runs the Liverpool Clinical Trials Centre, we've got some fantastic clinical trial managers Emma Benson and Chloe Donoghue, and a really, really brilliant data linkage researcher called Anne-Marie Docherty from the University of Edinburgh, and patient reported outcome specialists from Birmingham, Professor Melanie Calvert, as well as some really brilliant male co-investigators and co-leads, I should point out. So it's a huge team from across the country. And talk about the drugs you're trialling, because these drugs are drugs that are already used, but in different ways, aren't they? out. So it's a huge team from across the country. And talk about the drugs you're trialling because these drugs are drugs that are already used but in different ways aren't they? Exactly so we've

gone with the option of repurposing therapy so taking drugs that we know are relatively cheap they're safe and widely available and saying okay if we give these to people and they work we know that they would be rapidly scalable across the world like dexamethasone has been since the recovery trial showed that that worked. So what we're using is apixaban which is an oral blood thinning drug to try and see whether addressing blood clots makes a difference to outcomes. We're using atorvastatin which is a lipid lowering drug when most people use it but for us actually it's working predominantly to affect blood vessel inflammation. It's a good anti-inflammatory for that. And we know that blood vessels are very inflamed after COVID acute infection.

How difficult is it to trial treatments when we still don't fully understand the condition? Difficult, I think, is the honest answer. We were very lucky in that the UK has a thing called the UK COVID Therapeutics Advisory Panel. There's an expert panel that convenes people who know all sorts of different aspects of the disease to decide what therapies we should be testing in this space. And so the drugs that have gone into our trial were the ones that were recommended by the experts by all that process. But the option is that we don't do anything. We keep phenotyping people and trying to understand what the natural history looks like whilst more people are being potentially harmed. Or we can say, we know enough, we will try the things that we think are rational and safe and see if we can

save lives. And tell us briefly, how do people get involved if they fall into this category? What can they do? So if you or your loved one happen to be in hospital with a Covid infection and sadly there's likely to be far more of that over the coming weeks please do ask your hospital doctors if they're taking part and heal Covid and if not why not and whether you're eligible to be recruited into the trial. We are open at hospitals across the NHS in all devolved nations so please do seek us out. Dr Charlotte Summers, thank you ever so much for speaking to us this morning. You've been sharing with us your achievements over the age of 50.

Sally says, after three disastrous attempts to pass my CSE maths in the fifth year, lower and upper sixth, feeling through life I was mathematically stupid, I passed my GCSE maths in 2017 when content and grading was reformed. I passed. I was 52 with a five, a strong pass. She also says, Sally says, I'm enjoying the programme very much. Thank you for all of your messages this morning. So many really inspiring stories of what you have achieved in your 50s. And it's been delightful to have your company throughout the week here on Woman's Hour. Of course, we'll be back again tomorrow at 10 o'clock. That's all from today's Woman's Hour. I hope you can join us my own house. A new five-part mystery from BBC Radio 4.

Ah, Neville, it'd be better if you didn't ask questions about that. Oh, but he's seen nothing. It was a war wind that took yours. It just clean sucked it up. One man's fight for answers. There must be a new Bermuda Triangle on Tory Island. If houses can just disappear like that. The House That Vanished.

Available now on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy.

And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.