Woman's Hour - Office Cleaners, Cassa Pancho, Jackie Kay

Episode Date: May 27, 2020

The UK cleaning sector is worth almost £50bn a year to the country’s economy. It employs more than 900,000 people, mostly women. Right now, many are vulnerable. Some feel they won't be able to stop working if they fall ill or have to self- isolate because they can't afford it. Jenni speaks to Katy, a cleaner. Also Maria Gonzalez who's an employment barrister and Janet Macleod who's a Unite representative Cassa Pancho set up Ballet Black twenty years ago. It's a professional ballet company for Black and Asian dancers, and from the start its aim was to make the dance world more diverse. As well as Cassa, we also talk to Cira Robinson who performed with Stormzy at last year's Glastonbury. Tonight Ballet Black is part of a new BBC TV series called Danceworks.Jackie Kay, the National Poet for Scotland, also known as Makar, discusses her new online poetry and music festival. It's called Makar to Makar and streams via the National Theatre of Scotland's YouTube channel. We also hear from Gerda Stevenson who's a writer, actor, director and singer and is on Jackie's show, plus the singer Claire Brown, who performs a beautiful, traditional Scottish song live.

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, Jenny Murray welcoming you to the Woman's Hour podcast for Wednesday the 27th of May. Good morning. In today's programme we've a tour around the arts in lockdown. Tonight's Danceworks on BBC4 features Ballet Black, formed for dancers of black and Asian descent. Why did Casa

Pancho set up the company 20 years ago, and what does it mean to the dancers who work under her direction? A new novel from the prolific Jenny Colgan. 500 Miles From You brings together two nurses, Cormac from the Scottish Highlands and Lissa

from London. And Macca to Macca, Jackie Kay, Scotland's Macca, the national poet, and her weekly online festival of poetry and music, together with two of her guests, the poet Gerda Stevenson and the singer Clare Brown. Now, the UK's cleaning sector is worth almost £50 billion a year to the economy and employs more than 900,000 people. But some of those workers are among the most vulnerable in the current crisis. Commercial cleaners are generally low paid. They work part time or they're on casual zero hours contracts. They can't do their jobs from home

and may face exposure to the virus if they are at work. Some have been told they won't be able to take paid time off if they fall ill or have to isolate themselves. Well, earlier this morning, I spoke to Katie, who's been working as a cleaner for 17 years. What does her job involve? I'm working as a cleaner for 17 years. What does her job involve? I'm working as a cleaner for many years and right now I'm the janitor of the date.

What does that mean? What do you have to do? I need to just bring plenty of toilet paper, hand towels, the towels for the showers, pick up the dirty towels, the planet's new towels, and answer the radio if some accident happened in the buildings.

They called me for clean or everything was happy during the day. How protected are you from the virus? Do you have personal protective equipment? When we were working in that moment, we have gloves and just gloves because in that moment I think they don't take the COVID very

seriously. I don't know if they are using masks now because I'm not working, because I'm an asthmatic person. How well respected do you and women like you feel you are? I think not just me, most of the cleaners we are not respect, you know. Most of the people think because you are cleaner, you are ignorant, you didn't know nothing about your rights, or you, you know, most of the people, managers, securities, they look at you like you are nothing

and your job is not important. That's why I never feel respect. I know sexual harassment has been a problem for some women. What sort of sexual harassment have you witnessed? Yeah, you know, the problem all the time in my long time working in London, that I can't see, I cannot see the sexual harassment for young and pretty women is really horrible. Because I'm now 48 years old, I'm fat, I don't have a problem with that situation. college young women and fight straight with security staff, with male cleaning staff, and they too just tell, hey, you are living now in England, and that is sexual harassment,

you can't be, or you can't go to the prison. But they, when you speak like that with them, they are very angry with you and say, take out your nose out of our business. We are not doing nothing against you. I was talking to Katie. Well, how common are such experiences among commercial cleaners and what support is available to them?

Janet McLeod is an organiser in the service sector in the Union Unite. Maria Gonzalez-Marello is a barrister who specialises in employment. Maria, what sort of problems are being reported to you in your pro bono surgery? Well, hi, Jenny. The sort of problems that I have been dealing with since the beginning of the crisis, apart from the usual problems, which are people are not getting paid, these women are not getting paid, is the lack of personal protective equipment. This has been a constant all throughout the pandemic.

Because of zero-hour contracts. Often these women are given two choices, either to do their jobs with no PPE or to basically lose their jobs. So they are put in an impossible situation where they're pressurized to do their job and not protect themselves or to lose their jobs. That has been one of the problems we've encountered. But another problem that we have seen is that people have not been furloughed. This is for different reasons.

Companies have decided not to put people on the furlough scheme. And that has produced, I mean, a lot of problems for a lot of people. That means that some women that were already in vulnerable situations are facing having no income overnight. So that has been a problem. And Janet, what's your experience of the conditions in the commercial cleaning sector during the pandemic hi uh jenny yes uh listening to um katie speak there's nothing there that's that's that's new to us uh and for for me listening to that as an organizer working in this sector i can say that this it has been business as usual for Ond i mi, wrth wrando ar hynny, fel sefydlwr sy'n gweithio yn y sector hon, gallaf ddweud bod hi wedi bod yn busnes fel arfer i nhw yn ystod y crisis.

Mae'r cyflogwyr a'r ddewis yn syml wedi cyntaf. Ac mae'r gweithwyr wedi cael eu gorfod dod i'r gwaith heb gweithgaredd diogel, yn rhoi eu hunain a'u teuluoedd yn risg mawr. Ac rwy'n credu ein bod angen i ni edrych ar beth mae hynny'n golygu i bobl. without protective equipment, putting themselves and their families at great risk. And I think we need to look at what that means for people. This is a low-wage sector that, as you've said, brings in billions of pounds to our economy, and yet we don't value or respect the people that are making those profits. Sorry, Jane. Yeah, I just wanted to ask Maria.

Maria, how easy is it for cleaners to argue their case, which obviously both you and Janet are very aware of, when often they have no English and no technology? Well, it is extremely difficult for cleaners, when English is not their first language in particular to argue their cases. I would say the first thing they do is to try to contact the company, their supervisors or managers. Usually they don't get response today. And when they do, it's very disappointing the response they get when we intervene and it changes because then the company has to give us an account of what has happened but usually cleaners the cleaners is

very difficult to get through the system the companies have in place it's almost like made for it to blank any kind of problematic communication that they get is almost disturbing when I hear cases of people trying to contact their employers for days and days and weeks and they don't get back to them. And it's only when a representative like us, lawyers the unions getting getting in contact that's only when they take or they acknowledge uh the the problem and janet we know the industry is outsourced to big companies who as i understand it are not unionized so how can you help the workers who are suffering we we can advise them and we can represent them but what we what we do is we work with people and we work with people in companies across the uk and i think what i'd like to do is just

maybe give an example of that um we're looking at the hotel sector where cleaning is a fundamental part of the workforce. Contracts generally contracted out to large companies and the companies will win that contract on a minimum wage tender. So the profit margin can only really be made by extracting the most work out of each individual worker. And there's a system in the hotels where the company submits invoices per room rather than by worker employed and hours worked. And this just lends itself to the kind of exploitation that we see. So the sector needs to take a look at itself and needs to work with the unions to put in place better models of employment.

And it's no accident that this is happening in a sector that is extremely un-unionised, where there is very little representation for workers. And just briefly, Maria, how responsive are the companies when you get in touch with them? Usually, as I said earlier, the response would be disappointing. During the pandemic, the responses we've been getting is that they are dealing with a very difficult situation unprecedented and therefore

they haven't sorted out the problem. That doesn't help us because what we need is that this is an emergency and people need their salaries. They need to get paid otherwise they can't put food on the table. So this is usually companies don't take responsibility towards their employees. And I can start cases in employment tribunal claims, but

this is not, again, not going to sort out the problem because of the emergency and the urgency of the situation. Well, Maria Gonzalez Morello and Janet McLeod there, I'm afraid we must end. Thank you both very much indeed for joining us this morning. And if you're in this position,

if you are a cleaner and you're suffering in this way, please let us know. Do send us an email or, of course, a text, and we will put onto the Women's Hour website some of the suggestions of where you might go to get some help if you need it. Now, tonight's episode of Danceworks on BBC4 will feature a company called Ballet Black.

It's a professional company founded 20 years ago to provide opportunities for dancers of Black and Asian descent. Jira Robinson is a senior artist who performed last year with Stormzy at Glastonbury. Kasa Pancho is the founder and artistic director. Kasa, what prompted you to set up the company 20 years ago? Hi, Jenny. I set it up, first of all, to create a platform

to showcase the talents of black and asian dancers who were severely underrepresented 20 years ago and also to create accessible role models for young students and their families to show that a career in ballet whether it's professional or as a enjoyable pastime is possible for anyone whatever color you are now i know you started dancing when you were all of two years old how come it took so long for you to notice that there was a big problem um well when i was growing up i was at a school um in ealing and we had i had classmates of all different colors and sizes and everything and it wasn't until I got to professional school at an older age that I realised that there were no other people of black descent around me.

And I started to really look into the issue more when I got to professional training. There was a sort of idea, wasn't there, that somehow black people weren't interested in ballet didn't like ballet where did that come from uh i don't know i think these are all old racist stereotypes that have just lingered in a field that doesn't move very quickly in classical ballet and you know obviously dance theatre of harlem in america disproved that a very long time ago in the late 60s when it was founded. But it was just a real hangover still in the UK. Tira, it was in Harlem that you studied dance, where diversity was clearly not an issue.

What did you think when you came to the UK and saw what it was like here? Hello, Chira. How are you there? Oh, we've lost Chira, our lovely dancer, and I wanted to ask her all about what it was like to dance in Stormzy's set. You must have been amazed,

Kassa, when that whole thing was set up at Glastonbury. And it was so beautiful to watch those two dancers in that huge place what was your response when the invitation came uh when the invitation came we were in the middle of another show and we had to do a lot of juggling to to make it work but we love Stormzy so we'll pretty much do anything he asks us to and when we got there the atmosphere was incredible I was backstage with Chira and Matutu the other dancer and it was

really indescribable I'm not sure that we'll ever do anything quite like that again. I think we've got Chira now Chira have we got you back? Yes'm so sorry about that okay stormzy what was it like doing that show um leading up to it because everything was very much hush hush uh i remember there being a rehearsal where we were driven out and it was kind of a replica of the stage and and we saw him and he's this tall figure, but extremely down to earth. But you know, for me, it was just another gig. You know what I mean? I was in work mode. It's about the dancing. But once we stepped out on the Glastonbury stage, I can't really describe the feeling, you know, it was just this overwhelming sense of, of kind of community because the cheers,

yes, they were happening for him, but also for us being ballet dancers, you know, it was a massive support for the art form. Now, Chira, I said when I thought you were there, but you weren't, that you had studied dance in Harlem, where obviously diversity was not an issue. But what was your impression when you first came to the UK and saw what it was like here uh for me the UK was my first um introduction in the arts world um in the ballet world uh to feeling like the only one. Growing up in Ohio, dancing, I started late at eight, but I always had someone who looked like me in a ballet class,

up until I was 18, going to the Dance Theatre of Harlem summer schools. But once I arrived here, even in the open classes, the professional classes, I was still kind of the only classically trained one. And I thought that was very odd because, you know, coming from the States, coming from Harlem, there was diversity everywhere. You know what I mean? And so coming into Ballet Black, I was grateful for the fact that I would be around people who looked like me, but also I felt like it was my mission as well to become a representation of a dark-skinned ballerina in this country. Casa, I know you have a school for young children in West London. What hopes do you have for their future well what i think is interesting about our school is um i am one of the teachers so is chira and we have two other teachers on our staff who one is of asian descent and one is

caucasian and the fact that our kids are exposed to these four different uh teachers means that they are seeing different role models from different races constantly. So what has happened at our school is there is really no question in the minds of our students that ballet is not open to them. So they all think that they're joining ballet black at some point. And I think that that has been a major step forward because it shows you that if you have enough role models from different backgrounds, that it really makes a difference on the young people. There's a very strong point at the beginning of the documentary about the color of ballet shoes.

Yes. How have you managed to change that habit of expecting all ballet dancers will wear pink ballet shoes? Well, I'll start by saying it's not me. This has been something that I've learned from an older dancer and they've learned from an older dancer. It's a tradition that's happened throughout the years. And it's called pancaking. You take makeup foundation and you basically coat the pink pointe shoe to match your

skin color. I grew up wearing pink tights, pink shoes. It wasn't until I was 15 years old where I went to a Dance Theatre of Harlem summer program where flesh tone tights and shoes were a requirement. And being from Ohio, I could not find it. You know what I mean? I had to buy this spray paint for my shoes. Luckily, I had to go to a theater store where they had a close enough brown tight. But again, it's a ritual that all dancers have, specifically dancers of color,

because if we don't wear tights, it has to match our skin tone. But there's also the aspect of color, because, you know, if we don't wear tights, it has to match our skin tone. But there's also the aspect of uniform, which I do understand. But I do think that there should be more of a choice as far as the flesh tone, tights and shoes and the pink. Kasa, final point. In the documentary, we see you training for your next production and then coronavirus hit. How concerned are you about the future of the company in the current circumstances? Well, I think this is a time when we can't just be concerned with our own company.

We have to be concerned with the entire arts industry because we are so interdependent on each other. If all theatres close down, it doesn't matter if Ballet Black survives because we'll have nowhere to perform. So I think as a sector, we are worried. We are constantly finding ways to connect with our audience and what I think has started to shift in recent days is that the press are now starting to talk about how this is impacting the arts and that's really, really important

because we need the public to understand that although all these things that we're sharing online are brilliant, you know, ballets and plays and musicals, that takes a lot of time, love and money to make things like that. And we need people to remember that the arts brings in huge amounts of money to the country. So we need to be supported. So that is the bigger worry, I think, rather than worrying about the individual company. Casa Pancho, Ciara Robinson, thank you both very much indeed for being with us this morning. And I hope the theatre is open soon for your benefit. Now still to come in today's programme, Macca to Macca, Jackie Kay, the National Poet of Scotland and her online festival of poetry and

music, broadcast on Thursday nights during the weeks to come. And the serial, the third episode of A Run in the Park. Now, earlier in the week, you may have missed Monday's programme on having a baby in these troubled times. And yesterday, a discussion about Dominic Cummings and the childcare question. We also introduced our first trooper, a series of women, often volunteers, who get things done. If you miss the live programme, all you have to do is catch up.

You download the BBC Sounds app and look for Woman's Hour. Now, Jenny Colgan thinks her new one is her 34th book. She's not sure because after so many, she's rather lost track. But 500 Miles From You is a familiar format from such a popular writer. It's a romantic escapist comedy in which Lys You is a familiar format from such a popular writer. It's a romantic, escapist comedy in which Lyssa is a nurse under pressure in South London, and Cormac is a nurse practitioner in the Scottish Highlands. Both are suffering from stress, Lyssa from the tragedy she's witnessed on the streets of London, and Cormac from his previous job as a medic in the army.

The NHS offers them a swap for three months. Lyssa goes to Scotland and Cormac to the big city. Jenny. Hello, how are you? Hello, I'm well. Now why have you returned in this book to the fictional Scottish town

of Kirranfield, which I definitely remember appeared in an earlier novel? Well, I wanted to write about rural versus city life. That was what I was kind of interested in. And I'd already written books set in this rural town you're carrying with you, which is fictional, because I have written many times before and got into terrible trouble.

So with the exception of big cities like London, I just make places up now it's much less stressful and so I'd already written about it I had a map of the time you would look like in my head so it felt like an obvious place to go if I wanted to keep writing about Scotland which I did why were you keen to look at post-traumatic stress disorder in health workers on the front line? Because you wrote this long before the current crisis. Yes, there's two quite odd things about it. One is that it's about front-line workers,

and then the other thing is that it's about a couple that are separated and can't see each other. So I'm feeling quite futuristic at the moment. But I worked in the NHS, I wasn't particularly useful. And in fact, when the crisis hit, I kind of got back in touch and said, you know, I'm here if you need me. And they were like, no, thanks, you're all right. We can do perfectly well without you.

But I worked in administration, but I could see what people went through every day. And in fact, it's a very rewarding job, frontline healthcare work, but it can also be extremely difficult. So for the causes of fiction, of course, I ramped everything up because that's what you do. You make it more dramatic. Of course, life now is extremely dramatic.

I think people on the frontline, it's not just hospitals, but things like supermarkets are, you know, I've been through very tough times. I'm not really, this is very funny. It is. But Jenny, the line isn't funny that we've got at the moment. It's really, really bad and getting worse.

So we're going to abandon it for now. We'll maybe try and come back to you later. But sorry about that. But it really has become inaudible. Thank you. Now, tomorrow night on the National Theatre of Scotland's YouTube channel, the third of a festival of poetry and music called Macca to Macca will be streamed at seven o'clock.

As literary festivals around the world were shut down, Jackie Kay, Scotland's Macca, the title of the national poet, decided to curate her own online festival with guests both famous and not so famous. Tomorrow's event will include the poet, actor, director and singer Gerda Stevenson, the singer Claire Brown

and of course the macker Jackie Kay. Jackie. Good morning Jenny. Oh you're there and I can hear you properly. How did the idea for this come about Jackie? Well I just felt it was really really important to try and provide people with with something it seems to me that as well as kind of protecting our immune systems we have to kind of protect our actual imagination as well and we have to culturally nourish ourselves so I just kind of came up with this idea of

passing the baton, macker to macker, home to home, kind of entertainment from our living room to yours and I've always loved the kind of mixture of poetry and song. I grew up attending party socials in my own house which were a great mixture of poetry and song so I wanted really to recreate that rich mix and also find a way to get writers, artists and performers actually paid because a lot of them fall through the cracks. So it's Macca to Macca. What is the origin of the title Macca which is your title as the National Poet of Scotland. Yeah, Macca is a really old word, 13th century word,

and it means poet or bard. Chaucer used to be referred to as a Macca by Dunbar, and James VI was referred to as a Macca. And just about 15 years ago, the Scottish government brought the word back into currency. But it really means the nearest English equivalent is maker. So I like how kind of proletarian and democratic that word is. Maker to maker, macker to macker.

And so that's the current title for the Scottish National Poet. Now, you start each week with one of your poems. Small, I think, was last week's and I wondered if you would recite it for us now. Yes. It's always a small that gets you, a wee act of kindness, the tiniest detail, a stranger's caress, your heart, the way you react when faced with the trials, the gift of a bluebell, an embrace. Oh, the yellow gorse, the small brown foals, the crows lined up from the train window, beauty inches close to sorrow. Not only are you doing your Macca to maca but i have noticed on twitter that every sunday you do

a poem which you read on twitter how are you managing to get all this work done well i'm lucky in that i and my partner's a sound a former sound engineer at the bbc so i've got somebody filming and recording me every week. That makes a huge difference. I couldn't have done it without Denise. But I also really wanted to think it's kind of a writer's imperative to respond to your times. I mean, whether or not you'll be happy with the poems

in sort of two years' time or not, it feels like we're living through such a big crisis, it feels incumbent upon me to respond in some way and to try and give people something. And these wee Sunday poems have been getting an enormous response from people. So that kind of cheers me, you know, instead of a sermon, you get a wee poem. Now, how have you chosen the people who will join you on Macca to Macca? I've chosen people that I really love. I mean, I think the thing that's special about Macca to Macca

is that it's created by me, that everybody on there are choices of mine. And I think that's important rather than just people that happen to be available. And everybody, every single person that's going to be on, I feel passionate about in one way or another.

And we've got a real rich mix of very, very well-known people and people that are not so well-known at the moment at all. And that's fantastic. We've got Peggy Seeger coming on later in the series, which I'm really excited about. And we've got a really fantastic macro to macro with three young poets, Ella Duffy, Jay Bernard and Raymond Androbus.

And that feels really exciting to me to mix the poets and each of the poets I really I've got new books out and Jay Bernard won the Ted Hughes award for Surge Ella Duffy's just had New Hunger out so it's really really really exciting to me and then the three singers and we have three kind of rotating resident singers and Tomorrow Nights is going to be the wonderful Claire Brown who's with us today but we've also got suzanne bonner and katherine philpott and each of them have got amazing voices so i just picked them because i just love the way that they sound now gerda stevenson this week that why her well gerda is one of those writers I think I think she's just so multi-talented she's a she's a writer she's a director I love her book Quines which draws attention to all of these different

Scottish women throughout history that some of us don't know about I love how she writes in rich Scots I like her delivery she's just an all-around good egg she's a brilliant kind of person in the world and I love hearing her I mean her work fills me with a kind of glee, you know, a kind of excitement. It takes me back to when I was a girl. So Gerda, that was quite nice things that Jackie just said about you. I'm sure you'll agree.

Well, that was very nice indeed. Thank you, Jackie. Now, I know you're planning singing for Jackie. Can you give us just a quick sample of one of your songs? I can give you a wee blast. Yes, yes. This is a song from my album, Night Touches Day. And it's in Scots.

And it's called Old Woman Sang. And it's dedicated to women of a certain age who've gained some wisdom. Oh, I have laughed locked and I hae grat And I hae dreamed o' chances But now I'm old, my mind runs free And my licht's am spared it dances Through feathered wood and orchard mains Where bluebells blurred my heen

He led me down by Eddie's lofty The spreading skirts of the gean I hee locked and I hee grat And I hee dreamed o' chances But now I'm old, my mind runs free And my licht's am spare it dances There you go. Do you know, I'm learning a lot about Scots

because some of Jackie's poems have been coming over in Scots. When you don't know it, you do have to struggle a bit to really get it. What's your experience, Gerda, of the lockdown period? Well, it's been challenging recently because I had appendicitis and I had to go to hospital, which was a choice to make because I didn't know that it was definitely appendicitis, but I did think, well, if it is, I could die, even though I'm going into a zone of COVID-19. So I went and it was appendicitis and I was operated upon immediately. And all was good and I'm fine and up and running again. I have a husband who's in the vulnerable

category when it comes to COVID-19 and a daughter with Down syndrome. We're at home together. My mother lives down the road. She's elderly in her late 80s. So I am the kind of the forager in the family and the the kind of lynchpin in that sense my husband doesn't drive and so I kind of have been you know worried that anything would happen to me because I'm depended upon but we have a fantastic community here in this small village I live in where you know as soon as I came back from hospital they were on the phone they were offering to go shopping, which they did, and I felt completely supported. So I feel very fortunate. But, Gada, who did the childcare, the care of your husband and your child

when you had to rush to hospital? I mean, clearly this is a subject that's been spoken about quite a lot in the last couple of days. How did you manage it when you were actually away? Well, I was only in hospital for a night because they want to get you out as soon as possible because they don't want you in with, you know, with COVID-19 floating about. I just, I had done a big shop. I knew there was something wrong with me. I went, I kind of had had a big shop, I'd got everything ready, I write down instructions. My daughter is actually 22 now and she's very competent. So I just let people know and I thought well people will cope and they did. And you drove straight back after the operation and

just carried on uh well i wasn't allowed to drive back my son had to come and collect me now he lives in edinburgh and that was rather complicated because um you know i discussed it with the hospital and there was no ambulance available and i couldn't get a taxi service so my son came left his car at the car park he had a mask mask on. I had a mask. I sat in the back of the car because he doesn't live with our family. He's in Edinburgh living with his partner. So he left his car at the hospital, drove me back home. His midwife partner, she came and picked him up and took him back to the hospital to collect his car. She'd borrowed her mum's. It was very elaborate, you know, business of how to do all this, but we managed. Now, as Jackie mentioned, you are the author of a collection of poems called Quines,

that tribute to forgotten women of Scotland. But I think for today, you're going to read Homework for Evacuee Day. What inspired that poem? This poem arose from some homework that my daughter was given when she was at primary school. They were discussing and learning about the Second World War and they were given an exercise to select some objects that they would take if they were evacuated and leaving their families and she has this way my daughter of entering into a story as if she's kind of part of it very immediate intense response to a story so that's what it came out of and I thought it was a suitable one to read because I think a lot of us are feeling as though we're separated

like evacuees were at the moment. Will you read it for us? I will. Homework for Evacuee Day. We select ten objects, things you'd pack if this were real, and you place them, with all the care you sense they're due from all you've learned on the matter, in a child's old-fashioned suitcase, the one I carried in a play about a war, the kind we'd give you if you were leaving us for safety, if

now were then and this were real. A skipping rope, its arc in the air, a last fling before we wind it tight. A yellow mouth organ waiting for your breath. A book whose story will feed you every night, though you'll have to read yourself to sleep. And your tattered, one-eyedeyed mermaid nocturnal swimmer by your side soon to be beached on unfamiliar sheets a ball of wool skewered with needles to make the scarf we started if you can remember in over through off without my prompt. Pencil and paper to tell us of your days,

And a box of dominoes to count them, I say. A photo of us all, arms linked, laughing under autumn apples. Before the first bomb fell, you say, as if what's happening is real and you really have to go. Oh Gerda, that's beautiful. Jackie, I think Gerda's right, you know, that so many people are finding it really hard to be away from their loved ones. And I know that you've had difficulty. Your father died not very long ago and your mother is alone how are you managing your your family relationship yeah I'm finding it the most difficult thing that I've ever

gone through actually even more difficult than my dad dying I'm finding having my mum in a care home in Glasgow and me not being able to visit her just really, really hard. I mean, my heart goes out to everybody up and down the country that's finding these separations very, very hard. I mean, because your instinct is to want to be with your mum, but you can't. And so that's what we're all having to do. So I just find it really, really hard mean I get my I got my mum an iPad and I have half a half her face on the iPad every day and then she has she has down days and and up days but at least um I can communicate uh with her but it's terribly terribly worrying

um especially with all the deaths and care homes in in Glasgow so it's been it's been a terrible really really awful thing to go through. I wouldn't wish it on anybody. And it's a terrible way for my mum to be grieving for my dad and then be separated from all her family. I think there's just so many hardships in our times. They're kind of unimaginable. I know several singers are going to be taking part in Macca to Macca, and Claire Brown is one of them.

And Claire, I know you're going to sing Wild Mountain Time, which does have special relevance for Jackie. What is that relevant? Oh, yeah. I once recorded it for Jackie, for her mum, for her birthday. So I sent a wee video. And then actually, after Jackie's dad died, we had a wee shindig at Oran Moor. And I sang it then in honour of him. And it just feels like a nice song between us all now.

And now will you sing it again? I'd be happy to. Away you go. Oh the summer time is coming and the wild mountain time grows around the purple heather will you go And we'll all go together To pick wild mountain thyme All around the purple heather Will you go, lassie, go? Clare Brown, that was beautiful. I'm not even going to go back to Jackie Kay because if I know Jackie Kay, she's in tears at that. So Clare Brown, Gerda Stevenson, Jackie Kay, you are in tears, aren't you?

I am. Thank you all so much for joining us this morning. And I will just mention again, Macca to Macca tomorrow, seven o'clock, the National Theatre of Scotland's YouTube channel. And really thank you all so much this morning. I was talking to Scotland's Macca,

Jackie Kay, Gerda Stevenson, and listening, of course, to the singer Claire Brown Now we did have a few technical problems as you may have noticed today we do try our best

Maggie Fernie emailed to say of Jenny Colgan the author of 500 Miles From You, I do hope you can get her back, I discovered her books in the last year and loved them. Antonia on email said, I heard a commentator many years ago, black dancers were seen as the wrong colour to blend with the chorus, thus not only keeping them out of the profession, let alone

become a principal dancer. Often you don't think about these things until you hear someone enlighten you to the issues. Roz said on email, Give Jackie Kay her own show. We love her. She's brilliant. Please have her on every week. Carolyn Chauvelin in Northumberland said, Just came into the kitchen to catch the end of Jenny Murray's Woman's Hour this morning. Moved to tears by the beauty of what I heard. Thank you. Just beautiful. Serena said,

I've never emailed you before, but today's episode listening to the final song was so emotional. We women cope in the most difficult circumstances. Thank you. And Jim Galbraith said, never mind Jackie Kay. I'm an 80-year-old male weeping over the coffee maker. Stunning. And then Cheryl tweeted to say, we're all crying at the wonderful singing on Woman's Hour.

Well, thank you for all your emails and tweets. Do join me tomorrow, if you can, when we hope to have Jenny Colgan back on the programme to make up for the fact that we had to let her go today because of that terrible line. But we'll also be discussing alcoholism because last weekend, an editorial in the British Medical Journal reported that before COVID-19 only one in five harmful and dependent drinkers got the help they needed and

now the proportion will be lower. So are you concerned that you're drinking too much? How do you cope with an alcohol problem under lockdown and what support is there? Well, we'll be discussing it tomorrow. And also the author Michelle Roberts joins us to talk about how a publisher's rejection of her novel plunged her into depression and how she brought herself round again by writing a diary and embracing what Keats had called negative capability. Join me tomorrow, three minutes past ten, if you can. Bye-bye. Hi, my name's Jarvis Cocker, and I'm here to tell you about Wireless Nights,

a nocturnal investigation into the human condition. A collection of stories about the night, and the people who come alive after dark. From nightclubs to night rail, from the man in the moon to the land of the midnight sun. Join me and discover a different kind of nightlife. All episodes now available on the BBC Sounds app. I'm Sarah Treleaven and for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered there was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies I started like warning everybody

every doula that I know it was fake no pregnancy and the deeper I dig the more questions I unearth how long has she been doing this what does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.