Woman's Hour - Oti Mabuse's second Strictly win; Virtual child protection conferences; Liz Berry's poetry

Episode Date: December 26, 2020

Labour MP Stella Creasy joins us to discuss buy now pay later services, and whether they should be regulated. Oti Mabuse and partner Bill Bailey have been crowned Strictly Come Dancing champions as they took the 2020 glitter ball trophy home on Saturday. Oti Mabuse is the first professional to win the competition two years in a row. Next year, she is going on tour with her new show ‘I AM HERE', which explores her journey from growing up in South Africa, to becoming a multi-award winning dancer.The mezzo-soprano Patricia Hammond is celebrating the parlour song. Composed by women, these domestic songs of the Victorian era have largely been marginalised or forgotten. In her new book and CD, She Wrote the Songs, she tells us about the women behind the songs and their importance to musical history.We heard earlier in the pandemic that in-person meetings for vulnerable children had become mostly impossible. But now child protection professionals feel that face-to-face conferences are unlikely to ever resume. So what does that mean for the children in question? And what is missed as a result? Lisa Harker from the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory joins us. A new BBC three-part drama Black Narcissus tells the story of a group of Anglo-Catholic nuns who travel to the Himalayas to set up a school in an abandoned clifftop palace, which was once known as the 'House of Women'. It's adapted from Rumer Godden's 1939 novel, and the writer Amanda Coe joins Jane to discuss.The breast surgeon and breast cancer survivor, Liz O'Riordan, tells us the story behind her 'Jar of Joy'.And the award-winning poet Liz Berry shares her evocative poetry inspired by her love for the Black Country.Presenter: Andrea Catherwood Producer: Rosie Stopher Editor: Beverley Purcell

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. Good afternoon. I hope that you're having a happy Boxing Day, whatever shape that's taking for you this year. Now, if you shopped online for Christmas presents, you may well have seen or even used the Buy Now, Pay Later service from Klarna that many retailers are offering. But as the Advertising Standards Authority deems an Instagram shopping campaign it launched during the first lockdown irresponsible,

should more be done to protect consumers? The Strictly Come Dancing reigning champion Oti Mabusi joins us. How is her second victory in two years sinking in? And mezzo-soprano Patricia Hammond explores the history of the humble parlor song and why they're so frequently forgotten about. And a particular cruelty of the whole dismissal of this entire genre is the fact that this genre was the only way that women composers could actually create and express themselves. Well, we've all had to get used to virtual meetings this year, but even in a post-pandemic world, will child protection services ever get back to essential in-person conferences? A new adaptation of Rumour Gooden's

1939 novel Black Narcissus begins tomorrow. Why do nuns make such good television? Consultant breast surgeon Liz Riordan explains how a jar of joy is key to keeping her spirits up. And the poet Liz Berry shares the inspiration behind her poetry, featured on musician Keris Matthews' new album. I remember simultaneously feeling both completely raw, like I'd shed a skin, and also as if the world was just ecstatically

beautiful at the same time. Now, shopping online has absolutely rocketed during the pandemic, and along with it, the use of Klarna and other buy-now-play-later options. If you're not familiar with them, but you do shop online, you've probably seen them. When you come to pay, there's always a few options, you know, credit card, debit card, etc.

And now increasingly, there is the option of paying later or paying in installments. It's got no interest and no fees, but you probably know what's coming. The ease with which you can buy and, of course, get into debt is ringing some alarm bells. Well, Stella Creasy, Labour MP, joins me now. Stella, welcome. Hi, Andrea. No interest, no fees, buy now, pay later.

What's the problem? What's not to like? Well, as often in life, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. What we're seeing with these buy now pay later companies like klana clear part clear pay and lay by is that people are spending more than they can afford and consistently now we're seeing a lot of research that shows that and so getting into debt because they can't then afford the repayments later down the line um it's a very new technology for a very old problem which is that it encourages people to spend more than they have

because it looks like the price is a lot cheaper than it actually is because you're spreading the payment. But critically, these companies operate in a loophole in our current credit regulation in the UK, which means that they don't have to provide the same information, the same affordability checks that you have with other forms of credit. So if you were to use your credit card, for example, or if you were to use a payday loan, they're not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. So they don't have to give consumers the same

warning, the same responsible messaging that other forms of credit have to do. And that's where we're worried that people are falling into the trap. Now, the Advertising Standards Agency have just upheld a complaint that you made about ads where influencers were buying things using Klarna to boost their mood in the pandemic. Why were you particularly concerned about that? Well, yes, I mean, we've seen an explosion of people using these kinds of forms of credit over the last eight months. And it's a sign of what I'm worried about, sorry, in this industry that needs to change, that they were putting out adverts encouraging people if they were feeling low at home because of the pandemic

and isolated to spend money to boost their moods because obviously it's very irresponsible to encourage people to get into debt as a way of dealing with perhaps mental health challenges. And I'm really pleased that the ASA has upheld that complaint. Indeed, what's interesting to me is it's a parallel to a complaint I made a couple of years ago about payday lending companies like Wonga who were doing exactly the same thing.

You know, don't worry about the consequences, just get some easy money now and make yourself feel better. It's that sort of behaviour that we have to change. Nobody's saying that there isn't a place for being able to spread payments, but I want these companies to have to change. Nobody's saying that there isn't a place for being able to spread payments, but I want these companies to have to be as responsible to my constituents as any other form of credit.

And the evidence during lockdown is a lot of people are spending more money than they have, especially, you know, we're looking at possibly three, four million people losing their jobs when they're not sure

about their income streams. And then, of course, they get into a debt that they can't get out of. Now, Klarna have responded to us today. They've said that they are disappointed by the decision and that they were genuinely trying to recognise the mood of consumers in the first lockdown, but they do acknowledge that they missed the mark. Now, they've also said, and I'm quoting here, this is, frankly, a bigger topic than us. It's across brands and sectors, regulated or not,

and we believe that some leadership is required on this. Now, Klarna went on to say that they're going to set up a council with interested parties to provide some guidelines. Now, that obviously isn't the same as what you are calling for,

which is for them to be regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. What do you think about that? Is that good enough, Stella? No, it's not. And, you know, this time of year, often turkeys argue that Christmas is a bad idea, don't they? Listen, I've been here before with companies coming into the UK

like these companies have, offering new forms of credit like payday lenders did, and saying that they can be trusted to look after consumer interests. I want the government to learn the lessons of the payday lending industry on the 5th of january there will be a vote in parliament for mps and it's cross-party support so there's tories lib dems and smp people supporting this amendment to regulate these companies just as we regulate every other form of credit and frankly when they put out statements like that i think it shows why

the government needs to step in we are trying trying to show leadership in Parliament. I just hope the government will listen because when they didn't listen on Wonga, there are still millions of people in this country who are in financial difficulty because they took out a Wonga loan when they were told it was affordable and it wasn't. Lots of people will be listening to this thinking, hold on, this isn't new. I mean, you touched on this yourself. The company is new, of course. I mean, this is relatively new, this idea of paying in installments, though. I mean, it is the model that catalogues have been using for years. And, you know, there is a reason.

Money's tight at the moment and people will turn to this kind of purchasing if it allows them to, for example, buy Christmas presents or school clothes so that they can have them when they need them and maybe they don't have the cash. So there is a place for this. Do you think that that's the case? If it's regulated properly, that it could actually be useful? Yes, absolutely. Just as there is a place for short-term lending like payday lending, if it is properly regulated. And bringing in the regulation we have from the campaign that we run, we've just seen the numbers of people complaining about debt caused by payday lending drop dramatically these companies boast that they get consumers to spend 35 to 40 percent more than they would have done if they'd used other forms of credit so we've used your credit card or your bank account at the checkout and people will have seen now if they shop online that this comes up increasingly as the first

option from retailers that's not an accident It's because they know if you can spread the cost, you will spend more. And that's fine if people can afford it. But if they're not operating like other forms of credit, where they have to give you that information so you can make that assessment, then it's clear that problems are going to come. And what frustrates me is that the government ministers tell me they get that there is a problem and these companies probably need to be regulated. The Financial Conduct Authority has launched an investigation into them. But the pace of change is very slow.

We're on Christmas Eve now. I know many of your listeners might well have used these companies to buy things. And I'm really worried that if we don't get a grip of this industry, we could see another scandal like we saw with the payday lending companies. So my advice to anybody is please do the maths. It's not that that pair of trainers or that gift that you're buying is a third cheaper. You still have to pay the full price. It's just over a couple of weeks. And if you are at risk of losing your job, which so many people are, then you may find that you can't afford these payments and therefore it could affect your credit rating. It could mean that you get into a debt that you can't get out of. We know already that a fifth of people say they've spent more than

they can afford because they've been able to use buy now, pay later forms of spending. When these companies are boasting that they're signing up a new rating tailor every eight minutes in this country, somebody has to say, stop, hang on a minute. What's in the best interest of consumers? And that's what we're trying to do on January the 5th. And I hope every MP listening to this and everybody worried about personal debts listening to this will ask their MP to agree that regulation matters. The companies tell me they think they ought to be regulated. It's just a bit like turkeys when it comes to Christmas. When it comes to proposals, they always say no. That's why we need to step in.

Well, Stella, thank you very much indeed for that. Just before you go, you're an MP for London constituency in tier four. I presume that your Christmas plans have been curtailed somewhat. Yeah, look, I'm heartbroken. My parents actually live two minutes down the road from me. But because my daughter is 13 months old rather than 12 months old, we can't form a bubble with them. So this Christmas, in her special Christmas outfit, she will be going up and down the road in front of them to deliver presents, but not able to sit down to dinner with them. But I've also lost too many constituents, seen too many friends struggling with long COVID.

And I'm very fearful about what will happen if we don't get a grip on this virus, especially with the new variant in the UK, to risk it. And I know a lot of people feel like that. It's heartbreaking that we've all been put in this position, but we will get through it. Stella, thank you very much indeed for sharing your stories with us. It's been a week since the Strictly Come Dancing 2020 final and the nation crowned Oti Mabuse and Bill Bailey champions. They gave us sparkle, shine and star quality over the past few months. And my goodness, didn't we need it? Well, OT spoke to Woman's Hour just a few days after her victory.

And Jessica Crichton asked her whether it had sunk in yet. No, not really. Because yesterday, Bill and I had like a two-hour phone call. And we literally just went through the whole week and the ups and downs that we had faced, the conversations that we had had, all the little moments that we had that led to that one moment where Tess announced our name. And we couldn't believe it, you know? And I think I could hear it from Bill

on like the Wednesday, Thursday, when he's like, we don't stand a chance you know for me it's so difficult I don't see how this is possible and fast forward to Saturday where he is the winner of Strictly Come Dancing on 2020 it's just beautiful and we

had a cry again we cried again and it was like a phone call full of oh thank you thank you I adore you you I adore you. You're an inspiration. We made history. We did it. It was beautiful. Oh, I can hear in your voice just how much it meant. Let's just relive that moment of joy when you were announced as winners. The votes have been counted and independently verified, and I can now reveal the Strictly Come Dancing champions

2020 are Bill and Audrey How does that feel, Bill? Talk to us. It feels surreal, it feels extraordinary, it feels wonderful. I never thought that we would get this far. I never thought we'd get to the final. But I have the most extraordinary teacher, the most extraordinary dancer... CHEERING AND APPLAUSE dancer someone who has who believed in me right from the beginning and she found something in me turned me into this into a dancer thank you ot wow ot high praise from your dance partner bill

bailey there and what a journey you guys went on because it seemed like you started the competition Wow, Oti, high praise from your dance partner, Bill Bailey there. And what a journey you guys went on, because it seemed like you started the competition as a novelty act and even Bill expected to get this far. Did you? Yes. No, not really. I think because last season I had done really well with Calvin and that ended very well.

I assume that this year, because usually what happens and what has happened for the last 17 years is that if you do win, you come back as the reigning champion and you only make it up until week three or week four. So I was like, oh, okay, so I guess this is my turn then. And I guess it was my husband who actually really changed my mentality and said to me, you are good. You are good enough.

And if you really, really, really are that good, it shouldn't matter what happened last year. This is a whole new year, and you need to show how good you are and really prove how good you are because you're constantly telling the whole country that you believe anybody can dance. Now is your chance to prove really that anybody, no matter what age, what background, what you look like, anyone can dance. And that changed really my thought. I think that's really what captured the nation's hearts. It's just this idea that it doesn't matter about your ability necessarily

as long as you're enjoying what you're doing and doing it with a smile on your face, you can achieve something quite magical. Yes, and the thing about Bill, which is really incredible, is that as a human being, I think the nation knows Bill as a chameleon, but they know him also

as a very curious man. They know that he's very interested in animals. He cares for animals. He's very inquisitive. Same thing applied when he was dancing. He was always asking questions. He was always going above and beyond. And that is a trait that I learned from him. So whenever we had a dance and we knew what dance we would possibly have the next week, he would go and do the history of why the dance formed, who were the role players, the key players in the dance, how did it come to England, how did it become a competitive sport.

And that inspired me. So if ever we had a theme, I would watch, like, for week two, we had, what was it, Dr. Doolittle. And so I went back and watched all the Dr. Doolittle that were made just to gain reference and to be a little bit familiar with the dance, the way we were supposed to have our mannerisms, the look of it. And so that idea of just going above and beyond, not only working from 8 in the morning until 10 at night rehearsing, but also just really igniting the mind

and the intelligence so that you can have a backstory on whatever you were doing. So he was, this is what I consider passion. And I think he was tremendously passionate about this and everything that he does. And I hope that's what came through. Well, you mentioned there that Bill inspired you and he said the same thing about you and I think

people really tapped into the way that you two bonded particularly at a time in 2020 that's been so tough for so many people. Were you aware of how important the competition had become to people, how joyful it had become? Well, when we started seeing everybody leave, like literally when the contestants started getting less and less, I started to tell Bill that now the competition is beyond us. Now we're not just doing it for us. We're doing it for people at home who need this because he would get loads of messages from people who think i work for the nhs and it's really tough

but you've given me a little bit of light and something to look forward to so i told him i was like this is just proof of what you mean to a lot of people and what you have to do is do your best and imagine that world imagine how crazy that world is that you doing your best on a dancing show inspires somebody else to go have a good day at work and that's something that we can't take for granted you really have to take that moment in and appreciate it for what it is the fact that coming out here and dancing and doing something that you're not comfortable with is making somebody else happy.

You want to do to the fullest potential. And so every week when we started to, I think it was like week four, week five, I said to him, we need to come from a place of joy and gratitude when we're dancing. That is the only thing I want you to feel and the only thing I want you to admit when you're dancing is how grateful you are to be here,

how grateful you are to have people vote for you and how grateful we are to have actually been able to do the show. And certainly did that. Now, let's talk about your up and coming tour called I Am Here. It's a celebration of your influences and inspirations on growing up in South Africa to, of course, following your dancing dreams. So what can people expect to see? Well, I am going to push myself with this. I think this is my first project ever that I get to do on my own. I'm choreographing it as well. And I'm creative directing it as well, as long as the team. And so, for me, the show is really not just about me, but also paying homage to dance as a whole,

to say thank you to all the women that have been in my life, because I don't know if people know this, but Strictly is a majority women-run show. Our executive producers, our line producers, our presenters, the panel, the cast. So there are a lot of women that have actually got me to where I am. And I think this tour is to say thank you to them. And I know people see the double titles, but they never get to see the people in the background

that are wiping your tears when you're sad or the people who come up with the songs of Strictly and the concepts. And those are really strong women. And I think this is another tour that not only is it going to be entertaining, but a thank you for everything to the women in my life. Now, we've spoken a lot about inspiration in this conversation, Oti. And of course, Bill Bailey was the oldest dancer to ever win Strictly. And he says he hopes more dads will take up dancing or at least get fit as a result of seeing him on TV.

Dance schools have said they're expecting to see a rise in older men joining classes in the new year. That is why representation matters in all aspects of life. I think Bill was really open about the fact that older men sometimes are a little bit embarrassed to admit that they can't dance or they can't dance. And I know from coming from a Latin and ballroom background that older gentlemen love to do ballroom, you know, but they would never, ever have the courage to get up and say, I'm going to do a class or the salsa by myself and partly why he said that was because I just opened my dance school now and he was like once I'm done with strictly and all the restrictions are done I'm definitely going to come to the school because he loved it he fell in love with it he fell in love with the community of dads that we have we have family classes that we offer so this whole family can come and do a dance class together and we have daddy and daughter classes so it feels like he had a

responsibility just to encourage people one to be healthy but also to come out of their comfort zones and start something new. Oti it's been incredible to talk to you and I really hope now that you are able to get some much deserved rest. That's not going to happen. We all know that's not going to happen. Every single person who knows me knows that it's definitely not going to happen. I'm trying, but it's not going to happen. Well, we do hope that she gets some rest.

Oti's tour, I Am Here, starts on the 16th of April 2021. And if you're missing your Strictly fix, you might enjoy our dancing special with head judge Shirley Ballas. Search Women's Hour Strictly on BBC Sounds to find out. The mezzo-soprano Patricia Hammond is celebrating the Parlour Song. Composed by women, these domestic songs of the Victorian era have largely been

marginalised or forgotten. In her new book and CD, She Wrote the Songs, she tells us about the women behind the songs and their importance to musical history. Jane asked Patricia what period of time she'd been looking at. My particular survey goes from the 1830s to about the 1930s well actually 1950 and it kind of follows the heyday of the um of the you know when people would play music in their own homes yeah and you would buy the music and replicate it at home because well radio and recordings hadn't become that, you know, well, they weren't invented or they were just not the major, I don't know, music, means of musical sharing. Well, what were the means of musical sharing?

The parlour piano and before the piano there were harps and there were parlour guitars and the banjo and things like that, sort of home played instruments. And I suppose you could say the parlor song is technically perhaps a bit easier than some of the major kind of operatic arias and things like that. OK. Yeah, it's interesting territory, this, isn't it? Because, you know, you believe very passionately that these women have been dismissed and their work has been cruelly dismissed or just totally ignored. So let's hear some of this. You are the voice here, we should say. You're the singer. Oh, yeah. Tell us about the first song, which is Bless This House. Who was the composer? That's May Brahe. The words are by Helen Taylor. It was written in 1927 and it became a kind of a prayer

for domesticity and the sanctity of one's own space, I suppose. And it was very popular in the Second World War as a result. Okay, let's hear it. Bless This House. Bless this house, O Lord, we pray. Make it safe by night and day.

Bless these walls so firm and stout, keeping want and trouble out. Now, didn't Harry Seacombe sing that? Yes, he kind of made a joke of it. He'd sing it at prisons and things like that. Oh, I see. Right. OK. But it also has a strange link, at least to my mind, to the American presidency. Can you just tell us about that?

Yes. Well, it was performed at two inaugurations. Dwight Eisenhower and his wife Mamie loved the poem so much that she had it framed and hung it everywhere in the White House while she was there and then in their successive houses. And also at the inauguration of George W. Bush, the second inauguration after 9-11. So in the same way, it's very interesting parallel would be the Blitz. It became a huge hit during when when London was being bombed again as a kind of prayer.

And also at the funeral of FDR Franklin Roosevelt in 1945. And apparently, according to its composer, May Brahe, Franklin D. Roosevelt's fireside chats in the 1930s, early 1930s, were on many radio stations preceded by this song. Yes. It's sentimental, but it's not ludicrously saccharine, is it? No, I mean, that's the thing. A lot of people talk about the Parler song as being, oh, sentimental and domestic in a way to belittle it. And this is particularly true historically. I mean, generations of critics have spent their time just dismissing the entire genre for the for the reasons of domesticity and amateurism which is kind of interesting considering that say the madrigal that was that was written they were written for for amateurs they were written for the home yeah

you were seeing your madrigals after after dinner um same with Lieder. I mean, the German Lied, you don't hear people saying, oh, Schubert's Lieder, written for the home, written for amateurs. Do you know what? I think Woman's Hour is on to something, isn't it? It's women do get underrated, Patricia. We've only been saying it since 1946 here. Yeah. And a particular cruelty of the whole dismissal of this entire genre is the fact that this genre was the only way that women composers could actually create and express themselves.

Well, let's hear another one. Tell us about this. This is Perfect Day, A Perfect Day. Tell us what you know about this one? When you come to the end of A Perfect Day, it was written, I think, in 1910. And Carrie Jacobs Bond, she was American. I should say Mae Brahe, although she lived in St. John's High Street in London. She was from Australia and she died in Australia, but she made her career in England. But Carrie Jacobs Bond was American and And she was a single mother, and her husband had died. And she had no means of supporting herself. She tried to accept she would paint tea sets, she would do do paint paintings of roses on tea sets. And she also could write and play songs and sing them. And she tried to get publishers interested in her songs, and they said either that they were too highbrow

or that they were not highbrow enough. And there you have a lot of Carla songs. People say that about... So she decided she'd publish them herself, and she became a millionaire. Here we go. Here's A Perfect Day. Times ring out with a carol gay For the joy that the day has brought Yes, I can see people, whilst enjoying it, Patricia,

also hurling things at the radio and saying, well, you didn't live through a pandemic, love. But I guess... Well, it was a big, big success in the First World War, that one. Well, and that doesn't that put everything in perspective? We actually need to hear that. So thank you for saying that. Okay. I mean, I really want to talk just very briefly, if you don't mind, about sheet music and the women who demonstrated sheet music, because that was another way of, we talk about Spotify and the streaming music

these days well they were the streamers of their day weren't they yes yes i mean it was it was a lot of this music was by women for women so for women to to play in the home for their friends and um also also as a means of making money mean, you could sell your sheet music and make money. And I do apologize for speaking fast, but there's just so much to say on this subject. But yes. So you had women and men who worked in sheet music departments to demonstrate in the shop what you actually see this in the good oldertime, the character that Judy Garland plays. And she sits there with harp and sings. Oh, I can't remember the song she sings. Someone will know. Don't worry. They'll tell me. But carry on. I know, but I can't think of it. And she sings it so that people will buy the song and also the little harp that she's demonstrating, which is quite fun. And actually Ethel Merman started her career as being a sheet music song demonstrator. That was Patricia Hammond. And you also heard from Andrea Kamakova

and Rupert Gillette accompanying her singing there. And still to come on the programme, the executive producer of the new adaptation of Black Narcissus explains why she loves stories about nuns. And the poet Liz Berry reads her evocative work, inspired by the black country. And next week on Woman's Hour, should mum still be driving?

When does fierce independence become bad behaviour? Am I getting the right care? Is it worth taking seven different medicines? On Wednesday, Jane will be talking to the consultant Dr Lucy Pollock, who specialises in caring for the elderly and frail. She'll be telling us about why we need to talk about getting older and how to live old well. Well, if you've got a question or concerns

about how to care for an elderly relative or just thoughts on getting old yourself, we'd love to hear from you. You can email us via the website or tweet us at BBC Women's Hour. And I just want to remind you that you can enjoy Women's Hour any hour of the day. If you can't join us live at 10am during the week, just download the BBC Signs app or subscribe via our website. Earlier this year, we discussed the problem that social workers

are having assessing children who might be at risk doing assessments via FaceTime for example. The Nuffield Family Justice Observatory is an organisation that provides child protection practitioners with data in an attempt to ensure the best outcomes for children and parents. In their new research, they find that child protection professionals feel face-to-face child protection conferences won't ever start again. Now, is that something that we ought to be concerned about? Lisa Harker is Director of the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory. Jane asked her what happens at a child protection conference. Well, these are really important meetings in the child protection process.

They're the point at which professionals have a worry about a family and the safety of a child. And they call a meeting to draw together all the evidence that they have and to discuss that with the family and to make a plan. So it's the point at which it's important for the family to give their side of the story, for professionals to exchange information. And where they work well, a good plan can be put in place to make sure that a child is safe and no further intervention is necessary. And so what has happened during the pandemic? Well, since lockdown began in March, child protection conferences have been heavily disrupted.

Face-to-face meetings have stopped. And in the main, they've been held by video conference and in some research that was undertaken by King's College London which we've recently published we found that there was quite a disconnect between how professionals saw these remote conferences and how parents were experiencing them. In the main, professionals could see the advantage of working in this way. In particular, it's very challenging to bring together all these professionals. There might need to be a meeting with school teachers, the police, other health professionals, a GP or a psychiatrist,

and also the social worker working with the family. And pre-pandemic, it can be difficult to get everybody in a room. So professionals have found it easier to do that by video conference. But families that were involved in the research almost universally said that they found it much harder to be involved via video or in many cases joining a meeting by phone. And this would be families who are joining by phone because not because that's what they wanted but because they they didn't have a laptop for example. Yes they don't have the right technology to join in they might not have the right bandwidth to be able to fully participate in a video meeting and as you can imagine there are you know a number of professionals

discussing a child discussing a parent's parenting it can be a very intimidating occasion at the best of times extremely difficult to join such a a meeting by telephone when you can't see who's there or really understand what's going on. And parents talked about really not feeling that their voice was heard, not feeling that they fully understood who was talking at which times or having a paperwork in front of them to really figure out what was going on. But what has happened in practice, Lisa? Has the way these conferences have been taking place led to more children being taken into care? Well, it's early days, of course. Social work across the board has been affected by the pandemic

and it's been extremely difficult for professionals to work in such a remote way when so much of their work depends on building relationships with families. So there's been a sort of slowdown in the amount of work that's taken place. And since September, when schools returned, there's been a real pickup in the amount of child protection work happening. So we won't know for some time the full effect in terms of children's lives but it's clear that as we come out of the pandemic ultimately when social distancing measures are eased that there's a real need to ensure that we don't hold on to practices that are beneficial to professionals rather than very difficult for families okay rather than to the people about whom major decisions are being made but um you do seem

genuinely concerned that because this current system suits the professionals in fact we we won't go back to face-to-face meetings it's still an open question there was a sense from the research that we published that professionals did not expect to go back to full face-to-face meetings, although many local authorities are now exploring a sort of hybrid approach where a social worker can go and see a family in their home, socially distanced with PPE and so on, and help them take part in the conference from their own home

while others join by video. So there are innovations happening and of course it's important that we learn and build on those. What really matters at the core of all this is the safety of vulnerable children, Lisa, and what do you feel? Do you feel that they are more vulnerable as a result of these meetings taking place in this way. Where child protection works well, the right children are subject to further intervention, possibly taken away from their families when they are at risk of abuse or neglect. But equally, there's a risk that children may be taken into care who shouldn't be given that families are not fully engaged in discussions about their children and their

parenting so it's important in both ways to ensure that the families are able to fully participate to make sure that the right children can stay with their families in their care and the right children can be taken into care who are at risk. So I'm going to push you, I'm afraid, Lisa, you think they should be done face-to-face? I think they should be done face-to-face and I think the local authorities who are already putting in steps to ensure that they can be done, even in these challenging times

where we have to be socially distanced, are beginning to recognise the importance of doing that. Lisa Harker from the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory. Rumour Garden's novel Black Narcissus was published in 1939 and in it, a group of nuns travel to a remote clifftop palace in the Himalayas. Of course they do. What could possibly go wrong? Well, now it's been adapted for television

and the executive producer and writer is Amanda Coe. Jane asked her whether she knew of the novel before getting the call to take on the project. I knew the film, the Powell and Pressburger film, which made a big impression on me when I was a film student. So I had a slight bridling at, well, why would you remake this masterpiece of cinema? And then I read the book, which is also a masterpiece in a very different way. So, yeah, it was doubly daunting, but it was also very, very appealing.

We're going to have just a short clip because poignantly, actually, this version of Black Narcissus stars Diana Rigg as Mother Dorothea. And here she is talking to Sister Clodagh, played by Gemma Arterton. This is right at the very start of Black Narcissus. Mopu is a wild place. There isn't even a policeman there. Just the general's agent, Mr. Dean. If only Father Roberts wasn't laid low. Forgive me, Reverend Mother.

If you put your faith in me, I know I can make a success of the new convent. I do so feel I was called to do God's work there, to bring education and enlightenment to such a remote part of the world. I know I can do it. I, Clodagh. So many I's. We, Reverend Mother. Gemma Arterton playing Sister Clodagh and the late Diana Rigg as Mother Dorothea.

Gemma Arterton's character, Clodagh, is an ambitious nun, Amanda. Tell me about her. Yes, the worst kind of nun, an ambitious nun. Clodagh's the youngest sister superior in the Order. She's been promoted early and Mother Dorothea feels that she's not quite ready for the challenge that's presented itself for this reason of her ego, which you heard her saying so many eyes. And yeah, so going to set up the convent up in Mopu presents a challenge to her character. We should say this is a remote clifftop palace in the Himalaya, in India.

What year is the book set in, actually? The book was published in 1939. I think the book is probably set about 1937. We put it to about 1934. Yeah, so the 30s. And the nuns are very certain, of course, as we would not be now. We look at these things with new eyes. But the nuns are very certain that they are right

and that they are here to teach and to teach the right sort of thing. Yes, and to set up this school that nobody in the area really particularly wants to attend. But they've been donated the palace by the local general who's quite keen to try new things and also to use the palace for better ends than it was used previously. So yes, they have a great deal of certainty. And then very quickly, they realised that it's not going to really all go according to plan. No, I haven't. I've only watched the first episode. And I'm simply, I want to keep this, I want to cherish it. I'm also going to read the book. I'm guessing it doesn't end well. What are the themes of this? Sexual repression? Yes. Mr. Dean, the man referred to by Mother Dorothea, is a feast for the for the female eye.

And well, can you reveal any more? Yeah, definitely. Sexual repression is a theme, but also, I guess, a power struggle about what it means to be in charge of both the community and to be in charge of oneself. I think it's ultimately a story about self-knowledge and the dangers of assuming authority when perhaps you don't understand yourself particularly well. Not just Clodagh, but obviously the community as a whole. And it's also a bit about understanding, part of that self-knowledge is understanding sort of where you come from and what your history is, your personal history. Yeah. Yes. Sister Clodagh has, we have flashbacks to her adolescence and to certainly some romantic experiences. And is she tortured by them? What's going on there? It's kind of an odd kind of ghost story in some ways. It has quite a gothic, a powerful kind of gothic atmosphere. Is it Rebecca-esque in some ways then?

I find it very, in my mind, it's very twinned with Rebecca. They came out within a year of each other. And that very intimate gothic atmosphere, very differently played out in Black Narcissus, always reminds me of Rebecca. And I think it's because it's very much about the world of female desire and I don't just mean sexual desire I mean the way you know women define themselves through desire and find their identity and a lot of that gothic vein is to do

in Black Narcissus with the palace as well as the landscape. So Clodagh is sort of haunted. Once she gets to Mopu, she's haunted by her past and the way that she hasn't kind of reconciled herself with it. And Sister Ruth, who's much younger and more unformed than Clodagh, is haunted by what may or may not have happened at the palace itself. So it's a kind of double haunting. Right. It was a house of sin. What did take place in the palace or were we never actually told?

Well, I think you'll find out more by episode three, but it's very connected to the general's sister, Sramati, who, yeah, I think it's fair to say, came to an unhappy end and had an unhappy life living at the palace, which was known as the House of Women. And I probably shouldn't say more than that in case there are spoilers for people. I'm sure a lot of people have read the book or are familiar with the film. Yes, no spoilers. OK, a lot of people are mentioning Dolores. That was Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act. Two Mules for Sister Sarah.

Now, that's a Clint Eastwood film. That was the idea of Bernadette. My favourite nun in film has got to be the penguin in the Blues Brothers. Reminded me of the nuns I was taught by as a child, says Owen. And Amanda Craig, the writer, says, my favourite fictional nuns are the kindly ones who look after Madeline, especially when she has appendicitis, but also the silent Sandy in the prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

In about 30 seconds or so, Amanda, what is the appeal of nuns? Why are so many of us invested in stories about them? It's an immediate appeal about an enclosed community and an institution. And the idea of self-denial and the accompanying eccentricity and also the wimples. I mean, it's a great uniform. It looks great on screen particularly. So, yeah, all of that, I think. Yes, OK. Does it look good on screen?

In what way? Is it just, what is it? It encourages close-ups. Oh, I see. You're drawn into the face, you know, and the beauty of faces or the singularity of faces kind of strips everything away. And Black Narcissus will be on BBC One at 9pm for

three nights, starting tomorrow. In our Christmas Day programme yesterday, we were discussing joy. Liz O'Riordan is a consultant breast surgeon, but in July 2015 she was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer at the age of 40

herself. She started a blog and now writes about her experiences, including creating a jar of joy to keep her going. Well, she had a local recurrence in May 2018 and she retired. She told Jane about why she made that decision. I'd got a lot of left shoulder stiffness and pain and I couldn't move my arm properly, so it wasn't safe for me to operate and I think psychologically dealing with breast cancer patients having had it twice was going to be really really hard. I wanted to ask you about that because that you can obviously never ever get away from it can you? No I knew too much and even as a patient I knew what my chance of recurrence might be before my husband and my

parents did and it was really hard trying to just be a patient. Yeah. And I suddenly had to redefine myself because I spent 20 years describing myself as a surgeon. And then suddenly I'm 43 and I think, who am I? What am I going to do with my life? It was really hard. Very young, actually, 43. Yeah.

To reach that stage in your life when you realised you couldn't be the person you thought you were anymore through no fault of your own. Exactly and I think it made me realise that life as a surgeon can be so boring because I spent all my life training, I had no hobbies, I did nothing for fun, it was work, eat, sleep, revise, do night shifts and I suddenly had the time to join a choir and to walk the dog and to start cycling and getting into sport properly and start knitting and sewing and all the stuff I'd always thought I'd do when I'm retired. And it gave me a whole new lease of life and a different way of helping people by writing and talking and sharing my experiences. And I think in lockdown,

it's been amazing to talk to people all over the world virtually instead of relying on people to come to conferences. And it's been lovely to get that feedback all over the world virtually instead of relying on people to come to conferences and it's been lovely to get that feedback the way you dealt with your cancer might you have expected that of yourself or did you surprise yourself actually i surprised myself hugely i have no idea where the woman i am now came from i was very shy and introverted and it was your right chatterbox now i know it all started because of Twitter I used to tweet about triathlons and baking by doing all the sport I could eat all the cake and I thought I can't not talk about breast cancer for nine months I wasn't going to wear a wig people would recognize me having chemo so I thought right and my husband and I pressed the button to send a tweet

saying I'm coming out I've got breast cancer and my life changed forever I was flooded with support from other patients who told me how to cope and that led to me helping people through blogging and writing and now I've just got this whole new passion to help improve the quality of care for cancer patients. And at what point did you come up with this jar of joy concept? That was New Year's Eve 2016. So the 23rd of December 2015 I'd had my surgery, I'd had my mastectomy, and I was expecting it to be good news because my scans had shown chemo had melted my cancer away. But I found out there was actually 13 centimetres of cancer left and it had spread to my lymph nodes.

And as a surgeon, I knew how bad that could be. And it was just before Christmas. And my mum said, right, I'm going to let you wallow for a week. But after that, you need to pull your backside out of a sling. You can't be miserable forever. And I told your mother in the forces. No, she was a nurse. Right.

OK. You know, you need your mum to give you a strict talking to, you know, to say, look, for goodness sake, I need to give you some tough love. Come on now. You can't just smoke forever. And she was right. And I'd heard about gratitude journals where you write every day. But that just seemed like too much hard work. And I saw an empty vase, a bit like a goldfish bowl.

I thought, right, every time something good happens, I'm going to put it on a card and put it in the jar. And it's visual. So my husband found a fiver in a pair of trousers he hadn't worn for a year. That went in. And then he let our puppy sleep on the sofa and that went in. But where does the puppy normally sleep? The puppy used to sleep in the kitchen in his crate. And then I thought, I've had to retire. I i've had cancer i want the dog on the sofa for a

cuddle and i don't do it every day what's the dog called dog called hunter he's a brown and white cocker spaniel and because it's it's not every day and it's visual whenever i walk past it in the kitchen it just makes me smile i hear bad news when other friends died of cancer or when my husband went into hospital with covid but i look at it and I think there are good things that happen and for me it's nature. It's seeing a hedgehog in the garden at night or it's just hearing the birds singing. Liz O'Riordan and you can listen back to the whole of the Christmas Day programme full of joy on BBC Sounds. The musician and presenter Keris Matthews has a new album out in January, We Come From The Sun, and it features the Hidden Orchestra and the work of ten poets.

One of them is Liz Berry. She spoke to Jane on Monday, and we heard an excerpt from her poem Connemara, played over the signs from the Hidden Orchestra. I stepped out of my skin at dusk in Connemara Where bush crickets thrummed like pylons and the lines smelled of tar and clover. What lay beneath was fragile, not yet ready for its season. The drizzle made soar music of my nerve endings.

I was beautiful to the crows as a butcher's window. Liz, that's fantastic. And the sound effects work brilliantly with it. How much did you know about the work of the Hidden Orchestra, Liz, before all this? Oh, it's been a beautiful new discovery for me. But it was so exciting to sort of work in collaboration. I think as a poet, you're quite used to letting your poems go,

letting them off into the world by themselves so it's lovely to feel actually they're going to be in good hands. Can you just tell us a little bit about what inspired that? Did you have a moment in Connemara? What happened there? Actually that poem comes from a pamphlet called The Republic of Motherhood and the poem Connemara is about the day I found out I was pregnant with my first son. And I remember simultaneously feeling both completely raw,

like I'd shed a skin, and also as if the world was just ecstatically beautiful at the same time. Didn't you feel sick? No, that came a few weeks later. That's OK. All right, I shouldn't judge everybody from my own experience As we're in the Christmas mood well, we're trying after a fashion I want to play the next clip straight away Liz

if you don't mind and then you can talk to us about this So this is a short extract from your poem Christmas Eve Here we go Sleet is tumbling into the lap Of the plaster cast Mary by the manger at St Jude's. A face gorgeous and naive as the last Bilston Carnival Queen.

In the Lowry's flats, opposite the cemetery, Mrs Shoule is turning on a fibre optic tree and unfolding a ticket for the Rollover Lottery The way I never had a better look in our lives I just think that is brilliant for the mention of the rollover and the Bilston Carnival Queen Take us into that world Liz

Tell us a bit more about that one So Christmas Eve is a poem from my first collection Black Country and the poem takes the listener on a journey around the little towns of the black country on a snowy Christmas Eve lets us peep in the pubs and the houses and the back alleys and meet some of the characters who live there and when I was writing it I was really inspired by my experience as a child listening to the vinyl record of Under Milkwood, Dylan Thomas' Under Milkwood, and just feeling spellbound by that gorgeous opening where you wander around the little town at night.

And I suppose I wanted to make something magical like that for the black country. Is that because people... By the way, I love the black country. I think people by the way i love the black country um i think there's some the black country museum is one of the best museums i ever took my kids to i know it's i'm sure it's not open at the moment is it well nothing is but um there are some great great parts of it and the people are incredible but it is a part of the country liz well you know this better than me that other people slightly mock or just try to ignore? They do, and that's why it felt for me so important to make these poems

which showed what was beautiful or interesting or tender or complicated about it. When I first began writing poems about the black country and using its dialect, I likened that to digging up the Staffordshire Hoard, this area where people think it's sort of hilarious and grotty. All of a sudden was this field full of spectacular words and sounds and stories, all just hidden in the muck. And I love the idea of lifting the region up and showing people actually how warm it is,

how kind a region it is and some of the brilliant stories and history it's got. Most of us don't find time in our lives for poetry. So how do you drag reluctant people like Cher, our texter, and people like me, frankly, into your world to get people to appreciate what you can do and the power of wordsmithery? Do you know, I think poems often find people when they need them.

Sometimes when we're really sad, when we're lonely, when we're in love, when we're grieving. And I think this has actually been a year for lots of people to discover poems and get some comfort and solace from them. But I think actually projects like this one, projects that take poems out into the world and connect people and let people experience them in different ways,

I think that's an amazing way of helping to join people and poems together. Liz Berry. And do join Jane on Monday when she'll be talking about all things space. She's joined by the first woman to be NASA's Chief Flight Director, Holly Ridings, to discuss her trailblazing career. And she'll also explore how fit you need to be to go into space and hear about the cultural significance of space and the moon to us. That's just after 10 o'clock on Monday. But from me for now, enjoy the rest of your Boxing Day and indeed your weekend.

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 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 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.