Woman's Hour - Ozempic, Netball Super League, Olivier award-winner Cassidy Janson

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

As prescriptions for weight loss drugs in the UK increase, Woman’s Hour explores how safe online prescriptions for things like Ozempic and Wegovy are. Fashion stylist Jeannie Annan Lewin tells us how she buys the drugs and how they have helped her. Anita Rani is joined by Alima Batchelor, from the Pharmacists Defence Association, and Professor James Kingsland, Chair of Digital Clinical Excellence. Cassidy Janson won an Olivier Award for her performance as Anne Hathaway in the musical & Juliet. She’s also appeared in Wicked, Chess and in the role of Carole King in the West End production of Beautiful. Cassidy is now performing in Jerry’s Girls at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London, which celebrates the life and legacy of the legendary award-winning Broadway composer Jerry Herman. Cassidy joins Anita and performs live.Yvette Fielding is best known for hosting the TV show Most Haunted, and for being the youngest ever presenter of Blue Peter. She was just 18 when she joined the iconic BBC children’s show in 1987. Yvette joins Anita to talk about her memoir Scream Queen, which charts her journey from child actor to 'ghost hunter'. Today is a big day in the world of women's sport. The Netball Super League, the UK's elite level domestic competition, has relaunched and embarks on what it calls a "new era of transformational change". Anita is joined by Claire Nelson, Managing Director of the Netball Super League, and London Pulse CEO Sam Bird. Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Emma Pearce

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, this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Good morning, welcome to the programme. I'm going to ask you all to dust off the cobwebs from your memory banks and tell me about your teenage jobs. When was it? What was it? How much did you get paid? And was it worth it? And then looking towards the teenagers in your life, do they have jobs now? Is it easy for them to get work? Do they even want to work? Maybe they're more motivated than you ever were. So

teenage jobs this morning, get in touch with me in the usual way, the number to text 84844. You can also email me via our website or send me a WhatsApp on 03700100444. The reason I ask is because I'm going to be joined by the youngest ever Blue Peter presenter today. Yvette Fielding was only 18 when she got the gig. Since then, she's found a second career as a TV ghost hunter and now has also written a memoir. And as you think back to your teenage years you might also remember throwing a netball around the

playground. Today the netball super league the elite level of the game announces a big change. We'll have all the details shortly. We'll also be discussing the weight loss drug azenpic and the rise of people buying it online. And some live singing from Olivier award-winning Cassidy Jansen, who's appearing in Jerry's Girls, a new musical based on the life of Broadway composer Jerry Herman. Cannot wait. That text number once again, 84844. Tell me all about your teenage jobs, the good, the bad and the ugly. But first, weight loss drugs are now easily available online with dozens of pharmacies, including Boots and Superdrug,

offering them. Celebrity users like Sharon Osbourne and Rebel Wilson have been fuelling demand. For women, weight loss is a multi-million pound industry with so many of us concerned about the numbers on the scales. In a moment, we'll hear from one woman who's been using a Zempik and how she thinks it's helping her. The manufacturers of the most well-known brands,

Zempik and Wegovi, have become Europe's most valuable firm and demand has spiralled. But how safe is it to get the drug online? A trade union representing prescribers, the Pharmacists' Defence Association, is warning its members may not be covered by insurance for some kinds of online weight loss prescriptions. And once the rules tightened up, we'll talk to them shortly. But first, our reporter Melanie Abbott has been looking into this.

Morning, Melanie. Morning. First, can you give us a bit more background to these drugs, please? Yeah, sure. So the most well-known, as you mentioned, are Wagovi and Azempic. But their availability in the UK on the NHS for weight loss is pretty new and pretty limited. The active ingredient in those drugs is something called semaglutide. Azempic isn't licensed for weight loss in the UK. It's only available on the NHS for patients with diabetes too.

Now, nice guidelines for that other drug, Wegovi, say that it should be taken alongside weight loss measures like a calorie-controlled diet, increased exercise, and for a maximum of two years. Now, another drug you might hear of is called Munjara. That's got a different active ingredient. These drugs are freely available on the internet, even though there is currently a shortage of Ozempic. There's not enough for those who really need it, those who have diabetes too. Doctors and pharmacists are currently being asked not to give it to new patients. Do we know how many people are taking these drugs? It's really hard to know. No one is collating private prescription figures and the NHS couldn't provide me with any figures either.

Now, it's really not scientific, I know, but I did check Instagram this morning and I found nearly 200,000 posts on Ozempic, most of them from women. Now, I have been speaking to a couple of people who've been taking it. One of them, Jeannie Ann Ann Lewin. She's been taking Ozempic for a year on and off. She thought she had polycystic ovary syndrome. She was finding it really hard to lose weight. She weighs 21 stone now, but has lost a stone and a half in under three months. She told me how she bought it online.

They wanted full body pictures of me. They wanted to know if they could speak to my GP because obviously I'd been talking to my GP about it. So there was a linkage. So it felt like you couldn't kind of cheat the system apparently you can now I know that people who are sort of also you know doing Botox and things like that are also selling it there are lots of sort of groups where people have sort of bought in bulk and I'm assuming that how they've done it is that they've these different websites registered loads of different names bought loads of different names, bought loads of it

and now they're selling it on to people and double, tripling the prices. There's lots of waiting lists on the black market which seems a little bit ridiculous. How do you find out about these? That was at a dinner party and someone was complaining about how they were getting a Zayn pick and they were a size 10 and I obviously had about too many glasses of wine and I was like, you know what, it's really unfair and there are people who need that medication who can't get access to it because there are people who are taking it who just want to like lose 10 pounds and not feel hungry ever there are some websites where you don't have to

see or speak to anybody or send them any information whatsoever you just have to sort of tick things in a box were you shocked that someone who as you say was a relatively small size was taking it not really because there's so many people in the fashion industry that were you asked people they wouldn't admit it but there's lots of rumors going around there aren so many people in the fashion industry that were you asked people they wouldn't admit it but there's lots of rumors going around there aren't many people in the fashion industry that are the size that i am i just i always found it a bit you know frustrating a little bit annoying especially because like i said it's not just a case of a tool to lose weight it is sort of managing us i think i have and stopping me from being pre-diabetic which is what i'm desperately trying to fight

but I can't do that if it's costing like three four hundred quid but then that's absolutely ridiculous. Does it concern you that it is pretty much impossible to get it on the NHS at the moment? The idea is that it's you go to like a weight loss management clinic but I can't even get to that bit I think the last time I was I was sort of asked to go there they were like oh have you thought about weight loss surgery and I was like that seems quite extreme. You say that when you go online to get it you are honest about who you are, you make sure your GP is informed but there is now concern about online prescribing. In fact, one of the pharmaceutical indemnifiers is saying that it may stop insuring pharmacists who are prescribing online in this way for weight loss

drugs. Does that worry you? It does because it means it's going to be really hard for me to get hold of it if I still can't get it on the NHS. I mean, I'm going to keep trying, but they seem really reluctant so far. How long do you think you'll take it for the goal is to lose a lot more weight but I would like to lose maybe three four stone because then I think I'll be able to sort of manage and tackle this for myself um because I'm upping my exercise anyway so hopefully by that point I'll be a bit more mobile like right now I am exercising but obviously weighing as much as I weigh. Running is a little bit difficult. Walking is fine and swimming and stuff like that. But yeah, you're sort of a bit restricted in how much movement you can actually do.

What about when you stop taking it, though? Because some people do say the weight goes back on quite quickly. Yeah, I stopped taking it for a while and I didn't find that. You've got to change your lifestyle and your mind frame, frame you know how do you think it's working for you do you think it's changing your metabolism or is it changing the way you think about food um it's giving me a minute to think about food I'm quite a busy person so sometimes I don't eat and then I get so hungry I eat the first thing that's in front of me and now I can only have like a couple of mouthfuls of things and it's sort of listening to your brain so it's like I woke up this morning and I didn't have

it it sort of dulls the the senses I think it's more my brain rather than my metabolism now I'm sort of organizing my plates different so I'm starting with the protein and I mean then I'm starting veg and then by the time I kind of get to carbs I don't want any more to eat I'm going to take it for the rest of this year see how that goes and see how much weight I lose I think I'll just take it until I mean I might have to stop sooner rather than later anyway because if the prices are going the way they're going and I can't get it on the NHS three four hundred pounds is an insane amount of money to be spending on that what would you say to those people who might think well despite having PCOS you should be able to lose weight without a drug like this?

If it was that easy, I would. Nobody wants to kind of be walking up the stairs and out of breath or tired all the time and all of those kind of things. I mean, it's easier said than done if that was the case, then wouldn't everybody be healthy and be losing weight a lot quicker? When you first heard about the drug, was there like a light bulb moment? Oh, thank goodness, there's something that will help me. No, I thought it was crazy to try because injecting yourself in your house sounds insane if you're not diabetic.

And then read up a bit about it. I think had I had loads of side effects, I'd felt really awful. I wouldn't have carried on at all. In a perfect world, how would you like to see it handled? I think it'd be nice to go into your doctors, have a chat with them and then just like a normal sort of prescription. I think that would make more sense because your doctor would be able to sort of see, advise. Also, so you don't have people who've got eating disorders just getting hold of this stuff because that's what's happening at the moment. Like there's just loads of people using things that they shouldn't be.

So Mel, that's Jeannie talking to you there who decided to get it online because it's difficult for her to get it on the NHS. I think it's important to mention what the side effects are of these drugs because they do come with side effects, don't they? Yeah, that's right. And Jeannie there was lucky. She said she's hardly had any side effects, but there is a whole list of possible side effects that could happen. Minor-ish ones, I suppose, include nausea, stomach problems, constipation. More serious ones, though, could be issues with your gallbladder or kidney problems. So yeah, there's a long list. If you go online, you'll see them. Jeannie there saying that she found it difficult to get on the NHS, but it's not impossible, is it? It's not. But in England and Wales,

you need your GP to refer you to a weight loss clinic and then if they think you're suitable, they may prescribe it for you. Waiting lists for those clinics are long. In Scotland, it's up to the individual health boards to decide who can have any of these drugs. And in Northern Ireland, it's even harder. They don't have weight loss clinics there. And the only way to get these drugs

is if a hospital consultant makes a special case for funding which I'm told is quite a process. Now NICE guidelines do say that these drugs should only be prescribed if you have a weight-related health condition like hypertension or cardiovascular disease and a body mass index of at least 35 or in exceptional circumstances 30. Now NICE says this is because the manufacturer proposed that this was the best way forward as evidence in clinical trials only supported their use in this way and those clinical trials did not research its use in primary care from your GP. And of course we've mentioned the contraindications.

You can't take it if you have had any kind of thyroid cancer or if you've had pancreatitis because of the possible side effects I've already mentioned. So you can, I suppose, understand the drive to getting it online. Now, I have spoken to one pharmacist. She works at a GP surgery and she was asked by an online prescriber of a weight loss drug to agree that the patient was safe to have it after it had already been prescribed. And of course, she wasn't happy to do that. Do GPs want to be able to prescribe it?

Well, one I spoke to did say that if they were to prescribe it, their already high workload, as they perceive it, would increase dramatically. It's estimated that more than 3 million people could benefit. It would also cost the NHS up to £10 billion a year, money that it doesn't have at the moment, even though, of course, the long-term benefits might eventually reduce costs. Now, last June, the government did announce

a two-year pilot for GPs to prescribe weight loss drugs, but since then, it's released no more details about where or when that pilot will begin. So it means that online prescribing is likely I think to get even bigger. Melanie Abbott thank you very much for that. So where are we with safety? I did mention at the beginning at the intro to this piece that the Pharmacists Defence Association will be joining me. Aleema Batchelor is their head of policy. Also joining me is Professor James Kingsland the chair of DICE that stands for digital clinical

excellence unlike nice it's not an official body but in an industry group representing online prescribers welcome to both of you alima let me come to you first what are your concerns around online prescribing hi i should just start by saying that we haven't actually said that we will cease to indemnify our members but we are putting out guidance and expecting them to behave safely and professionally. I think our main concerns are that the use of what they call an asynchronous supply which is where the prescriber neither sees nor talks to the patient at the time that they issue the prescription does lay itself open to perhaps people getting hold of that medication that shouldn't. There are guidelines and advice about verification within the DICE guidance, but it doesn't go quite far enough for us, we would say. So we are

concerned where patients decline to allow the online prescriber to advise their GP of what they're taking. We feel that that's very unsafe because you don't therefore necessarily know their previous drug history and the GP doesn't know then that the patient is being prescribed what would be Wegavir rather than Ozempic because Ozempic's not allowed or shouldn't be allowed privately. We have seen with other drug groups that use this exact same supply method that patients have gone to various online pharmacies, amassed collections of drugs like opiates and some other drugs, and sadly, some of them have died. And so that's why we are concerned. And the other key reason we're concerned is that our regulator, the General Pharmaceutical Council,

is quite, or to us, appears quite clear about what they're expecting. And they've been taking some of our members to fitness to practice who were found doing online prescribing and using an expert report. And part of that expert report states that they don't believe an asynchronous supply is appropriate for weight loss treatments and that they don't believe it's appropriate if the prescriber doesn't talk to the patient so we would say the questionnaire is great for gathering information to start off with but then you need to talk to the prescriber ideally maybe with an online so what's the process at the moment just a simple questionnaire and you can opt out from telling your gp and that concerns you it varies from place to place and some of them are a lot more let's say

fair than others there are some places out there providers where i think they don't even ask for a photograph um you fill in a form i went on one and saw a form and it actually pre-filled some of the answers for me by highlighting and actually where it said do you give permission to talk to the GP they very helpfully highlighted no so unless you went through and changed it it said that you weren't refusing that you were refusing to share your data so those are the things yeah I'm going to bring James in James these are valid concerns aren't they yes good morning Anita, absolutely. And we share some of the same concerns as the PDA. The purpose of DICE is to connect and the participants are huge industries who of course, these are the registered and regulated, I think we're talking about some of the questionable

providers who may not be registered for or regulated properly for this type of care. So even words like simple questionnaire is probably inappropriate. There's a comprehensive assessment. Yes, in the main, we're talking about an asynchronous approach, a form-based assessment. It sounds very simple, but there are algorithms, AI being used to try and make as safe as possible the decision to treat but these are large corporations recognizing this is an increasing area of demand in our system explain a bit more about these ai algorithms and how they make it safer well there's concerns about people filling in forms if they fill them in incorrectly or the form assessment leads to saying that you're not able to get this particular medication. There's a question about filling in or people just coming back. So that the approach to safety in digital health

is being led by some of these corporations to try and make sure, whilst there's no foolproof way of doing this, is building in as much as possible to safeguard against these sorts of problems. But if there's willful misuse, it's always difficult, even that's where the, you know, I spent 32 years as a GP, and sometimes you do find people who willfully misuse systems.

What we're trying to do is build in as safe a process as possible for an area of increasing demand. The corporations do share some information. You were saying about the extent of the issue, the conservative estimate from the participants in DICE that possibly a quarter of a million people since this treatment has been available have access to for weight management. Some places like Superdrug and Boots that prescribe online tell us that they always ensure the GP is informed. Customers have to tick that box. Wouldn't it be better if all your members did that? Well, we are encouraging through the best practice guidance that it's difficult to mandate any independent corporation,

but saying that best practice would always require the transfer of information interestingly the digital transfer into NHS records is very difficult data protection means that the NHS will not allow that transfer at the moment but we are working with NHS digital to to try and solve that but yes all of our participants would say that transfer of information for a consistency in medical record is very important. But of course, it's only with the patient consent. If a patient refuses to disclose information, the only way you can disclose information is if there's a court order or in the public interest.

Alima, do you think that AI algorithms are going to make it safer? They may do, but I don't think there'll be foolproof in that AI, as we know, is expanding hugely. And as soon as safeguards against one form of AI, you know, nefarious practice comes up, then they try and get three steps ahead. I do think where a patient declines to give their advice, certainly for certain types of drugs, the General Pharmaceutical Council said these drugs are therefore not suitable to provide online. And I think our view would be if a patient declines to give their consent for letting the GP know, A a that you should definitely have a direct conversation with them to explore the reasons why and unless there are very good extenuating circumstances the

safest most professional thing might be to say I'm afraid that we cannot supply you with this medication and certainly some online suppliers are doing that. Yeah, don't online prescribers need to do more to take clinical responsibility, James? Always we can do better and we are looking at a programme of continual improvement, hence the recent production of something called the Dice Mark, which we recognise from BSI. Kite marks are things that people do look for

to confirm the quality of a particular service. So we produce that, we're producing best practice guidance to try and improve the quality and safety of what is a burgeoning area of care. As we heard from, I think it was Jeannie who was saying that, you know, the access to this type of care, not just in weight management but in in lots of health conditions is increasing and that demand is going to increase more and more as we use more online services. Have you been reassured Aleema? Not entirely and I would entirely agree with what Jeannie said about the fact that a lot of people with eating disorders are getting hold of these medications online. We look at three vulnerable groups, I'd say eating disorders, mental health issues,

and people with body dysmorphia who are just carried away with this celebrity culture and feel that you know you must be thinner and therefore I must get this drug and therefore we know that there are lots of people who are somehow by hook or by crook getting these medicines who aren't obese or overweight. And because of the side effects and potentially any mental health issues that are underlying their reasons for searching for these drugs, we do feel it incumbent on the prescribers. I think we'd say where you know that a patient is vulnerable or may be vulnerable then really it's up to the prescriber to increase their mitigations rather than just saying oh well you know people are going to take advantage yeah

because it's a vulnerable patient is there age verification um i believe certainly for some i mean i don't work in an online but they do look at some form of identity verification theoretically so they want to know your address i don't know whether they ask for um driver's license or whatever but certainly you're asked for your age when you fill in the form um and for some of them i think they want want or they'll link into what's called the summary care record if they can. And that will then link to your NHS record. And then if you've given a wrong date of birth, that would pick it up. But I don't know that that's universal. Well, this is definitely something we will keep looking at.

So thank you both for joining me this morning to talk about it. James Kingsland and Aleema Batchelor bachelor 84844 is the number to text test says i'm diabetic i've not been able to get my prescribed drugs since november and it's increasingly difficult to maintain good control it is wrong she says that the long-term health of people who need these drugs is being compromised by others who just want to lose weight my health has has already deteriorated. I'm also asking you to tell me about your teenage jobs. Amanda in Leeds says, at 14, I got my first Saturday job selling, oh, I love this, selling jacket potatoes in the outdoor Leeds market. It was the middle of winter and I hated every second of it.

I used to stash two jacket potatoes in my coat pockets to keep my hands warm. I think I got paid five pounds. Five pounds probably went a long way back then. Also, nothing better than a jacket potato on a cold, wintry market stall. That's a fact. Now, on to my next guest. Cassidy Jansen won an Olivier Award for her performance as Anne Hathaway in the musical Anne Juliet.

She's appeared in Wicked, Chess and in the role of Carole King in the West End production of Beautiful. Cassidy is now appearing in Jerry's Girls at the Minor Chocolate Factory in London. The musical celebrates the life and legacy of the legendary, award-winning Broadway composer Jerry Herman. It features an all-female cast and songs from timeless musicals such as Mame, Hello Dolly

and Mabel. Cassidy joins me now. Hello, how are you? I'm very well. Welcome. First teenage job. First teenage job. Yeah, what was your first teenage job? Straight in. Yeah. I love this. It was actually, I worked on the fish counter in Waitrose. I really did.

I can gutter plays people Wonderful Yes Because you actually just came to training we are going to talk about the production in a moment but just because

we went straight in you came to you went to drama school I did quite late though not from like 16

16 yeah is that late? No do you think do you mean training like Italia Conti? Yes, exactly. So I went as soon as I could from regular school to a vocational performing arts college.

And it paid off very well. It did, yeah. Very good. So tell us about the show. So it's a wonderful production. We have new orchestrations from the lovely Tony Award winning Sarah Travis, who is at the Piano Forte. She's sitting there waiting to play. We're looking forward to that. We have a all-female six-piece band who sound glorious.

We have Jessica Martin, Julie Amoney and myself in the lead roles, singing this really lovely review show of these fantastic songs that don't get sung enough, quite frankly. How familiar were you with Gerry Herman's songs? La Cage Folle, Mac and Mabel, Hello Dolly. Yes, I was quite familiar. Not with everything. I didn't know Dear World very well. But yes, I have had an education this last few weeks. What made you want to take part in this? I've worked at the Meniere Chocolate Factory a couple of times so it was really nice when I got asked to do this and I

just thought my gosh I would love to I would love to sing these songs they're amazing songs they they really are the most extraordinarily beautiful memorable melodies and I don't think Jerry Herman gets celebrated enough for that And what is the experience like being with all the women? Oh it's so lovely, it's been a very interesting rehearsal room as well, we had a female director Hannah Chizik

who's done a gorgeous job and yeah it's really lovely. How is it different? What's the energy like? There's a really I mean we have a male choreographer, Matt Cole, and his assistant, Miles Brown. And so it wasn't completely all female.

But we all said this was really special. There was a very lovely dynamic in the rehearsal room in that no one was tricksy. We had lots of genuinely, let's come to work and work really hard without causing any drama. And that's really nice. That's really nice. Is that unusual?

Can be. Tell me, what in your line of work? Can be. We have, we're theatre, we have characters, you know, and it's not always bad. It's just sometimes they take a bit of time to get in the right zone. So what's, how do you deal with that?

You just, the same as you would. Like everyone meets Trixie people. You just, you know, you just get on, don't you? Yeah, you have to. It's life. It's life. Planet Earth. Oh, I want to go down this line of questioning even more now.

I mean, it's something we could ask our listeners about. How do you cope when you're in this environment? But you're in the theatre. You said big characters, drama, everybody wanting to be sent to stage. And there's three of you on stage. And obviously we're not saying that this is happening. You've just said it's not happening.

But how do you then step into that environment and cope with it? I suppose the same as anyone in any job would. You just, you know, you do your best, don't you? We all do. And then go into your dressing room and scream into a pillow. Sometimes. What about the songs you sing? Tell me about those.

Oh, I sing some lovely songs. I think my favourite to sing is If You Walked Into My Life, which is sometimes called Bugle Boy. I love singing that in Act Two. There's a lovely three-part harmony song that we all sing called Song on the Sand. into my life, which is sometimes called Bugle Boy. I love singing that in Act Two. There's a lovely three-part harmony song that we all sing called Song on the Sand. Is that right, Sarah? Song on the Sand. Kiss Her Now is another beautiful song.

I also get to sing Time Heals Everything, which is quite a well-known Bernadette Peters song. And we are going to apparently be singing I Won't Send Roses, which is from Mac and Mabel, which was actually the male song in the show. But in Jerry's Girls, it is obviously sung by a lady. His subject matter deals with strong, ambitious women. And he was the first mainstream composer to write a gay romantic musical. He was ahead of his time, wasn't he?

Yeah, he really was. Really, really was. And wrote for strong, ambitious females as well. So he really was ahead of his time. His contemporary was Stephen Sondheim and a lovely friend of mine in the bar the other night said that because Sondheim obviously was so, like, wow, that maybe Gerry Hammond got slightly, ever so slightly, just not recognised as much because his contemporary was Stephen Sondheim.

And I thought that's actually quite valid. And so, and yeah this year Imelda Staunton comes to the West End as Dolly and the roles have been performed by so many famous women yeah so Bette Midler um Bernadette Peters as I said before um Angela Lansbury Lucille Ball um Beatrice Arthur um who else do I think of all the names I sing at the end of the show Phyllis Diller Barbara Streisand I mean everybody

everyone and you and me and Jessica Martin and Julie Amoney well talking about the show the songs in this particular show are underpinned by a narrative which explores the female gaze of an actress working in the 1950s tell me more yeah so there's no dialogue in the 1950s. Tell me more. Yeah.

So there's no dialogue in the show, but I think this is really clever of Hannah, our director. She's done a very gentle storyline where the show starts in our dressing room and then we sing a few songs there and then we sort of suddenly end up on stage and do like vaudevillian numbers and then there's another section where we do movie numbers

and we go back and forth between the actual stage and our dressing room and it gives a nice little extra something instead of just getting up and singing nice songs there's a little bit of a plot and it's actually people have said they love that and dancing involved there is dancing i tap dance in this show did you not have a foot injury recently? I did. And how are you coping? There's a lot of painkillers. Press night was lovely. I was floating. This is dedication to your art.

Yeah, I suppose so, yeah. How is your tap dancing? Are you going to be exquisite? It wasn't very good on press night. I'd worked so hard. I'd worked so hard and I had to, what did I say on press night? I kept quoting Erin Brockovich. That's how you got, lady, two ugly feet, two wrong feet and ugly shoes. Because I had to wear these really ugly, flat shoes because my toe had blown up so much. I couldn't fit in any of the normal dark shoes. But I sort of got through the show somehow.

The show must go on. The show must go on, yeah. And how has it been harmonizing with both jessica martin and julie yamini so glorious so glorious um when we do sing together um the harmonies are gorgeous our voices have a really nice tone that sort of blends really well so it is it is like oh oh well you'll have to go and see the show to hear that oh uh thank you cassidy jansen uh lots of you getting in touch about your teenage jobs. Sarah in London says, I worked in a family run shop in Chester as a

teenager in the 1990s with two school friends. We loved it and are still in touch with the shop. The three of us have a group WhatsApp named after the shop. That's from called Lee Louise. Very good. Tim in Leeds says, I was 18. I worked in Littlewood's lingerie department over Christmas. I always remember just how many of the male customers looked really embarrassed about what they were buying and how late they were buying it. Christmas Eve was especially busy. And Lindsay says, my son left school last year and we've encouraged him to get a job. He's not interested. In his words, he wants to wait as long as he can before joining the rat race.

He spends his free time which he has plenty of sat on social media or computer games i have and wanted to work from the age of 16 i just don't understand this generation 84844 if you can relate to any of that and share with me your teenage jobs the reason i ask is because of my next guest yvette fielding best known for hosting a tv show most haunted and for being the youngest ever presenter of blue peter in fact she was my blue peter presenter so this is a moment she was only 18 when she joined the iconic bbc children's show in 1987 and she's gone on to have a long career in television since then, most of it the spooky kind. It's all charted in her new memoir, Scream Queen. Yvette Fielding, welcome to Woman's Hour.

Oh, it's an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. Where are you? What is it? Because it looks very dramatic. It looks like you're in, are you sitting on a throne? It's my King Charles I replica four poster bed oh i love it it's all are you in your pajamas no no good no no i won't i am dressed i am dressed i just i've just been um finished my most haunted theater tour then went straight onto the scream queen and book tour and we finished late last night. And so I thought, do you know, I'm so tired.

I'm going to speak to your lovely self from my bed. I fully approve of this. We've been asking our audience about their teenage jobs. So I'm going to start with it. You actually started working when you were only 14. You were on a TV drama series called Sea View. Did you think you'd make the big time at age 14? Was it always an ambition of yours?

No, not at all. I was just a normal teenager, you know, singing into my hairbrush along with Madonna. And I wanted to either go into the military, so be in the army specifically, or I was going to be a huge mega pop star in a band and that was what my dreams were whilst my first job was actually a dishwasher opera at the Deanwater Hotel in Cheshire and I also cleaned the toilets as well there so that that was my first job.

Craft. Craft it was hard craft yeah so in between putting my hand down the loo I was thinking of being on stage and warbling away. I mean I still dream of being a pop star of it um how did Blue Peter come calling then? Um well the editor at the time Biddy Baxter she'd seen me um on Seaview and we did two series of that for bbc one um and she'd see me on that in the first series and apparently kept me in mind for when i was a little bit older um so of course when we got the the phone call we you know myself and my family couldn't believe it this was like oh my gosh blue peter that was incredible you know there were only three channels uh tv channels on at the time so it was it was a big program and mark curry who wrote the foreword for your book says that it was obvious

him and um the wonderful late great karen keating who was also um a blue peter presenter alongside you um said that it was you you were only 18 and you moved to london and you say that you were very homesick to begin with oh yes gosh um I hadn't really been to London maybe on a school trip or something or um you know when we did the one of the series of Seaview it was you know you didn't sightsee or anything you were in the studio most of the time filming so for me to all of a sudden be moving to London and living there and I didn't know anybody I was terribly terribly homesick and of course everybody that I worked with they were a lot older than me so they sort of saw me I think as this oh she'll be all right this this teenager you know so I was left really to my own devices um which was fine it was it was all very very

exciting but I was incredibly homesick and very lonely. And eventually I made friends. I sort of had to get out there and make friends. And you had to look after Bonnie the dog as well? Yes, I was made to look after the dog. I had no choice in the matter. And were you a dog person? Yes, absolutely. We'd always had dogs in the family um but being that young age living in London and being told you will look after the blue peter dog you will um live with it look after it take it filming with as if it's your dog and I remember saying I don't want to though because

there's such huge can you imagine if anything had happened to that blue peter dog I mean yeah your career would have taken a very different trajectory uh do you think maybe you're a bit young to be in that environment yes I look back now and I think I should never have I should never have been given that opportunity at such a young age I wasn't ready for it I was incredibly naive um I hadn't been given any training as how to present a live tv show um it was I'd only acted so there was no sort of rehearsal as it were you know oh let's take her aside for two weeks or a week and let's show her how this works it was literally let's throw her in at the deep end um and you you know, I was very nervous. You know, and if it wasn't for Mark, bless him, Mark Curry, I don't know what I would have done.

I probably would have left because I don't think I could have coped with it at all. It was really, really hard and too much for such a young person at that time. Don't get me wrong. I was incredibly grateful and very, very, very very oh my gosh it was like winning the lottery at the time um but it was just too much for such I think for such a young person gosh yeah what an interesting thing I mean I was going to say you know how do you look back on your Blue Peter time now so looking back would you have would you change things would you not have taken the job um looking back now I probably um would have made sure that I had um you know for instance you know I think it was just me and my mum that looked at the contract I didn't have an agent I didn't know anything about that world I so I

probably would still take it but I'd have a lot of people around me that knew the media, knew what they were doing, and also people around me that could have protected me a little bit more. From what? Well, because it was very hard for me. You know, Biddy, a very strong woman. She had to be a very strong woman. You know, she'd been doing Blue Peter for many many years this is the editor Biddy Baxter yeah and it was a very male orientated um place at the time all television was so you know she had to be strong and I get that but I think she could have done

the job a lot better with such a young person um you know and I was bullied and it was very hard. And it, for me, it felt like I was constantly having to please an adult, a parent, you know, and I wanted to please her and I never seemed to please her. And she was never really happy with, with what I did. And I was sort of, people knew what was going on, but nobody did anything about it. And I think that's a real shame and and I'm sure bullying still happens in the workplace and and it shouldn't be you know it really affected my mental health um I went downhill quite rapidly I had no um confidence about myself so every time the red light came on on the studio I really really struggled with my self-confidence because all I could think of was being berated or shouted at or ignored by my boss. You know, I was desperate to please her.

You've spoken about this before in public. And actually, we've got a statement from from Biddy Baxter who says Yvette was the youngest ever Blue Peter presenter and taking her on was a definite risk. It wasn't a complete leap in the dark though. She had worked as an actress beforehand and she joined us with the support of her family, her fellow presenters and a big production team who, like me, liked Yvette and saw her potential. Inevitably, there were bumps along the way. It was a demanding job and we had the highest standards, but Yvette had great warmth and the knack of asking exactly the questions children would want answered. She quickly became very popular. So we were right to take the risk. It's interesting in your book, Yvette, you say you feel no bitterness towards

Biddy now and are even grateful to her. Yes, because she, you know, I watch some presenters on television now and I shout at them, you know, two presenters are standing next to each other and they're both in the same shot and one is talking the other person biddy took she said look at the other person who's talking show interest in what they're talking about but you find a lot of people that do this on television they'll just stare at the camera waiting for their next bit on the autocue to come up and so she taught me lots of little bits like that but she also with what happened to me she also gave me that confidence to move on and to pursue a career in television and you know forgive me saying this but she did she gave me balls of steel and I do thank her for that because she did

that confidence and you have gone on to have a very successful career in television um because you've had most hauntedunted and then Ghost Hunting. It was you and your husband who you met whilst you were working as a cameraman who had the idea of a new kind of teleprogram. Where did the idea come from? Oh, gosh, it was just a friend that had come back from a place called Michelin Priory in East Sussex. And he was telling us about this amazing place and how it was haunted. And so Carl and I literally came up with the idea of, why don't we take a camera crew into a haunted location and spend the night there?

Obviously, I was a little bit nervous about it, but we did it and it worked. Do you believe in ghosts, Yvette? Well, of course. Why? Why? Because I've seen them and I've experienced them and I've heard them. Seeing is believing. I don't expect anybody who hasn't had any kind of paranormal experience to believe in ghosts or anything paranormal. But I was also a bit skeptical when I first started doing this. But now I've experienced too much to say it's non-existent.

It is existent. There is a different plane. There are different realms. And I've seen some of to say it's non-existent. It is existent. There is a different plane. There are different realms. And I've seen some of it and it's extraordinary. And I guess you are possibly, some might say, the respectable end of an industry that has the potential to manipulate and exploit vulnerable people who are in quite desperate situations after losing a loved one. Well, I would disagree with that entirely. At the end of the day, I'm very proud of the fact that we are the only TV paranormal program that actually invites people to join us.

We do experiences where we ask people, come along if you're not sure, please come and see that what we do is real, so they come along with us. I invite journalists, I invite scientists, I invite members of the public to join me on an evening of paranormal experiences. We do a live show, a live theatre show, where we invite audience members to come on the stage

to go backstage and do a ghost hunt. We're very open. I always have been, and what we do is real. We're very open. I always have been. And what we do is real. We're certainly not duping anybody or making anything up. And the majority of people that we actually work with, you know, are, you know, enjoy it. It's opened their own eyes to,

so they go on their own journey. And I think that's really important. So no, I'm very proud of what we've done and I certainly disagree with that statement. And it is a hugely successful programme. Yvette Fielding, thank you very much for joining me and Yvette's book Scream Queen is out now. You're still getting in touch with your first ever jobs. My first job, says Jez, as a teenager

was dressing up as Darth Vader to promote the original Star Wars film when it came out to my local cinema, the Rochester Odeon. I'd actually applied for a job checking cinema tickets, but was talked into a promotional role as I'm six foot three. Well, you obviously had the skill set. Now, today is a big day in the world of women's sport. The Netball Super League, the UK's elite level domestic competition, has relaunched and is about to embark on what it's called a new era of transformational change. Eight teams have been selected to take part from 2025.

And this is all part of what the league hopes is a significant step towards the professionalisation of netball. CEO of London Pulse Netball, one of the game's big three teams, and former football England player Sam Bird is here. But first to tell us more about what the relaunch actually is, I'm joined by Clare Nelson, Managing Director of the Netball Super League. So Clare, tell us, what have you announced today?

It's a big day. It's been a day long in the coming, but we were delighted after nine months of a really robust and quite detailed and often challenging tender process. We announced the eight clubs who have been successfully awarded a place to participate in the newly relaunched league next year. So you say this is part of a 10 year plan towards professionalisation. Tell us what that looks like, what's going to happen over the next decade. It seems like a long time as well. It does. And look, we always talk about we've got to be transformational, yet sustainable.

So the clubs that we've selected need to make big leaps next year. And it's all about the fan proposition and the product. We want to really drive that on-court product and proposition. So we have fans show up week in, week out. We create this amazing broadcast property. We're going to move more of our games into arenas. Hopefully, at least 50% of games are played in arenas, all of them available to watch. So these are big, big steps forward, but we can't do it all from day one. So whilst we're driving these improvements in the product and the game, whilst we will be paying our players more, we can't do everything on day one. So hopefully, if we get this right, we can grow the fan power.

We've got 3 million people playing our sport week in week out if we can start to transfer them into real fans of this incredible product it will start to unlock the commercials and hopefully it doesn't take us 10 years to get there but we've got to be smart in our approach and most of us played it at school yeah uh sam bird i'm going to bring you in your ceo of london pulse netball one of the eight teams have been selected for the league. Well done. What was that tender process like? And how do you feel about the next steps?

Thank you. It was pretty gruelling. It was really tested where we were as a club. It's fair to say that we've been working towards professionalisation for the last five years. So we've already got some really good partners in place. We play at the Copper Box Arena on the Olympic Park. We're already producing big fan bases.

So we had 3,500 fans come in to watch our game against Loughborough Lightning. But we really want to push on and we think this is the right thing to do with the professional process. We can't expect to produce world-class athletes if they're training in the morning, going to work all day, training at night, and then they're just pretty exhausted.

So this is a fantastic opportunity for women and girls to see netball as a genuine career pathway in time to come. Well, you just mentioned there the training in the morning, training at night. What about your own personal experience Sam how did you get the balance between the sport that you love and you're passionate about and your pretty serious job as a lawyer? Yeah so I can remember when I had my first England cap I was given a pair of socks so my first England netball outing was I was just so happy to be given a pair of socks we So my first England netball outing was, I was just so happy to be given a pair of socks. We had no kit, no money. So we've come a long way just in one generation. And as an

England athlete, I obviously needed a career as well. So I worked for as a lawyer for the Metropolitan Police for 20 years. Lucky now to be a CEO of Netball and throw all my time into Netball and we've got athletes within our pathway and Zara Everett for example works at Ashurst and then we've got other amazing world-class athletes like Femifa Doju. So we want to be able to provide Netball as a genuine career prospect and we back the brand, we back netball as an amazing sport. And London Pulse are really excited to be part of pushing this forward to genuine professionalisation. And I'm going to come back to Claire in a second to talk about what that means.

And of course, we need to move to professionalisation and to increase things like salary, which we'll discuss, so that you don't have to do the things that Sam was talking about, you know, juggle a career and a passion but we need to also discuss the how amazing time management tenacity of women to be able to do this as well as you know everything else you've got on your plate yeah absolutely there's some amazing women involved in our club at the club and clubs across the country um country that do have multiple roles. You know, there'll be caregivers as well.

They'll be working, either looking after parents or children or both, holding down a full-time career and then performing at top class level, either as athletes or as staff, as coaches, physios, what have you. So we really are spinning a lot of plates. Yeah, superhuman um but we don't want that to be the case do we so how is this professionalization going to help and what let's talk about well we don't but but choice is really important here so that's why we talk about it's a phase journey because actually we do have people who are a and e doctors gps there are students in

their professional careers so what where we're launching from day one is we are introducing a new salary structure, reducing our squad sizes. We're improving the payment level. We are more than doubling the minimum pay and increasing the average salary by more than 60%. We're improving the programme. And by creating this new model of less clubs and smaller squad sizes, these athletes anyway are going to be playing in the best competition week in, week out. But we've got to make sure that there's choice in all of that choice, professional choice, educational choice, also choices to be mothers and to return to court. So we're trying to think of that whole piece. So absolutely, we want rewarding careers. Professionalisation is full-time athletes. But as we move through

this transition, we can't take away what actually is really significant parts of some of our existing most talented athletes' lives. Sam, does it concern you that more and more girls are choosing to play football? Yes and no. I mean, as a female sport, we tend to want to raise each other up. So we're delighted to see other female sports thrive as well. And we certainly believe in a sort of multi-sport approach for young athletes. So young girls should try everything. We know there are low numbers of female athletes taking part in any type of physical activity. So we would promote that. But I think the visibility and the standard of the new Super League will inspire young girls to play. And one of our amazing things is how diverse we are.

Diversity, but also netball is predominantly clear women's sport football cricket rugby all popular with men do you think that's what makes it special it's our superpower and i'm so proud of it we are women's sport at every single level and it's also a challenge because we don't have as you know the scale of visibility and the broadcast figures and everything else but but we are women's sport we have 3 million people playing this sport. Behind men and women's football combined, then men and women's cricket combined comes netball. And as you said, most people have paid it at home.

We're 52% of the population. And so as we emerge on this journey, right now we've said, right, here's the clubs who have got the investment, the infrastructure, the ambition, the venues to move forward into the future. But now we get to co-create, design what that looks like and it will be built for women and girls of the future. And we'll be watching you all the way.

Thank you both for joining me, Sam Bird and Claire Nelson. Thank you so much. You know what's wonderful is that when you are presenting a programme and magic happens in front of you, like the performance we heard earlier, you just don't know the impact it has on the listeners until you get in touch and tell me that someone has written in to say, Mariel in fact, I won't send roses, a beautiful and favourite song of my dad's who would perform and sing it often. He passed away two years ago, so I'm sobbing and smiling in equal measure and had to pull my car over.

Beautiful memories. Thank you for the treat. Join me tomorrow for more Woman's Hour. 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 World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.