Woman's Hour - Paralympic Hopefuls, Victoria Atkins MP, novelist Ilaria Bernardini, Beauty in Lockdown, Woman’s Hour Corona Diaries.

Episode Date: April 16, 2020

Victoria Atkins MP is Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for Safeguarding). Her portfolio includes modern day slavery, domestic abuse and violence against women and girls, including FGM. What support can vulnerable women and children expect during lock-down, what has happened to the stalled Domestic Abuse Bill and what are her priorities under lockdown in her constituency?The Tokyo Paralympics 2020 have been postponed. Three female athletes tell us how the delay is affecting them. Lucy Shuker has won two Paralympic bronze medals in Wheelchair Tennis, 17 year old para powerlifting champion Olivia Broome is looking forward to her first games and Mary Wilson is a para badminton athlete and hoping qualifying events will go ahead so that she’ll make it to Tokyo.A man lies dying in his bed at home. Meanwhile, his lover of nearly three decades is sitting for a portrait being painted by his wife. Ilaria Bernardini explores women’s stories in her first novel in English, The Portrait.Since lockdown how are women managing with their beauty maintenance - from chipped shellac to bushy eyebrows and body hair? Sarah Jossel, beauty director for the Sunday Times Style magazine, discusses how we can keep up appearances.Since the coronavirus outbreak, Annie Henderson and her friends from Sheffield, have been in daily communication via the medium of haiku – a form of short Japanese poetry. In today’s Woman’s Hour Corona Diaries, she explains how it’s helping them to record their thoughts and feelings from this unprecedented time.Presenter - Jenni Murray Producer – Louise Corley Guest - Victoria Atkins MP Guest - Lucy Shuker Guest -Olivia Broome Guest - Mary Wilson Guest - Ilaria Bernardini Guest - Sarah Jossel Guest - Annie Henderson

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to the Woman's Hour podcast for the 16th of April. Good morning. OK, so it looks like another three weeks in lockdown and that shellac or gel nail polish has to come off and the eyebrows and legs may need attention. How shall we keep up appearances with no professional help? The Portrait is a novel where a mistress gets into the home of a dying lover by persuading his wife to paint her portrait.

The writer is Ilaria Bernardini. The Paralympics are postponed till August 2021. How will Lucy Shuka, Olivia Broom and Mary Wilson keep fit during the long wait? And the next in our Woman's Hour Corona Diaries, Annie is from Sheffield and she and her friends keep in touch by writing haiku, the short Japanese form of poetry. And my favourite as a Yorkshire woman, I have to say goes in god's own county god's out on the moors and dales he's working from home now as you may have heard in the news this morning the victims commissioner vera baird qc has drawn attention to a report by the group counting dead women which suggests 16 women have been killed as a result of domestic violence since the lockdown began.

It follows the announcement at the weekend by the Home Secretary of more funding to protect vulnerable women, our conversation yesterday with Jo Todd of Respect about tackling the perpetrators, and it comes at a time when the Domestic Abuse Bill is on hold in the current crisis. What support can be available to protect those who need it during this time? I'm joined by Victoria Atkins, MP for Latham and Horncastle, and the Minister responsible for Safeguarding. Victoria, how concerned are you by the information from Vera Baird this morning of 16 deaths of women in the

past three weeks good morning Jenny in terms of hello I'm afraid I I hello hello we lost you for I hope that's better. Oh, hello. Go on, try and keep going. And thank you also for dealing with this really important topic on Woman's Hour. Being victims of domestic abuse is very concerned at the consequences of law victoria i'm really sorry i'm going to have to interrupt you because there is something going wrong with the connection you keep coming and then you keep going so i'm going to move on to the next item and we will try and fix whatever's going wrong

because we really do want to talk to you about this subject. So please don't go away. We will try to come back to you. Now, so many things have been cancelled or postponed because of the virus. And it's the athletes who hope to compete at Olympic level for whom we really must feel most sorry. They train like mad to reach peak performance and only have a chance every four years to show what they can do. The Tokyo Paralympics have been postponed till August 2021. So what impact is that having on athletes who expected to be on the top of their game this summer? Well, I'm joined by Olivia Broom, who's a powerlifting champion and looking forward to

her first games. Mary Wilson, who's a badminton player and hoping qualifying events will go ahead so that she can eventually make it to Tokyo. And Lucy Shuka, who's won two Paralympic bronze medals in wheelchair tennis. Lucy, at what point did you realise the virus would have a really bad effect on your ambitions? Good morning. I think when I first heard of the issues that were obviously starting, it was on the way back from the Australianralian tour which was at the end of january um and then fast forward into the tournaments in march when we were actually competing in the states and during a competition uh we had an email um like during the day of play to say the competition was now finished uh due to the the pandemic that was now ensuing and we would

have to all get our flights and return home. So I think at that point, we knew that there was going to be quite a big effect on the Paralympics and on the wheelchair tennis tour specifically, and obviously on the greater sports activities that we're going to have. And Mary, you were about to go to your final qualifying event. What's been the impact of the cancellation of that for you?

Well, I was actually hoping to gain some good qualification points at the Spanish tournament and I thought I would do pretty well in it. And so all the rankings have been frozen and I didn't get a chance to gain some really important ranking points, which would have put me in a good position to perhaps be selected for the Paralympics. And Olivia, you just competed in Manchester. How did you just competed in Manchester how did you get on in that last competition you did? I did very well thank you and I am I got

first in the in the juniors and the third in the senior competition very well. Now I know you study sports science at Loughborough University, which has terrific facilities. How are you coping without that? Again, you know, being... I'm lucky that I'm based down where training is so um it it there's not too much of a a stress of trying to balance um university and uh training um and you know yeah so so you still have access to the training facilities do you well it's um that well Felly, chi'n dal i gael mynediad i'r sefydliadau hyfforddiant, yn dda chi?

Wel, oherwydd y cefnogaeth sy'n cael ei gael gan Path to Success, rwyf wedi gallu adeiladu mewn fath o ardal hyfforddiant yn fath o ardal, so that I'm still able to train and without any interruptions while this pandemic is going on. Lucy, I don't know whether you have access to tennis courts. Do you? How are you training? No, all centres, the National Tennis Centre, they're all shut, obviously, following the government guidelines. I'm actually training out of home, you know, using a home gym again through the funding from the LTA and Path to Success.

I've gained access to extra sort of gym equipment um i've actually my old school private school uh school they actually have a um a couple of tennis courts uh and i've actually just this week managed to gain access there because it's where obviously where they're educating you know those that are part of the emergency workers um housemate um again adhering to the government guidelines, but it's getting back on a tennis court and doing some of my normal stuff. And Mary, for badminton, how are you adapting your training? It's pretty much impossible really. We haven't got access to any gyms or any leisure centres, no coaching, no practice. I don't have a wall that I can hit a shuttlecock off. So

basically I go for a walk, a brisk walk for an hour and then I've made up my own sort of strength and conditioning program that I do every day so I do press-ups for instance off the kitchen sink, do lunges with a frying pan in my hand to give me weight and just sort of do as much as I possibly can but in real terms it's nowhere near being able to access a gym. I've just bought a bike which is coming from China of all places thanks to Path to Success funding me but it's going to be at least another two three weeks before I get that so I'm really limited at the moment as to what I can do. And also, you know, going out on the pathways because I'm immunocompromised with my MS. I've got to be extremely careful as to, you know, people going past me and breathing heavily. So it's really limited.

What impact, Mary, with your condition is this having to wait for a year going to have? Because I guess you never know how the MS is going to progress. That's very true. I wish I had a crystal ball, but now I've got a secondary progressive MS, which means that it's going to go down uh sort of gradually and so I'm going to get worse um slowly hopefully um so in a year's time uh I may be in a wheelchair um I could be blind there's so many different sort of complex issues with with MS and I actually don't even know what what the day is going to hold for me when I get up, whether

I'm going to be able to walk or whether it's going to be a good day. So everything's in the balance. It's pretty much in the hands of the gods really as to what happens. And a year is a long way away and keeping up motivation especially is pretty tough. It's only been five weeks at the moment and I'm finding it quite tough. Well, Mary Wilson, Lucy Shuka, Olivia Broome, the very best of luck to all of you. I know a year is a long time

to wait, but really fingers crossed, all will be well. Thank you all. And now we return to Victoria Atkins. Let's hope the line is improved. MP for Louth and Horncastle, a minister responsible for safeguarding. Victoria, I asked you how concerned you were by the information from Vera Baird

that we've heard this morning of the 16 deaths of women in the past three weeks. How worried are you by those numbers well i think anyone who works with victims of domestic abuse or to stop the perpetrators of domestic abuse has been worried about the unintended consequences of lockdown for people who are living in households in which they are suffering abuse, which is why we have launched the campaign at the weekend to raise public awareness that if you need help, help is still available. And indeed, I hope you'll forgive me, but I'm just going to go through some of the lines. If you're in danger and need help uh immediately then please call 999 if you are in

danger and need help but can't talk please dial 999 and then either press 55 if you're on a mobile or wait on a landline and you'll be connected to uh the police call handler who'll be able to help you but you see that that's all very well. The Home Secretary announced that she was looking at alternative accommodation to support those in need, along with £2 million for domestic abuse services. But how quickly will these be put in place when the need appears to be so great? Well, if I may, just to finish the advice available to people at home if you go on the gov.uk website and search for domestic abuse you'll get the whole list

of web services and helplines that are available to you moving to your question jenny um there are two announcements that are relevant to the domestic abuse sector at the moment. There was the announcement last week from the Chancellor of the £750 million to support charities, and domestic abuse charities were mentioned repeatedly in that press conference because we realised that domestic abuse charities provide frontline services to the public. So my department and i are working with charities and the domestic abuse commissioner to understand what they need and for us to make those arrangements from that but we've known for a long time what they need i mean in march we

learned from women's aid that 64 percent of referrals to refuges were declined because of lack of accommodation. Money has not been going into the provision of refuges. There's a real need for them. You should surely know that. So we are doing something. This is an complex, Jenny. We are working with local authorities, with refuge providers, with charities to understand what the pressures are on the system. And part of the announcement, as I say, last week was it will help domestic abuse charities

who are running accommodation-based services to provide those extra spaces. There are all sorts of factors that charities have to bear in mind, have to work with when they're running a refuge. It can include, for example, the level of security that is absolutely paramount in any refuge. If you visit a refuge, as I do,

you will see the extraordinary security measures they have to put in place because of the risk of some perpetrators. But the question is, will all those people that you're encouraging to dial 999 and call the police and say what's happening to them, will there be accommodation for them to go to when they need to be safe? We are very, very conscious of the spaces there's bed spaces that are needed we know that some parts of the sector um are you know we're having to deal with the unprecedented effects of covid19 on the workforce this is why we're doing this in a very methodical way because we

have to because of the complexities of this system to ensure that these refuges are supported in addition to the 750 million pounds last week the charity's fund we have on top of that announced on saturday the specific pot of money two million pounds to help bolster the helplines and the web-based services that people are reaching out to. We have given that money to the charities precisely because we've been speaking to them every day to find out what they need, what they're seeing with their data, what is happening with the lengths of calls, for example, what is happening with the complexity of the calls.

And this pot of money is to help specifically with the helplines and the national helpline should anyone need it is 0808 2000 247 0808 2000 247 we want people to understand that help is there if they need it now we've been watching the lack of progress of the domestic abuse bill which will include emotional coerc coercive, controlling and economic abuse. It was held up first by the dissolution of Parliament and now, of course, by COVID-19. How detrimental is the hold up of that bill to protecting those suffering domestic abuse? Well, we all want the bill to pass um and we reintroduced it in march this is a manifesto commitment the prime minister is personally committed to this legislation as

well we reintroduced it in march but sadly the covid19 events have um taken over but we are absolutely clear that we want the bill back into the parliamentary system as soon as the various procedures that the House of Commons authorities are working on at the moment, as soon as those are clarified. But how much priority, forgive me for interrupting, how much priority will the bill be given when

Parliament returns with the economy to deal with? Well, I mean this is a manifesto commitment.'s an it's a huge commitment for this government uh and you know i'm the bill minister that's been working on it now for two and a half years so um as soon as these procedures because the procedures of parliament are usually very very uh intensive in terms of working in one room etc at the moment clearly we're not going to be able to work in the in the ways that we used to a couple of months ago but as soon as the house of commons

authorities have clarified those sorted those out then i expect to see this bill back we absolutely need this bill for a whole range of reasons not least we i want to give the domestic abuse commissioner her statutory powers that are available under the bill. I want us to introduce domestic abuse protection orders, which will really, really help victims in the community, make sure that their perpetrators can't reach them and receive the treatment that they need to stop the cycle of abuse. And I think it's really important that we have this definition, this very wide-ranging definition, as to various forms that domestic abuse can take. And sadly, we will be seeing some of these forms in homes across the country during this crisis.

Now, your portfolio includes modern-day slavery and FGM as safeguarding questions. What's being done during lockdown to prevent what are often hidden crimes like those very much i mean these are domestic abuse child sexual exploitation is also uh in my portfolio slavery so-called honor-based abuse including um and fgm these are all hidden crimes. And in terms of modern slavery, of course, the police, the NCA, are continuing with their operations. But in terms of supporting victims,

we have ensured that any victim of modern slavery who is currently in national referral mechanism accommodation, that is the accommodation that victims of modern slavery can enter once they're they've said that they've highlighted that they're victims of modern slavery we have said that um their positions in that accommodation are safe and guaranteed for three months um we have uh designated um modern slavery people who are working in safe houses. They have the advantage of being key workers and so on. We're absolutely clear that victims of modern slavery must continue to be protected in these very, very difficult times.

Victoria Atkins, thank you so much for joining us this morning. Apologies for the problems that we had at the beginning but I'm afraid it's what's happening at the moment. But thank you very much for being with us. Now still to come in today's programme, Keeping Up Appearances, how to sort the nails, the eyebrows and if you do them, the hairy legs

with another three weeks in lockdown and of course the next in our Woman's Hour Corona Diaries. Annie from Sheffield, she and her friends are recording their thoughts in haikus, the Japanese form of short poems. Now, Valeria is a very successful writer. She's had a lover, Martin, for some 30 years. Martin is married to Isla.

Isla is a well-regarded portrait painter. Martin has a stroke and is lying in a coma in his house in Holland Park in London. Valeria manages to persuade Isla to paint her portrait. She leaves her home in Paris and is received into Martin's home to sit for the painting. The portrait is the title of the novel on which this scenario is based, and it's written by Ilaria Bernardini. Ilaria, as a best-selling novelist in your native Italy, why did you decide to write this story in English rather than Italian? Good morning, good morning, Jenny. Well, this story arrived in English. So I was in London when the whole idea of this affair in a way and this idea of this writer being unable to have access to the love of her life, the secret love of her life the secret of her life and so when the characters arrived unfortunately I would say they spoke English so I attempted I

tried I began writing in this second language and and it would have felt a translation the other way around so I also tried in Italian but it felt fake and unreal so I just had to stick with how it felt right. Where did the character Valeria come from the writer? Well in a way I think it's very close to me in some obsessions and ideas of being always obsessively maniacally looking for stories and plan Bs and plan Cs and plots in everything that happens to me or it was in our lives. And at the same time with an extreme, I would say,

fascinations with the life of artists, I was reading a lot of diaries by Virginia Woolf, Margaret Atwood, all these real lives, also the domestic lives of writers. Alice Munro, I remember reading so many biographies and diaries and columns, anything really that happened to be feeding this curiosity for how a writer, at the same time, of course, as a woman, has to so many times balance this room of her own that has to be there, but is never actually there, especially now, I would say. She's obsessed with aging, even though she's a beautiful, powerful, successful woman. Why does she care so much? Well, it's more than aging.

She's obsessed that the only person she had let in her life is now disappearing. So she's more afraid of disappearing. So it's just the beginning of a process. So she's understanding that there is a revolution here and it's happening now. And this revolution might also be a revelation in terms of beliefs. So she has to let go more than beauty or vanity or youth. I would say an idea of being at the center of the scene, an ego, the idea that she was the only one narrating this story. So as a lover, and as a secret person and invisible, the idea that the only person that knew her has known her

for decades was the only one able to see her for what she has always been. She carries a lot of past and a lot of trauma in her story, in her present. So more than aging, she wonders where all this legacy, where all these secrets and stories she had told him will disappear. Why were you fascinated by the potential dynamic between a wife and a mistress? Well, even though the quick line for this book could be it's a book about an affair, I always thought that it was a book, it was going to be an unjudgmental regarding this topic. And it was more like the encounter of two incredible, very profound, very complex women and artists. So I was fascinated by the idea of two women, quite the same age, mirroring each other on the brinks of this abyss

just before everything was going to change for them in their lives. So one's a mother, she has three kids, she lives this very, also in a way, privileged life. The other one, Valeria, the lover, has always been in this profound solitude, which she has chosen. She even celebrates and cherishes this solitude. But it's mostly the encounter of two very different ways of approaching love, life, death, art. There's a line that keeps echoing throughout the book. Everyone is everyone. What did you mean by that?

Well, it's exactly, well, that's a bit of the core of the sentiment of this novel. I think the philosophical theory behind it. So when Valeria with this goofy lie, she's very embarrassed of having to invent this thing of the portrait to have access to this house um confronts uh confronts meets isla she thinks the problem there will be that isla will be able to look at her judger uh she doesn't know if isla knows that she has been there forever but then as soon as she sits in this

chair where she will sit every morning she understands that she too is able to look in a way that would have been impossible in any other contest in life to be staring and spying and understanding this other woman so she becomes both the sitter and the painter. She's the writer and the subject of this plot. So everyone is everyone. They're both, we're all, not them all. So the sense larger than that is that we are all narrating our own story here. And that's the kind of revolution I'm trying to talk about here.

Now, we know that Elena Ferrante's novels became very popular here but I suspect there are not many Italian women writers that are well known here you're obviously about to become well known but which which others should we be reading? Well I have, well, I would definitely pick in the new women writers, Valeria Parrella, that shares the name with our protagonist. And she has a beautiful book out coming out in England too. And it's called Al Marina. And it's going to be out with John Murray. And it's the beautiful story of Elisabetta, who is 50 and almarina who's 16 in a detention center and it's a very political yet romantic book about women and education and love and then well natalia ginsburg she's a classic so maybe probably most of you also have heard her before but she's out in paperback and i know there is an introduction by Rachel Kask. So her little virtues or her lexicon family, I would suggest definitely them. Well, Ilaria, thank you so much for joining us this morning. I think you're incredibly brave to write a novel in a language that is not your mother's tongue and of course do it very well

hilario benedini thank you very much indeed for being with us now the hairdresser is shut the beauty salon is closed the nail bar phone is not being answered so many of us have discovered the delights of shellac or gel manicure where the polish lasts for ages but not as we've found for three weeks and you can't just wipe it off the way you could the old style of polish then there's the skin which would really do with a facial the eyebrows which need attention and the legs which are probably waxed regularly how can we keep up appearances on our own well sarah jostle is the beauty director for the sunday times style magazine sarah i took my shellac shellac off at the weekend i managed to find some of the special remover but it wasn't easy even with the right remover how should i have done it

right so if we think about this in a little tutorial so what you want to do is you want to get your nail file and you want to buff the shellac that's the most important step that many people will forget so basically before you put on the acetone the nails shouldn't have that shine anymore that you get with your shellac then at step two is you want to get some cotton wool and dip it in acetone now lots of people will think they can use nail polish remover they can't it's got to be acetone and which you can order online at the moment and then you want to wrap the tin foil around the finger so you've got the cotton wool on the nails and then you want to wait for 10 to 15 minutes lots of

people are using clothing pegs just to stick on each nail to keep the tin foil in place and then you want to wait 10 to 15 minutes and just take one off and check it and the nail polish should have completely lifted on either side so the main mistake people are making is they're not waiting long enough they're not buffing and they're not using acetone clearly i failed to buff because it was quite difficult getting it off. Yes, the buffing is the step. How good is it for the nails to be forced to give them a rest? So, you know, the whole point of Shellac is it's absolutely fine for your nails. It's the removal that is what's damaging our nails because that's what's taking off the top layer of our nails making them weak um i would say now was obviously an excellent time to give nails a breather and just you know let them have some time off um i would say what you

want to do is really look after your cuticles because they are a telltale sign that you know your nails are just feeling and looking a little bit um tired so the best thing for cuticles again you don't want to cut them leave there's a lot of things in beauty that I would highly recommend leaving to the professionals but one thing you can do is when you're in the bath or the shower push the cuticles back that's going to make the nails look longer and then essentially what you want to do is get that lovely shape because when people who are painting their nails now they'll find that their cuticles are getting in the way so you really want to push your cuticles back but do it when your nails are wet in the shower because otherwise it's quite tricky what's the best way to manage eyebrows and some people have false eyelashes which are stuck

on professionally how do you manage that whole eye area right so brows you have a choice if you want to tint them there are options out there there are some really really easy diy brow tints that you can use i would say if you've never done it before and they're not bothering you too much maybe don't do that if you're thinking of tweezing them very very simple only tweeze the brow hairs underneath the brow shape and make sure that you are not tweezing any of the brows in the actual shape because that's when you're going to start to alter really the whole look of your face be very very careful with the brow hairs on the inner corners of the brow so essentially nearest your nose because those are the ones that take longest to grow back and that can

make you look angry in about 30 seconds or excited or sad and which is not what we're trying to do um and i would say if you are going to tweeze also you want to get right into the roots because lots of people tweeze say the ends and then you're just breaking the hair you're not going in at the roots if you or i some people are considering um trimming their brows you just want to be very careful and please don't use scissors just lying around in the house. You do need to invest in brow scissors if you are going to do that. And lashes, you've got a long, a little long, slightly long journey ahead of you, but you really just want to condition and nourish. Do not pull the lashes out. You want to use a lash conditioner. There are lots of really, really good ones out there and some people swear by castor oil and just to put on them to really just massage them which will also help slightly slightly and remove them from your real lashes as well and by the way I think in terms of every day

if you've got quite bushy eyebrows or if they're sort of helter skelton all over the way and what you want to do is really just brush them up if there's one tip you take get a brow gel even use some soap on a toothbrush and just brush them up and that is going to make your face look wide awake and just sort of ready to go now for people who like to remove leg armpit even pubic hair what's the way to go? Wax or shave? It's personal preference. You know, waxing is going to remove the hair for a slightly longer period of time, but a lot of people find it too painful to do. Some interesting tricks that I've picked up along the way. If you are going to wax, avoid caffeine and alcohol right before,

because they can both increase skin sensitivity and lots of people forget to breathe when they're waxing because they're so nervous you want to take lots of deep breaths a really good trick is to exfoliate two days before waxing because that can also help actually break down some of the dry skin there which can make it more painful and actually four hands are better than one when waxing so if you are at home with someone get them to keep the skin as tight as possible so that you can wax and you really just want to wax in opposite directions and if you're at home and you're thinking oh I've only got one size wax strips get creative you can really cut them to the area of hair that you are tackling and if it is shaving

that you want to do the best piece of advice I can give you is don't think that you can just use conditioner or a moisturizer to use when you're shaving you want to use shaving gel because essentially a conditioner is just going to coat the hair which means you're not going to get as close to shave as to if you were using shaving gel. And finally Sarah what about the skin a lot of women seem to be worrying about dry skin, getting spotty skin in lockdown. Well, spots are very, very closely linked to stress. And I think, you know, stress and dietary changes, no one should be beating themselves up if they are struggling with their skin at the moment. People's diets are changing. People are, you know, going through a mix of emotions.

So what you want to do with your skin is be very kind to it. Don't believe every single article and buy every single product. You want to really strip it back. Be very, very gentle with what you're using. A glycerin moisturizer is really good for hydration and hyaluronic acid. They're the two ingredients that are brilliant for dryness. And ceramides is the third thing which is excellent for the skin's barrier function to help with dehydration and

flaky skin. But you know, overall, you don't want to be sticking eggs and avocado to, you know, mixing it all together and trying to make face masks. It might be fun, but it probably won't be your best friend for your skin.ah jessel thank you very much indeed for joining us this morning we will try all your tips thank you and so to the next in our series of women's hour corona diaries annie henderson sent us an email from sheffield in which she described her group of 12 friends who called themselves a book group and have been close for more than 30 years. They stay in contact online and they send each other haikus. Now, as I said earlier, my favourite, of course, as a fellow Yorkshire woman, is in God's Own County, God's out on the moor and He's working from home. So, Annie, how did your group come together originally?

Originally, we were a mother and baby group. So the eldest baby is now 37 and the youngest baby is 27. And you've obviously kept in touch regularly, week by week. Yes, constantly. We never kind of separated this group when people went back to work and things like that. We all got on really well. So we started meeting in the evenings and things. We do something once a week. And how have you been managing to stay in touch? Now you can't meet once a week. No, we can't meet once a week. Well, we still phone,

obviously. We all live in the same area so occasionally you actually see someone walking past your garden and wave um but we we do online we do a zoom meeting once a week where we can actually see each other and we use them whatsapp for texting each other sort of pretty much all day chattering on really and how did this haiku idea start? One is group. Just put one in. In the middle of some chat, there was suddenly a haiku. Which, do people know what a haiku is? Go on. I mean, I've said it's a kind of Japanese form of short poetry. Yeah, it's a tiny little Japanese short poem.

So we're not sitting here writing sort of, you know, long poems. It's tiny. It's almost like a puzzle. So it's got three lines, five syllables, seven syllables and five syllables. And the last line is supposed to sort of sunnish up. So basically it's to get thoughts or events or anything really precise, really concise on paper quickly. And she wanted to say something and it just kind of came into her mind, I think, and she put it and then it caught on. What's your favourite one from the group?

My favourite from the whole group is actually really simple. Some of them are topical, some of them are about events. My favourite one, do you want me to read it? Yes. Simon and Adele, separated by Covid, I worry for him. Now, why does that one chime with you? Because it is simple. Because the last line, I worry for for him says the whole thing is the mum

who's worried about her son because he's separated from adele because she's an itu nurse and she's chosen not to go back to him while this is on now i have to tell you apart from the favorite one about god don't count which of course we must all absolutely love. I liked, Nigel has had to queue to get in Sainsbury's. How boring for him. It's lovely, isn't it? What did you make of that one? Same writer. Same writer as I worry for him.

She must have got the knack, I think. What are you hoping to do with the haiku when the lockdown is over? We never had a plan for them in the first place at all they just happened and people started trying them out because it's more like doing a little puzzle than writing a poem really trying to get it to fit and you know you get quicker at them you can just do them well they're no good if you sit down and think for hours you have to do it quite quickly um and i said i'd just like keep keep them because they were starting to turn into a bit of a record um of the times really that you know you can see you can see days you can see when mother's day was

you can see when the lockdown started you can see when platform key workers started from reading through them in order um so we have chatted about this now we have sort of thought we'll probably keep them and and write them up into maybe not all of them but a lot of them into some sort of book it will be a really unique record of the period yeah and what's your own best one would you say what i've written yes oh okay well it's a bit of a wordplay one so you have to kind of listen carefully and it's actually for a thursday so today is a thursday um clapping for key workers um miniature heroes chocks and claps not enough for our nhs kids now you've got a lot of people in the group who are associated with the nhs i think haven't you yes um more the children than the members of the group actually i don't think any oh i tell a lie

um one of the group works the nhs and she's actually had to she's the one who um had to retire early very unwillingly because of covid um because of the risk working in a hospital to her and was very sad to do so um but we've got a lot of children in the nhs yes in lots of different roles so we think about them a lot and it's a bit like going back to the original one i worry for him we worry for them so yeah i was talking to annie henderson and she inspired some of you to send in a haiku this came from linda who wrote this after her husband had a serious attack of coronavirus covid virus down the track here it comes been and gone but my man is back we're very pleased to hear it linda we had a lot of emails about how you're keeping up with your beauty regime

in lockdown jackie said i usually have my hair highlighted every five weeks so my wonderful hairdresser ordered the products i needed online, made a how-to video, and my 15-year-old daughter then tentatively took on the role of hairdresser. It was very nerve-wracking, I have to say. I tried not to show how worried I was, but my daughter said I did a poor job. But she did the most amazing job. I sent a photo to my hairdresser who replied, Wow, well done Alice, I'll be out of a job.

Where there's a will. Another Jackie says, I have fractured my right wrist which is in plaster so I've had to learn to put on makeup and contact lenses and do hair with my left hand. Very slow but managing it. My husband offered his services but I didn't think that would work. And then Diana said, for God's sake, even more of this rubbish about hair and nails etc. Talk about how the other half lives. I last went to the hairdresser in 1970 Mind you, had you come up with that afro you may have never gone again Please understand, there are plenty of listeners who've never had their nails done by anyone else

or had their legs waxed, etc I'm a bit sick of hearing how people are suffering from not having things which are totally unnecessary and many of us have never had. We also had a lot of response to the discussion about domestic violence with Victoria Atkins. Fiona said, I'm sitting here in tears listening to Victoria Atkins. It's 25 years since my ex-husband beat me up, but the mental effects, although lessened,

have never completely gone. It's the mental health and lives of women and their children that are being put on the line, and the lack of urgency over the matter shows women are still second-class citizens. And Kitty said, I'm listening with interest to the article on domestic abuse, wondering if I can help in lieu of any real action from the government. Lots of us have spaces available for women in danger and would happily accommodate someone at risk of domestic abuse. And many of us can do this and maintain social distancing. Who can we get in touch with and offer our spaces to? We usually run an Airbnb, but that can't happen now. So I'd rather keep somebody safe than leave the cabin uninhabited.

I'm sure I'm not alone. Well, thank you for all your contributions to this morning's programme. Jane will be here tomorrow morning and she'll be discussing with Maria Miller MP the fact that traffic towards online porn websites has increased in the midst of a worldwide lockdown and highlighted some of the problems and dangers that come with the pornographic websites. So what can the government and parents be doing? If you have a question, you can send it to us through an email or, of course, you can tweet.

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

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