Woman's Hour - Pauline Black of The Selecter, Julia Gillard on girls' education, Mothers at risk of losing their children.

Episode Date: April 19, 2021

The original rude girl and ‘Queen of Ska’ Pauline Black was working as a radiographer when she came to prominence in the late 1970s as the lead singer of the 2 Tone ska revival band The Selecter. Pauline joins Anita to talk about being the only girl on tour alongside The Specials and Madness, expressing herself as a young black woman through music, playing the role of Billie Holiday and, 40 years on, the remastering the band’s album Too Much Pressure.It is estimated that 129 million girls worldwide remain out of school and face multiple barriers to education. Julia Gillard, the former Prime Minister of Australia, is the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Global Partnership for Education – an organisation working with governments around the world to help children in lower-income countries get a quality education. The UK has supported eight million girls worldwide and in 100 days from now will be hosting the Global Education Summit with Kenya. Anita Rani discusses the issues with Julia and Josephine Kamara and Selina Nkoile, Youth Leaders for the GPE.In a new series of authored interviews Milly Chowles reports on women at risk of having their children removed from their care. Drug and alcohol misuse are often part of the problem. Milly, who is in recovery herself, had a baby last year. She was given many chances to change and fears that many mothers are not given the same opportunities. Today she talks to Lydia. They went to school together and took different paths in life but both ended up focussing on the stories of mothers in crisis.Presented by Anita Rani Producer: Louise Corley Editor: Beverley Purcell

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to Woman's Hour. We have a brilliant show lined up for you today, lots for you to think about. First question of the day, can you imagine not having an education? It's hard to contemplate when we take it for granted. Or maybe you don't take it for granted. Maybe you fully appreciate what having an education has done for you.

Maybe you were the first to go to uni in your family. Maybe you understand the change and difference it can make, not just to your own life, but the lives of all your family. Well, 129 million girls around the world are not in school and the lasting impact of that is detrimental not just to them but the whole of society. I cannot wait to talk about this with ex-Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and two remarkable young women

who are making a difference in their countries with the help of the Global Partnership for Education. Now, as if you need reminding, it is Monday morning and we could all do with a bit of a boost, I'm sure. So why not have some music? Yep, that's done the trick for me. How many of you were transported back to the late 70s, early 80s? That track was on my radio by The Selector,

40 years since its release. A remastered 3D CD box set is coming out and to tell us all about it, we'll be joined by the queen of ska, Pauline Black, the lead singer of the band and the original rude girl. Pretty much the only woman in the two-tone scene, so I'm sure she's got lots to tell us about. We'll be taking a trip down memory lane with Pauline.

Maybe you'd like to share your youthful memories, if you can remember any. Did you ever see them live? What did you wear? What was the vibe? Let us know what you remember and what drew you to the two-tone scene. Was it the music or the politics? You can get in touch with us. We'd love to hear your stories about that or anything you hear on the show today. You can text us on 84844. Of course, there's also social media.

It's at BBC Woman's Hour and you can email via our website. Also, Millie Chowles is a mother in recovery from addiction. In a new series starting today, Millie talks to women at risk of having their children removed and the people who are trying to help them. Today, she talks to an old school friend who went on to study law.

They both have a shared interest in children being taken into care. It's a really eye-opening and frank conversation. And already your tweets have started to come in about education. Swadinata says, yes, I was the first to go to a UK polytechnic in my family, which became a university, second generation British Bengali female. High five to you. 84844 is the number to text. Now it's estimated that 129 million girls worldwide remain out of school and face multiple barriers to education. Julia Gillard is the former Prime Minister of Australia from 2010 to 2013. Today, she's the chair of the Board of Directors

of the Global Partnership for Education, an organisation working with governments around the world to help children in lower-income countries get a quality education. The UK has supported 8 million girls worldwide and in 100 days from now, we'll be hosting the Global Education Summit with Kenya in July this year. Josephine Kamara and Selina Unkoile are youth leaders for the GPE

and all three join me this morning. Very good morning to you all. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Julia, it's 2021 yet there are still girls not being educated globally. Can you give us an overview of the situation? Yes, it's 2021. And even before the COVID pandemic, we had a crisis around the world when it came to girls' education. Progress was being made. But if you wanted to imagine the face of the most marginalised child in the world, it would be a female face. And the estimates were that around 250 million children were not in school at all, and hundreds of millions more were attending, but for short periods in potentially very low quality schools, and not even picking up the basics of literacy and numeracy. And then, of course, along comes COVID, which as well as creating the health crisis that has gripped our planet,

has brought with it an education crisis. So it's estimated that at the height of the pandemic, 1.6 billion children were out of school and hundreds of millions more continue to face closed schools. And we know from earlier health crises like Ebola that when schools close, it is the most marginalised children, particularly the girls, who are at risk of not getting back to school. So at the Global Partnership for Education, we're very determined to change that picture. We work in almost 90 countries around the world. We are seeking to recharge our finances so that we can make a difference for 175 million children in terms of quality education and add 90 million more children to those who

are going to school with a focus every step of the way on girls. And how do you make that happen? How does the GPE work? Do you work with governments? Do you go into communities? What do you do? that there is a great plan for schooling. We do that in dialogue with communities, with civil society, and then through our own resources and the resources of others, we mobilise money to implement the plan. What that means is the essence of our model is, yes, the donors give GPE funds and we put international aid money in, but we leverage that against increased expenditure by the government of the developing country. And because there's a great plan for schooling, it means that other donors can come along

and not just do something random, they can do something really impactful because they know that it's part of the plan. And of course, education, as everybody knows, I'm sure listening is so fundamental to your life chances. But in particular, what can the consequences be of educating a girl? Educating a girl simply makes a difference to everything about her life. The evidence very clearly shows that an educated girl will go on to be an empowered woman. She's more likely to

participate in the economy. So that's more prosperity for her and for her family. She is more likely to choose when she marries. And when she does marry, she will choose to have fewer children. Her children are more likely to survive infanthood. They're more likely to be vaccinated. They're more likely to go to schools themselves. And so you get on this upward cycle where you've empowered an individual girl to become a woman who can shape her own life and make sure that there is a better life ahead for her children. Well, as well as speaking to yourself, a very powerful and educated woman, Julia, we've got two other very powerful and educated women joining us. Josephine, who's in Sierra Leone, and Selina, who is in the Masai Mara in Kenya. Welcome to both of you. Josephine,

I'm going to come to you first. Now, one of the biggest barriers to education was a policy in Sierra Leone that banned pregnant girls from carrying on in education. Tell me about this and tell me about how you became aware of it. Well, historically in Sierra Leone, pregnant girls were just not allowed to go to school, even before the policy was introduced in the country. In 2010, out of a cabinet conclusion in the country. There was now a policy about pregnant girls not going to school, but it became formalized in 2015. 2010, I was not really much aware about the ban because I was still in high school.

What happened during my days in high school was 2019, I was 16, and I was in my second year in senior school was 2019, I was 16, and I was in my senior, second year in senior school, getting ready to take my exam to go to my final year so that I would do the West African senior secondary school education examination to go to university. Then something happened to me. I became pregnant. And whilst I was pregnant in that year at the age of 16, the strangest thing to share with the world is the person who impregnated me happened to be my

extra lesson teacher. Yes, yes, my maths teacher. So this was a man who was offering me free classes for maths. My parents by then, my mom, I was raised by my mom and my grandmother. My parents by then could not be able to afford a full time extra maths class lesson for me. So this man was offering me free classes and then he started touching me inappropriately. And then, you know, just as a young girl, I wanted to just, you know, get access to this math free lesson. So I thought, well, maybe it was normal. I thought maybe this was what I have to give back to, you know, just get the free classes. And then I ended up getting pregnant. And so it was just my word against his word. It was an older man. It was a man who's supposed to

know better. And there's a law in my country that girls below the age of 18 cannot consent for sex. And I was clearly 16. And when this happened to me, my fear was not even my parents knowing about the pregnancy. My fear was just not being able to go to school. I was afraid that the slightest opportunity I have to go to school and stay in school was going to be taken away from me because I've never seen a pregnant girl go to school in my country. So I was very afraid about that. I did a lot of things to get rid of that pregnancy. It was terrible. I had an unsafe abortion. And in my country, abortion is still illegal. So all of those hustles I have to go through. So I really understood, I understand what girls in general, in every part of the world go through when they are really passionate about education

and then they see that that opportunity at any point will be taken away from them. So when that policy was introduced in 2015, I became really passionate about it because I knew what happened to me when I wanted to go to school. I'm pregnant. I was afraid of people knowing. I was afraid for the school expelling me.

So I knew what that was for me. So I became very passionate about advocating about pregnant girls' rights to education. One, because I know that, one, the policy was discriminatory. Another thing I know that it is just not our fault. It's as a result of collective feelings from the country, from our government, from our support system, from the community.

So my idea was if everybody comes together and supports that one girl to go to school and stay in school, a lot will change in the country. So I became very vocal about ending that policy in my country. And there was an ECOWAS court ruling going on also. And fortunately for us, it ruled in our favor. But whilst that ECOWAS court ruling was happening, I was here mobilizing young pregnant girls who were kicked out of school after the Ebola outbreak. Mind you, this was a period when the foreign policy magazine reported that there was an Ebola rape crisis happening in Sierra Leone that no one is talking about. About 70,000 girls got pregnant.

And the government was saying all of these girls should be kicked out of school. So that was really, really not, it was discriminatory. It was not good at all. So I was leading the advocacy in the country together with the organization I work for. It's called Purposeful. It's a feminist movement building up for girls' activism. We collected voices of girls who were directly affected by the ban. We took to...

Josephine, no, no, your story is remarkable and I'm sure lots of people listening are taking it all in and I'm quite shocked to hear your story. You're 16 years old. You're sexually assaulted by a maths tutor. You become pregnant. It's illegal to have an abortion in sierra leone you have an illegal abortion thank goodness you are here to tell your tale and but throughout all of this

it wasn't even the pregnancy that you were afraid of it was the fear of losing your education which is so i mean i'm sure other people are feeling this. We can hear the passion and conviction in your voice. Where did your courage come from at 16 to fight this? Well, what I would say, my courage came from the fact that I was the only girl in my family to have reached that level in education. I was the only member also in the family to have reached that far in attaining education. So I was kind of like seeing myself that if I don't fight for education, the passport for my family out of poverty is going to be taken away from them. I saw myself that I have to fight because my younger siblings depend on me fighting for that education. Now I am in a space where I am educated. I am still the only member of my family with

university degree. And at this point, I am encouraging my younger siblings to look up to me and be encouraged to go to university. I have a younger brother who is getting ready for the West African examination. And after that examination, he will be eligible for college. I have other young girls in my community who are looking up to me. And just by me fighting for my stay in school has changed a lot of lives. In Sierra Leone, I run a radio program called Karukura Connection with Purpose Rule where we're encouraging girls to look at us, see our lived experience and learn from it. I have lots of girls calling in and saying that I thought this was the end of the road for me, but you inspired me, you've motivated me i'm gonna bring in selena i'm gonna bring in selena who is um in the masai mara right now who i'm sure is listening to this well she can definitely relate to you inspiring other young girls because selena you were the first girl to get an education in your village in kenya as a mysai girl how did that change your life so for me also um I really resonate with Josephine's story.

And also for me, I was never to go to school. And I grew up in a traditional Maasai setting. And Maasais, as you know, they are really a special group, they are a special tribe and they have their own rules. And you grow up as a girl when your life is already pretty much decided for you. So at the age of around 10 or 9, men will start showing up, booking you for marriage or negotiating with your parents to marry you. Like any other Maasai girl, that happened to me. And I was like reserved or booked for marriage.

But then through external financing, the first ever girl's school was established in my village. So for us, we never knew that we would ever end up in school or we didn't know that it was our constitutional right to be in school, but somehow just school being brought next to us and our dads being convinced to put us into school changed everything for us, especially for me, because I was the first girl in my... How hard was it to convince your father? Oh, not just my father. So the project that started the school they actually

got a whole age group of them of the older men they they gathered all the older men because the Maasai community has an age group system and all men belonging to one age group it's easy to get a hold of them by convincing the the like the the heads of the age group and it's easy to get a hold of them by convincing the heads of the age group. And they were told that if you guys, if you agree to bring your girls to school, because here's the school you've already built, we will provide full scholarship to these girls and we will have them sponsored so that they can complete the school. And we will change the narrative for these girls. Instead of you now booking them for marriage, we will be booking them for education the moment

they are born. So they would go to villages, register all the younger girls who are being born, and they would grow up knowing that they would go to the school when they got to an age of early childhood education. So school changed everything for me. School changed everything for you, your primary school, but then it was your mum that really helped propel you through secondary education, didn't she? Tell me what your mother did. She sounds incredible. Oh yeah. My mum, she's the best and she's never been to school, but somehow she knew that I was her only opportunity to also experience what an empowered woman looks like because she would always tell us, if I ever had gone to school,

I wouldn't be living in Kenya right now. I'll be an expert in another country. So my mom really worked so hard. She went, she became a market vendor and would go selling stuff in the market and would buy some livestock. And then now when the time for me to join high school came, because our scholarship only ended primary level, she sold all her kettles and put me to school. Even though my dad tried a few more times to marry me off and actually men would come home looking for me but I somehow escaped and I managed to complete high school but then my mom was like now you're done with high

school maybe it's your high time to get married and I was like no mom this was not the dream I have to go to college but now then I had to now take care of myself go look for jobs so that I could support myself through college. Because my mum also has my younger siblings who she knew she had to take care of. And she was now preserving the rest of the animals for them. I mean, Julia, both Selena and Josephine have the most inspiring stories. And I know Josephine went on and made a huge impact and then got rid of the law in Sierra Leone that prevented pregnant girls from going to school. I mean, sexism, deep-rooted patriarchal culture issues at the heart of the reasons why girls don't get an education they deserve. I mean, what more can be done to convince governments to change this? What pressure can be put on them?

Well, I think hearing these stories of courage is the thing that should change the attitudes and minds of everyone. I mean, if Josephine and Selina can show so much determination and courage to get an education, surely we can meet that with the extra resources necessary to create more and more opportunity for girls just like them. And that's the thing that we are asking people to do right now in this transformative change moment as we move beyond the days of the pandemic. Let's make sure that we're offering every girl the kind of life chance that Selina and Josephine have reached for. And in our way at the Global Partnership for Education,

that's exactly what we're trying to achieve. So we are asking you and all of your listeners to raise their hand for education, to be saying to the UK government and to everybody else, maximise the resources made available for girls' education at the Global Education Summit this July.

Thank you very much, Josephine, Selina and Julia. And Julia, they are. They're getting in touch via Twitter and they're saying, this is phenomenal and blown away by the account of this amazing young woman. Great to hear Julia Gillard speaking on Women's Hour about the importance of educating girls. We give solar lights to schools in Kenya to help girls achieve their potential. And there are no words, someone else has said,

for what education means to me. I did my degree and master's as a single parent, first in my family to go to uni, currently on maternity leave from a PhD after a baby. Education empowers and must be available to all. Keep your thoughts coming in. You can text 84844. And now the first in a new series, Second Chances. The number of children in care in England is at its highest since 1985 and it's rising. A mother's addiction to drugs and alcohol is often one of the issues.

The reporter and DJ Millie Charles became a mum at 40 last year. She's in recovery from addiction and feels she was given a lot of second chances. Her fear is that women now aren't getting those opportunities and the impact on them, their children and society is devastating. In a series of authored pieces, Millie talks to women at risk of having their children removed and the people who are trying to help them. And what about the children? It might be the best thing for the mother to look after

or have access to her child, but is that the best thing for a child? Today, Millie catches up with an old friend who got back in touch after hearing an online talk she did called Being the Story about her own experience of addiction and recovery. Hi, I just wanted to write to you privately rather than on Facebook following your post. Lydia was in my class at school. Our paths in life were very different. She went into a law profession which she left four years ago,

for reasons she'll explain, and I went off the rails. She got back in touch after seeing a talk I did telling the story of my recovery, which I shared on Facebook. By 19, my substance misuse and suicidal behaviour had escalated and I was admitted to my first detox. And it wasn't the last by a long stretch. It turns out that we had more in common than I thought, and a shared interest in women at risk of having their children removed. I'd known that you suffer from anorexia from school, but I'm so sorry we lost touch and I didn't know any further than this. I worked with many women

with addiction as I was a child care solicitor working with parents and children going through care proceedings in the courts. I really loved the job and when I started there was some funding for rehab and second, third, fourth, fifth chances but as time went on the government money dried up and it seemed that if addiction was the issue in the case, there was only money for removal of the child and adoption. I fell out of love with the job because of this. I had seen a few parents succeed in rehab and have their children returned and those few success stories were what I went into the job for. Now there doesn't seem to be the money and so many of the units are closing. It is beyond heartbreaking to know that those parents will lose their children and maybe even their lives.

Hi. This is amazing. It worked first time. How brilliant. Yeah. Oh my God, it's so strange to hear your voice. I was expecting you to sound like you did back in school. Because of course I can hear you when you're on the radio and things. And the first time I heard you, I was like, you can tell it's Millie, but she does sound different. I am different. After all the years of darkness, I'm now in long-term recovery.

And I have a son who's just turned one. I now live in a comfortable, safe home just around the corner from where I used to meet my dealer back in the day. When I had a baby last March, I remembered this message from Lydia a couple of years ago. In the rawness of new motherhood, all the stories I've heard from other women in recovery who've lost their children really came into sharp focus. I realised just how different my story could have been. Why did that video of my talk affect her so much? Because the area that I worked in at the time in public law childcare, it's really important to me to see people coming out the other end and what happens and particularly success stories.

They are fairly few and far between, unfortunately. It doesn't feel safe or comfortable to admit this stuff in a public space. It just doesn't. It still doesn't. But yeah, I do it because it matters to me. It matters. I'm not silenced by my own shame or by the stigma that society has put upon me and my friends and my fellows. There were so many people there. I was so impressed that you stood up and you gave the whole of your life, basically, and everything, the good and the bad that happened to you. I was just really taken to contact you and just say congratulations on how brave that was. Oh, thank you. I always find it so weird when people compliment me when I share about my life

because I think of my life was, you know, I caused a lot of pain and I did a lot of things I'm not proud of. I think it took me a good while to share it on Facebook I definitely felt very exposed I was derailed for the next couple of days in a really positive way because people like you and other people from all the corners of my life said lovely things and the amount of people that got in touch and said my sister brother husband aunt dad has had similar problems or I was a child was visiting my dad in rehab every year or you know all sorts of stories came back from people that I knew but I didn't know this part of their lives. We always sort of think that we're alone with this stuff. If we're ever going to deal with any of these problems that people have in their life and being

able to support people properly in society and help them get through them rather than just ignoring people with problems. I think we need to be able to come forward and there not be any negative repercussions of coming forward. I'm interested to hear about what exactly your job was and what it entailed and the kind of people you were working with. So I was the child solicitor in the care proceedings. So that would involve some background work in relation to working with the child, going to visit the child in foster care or at home. And I would also go with the children's guardian and go to see the parents. We would put to the court the point of view of the child in respect to what was best for the child within the care proceedings.

So in these cases, were there particular issues that were coming up again and again? Addiction, unfortunately, was one of the main issues that would come up frequently, pretty much in relation to most cases. The majority of my cases would have been neglect issues. But that neglect towards the child would have been caused by the parents who unfortunately had invariably suffered abuse, either physical abuse, sexual abuse or emotional abuse or a combination of all of those. That's such an important point that Lydia makes. In a trauma-informed setting, the first question that's asked is not what's wrong with you, but what happened to you? And I think that's asked is not what's wrong with you, but what happened to you.

And I think that's a really crucial shift. Trying to deal with those issues on your own without any therapy or support, they would turn to drink and drugs and they would often be in domestically violent relationships. And that was really a pattern that I saw throughout the whole of my 12 years that I was working. So this circle we were finding was happening in pretty much every case that I came to. What was positive in one sense was that a lot of people that I would speak to and try to explain the job that I did as briefly as I could would assume that there was lots of deliberate acts of abuse towards the children. What I overwhelmingly found was that the parents weren't trying to harm their children. They were just not able to parent their own children because they hadn't had anything to emulate, because they hadn't had a childhood themselves. They weren't able to provide

a stable home for their children and therefore their children would have to go and unfortunately live elsewhere, either temporarily or the case would end up in adoption, which was, I would probably say, the majority of cases, unfortunately. In your experience, do you think most of the parents that you were working with got a fair chance to turn their lives around and get the help they needed to keep their kids? I think it has really changed. I was in the law for 12 years. And when I first started as a trainee, predominantly my job would be to go and visit parents, they would be in mother and baby units, or drug and alcohol rehab units, they would be there for quite a few weeks. And

often that would be extended if they were doing reasonably well and if they showed quite a prospect of success that would be extended again and all of these units would charge something in the region of around 500 pounds a week it was it was a costly thing and there would be a number of parents across the country in these at all times and it was just that was just the norm But throughout my time of working over those 12 years, that was really eroded. And there was a real shift. And there was a change in the law in April 2014, where the new public law outline came in. And that would mean that in 26 weeks, the care proceedings, once they were issued in the court, would have to be concluded. It was a good thing in respect of the child. The welfare of the child would be the focus of

the court, as it always has been, but it was really highlighted as the focus around that time. And you would only be able to get an extension to these proceedings over the 26 weeks if the welfare of the child demanded it. So really, because everything was so focused on the child and the child's age and the child's needs and ultimately the child's need for these proceedings to be concluded as quickly as they could, the idea then of putting an application before the court for a parent to go in to have therapy, for example, or dealing with an addiction would just take such a long time that the court would not wait around for that. There was a special court set up in 2008, the FDAC court, which is the Family Drug and Alcohol Court.

And that would actually allow for substance abuse cases to, if they qualified, and there's quite a stringent qualification process for that but if they did qualify they would be able to go into the FDAC court where there would be a whole host of specialists that would work around the parent or the parents within pre-proceedings. The FDAC court unfortunately was funded by local. So it did depend on which local authority you were in as to what funding they would put into FDAC. I'll be talking about FDAC in more detail later in the series. I was lucky enough to have multiple stints in rehab

and thankfully I didn't have any children at the time. I'm white, well-spoken and able to articulate my story, which I think is crucial. Is it even feasible now to give parents more than one chance? It's not possible within the system as it was when I left it and I believe it's still the same system now. It sounds incredibly heartbreaking to be honest. Obviously as you know I've just become a new mum so I'm particularly sensitive to it but it breaks my heart and it makes me feel really emotional.

How did you kind of deal with that on a day-to-day basis? You can't be emotionally involved in any of your cases really. You would work on a large number of cases at one time, you would always be jumping in and out of all different cases, it's really fast-paced. There's obviously those cases that stick out, those cases that do affect you. And I worked up until the month before I had my child. And I think as soon as I became pregnant, I did see it in a different light. And it did all become a lot closer to home. To think back now, what the parents must have been going through at the time that they were within these care proceedings. When I wasn't a mother, I didn't really quite grasp the enormity of what we were asking these parents to do. I obviously being involved in a recovery community, I know of lots of women who've had children removed, you get that sense of what that loss must be like.

It's unthinkable. One of the worst things that was absolutely heartbreaking was when the court has made an order, a final order, so either a long-term foster care placement for that child or an adoptive placement, they would offer the family a final goodbye contact. And you would have an hour in a contact centre and you knew that was going to be the last time you ever saw your child and at the time I probably couldn't really understand but now I can understand actually why a number of parents can't can't attend and just can't do it I just feel so so grateful that I have had the chances and that I've had a baby in recovery and that I didn't have a baby in the midst of the addiction and then have that added kind of trauma

to recover from because I don't know how you recover from that. I don't think you can. And I don't think that just because you have an addiction, I don't think that would take away the pain. Maybe it would blot it out at times, but it's every parent's worst nightmare, isn't it? Whatever reason losing their child. And there would be such a level of responsibility. It was because of something that you did. I think that that's the bit that would be so hard. And we'll hear more from Millie over the next few weeks as our Second Chances series continues. Now, Amanda from Devon has texted in to say, I was 15 in 1979 when I and two friends went to see The Selector, The Specials and Madness on the two-tone tour at Exeter University. I remember the tickets were £2.70 each, 90 pence per band,

and it was one of the best nights in my life. Well, you'll be looking forward to this next item then. The original Rude Girl and Queen of Scar, Pauline Black, was working as a radiographer when she came to prominence in the late 1970s as the lead singer of the two-tone Scar revival band, The Selector. Let's have a listen. All right, baby, yo He played it all day A-go-go, a-go-go He liked to dance to it Down in the streets He said he loved me

But he lost all peace It's just a safe-hold show Am I ready? It's just a safe-hold show Am I ready? It's just a safe-hold show Am I ready? It's just a safe-hold show

Am I ready? Am I ready? sick, oh sure, I'm not ready I'm not ready, I'm not ready, I'm not ready Three minute hero, I wanna be Three minute hero, I wanna be Three minute hero, I wanna be Don't shake my body, the best I ever had I'm out tonight looking for some best action But I can't get no satisfaction

You got a problem, baby It's all over now You thought you had it made It's over, it's over, it's over Missing words, missing words are just Missing words, missing words are just Missing words, missing words are just Missing words, missing words are just

Missing Words. And I'm delighted to say, Pauline Black, welcome to Woman's Hour. Did that take you back in time? Morning, morning, morning. Did Amanda's tweet take you back in time as well? £2.70 for a ticket to come and see you on tour with the specials and madness. What was that like? Not only were you the only woman, you're the black woman in this environment. Take us back to that time and reminisce. Well, I don't actually remember Exeter,

but I do remember there were cheaper ones that you could go to than that even, £2.50. But it was just a fantastic time. I mean, there I I was I'd never been in a band before and the selector was always my first band and and my last actually now too but I was on tour in a bus and I mean it was a tour bus but it wasn't really it was like one of those buses that you had at school where everyone was sort of, you know, either facing, well, facing forward mainly. And it seemed like a school day out for most of the time. We just pile off, pile onto stage and all three bands would go through their set and all pile onto the stage at the end all together and do this wonderful rendition of Prince Buster's Madness at the time, and sweat used to drip off the walls.

You would see boys, girls, black, white, mods, punks, you name it kind of thing. It was like a little tribe all came united by this movement, this new movement really called Two-Turn, which which basically was against racism, against sexism. And we wanted to bring that message to the young people of Britain. You've got to remember that at this time, 1979, when the two-tone tour started, Margaret Thatcher had just come to power with all that entailed. And so we felt very righteous about the message that we had. And for young black people at that time, there were still sus laws, which meant that you could get picked up on the street by the police

and taken down to the police station for no real reason other than you were walking down the road half of the time. Some listeners might be forgiven for thinking it hasn't changed that much. But anyway, in those days, it was something that was very pertinent to us. And did you think you were changing attitudes? Yes, absolutely, definitely. I mean, I could see no other reason for being in the band other than changing attitudes.

I wanted to change, I believe very, very passionately at that time in the messages that we were bringing, that people had really to know about racism and know that it existed. I mean, we live in a different time now when we have the language for all of these things. We can talk about multiculturalism. We can talk about diversity. But back then, you couldn't really.

I mean, people still on the street called you coloured. I had to name myself black to make myself, you know, to make other people call me black. I mean, you called yourself black, wasn't it, in sort of reaction to your own family? Because your own upbringing is so fascinating. You were adopted by a white family in Romford what was that upbringing like? I was adopted by a white working class family in Romford and they'd had four sons they wanted a daughter and my mother was too old to have a baby herself so they chose me from one

of those rather quaintly named mother and baby homes that they used to have at that time, which basically was young girls who had become pregnant and had a child. And they had to go somewhere because nobody wanted to talk about such things. And I was very much reminded, listening to Selina and Josephine earlier, their stories of quite what my mother must have gone through. And I was brought up by them, but they were typical of families of that time, working class families of that time, not just confined to working class families, obviously. But, you know, a thread of racism ran through everyday language. In your own family?

In my own family, yes. And I was in a unique position, I suppose, to actually observe white people when they are at their most relaxed and talking openly about people who I felt I belonged to, particularly by the time I got to my teenage years and I could see the civil rights movement unfolding in America. And I very much identified, oh, well, I mean, goodness me. I mean, there we were. I was sitting watching nightly on the news, young black people being taken away from lunch counters because they couldn't sit at the lunch counters as white people hosed up against a wall because of protest and not being able to go to school

because fellow students didn't want them there and their parents. And you talked about just how meaningful the two-tone scene was for you, but I think for every woman, all women, seeing you in that space, especially as a black woman, especially as such a stylish black woman, take up that space is very important and inspiring. We've got to talk about your look very quickly because you look fabulous now. Where did that idea come from, this original rude girl look?

Well, really, I suppose I just subverted the idea of a rude boy. I had I didn't like pork pie hats. So I decided to go with a trilby. This is a trilby just without that I'm wearing, just without a brim. But I always liked suits, little suits and, you know, sort of that whole black and white thing. I mean, it actually spoke to me. That kind of monochrome image

spoke to me. Pauline, it's been wonderful talking with you and the album will be coming out, the three CD box set on the 23rd of April. Thank you for your incredible story and that little burst of music made us all smile on a Monday. Pauline Black, thank you very much. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time.

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