Woman's Hour - Plaid Cymru & culture of harassment, Egg freezing, Taylor Swift, Lisa Selby & Blue Bag Life, Wrexham and DJ Katie Owen

Episode Date: May 5, 2023

Plaid Cymru have apologised after a damning review found a culture of harassment, bullying and misogyny in the party. The party had "failed to implement a zero-tolerance approach to sexual harassment" and that women had been "especially" let down. Dan Davies, the BBC Wales Political Correspondent explains. Taylor Swift is rumoured to have a new boyfriend and its all over the papers. She is the highest-paid female entertainer in the world, earning $92 million in 2022 following the success of her 10th studio album “Midnights". But why are we so obsessed with her - and in particular, her personal life? Charlotte Gunn, editor of the female-focused music publication, The Forty Five explains. The journalist Kohinoor Sahota tells us why as a single British Asian woman she wanted to share her story about her plans to freeze her eggs next month. Rachel Cutting, an emrbryologist in the NHS for 25 years and now Director of Compliance and Information for the Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority (HFEA) discusses the egg freezing process, and the success rate.Lisa Selby is both the subject and the co-director of a new film called Blue Bag Life. In it Lisa examines her relationships with her mother Helen, who abandoned her at 10 months old, and her partner Elliot. Both were heroin addicts, and in the same year Helen dies and Elliot relapses and ends up in prison. An artist and academic, Lisa shot thousands of videos recording her conversations and thoughts during this difficult period in her life, which have been woven together in this feature-length documentary, Lisa joins Anita, along with one of her co-directors Rebecca Lloyd-Evans. Blue Bag Life is on BBC Four on Tuesday 9 May at 10pm, and then on the iPlayer.Wrexham players and Hollywood club owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney celebrated the men's team promotion to the English Football League as well as the women's team which won promotion to the Adram Premier league. As thousands lined the streets, Katie Owen was invited to DJ on the open top bus victory parade through the town. She explains what it was like to be part of the celebrations.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Dianne McGregor

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've made it to another Friday. Now on Tuesday, Wrexham had the party of their lives when the men's football team was promoted to the English Football League and the women's team also had huge success. All part of the Wrexham AFC fairy tale that began when they were bought

by legit Hollywood megastars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. And I'm going to be speaking to DJ Katie Owen, who found herself playing the set of her life on top of the Victory Parade bus. Well, as we have a bank holiday weekend of celebration ahead of us, we thought we'd talk parties this morning. I want to hear your stories about the best celebration of your life. Did you find yourself caught up in a street parade for your own town, city, village, sports team? Were you at the 2012 opening ceremony?

Were you at the party, street party in Naples that's just been taking place? Was it a wedding you'll never forget? The birthday party of dreams? Did you get swept away with a local festival while on holiday in some exotic faraway destination? And now it's like a magical dream. Tell me all about it. That one joyful celebration when you close your eyes and think about it, it brings back the sweetest of memories and you can't help but smile. What was it? What were you up to? I want to hear all about it.

And don't leave out the juicy details. You can get in touch with me in the usual way. 84844 is the number to text. You can email me via our website. You can also drop me a WhatsApp message or indeed a WhatsApp note if you want to talk to me. 03700 100 444. It'd be nice to hear your voices also on the program today we'll be discussing egg freezing and the paper's recent obsession with taylor swift's

love life and why she's such a huge cultural icon and also one of the most moving documentaries i've seen in a long time blue bag life about one woman trying to understand her relationship with her estranged addict mother who abandoned her at 10 months old. It really is remarkable. All of that to come. And of course, your input, always welcome. Text number once again, 84844. But first, the results of a damning review of Plaid Cymru, the Welsh Nationalist Political Party, were published this week. The report said an anonymous survey of staff and elected members highlighted examples of sexual harassment,

bullying and discrimination that too many instances of bad behaviour were tolerated and most discrimination within the party was gender-based. The party's National Executive Committee and Adam Price, the party's leader, commissioned the review, which was led by former Plaid Senedd member Nerys Evans,

after concerns grew over how women were being treated and staff reported low morale. Well, to find out more about this, I'm joined by Daniel Davis, the BBC Wales political correspondent. Daniel, welcome to Woman's Hour. Good morning. A highly critical report. Can you tell us about the impact on women? Well, one of the many sentences that leaps out of this report, a damning report, is that the party needs to detoxify a culture of harassment, bullying and misogyny. And Plaid Cymru is not ducking that allegation. On the contrary, they have accepted all of the recommendations. And that that verdict of misogyny, it comes from a recent anonymous staff survey.

We haven't seen it. We've only seen the key findings of the of the report. The rest of the report was being withheld to protect people's anonymity, we're told. But the survey did find evidence of cases of sexual harassment, bullying and discrimination. As you say, these are not isolated cases, apparently, and in the vast majority of them, victims didn't report it or make a formal complaint. And it says that most of that discrimination that people faced was gender based and that has led to a whole host of recommendations for the party to put its house in order. There are more than 80 of them, one of which is that Plaid Cymru needs to engage with the charity Hwarae Tyrg, a very well-known charity that's campaigned for women's rights in the workplace and in other forum in

Wales over many years to seek support and review the level of misogyny within the party. Is there a timescale of when all of this was happening? They had a female leader not long ago, Leanne Wood, from March 2012 to September 2018. Yeah, their last leader was a female leader, politician Leanne Wood, as you say. There are other prominent women within roles, important roles in the party then and now. It seems that this culture has developed over a long period of time,

but there is a phrase in here that says that things have got worse in recent years in other words you know during the period of Adam Price's leadership Leanne Wood's successor so these are not new problems I don't think but there is an implication from that that that things have deteriorated in the last few years months that last recent period of time and we'll come to what adam price has said in a minute but as you mentioned um they've apologized but there are 82 recommendations in the report we can't discuss them all but what sorts of things are they looking at yeah the breadth of the um these recommendations is formidable. I think the party was braced for a bad report.

I don't know whether they expected to be told that they would have so much work to do. I mean, this is a party that has been around for nearly 100 years. And yet when you read these recommendations, it sounds as if they're, you know, starting up, forming an organisation from scratch. For example, just that one recommendation on Hwaratig, for example, it needs their help to review misogyny in the party and look specifically at sexual harassment policies, candidate selection, policy development, branch operations, national operations, employment practices. I mean, what else is there for a political party? And that's just one out of 82 recommendations.

Why was this investigation launched in the first place? Where's it come from? Well, it began late last year after press reports, one in particular, where there was an anonymous complaint from someone to journalists about a toxic culture within Plaid Cymru. And Adam Price and the leadership of Plaid Cymru were very keen to be seen to take that seriously and to respond as quickly as they could, because Plaid has been through a difficult period, to say the least. Separately, it's dealt with an allegation of sexual assault against a member of staff.

There's an ongoing conduct inquiry by the Welsh Parliament Standards Commissioner into a politician, Rhys Abowen, who's been suspended from Plaid's group. Last year, it parted company with a former Plaid Cymru MP, Jonathan Edwards, who was cautioned a while ago for assaulting his wife. And there's been some criticism about how the party dealt with that so when this allegation of a toxic culture came out you know Plaid acted as as quickly as they felt they could they they just felt that they had to be seen to be taking that allegation seriously and set in train this working group led by Nerys Evans a former Plaid Cymru politician, more recently a lobbyist,

someone who is well-connected, well-regarded within the party and throughout Welsh politics. And it was on Wednesday we saw her damning verdict, makes very uncomfortable reading for Plaid Cymru. Yeah. What about the reaction generally from within the party, particularly the women? Well, we've heard from Liz Saville Roberts, MP, who leads Plaid Cymru's group in Westminster. She has welcomed the way that Adam Price has spoken openly, she says, and been honest about the way ahead. She said that no other party would have put such a powerful document in the public domain. That may be true. I don't know. It's a small party, you know, compared to the Labour Party and the Conservatives, their main rivals in Wales. Plaid Cymru doesn't have the same level of resources. But she has been keen that, you know, action is taken here because she says,

for example, that she has written reports to the party on anti-Semitism in the past and nothing has really happened. So she's made clear that, you know, that cannot be the case this time. And what about Adam Price? Yesterday he was saying he won't resign as leader. Is he under pressure to go anyway? Well, the question about whether he would resign is it's inescapable. I mean, not long ago in Wales, we heard allegations of misogyny and real toxicity within the Welsh Rugby Union, for example. And Plaid Cymru were straight out of the blocks calling on the leadership of that organisation to stand down. So the question from journalists, at least to Adam Price, is if things really are this bad in his party at this time,

is he the right person to take that forward? Now, he said that it would be an abdication for him to walk away. He's also said that the report doesn't point the finger at him specifically it talks about collective failures he's talked about a shared responsibility to to move things on and turn the page and to make improvements but he's you know he's also said that the buck stops with him and i go back to that phrase that things have gotten worse recently, you know, therefore the question about whether he can turn things around is one that's going to be asked of him a lot, I think. And finally, Dan,

what's the fallout from this going to be? What's the impact on Welsh politics? Well, we've already seen, I mean, Plaid Cymru occupies an important role in the Senedd. They're an opposition party, but they've got quite a novel relationship with Mark

Drakeford's Labour government. Labour doesn't have a majority, so they rely on this cooperation agreement with Plaid Cymru to help them get the government's programme through. So, you know, if Plaid Cymru were to implode in some way, that agreement could fall apart. That would be very destabilising. You know, two days on from the report being published it really doesn't look as if that's going to happen the key people in Plaid Cymru they're not angling for Adam Price to leave at the moment nevertheless we've already heard from some Labour politicians who've read this report and are asking openly hang on are these really the people that we want to be cooperating with well we'll be keeping a close eye on it.

Daniel Davis, thank you so much for speaking to me this morning. That's the BBC Wales political correspondent. So many of you getting in touch with the celebrations of your life. My best party was the Sparkly Cayley, a party I organised for my 70th birthday, having missed out on all my previous big decade birthdays, decided to go really go for it this time. All my family and friends came.

There was a wonderful live band, friends of mine. The caterer I organised was superb, very important. Everyone came in sparkly clothes, brilliant. My family helped with the pink sparkly decorations. It was just fabulous, a lifelong happy memory. And Luchetta in the Outer Hebrides. Hello to everyone listening in the Outer Hebrides. My happy celebration story is of my wonderful late grandfather's birthday party.

We announced that he was having a drop-in day at his house for his 80th birthday. And we had a buffet in the dining room in case anyone hung around for a chat. By three o'clock, his house had become absolutely gridlocked as more and more people had arrived and no one had wanted to leave. I'd never seen to this day so many people in one house. And it's such a happy memory and testament, yes, to my grandfather's friendship and kindness to others. What a lovely story. Keep them coming in. The best celebration of your life.

84844 is the number to text. So you can email me via the website. But now, hit after hit after hit after hit. Now, some headline news for you. Taylor Swift is rumoured to have a new boyfriend. I know, stop everything you are doing. The lead singer of the 1975, Mattie Healy, and it is all over the papers.

It even made the front page of The Sun. Taylor Swift is the highest paid female entertainer in the world, earning $92 million in 2022, following the success of her 10th studio album Midnight. But why are we so obsessed with her and in particular her personal life? Well, Charlotte Gunn is the editor of the female focused music publication The 45 and joins me now to get into this. Hello, Charlotte. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Hi.

First of all, what's her appeal? How does one woman make front page news when she's rumoured to be dating somebody? I think it's interesting I mean I think the thing to remember is that Taylor Swift honed her craft in Nashville and started off as a country artist so storytelling and being this kind of giving a personal account of her life and her love has been part of her songwriting career. And much of the reason why people have resonated so much with her. You know, she's openly said that you listen to her music for the last 10 years. It's like reading her diary. diary so she has always been very open about her relationships in her music um which I think has has fostered this obsession with who she's dating that and a number of high profile relationships

in the past but you know I think it's also just a bit of a patriarchy thing of like painting her out to be this sort of serial data because she's had a few kind of high profile boyfriends. And really, that's the image that the media like to perpetuate with her. And they've had no luck for the last six years because she's been in the same relationship. So this now is a brilliant new fodder for everyone i'm wondering if male pop stars get the same attention especially in the tabloid press i don't think they do no i mean i was thinking about that i'm not pop star but i think pete davidson uh is the only person really who who gets that sort of same like who's he dating now uh thing with kim k thing with Kim Kardashian and all

the people that he's dated in recent years. But so maybe it's shifting a little bit. But I think in the past, certainly, you know, if you're a famous woman who's dated more than two famous men, then you're a, you know, a word I wouldn't like to say on the radio. Yeah. And also, you know know it's like that it doesn't matter what she's done in her life or what her career is it's who is she dating what is her exactly yeah but not exactly never never mind that she her last album streamed a billion times in its first week never mind that she's had a global tour that's like one of the most successful of all time it's it's reduced to to who she's dating

and and you know particularly interesting for people I think with Matty Healy of the 1975 because he's it's a good controversial character at times and her career he he's said a lot of things in recent years that have been thought to be problematic he he just doesn't really play the game of of being not talking on on topics because he's scared of it turning into a headline um he's he's just really outspoken and sometimes that's great sometimes that's not great um he was on a podcast this year where he said some quite offensive things um so interesting considering taylor's career has been so squeaky clean today that that she she would potentially be dating someone who could put that in jeopardy yeah and she's amazing hey are they famous in america

1975 they are they've definitely had number one album album in America. So he's got quite a culty global audience, but it feels very much. Yeah, they're huge. Yeah. Do you think the speculation is also to do with the fact that she has been so open about her relationships and also with her fans? She has this very intimate relationship with them where they feel like they know her, don't they? They do, yeah. And I think, you know, the way that she's cultivated that fandom, the way that she puts little hints and Easter eggs in her songs.

Yeah, what are those? Tell us about those. She's just sort of, if you look at her music video, I think she said that one of the last ones she released had up to sort of 50 Easter eggs in there, which refer to another song or a hint about something that's going on in her real life. Or, you know, she famously loves the number 13 and that's always like hidden around everywhere.

And one of the things that sparked a lot of conversation was she was said to have this relationship with jake gyllenhaal or she did have a relationship with jake gyllenhaal there's a song about leaving a red scarf at his house which she then released a 10 minute version of last year and and which um you know even though the relationships many years ago kind of sparked this new obsession with where's Taylor's scarf, Jake? And like everyone's hounding him on social about giving this scarf back. And so, yeah, I mean, it's fascinating, really. And I think she treads a really incredible line between keeping her relationship, her long-term relationship um with joe or in the actor she she kept that very private yeah whereas um you know because i think

after having her 20s of being branded by the media as as yeah with the kind of horrible names and detracting from her incredible accomplishments with a focus on her dating life. But she's also managed to still be open. Yes, she has this amazing ability to be hugely successful, hugely successful, but also very accessible and seemingly down to earth. So let's talk about her success as well she's

taking ownership i'm amazed that she's really taking ownership of her old previously um previous albums by re-recording them so that she owns the publishing rights yes um her her masters were sold um sort of without her consultation against her will to someone. And, you know, she said she would have bought them if she'd been given the opportunity. So instead of just sitting with that, she re-recorded all her, what is in the process of re-recording, all her earliest albums under Taylor's version of these albums, which include kind of bonus tracks and longer versions of songs.

And it sort of has encouraged the fans to please just now listen to these re-recorded versions so then she gets the money and the people that bought them didn't. Which is just, it's an incredibly smart move. It's also a lot of work. And she has the fans that will do it. I mean, just the work. It's a lot of work.

Let's go back and re-record. It's like, oh, redo the essay. No, obviously she loves it, so, and good on her. Have you met her? I have met her, yeah. What's she like? I used to be the editor of NME magazine. And she, when she was touring in London,

she requested to meet me. And it was interesting. It's like an audience with the queen. Yeah, it was. It was in this sort of slightly strange meet and greet scenario where I was ushered behind a curtain and she was just sort of standing there. But she was great.

And, you know, she's really supportive of women in music because she knows how hard it is. So she said to me that she was really glad to see a female editor in a traditionally male space. And at the time I was only the second ever female editor of enemy in 50 60 years so high five so she recognized thank you she she recognized that part of this media obsession with who she's dating comes from a lot of these places being run by men who want to reduce women to see who they're dating so i think uh yeah it was a great experience although very brief and then it was like photo

yeah exactly can i get a selfie uh charlotte thank you so much for speaking to us about that and come and chat to us again um not that i want to be the cynic at the very end of this but she is about to go on a huge us tour so you, you know, all the publicity is pretty good, I suppose. It is, it is, definitely. Thank you very much, Charlotte Gum. 84844, the number to text. Lots of you getting in touch about your favourite, the best celebrations of your life.

My best celebration was my 40th. I hired a local cinema to show a new print of a classic Bette Davis movie all about Eve. Oh, great film. I invited 40 friends and family who dressed up and i pretended it was my film premiere this is great i turned up dressed for the red carpet in a limo with cameras flashing including local press who did a feature on the event this is fantastic then a champagne and canapé do back at the house also by limo fabulous

and a 3am finish 20 years later i wish i could do that for every birthday michelle do it do it again why the heck not um you can also email me if you want to tell me about your best celebration by going to the website now lisa selby is both the subject and the co-director of a new film a new extraordinary extraordinary film, I should say, called Blue Bag Life. In it, Lisa examines her relationships with her mother, Helen, who abandoned her at 10 months old, and her partner, Elliot.

Both were heroin addicts, and in the same year, Helen dies and Elliot relapses and ends up in prison. An artist and academic, Lisa shot thousands of videos recording her conversations and thoughts during this difficult period in her life, which have been woven together in this feature-length documentary. And Lisa joins me now, along with one of her co-directors, Rebecca Lloyd-Evans.

Welcome to Woman's Hour, both of you. I said at the beginning of the programme, it's one of the most remarkable films I've ever seen. Lisa, before the film, though, came the Instagram account Blue Bag Life. Just explain what that title means and why you set it up. The title comes after little pieces of blue plastic that I found in my house. And they're from the carrier bags that you get from the local shop. And I didn't know that these were what heroin was wrapped in. So later on, I used to find it quite, it's quite triggering, you know, seeing them everywhere on the street.

They're so vibrant. So I decided to call the Instagram account Blue Bag Life and then right at the beginning my mother Helen had died and I wasn't raised by her and I just started taking lots of photographs of her flat lots of paraphernalia rising to the surface and also videos but I never meant to make a film it wasn't for a film it was just a note a form of note taking so I could zoom in at a later time because obviously I couldn't take everything with me um covering things I I read that you said that about zooming in at a later time I just wanted to know what you what that means just sort of what spend time with it, really looking at it, analysing it? Yeah, really kind of trying to think about what each... It's kind of getting a recollection of someone's life

without actually really knowing them through their stuff, through the things that they left behind, through drawers that you weren't allowed to go into. And I think everyone can relate to this if they've lost someone. Suddenly all these private spaces aren't so private anymore. I'm going to bring Rebecca in to find out how this film came about. Well it really all began with Lisa's Instagram because I was a massive fan of Lisa through her Instagram account Blue Bag Life and although Lisa is the epitome of charisma her Instagram account, Blue Bag Life. And although Lisa is the epitome of charisma, her Instagram account was sort of the antithesis of that shiny perfection. It had this raw honesty

that really captivated me. And at the time, her partner was in prison, and she was being very outspoken about the impact of the prison system on families and loved ones and I was making a BBC podcast series Prison Bag with Josie Cole and we wrote to Lisa to ask her if we could interview her for the podcast series and we promised her we just need an hour of your time just an hour and well that hour ended up going well into the night when the three of us just chatted and we couldn't really leave each other's company and I think it was the beginning of a friendship which is at the heart of this collaboration and I believe there were 12 000 videos plus hard drives and memory sticks that that Lisa had been filming

and collecting over the years? Where did you even start? Yeah, I mean, so it took some time to pluck up the courage to ask Lisa if she'd be open to making a film about her life. And when she agreed, she handed over this box of hard drives, memory sticks, diaries. She gave us the passwords to all of her iCloud, Dropbox account. It was sort of unquantifiable amount of material. And it was uncensored. I mean, just imagine everyone handing over all your passwords. Why did you say yes?

Well, I had discussions with people and just thought that this was really important. And the fact that I always felt so alone and desperate in everything that I was trying to do, I just wanted other people not to feel that way. Yeah. And it was just also about, you know, how can I hold on to people a little bit longer when I'm not with them, when someone's in prison or hospital or, you know, when they've died. Yeah, there was a frustration at not knowing everyone's life story. And you still might get that from the film, because that is how I feel. And it was about not really a big investigation into their past, but it was just unravelling in the present time as well from a certain point in the film.

At the start, we hear you say, Mum, the word I never called anyone. Tell us about Helen. She was so charismatic. She was really bohemian. She was intelligent. I just don't think that she was um I felt like I was an anchor to her freedom you know she just wanted to be in another place listening to the

grateful dead and being this kind of um charismatic barefooted spirit and I don't know it's made me question what motherhood means to me and she says she did the best that she could. But I think that's why I sprayed mum on her bedroom wall above her bed. And I never called her mum, but I was still the only one that could spray that on the wall. It was kind of like marking my territory. And I always have seen like beds as headboards as gravestones in a way. So that was like a temporary memorial space where I could think about her when she wasn't there. You actually went to interview her when you knew she was dying and you recorded it.

Before we talk about it, I think we should hear a little bit. Here is Lisa speaking to Helen. I suppose we answered this earlier are you maternal no i'm terrible as you well know i'm not a very good mother am i i mean i do the best but i i simply focus that's why i made sure you're the only child in my life. Believe me, I'm not a responsible parent. Did it feel like that was your one chance to get some answers, the answers that you needed from her?

Yeah, I think so, but there were always questions that were left unanswered. I was very, very calm with her because I didn't want... She wasn't ready to face all the things that I was saying and I had had therapy and worked through a lot of stuff. So I just wanted to hear as much as she wanted to give, in a way, without being confrontational or thinking about myself. There's a warmth and love and humor in the film like the

moment when you go to the registrars and he's filling out the death certificate and he puts Helen's occupation down as homemaker and you say have you seen her home yeah I mean I wasn't meaning to be judgmental no when people have described it as like dirty and she didn't care for cleaning and all those things she was just in another place and because she was a woman maybe people might judge that um yeah um she comes across she was she was like you said she's incredibly charismatic you see it in the opening scene she really holds she's holding court yeah she um every she always had people around her and she had her own family in a sense um so she was really she had lots of gay friends um she was the mother of everybody

um but she just couldn't do it in terms of in terms of me but it's not a big woe is me story it's like how do I find strength in this how I haven't managed to I went through IVF three times with my partner who there's some distance between us now and so either end it seems like I can't grasp what this motherhood thing is and you mentioned yeah really me, and the film really helped me through this. The team have been absolutely amazing. I've got therapy through the film. And it's just like, how do I, after all this trauma, how do I give such compassion, determination and care to myself?

Because I didn't realise I wasn't giving it to myself because I was so focused on these people and trying to figure out like the different paths of addiction, where it can lead to, you know, you see my terminology changing throughout the film, there's some things that I would never say now but it's all a part of this growth. Rebecca, how do you begin to weave the sorts of stories that we've just had Lisa say there about what was going on in her life, her relationship with Elliot, who relapsed back into heroin addiction, then we see him go into prison, then we see him being sectioned in the IVF. There's so much. And of course, you know, dealing with the death of Helen. How do you weave that

into a documentary? Where do you go in your head as a documentary maker when you sit down with all that footage and decide where to start and how to tell the story? Well, it's a very, it's an extraordinary gift, these sorts of projects and these sorts of relationships with someone like Lisa don't come along often. But first of all, it began with sitting down with Lisa and talking

and the rest of the team, the editor, Alex Fry, and Josie Cole, who co-wrote it, and Natasha, the five of us, we really sat down and we spent, well, weeks on end talking to Lisa and we then constructed walls of Lisa's life and with lots and lots of sticky notes and photos and printouts of little bits of videos and it was almost like piecing together some sort of investigation I suppose and there were so many different stories that we could have told there were stories of mental health of prison and Lisa's childhood. But in the end, it felt like the story of motherhood is really the thing that the narrative that holds the film from beginning to end. And why was it important to have Paul's presence in the film? Oh, I mean, Paul's our hero.

Paul is Lisa's dad he is the person that when Helen left Lisa at the babysitter's house as a child as a baby Paul stood up and was that rock of a parent throughout Lisa's life and he still is today and we call him the fountain of love because it feels to us that's where the love in the film starts from. It starts from Paul, but he's given it and passed it on to Lisa. And Lisa has it in spades and she passes it on to her Blue Bag Life community, to us as a team. And, you know, people, when you hear that the film's about motherhood abandonment and addiction and heroin, and I think it sounds very depressing, but we've been told that it's a very uplifting film. Oh, it is. Yeah. in the process of trying to care for people or having people distance,

just to have everyone coming together to make the film, everyone listening, everyone watching, people coming to me with their stories, it's incredible. And I'm proud of all the people who are in the film, whether they're with us or not, for their courage and their openness and their strength. And also a lot of documentaries are made where they'll take a lot of people's material my producer uh Natasha often says this um they'll take the material and just give it back at the end and say this is your life kind of thing um but

including me and becoming a co-director for the first time um means that I have some ownership over the way that my story is told and I can take care of the people who are in it too. It is an outstanding, astounding as well, documentary. The radical vulnerability will stay with me for a long, long time and the compassion and honesty of it as well. It is a piece of art. I want to thank you both so much for speaking to me this morning about it. Blue Bag Life, I highly recommend it.

It's going to be shown on BBC4 on Tuesday 9th May at 10pm and it's also going to be available on iPlayer. Lisa, Rebecca, thank you very much for coming to speak to me on Woman's Hour. And also if you've been listening to that, listening to Lisa speak, and you can resonate with it, it's a story that you can relate to, get in touch with us via email. Tell us if you'd like to come and talk to us

about your own experience on Woman's Hour. And of course, you don't have to reveal your name. You can be anonymous. Someone's been in touch about Taylor Swift. The criticism regarding the purer interest in Taylor Swift's love life is entirely justified. However, it needs to be borne in mind that practically all of the thousands of articles written about the

life of Taylor Swift and other female celebrities are written by women. Maybe the criticism should be specifically directed at them. I don't know. Are they written by women? I don't know. We haven't done the research to know the truth of that statement. Now, the journalist Kohinoru Sohota will be freezing her

eggs next month and she contacted the program to share her story about why she wants to freeze her eggs now and the procedure from her perspective as a single British Asian woman. Egg freezing involves collecting a woman's eggs, freezing them and then thawing them later on so that they can be used in fertility treatment. And Kohinuru joins me now, along with Rachel Cutting, who worked as an embryologist in the NHS for 25 years and is now Director of Compliance and Information for the HFEA. Welcome, both of you. Kohinoor, thank you for getting in touch with us to share your story. Tell me about your situation. Tell me why you decided that you wanted to freeze your eggs. Thank you for having me.

So when I first considered egg freezing, I was in no position to start a family. It was during COVID-19. I was single. I'd been made redundant and I've moved back home with my parents and so I also had an engagement that had broken off and so I felt like I wasn't in control of my future and so egg freezing gave me a way to feel like I was taking back control. And you're living and working in Dubai transient lifestyle so how much did you discuss the issue of having children with your friends there? How did it come about? So I moved to Dubai during COVID-19,

and it's a place where it's difficult to form long-term relationships just because, like you said, there is a very transient nature to the city. 90% of the people here are expats, and so people sort of come and go. And so it was actually here I just spoke to everyday women who were diverse women women that looked like me and it was hearing their experiences of egg freezing that made me realize this is something that I could realistically do. Okay what do you mean people look like you how much of an why important how important is that you know based on your own background? So I think there's two things at play here. There's race and

then there's class. And so you rarely hear from minority women or working class women when it comes to their fertility issues. And I'm both. So I'm British Asian and we're a group that frankly love to reproduce. So in India, there's 1.4 billion people in the last census in the UK. We're the largest ethnic minority group. So whether you like it or not, there's going to be more people that look like me and our fertility needs, they've got to be met. And then the other aspect is just class. So I grew up on a council estate and whether it was in sort of pamphlets that I read or documentaries that I watched, a white wealthy woman's fertility is something that's to be valued or something to be preserved. Whereas a working class woman or a minority woman, their fertility is something to be valued or something to be preserved. Whereas a working class woman or a minority woman,

their fertility is something to be feared and something to be controlled. So I kind of see that in like stereotypes of teenage pregnancies or single black mothers. And it's like their wombs, they're something that are societal issues. But it's a middle class white woman, if she freezes her eggs or if she uses a sperm donor, that's kind of like a Hollywood movie and that's empowering. So what were the expectations of you then growing up right was this were you always going to do this were you always the girl who was never going to you know career off you go or what was your

childhood like what were your dreams and aspirations when you were younger or what was that going on around you so i think when i was younger like in indian families like i come from a large family so I'm one of four kids my mum was one of nine children and I think that I did you know I wanted to be a mother and I wanted to have a large family as well but in Indian families like it's not something that's like sort of talked about when something goes wrong so you know that the most common question that you get at a wedding and it's the nonsensical question is so when are you going to get married and so you know India is home to like the most the world's most famous sex guide the Kama Sutra right but families like my own or British families or

Asian families or British Asian families we don't talk about those kinds of topics and especially when there's something going wrong so because you don't have sex before you're married and you only have sex to have children. Precisely. And so when I had the end of my engagement, it was kind of like a death. And it was as though me and my ovaries had to just kind of like wither away like Miss Havisham. And so even my engagement ended,

I remember someone saying to me, so I guess the next wedding in your family is going to be your nephew. And he was seven years old at the time. So it's kind of like for generation arranged marriage um when Indians I know who've got divorced it's not acknowledged out out loud so it's like a friend who when relatives came over she was told to hide upstairs so it's like you're sweeping your kids under the carpet and they don't even want to look at you that's what it's effectively saying so how's it gone down how's the conversation about egg freezing gone down so with my workplace they've been incredibly supportive my friends

make me feel like I'm a superwoman and my family have been the most surprising because I was nervous about talking to my parents because when my engagement ended in Indian circles I'm seen as damaged goods and so I was effectively saying to my parents, not just I want to do egg freezing, it's saying, which of course I'm entitled to say, but I see myself as being a mother one day. And the moment I told them, my mum's response was, can you do it this weekend? And there was this wave of relief that came over me. And it also made me realise, hey, I should not be so judgmental of them. Yeah, interesting. I'm going to bring Rachel in on this because we need to understand a bit about what we're talking about.

What is egg freezing and is it a popular procedure? Egg freezing is certainly becoming more popular. If we look back 10 years ago, there were probably only about a couple of hundred people, women freezing their eggs, whereas in 2009, there were over 2,000 women that are freezing their eggs in UK fertility clinics and it involves exactly what you said earlier on it's about taking the eggs and then

freezing them for later use and that involves what we call is a cycle of IVF treatment and that's quite involved it means a commitment over about a month to go to an in and out of fertility clinics for injections and scans and then the procedure where the eggs are taken out is a surgical procedure and there are risks associated with that so it's something that you need to carefully consider and research which I'm sure you've done and talk to your clinic about that and understand the procedures and risks before committing to it. What are the reasons that women opt for it? There are various reasons really.

Obviously in this situation it's to preserve fertility for later on for what we call more social reasons. But many women who are faced with cancer or chemotherapy where the fertility is at risk. Women can then freeze their eggs for later on if their fertility is lost. And that's exactly what's been said. It's about taking control of your fertility. So Kohinoor, when you began looking into the process,

how accessible is it for ordinary women and how realistic was it for you? So I'm flying over to the UK to do this procedure. And so I'm a single woman. So in some countries like Dubai and even in European countries, there are specific laws around single women being able to access those eggs. And the biggest hurdle is the cost for this. So the starting cost at my clinic is £4,300. But the HFBA put it as a starting cost for three thousand three hundred and fifty

with the whole process then being about eight thousand pounds so as well as the cost what are the other considerations there are lots of considerations there is your age which is a big factor in this and you are you're 36 years old um and then like i said there's the single aspect for this and the legalities around that i mean another thing to consider which i don't people talk about a lot, is just if your workplace even allows you to take time off. So I've been lucky that my workplace have, you know, I've had that they're scheduling their time around when my period starts. How many people can say this? Do you know what? You know, that's when I get to take time off. So I'm very lucky and I'm very grateful for my privileges in this process because I'm in an age where this is possible, where science is possible, where I actually have the money to do this but the money is the biggest hurdle. Yes come on in Rachel. Just going to say one of the main

considerations and we really need to think about is that even if the eggs are frozen it doesn't guarantee that you will have a baby in the future. What's the success rate? Well, IVF with fresh eggs is about, for under 35s, is about 30%. Over 40, it drops down to about 10%. Egg freezing is probably a little bit lower than that. There aren't many cycles of egg thaws a year in the UK. There was only a couple of hundred last year so we would expect probably you know around about 25 percent perhaps success rates which and it depends on the

age when you freeze your eggs because it's the age of the eggs that really matter the younger you freeze the eggs the more chance you will have having a pregnancy but this is where it's important to go to your clinic get the information maybe talk it through with a counsellor at the clinic because it's not guaranteed uh kahuna are you ready you're starting your treatment in june are you prepared you're moving coming back to the uk you're moving back in with your mum to do this yeah so i'm staying with my mum and dad for about a month and so in the run-up to the procedure i'm basically like readjusting my lifestyle and think about thinking about it holistically.

So not giving into temptation, not drinking, eating more healthy, exercising more regularly, taking fertility supplements. And I'm not even dating because I just don't want to be distracted. And there's also the mental preparation where, you know, you kind of have lots of ups and downs. I've gone like angry at Mother Nature, like who'd have thought like for being sexist and then excited about my consultation. But things like this, to be honest, Anita, they've actually made me feel like they're part of getting ready, like talking about it openly, because other women's openness is the thing that made me realize that this was something for me to do. And it just took away the shame. And, you know, things like this would kind of like hide them like a tampon up our sleeve and we feel embarrassed about it so I'm just eager to champion it and um you know I'm

writing about it for British Vogue I want to remove the shame normalize the process excellent and we are very grateful that you decided to reach out to us here at Women's Hour to share your story with us and best of luck with it all and let us know keep us posted thank you very much Kohinoor Sahota speaking to me there and also Rachel Cutting. There you go. So if you would like to share your story

and come and talk to me about it on Women's Hour, get in touch with us via our website. Now, the Welsh football team Wrexham AFC has found global fame since Hollywood actors

Ryan Reynolds and Rob McAnally bought the team in 2021. The A-listers' enthusiasm for the sport and their millions of dollars have transformed the team and a Disney Plus TV series about their takeover has also helped. When the men's team won a promotion back to the English Football League after a 15-year absence

and the women's team won a promotion into the Adran Premier, which is the highest league in Wales, a victory parade was announced. 1,000s of fans took to the streets on Tuesday to celebrate in Wrexham. Three open top buses with footballers, the famous owners and staff drove around the town. And on board the women's bus playing some bangers was DJ Katie Owen. So that's from a Wrexham band called the Declan Swans. And they were a local band.

And when the club picked up a lot of momentum they've been doing that for a few years that became like the anthem of Wrexham Football Club so I think I played that song about three times during the parade so I know every word now. How did you get to be DJing on the bus? The CEO of Wrexham, a lady called Fleur Robinson, she came in to the club at 2021. They brought her in as well and she's phenomenal. She called me up last week and asked me to DJ the Open Top Bus Parade. And she's like, oh, you can't tell anyone though until you're on the bus.

So I had to keep that quiet. And you had no idea what to expect? She said the owners were going to be there. So, yeah, well, I only thought there would be about 20,000 people. How many were there? 40,000 people. Goodness me. And you were on the women's bus? Yeah, so there was the bus at the front with the men's team and their family members. Then the middle bus I was on with the women's team and the owners. And then the last bus then was all the people behind the scenes who work in the office for Exum. And out of all the DJs, why did they pick you?

Ooh, I do all the Welsh football games in the stadium. Like the international team, I went to the World Cup. What does that involve? Is that the warm-up? Yeah, so I hype up the crowd and then I do the music in the stadium sometimes. It's the best job ever. I love it so much.

And they were looking for a DJ and someone recommended me. Oh, you're the perfect person if you do the team anyway. So what was it like playing to the owners? Who was there? So the owners were there and then they had a few other American people who work for the club. There was the women's team,

the men's team. It was just the most insane thing. When we're talking about the owners, we're talking about... Rob. Ryan Reynolds. Ryan Reynolds and Rob, yeah. And how was that? Were you expecting to see them on the bus?

I wasn't expecting them to be right next to me. They were on an open-top bus in Wrexham and you're playing for them. Right next, yeah. It was just bizarre. They came up to me and they were like, oh, great DJ set. And I was like, ooh, proper fangirling. And I said, can I be really cheeky and have a picture with you, please? Obviously.

And I'm a massive fan of Blake Ryan's wife. Yes. And his ex-wife, Scarlett Johansson. Yes, you've got a bit of a Scarlett about you, actually. Oh, thank you. My head will swell. And when he put his arm around me for the picture, I went off and I was like,

that arm has touched Blake and Scarlett Johansson, like melting away. Can I just say how that is the most delightful Woman's Hour comment to have made? It's not Ryan Reynolds had his arm around me. It's this arm has been around. Blake Lively and Scarlett Johansson. Excellent.

So good job Blake wasn't there because he would have been fangirling. Are you a Wrexham fan? My grandfather is a Wrexham fan and his side of the family are from North Wales. I'm a big football fan. I've grown up going to the games with my family. I actually support Spurs,

but I think since doing the parade and you know with the family links I've definitely got a massive soft spot for Wrexham now. How do you prepare for a set like that? Well I was only expecting it to be an hour so I only prepared an hour of worth of songs but it went on for three hours because it was just absolute chaos trying to get through Wrexham. There was like people climbing lampposts, people like trying to climb up the bus. Someone threw, people were throwing their T-shirts and their phones up for like selfies. And a young lad threw his top up to me to sign. And I was like, you want me to sign it? I'm stood next to Brian Reynolds and Rob. And he's like, no, no, just you.

Yeah, that does not surprise me. I was just mind blown so I threw it back down and uh yeah and uh where did the DJ career begin how did it start I started playing about six years ago in a club in Cardiff so quite recently yeah and I'd play a Spotify playlist because I didn't know how to DJ completely wing it so basically we're just doing like Spotify party playlist yeah and because they didn't have decks in the and completely wing it. So basically you were just doing like Spotify party playlists. Yeah, because they didn't have decks in the club. So I would just play a Spotify playlist, all like the big tunes.

And then the promoter was like, do you want to play Isle of Wight Festival? What, with your Spotify playlist? Well, they didn't know I was using a Spotify playlist, the promoters of the night. And I was like, yeah, of course. So I had to like research YouTube videos, how to DJ up on my own I was only 19 went up on my own to Isle of Wight festival completely winged it and I've been winging it ever since I can DJ now probably but no I'm sure you can I'm just thinking about 19 year old you and the confidence to just go

yeah I've never played a festival never done a DJ done a DJ set. Just let's give it a go. Where did that come from? I just, I think it was one of those things where I was just like, you've got to put yourself out there. And I feel like now I'd be a bit more scared. But back then I just went up on my own, got on a megabus to the festival. And it was the best decision of my life. I made so many friends because I just put myself out there

and it was a bit fearless. It really paid off. Yeah, it really did. I think there's a lesson there, definitely, because you were fearless, you stepped into it as a 19-year-old and it opened up a whole new world for you because since then you've gone on and you've DJed on tour with Kasabian, you've played the main stage at Leeds.

Yeah. And the World Cup. Tell at Leeds and the World Cup tell us about playing at the World Cup I was quite scared about going out there because of all the controversy the human rights issues and the issues with the country but I'm such a big Welsh football fan

and they asked me as well to be an ambassador for the Welsh government so it was me, Ian Rush Laura Fishlock and we had to like represent Wales amazing experience so yeah I was like I don't want to turn it down so I went out on my own and I actually had an operation the day I was meant to fly out I had to have emergency surgery and they were like oh you don't have to fly out but I went still flew out and did it worked every single day five days a week and it was the best experience of my life are you all

right I'm absolutely fine yeah good do you feel like you have to prove yourself in this world um it is a very male dominated industry and I feel like when you're a woman in sport I do a lot of presenting they'll kind of interrogate you men will and ask you like who was the football manager of this club in 1940 and I just think if I was a man would you interrogate me and want me to prove that I actually genuinely like football and genuinely like music so yeah I feel like you have to kind of prove yourself which is frustrating but you do yeah through your music it's like just be quiet and listen to the music yeah exactly and um with djing as well i feel like that could be quite a male dominated industry so it's nice to you know to kind of inspire the next generation of female djs

and female in sport oh yeah can just the image of you on top of that parade bus going through wrexham all the little girls looking at you i would have looked at you and thought i want to be there i want to be playing the music on the top of the bus will you be at the nextrexham, all the little girls looking at you, I would have looked at you and thought, I want to be there. I want to be playing the music on the top of the bus. Will you be at the next Wrexham parade? Yeah, they're doing a festival in June. And I feel like I love the club now. And I've got a massive soft spot for them. So I'm going to be supporting them now through and through. That is the right answer. I love the club now. It's been such a joy speaking to you. Good luck with everything. Where are you playing next next where's your next big gig I am playing neighbourhood festival this month the end of this month I've just come back from Austria playing snowbombing festival

and then I've got the summer festival lineup so living your best life yeah what's your biggest tune what's your the one tune that you drop that gets everyone going oh there's quite a few I feel like the Welsh football games, Zombie Nation. That one always goes on really well. And then kind of a universal, universally well-known song, Abba, a remix, a gimme, gimme, gimme. That one always goes down a storm. Katie, thank you so much for speaking to me and joining me on Woman's Hour. So many of you getting in touch.

I was traveling in Ladakh near Tibet in 1986, sitting outside a noodle shop watching the day go by. Suddenly a loud procession came down the street, blowing trumpets and banging drums, a wonderful life-enhancing memory of a wild travel on a shoestring. And that's from Helen. That's it from me. Thank you for joining us all this week.

I'll be back tomorrow for Weekend Woman's Hour. Enjoy the long bank holiday weekend. Hello, my name's Michelle De Swart. And I'm Laura Smith. And we have a new podcast from BBC Radio 4. Bang On It is a weekly podcast where we curate, recommend, cherry pick through the week and just go, have a look at that, basically. We're going highbrow, we're going lowbrow, right? We're doing the legs, we're doing the hard yards so you don't have to.

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Subscribe to Bang On It on BBC Sounds. 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.

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