Woman's Hour - Primodos debate, Rebuilding my life: Wiz Wharton, Cricket umpire pay

Episode Date: September 7, 2023

Today MPs from all parties are holding a debate on a controversial pregnancy testing drug used widely in the 1960s and 1970s. It's expected that MPs from all parties will speak, including former Prime Minister Theresa May. In May, the High Court rejected a claim for compensation saying it could not proceed because there was no new evidence linking the tests with foetal harm. Marie Lyon, Chairwoman of the Association for Children Damaged by Hormone Pregnancy Tests and Hannah Bardell MP, Vice Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group On Hormone Pregnancy Testing, join Nuala McGovern. In the last in our series Rebuilding My Life, Nuala speaks to Wiz Wharton, author of Ghost Girl, Banana. Wiz was sectioned under the Mental Health Act 24 years ago, which led to a diagnosis of bipolar. She was forced to confront her demons and work out what needed to change, including owning her identity as a British-Chinese woman and learning how to stand up to the racism she had experienced all her life. Exclusive reporting from The Guardian this week shows that cricket umpires were paid three times more to officiate the men’s Hundred this summer than the women’s. It comes just days after the England and Wales Cricket Board announced that the women’s teams will get the same match fees as the men’s. Nuala speaks to journalist Raf Nicholson.One of the last surviving Bletchley Park codebreakers has died aged 99. Margaret Betts was just 19 when she was headhunted to work on the project. Nuala speaks to Tessa Dunlop, author of The Bletchley Girls, to find out a bit more about her.Dame Shirley Bassey will become the first female solo artist in British history to be honoured with a stamp series. Welsh music journalist Jude Rogers joins Nuala.

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

Listen wherever you get your podcasts. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello, welcome to Woman's Hour. Good to be with you today. First off, thanks for all your insight and contributions to our phone-in yesterday. We asked whether we need a minister for men. All very thought-provoking stuff. Thank you so much for all of that.

Well, today we'll be speaking about the controversial hormone pregnancy test Promodos. Now, there is a debate later today by MPs on the ongoing campaign for redress. That will be coming up in just a moment. And also, as you've just been hearing, Dame Shirley Bassey coming to a stamp near you. She's the first solo female music artist to have that honour.

So we'll talk about that. You'll also hear about the gender pay gap, gender pay gap even, in cricket umpiring. So we're umpiring the men's game rather than the women's. We'll pay you more. And we'll also bring you fascinating detail about the extraordinary life of Margaret Betts, who was one of the last female codebreakers of Bletchley Park. She has died at the age of 99. And the last in our series we will bring you of Rebuilding My Life.

We hear about the steps that Whiz Wharton took after she was sectioned. She reflects on it more than two decades later and what it took to get where she is today. So to respond to any of the interviews that you hear on today's programme, you can text us. That number is 84844. On social media, we're at BBC Woman's Hour, or you can email us through our website. And to send a WhatsApp message or a voice note, that number instead is 03700 100 444. Now, you might remember that in 2020, Baroness Cumberledge published the findings

of her independent review into three medical treatments. Those were a vaginal mesh, hormone pregnancy tests and an epilepsy drug. Her report concluded that many lives had been ruined because officials failed to hear the concerns of women that were given drugs and procedures that caused them or their babies considerable harm. Now, later this morning, MPs from all parties will be holding a debate on one of those treatments. That's a pregnancy testing drug used widely in the 1960s and the 1970s.

And the most widely used was called Promodos. It's expected that former Prime Minister Theresa May will also speak. Marie Lyon, Chairwoman of the Association for Children Damaged by Hormone Pregnancy Tests and also Hannah Bardell MP, Vice Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hormone Pregnancy Testing joins me now. Welcome to you both. Thank you. Marie, let me start with you. Why have you been campaigning for 40 years? Well, simply because people need to know the danger of these synthetic hormones. We've had so many of our families who've been incredibly damaged by the effects of these hormones. Our children today are still deteriorating in health. We have

ladies in their 70s and 80s who are still looking after damaged children. And the drugs are still on the market today. So we started in 1978, simply to raise awareness of the danger of these synthetic hormones. And the problem is with primodos, it was basically unregulated to a degree. So let me just stop you there for a moment because there's a couple of issues that come up. One, of course, the question is whether there's any causal effect, which you believe, but others do not. And the second is primodos is the one that we are focusing on today, but that has been withdrawn. Oh, gosh, yes, that was withdrawn in 1978,

but the components are still in use today. So the synthetic hormones are still in use in the oral contraceptive, for example. But not as a pregnancy testing hormone. Not as a pregnancy test. Not in this country. We do believe that they're still in use in some third world countries.

And again, that's something that we don't have any control over. And I don't have any information on either. So today, we're going to specifically take a look at the journey that you've been through and where you're going when it comes to Promotus as well. But I understand that you believe, as you've put out, that there was a causal effect, but we're going to get into some of the debate and discussion about that, and also those that feel there has not been a causal link. Hannah, why are you involved?

I have a constituent, Wilma Ord, and her daughter, Kirsteen, who has profound disabilities. As a result, we believe, of taking Primidos. She still blames herself, and this is one of the first cases that I ever took up when I became an MP in 2015. So, you know, more than eight years on, you know, there are a cross party group of MPs, 133 of us actually that are involved in this. And Baroness Cumberledge, who is a Conservative peer herself, said in her report that avoidable harm was caused by Primados.

Well, why don't we listen to a little of Baroness Cumberledge, because Woman's Hour interviewed her the day after her report was published, a specific finding in a report that was from 1967, hormone pregnancy tests should no longer have been available. It could have been stopped. People knew it was harming. The concerns were rising. And yet nobody said, we've got to take this off the market now.

And these poor parents with their siblings who now are in their 50s, 60s, whatever, who is going to look after them in the future? That is a real worry for them. The health care system really has failed. It's failed these women. And we need an apology from the Secretary of State to say that they have heard that these things should not have happened. And he should apologise to the nation for the harm that has been done. And the report recommended the government should immediately issue a has been done. And the report recommended the government should immediately issue a full apology on behalf of the healthcare system

to the families affected by all three inquiry subjects to reiterate were Pomodoro, sodium valparate and also pelvic mesh. The health secretary at the time was Matt Hancock. He said, I want to issue on behalf of the NHS and the whole healthcare system a full apology to those who suffered and their families for their frustration for the time it's taken to get their voices heard.

And there was a report from 2020, Marie, where you were reacting very positively to the findings of the Cumberledge inquiry. How did you feel at that time? I was astounded. It certainly wasn't what I was expecting because we had so many reports prior to that that again said that the difference is that a causal link we cannot actually find. It's impossible unless you use it on a pregnant woman. But the probable link is what we have found. But it was the very first time, actually it's the first time I cried because I couldn't believe the positive note from Baroness Cumberledge about how we had been damaged, how it should have been removed. And the fact that they had done such a wonderfully diligent, truly independent report into all the evidence, it was just astounding.

And genuinely, our members were the same as me. We just literally cried. But in May, a High Court judge threw out a claim for compensation by more than 100 families. Your reaction then at that point, because many might have thought then the decision had been made to leave it aside, time for the campaigning to stop?

No, it isn't. And the reason it isn't is because the reason that that was actually struck out at the time was because we didn't have the finances and we didn't have the resources. That was a big, major hurdle for the judge, which is quite right. We had fundraised to try and take this case forward ourselves. We had one barrister who was working pro bono and one barrister who'd been basically lent to

us by a charity. So we were outgunned, outmanoeuvred and we didn't have the money. You didn't have the money. But that won't change. And just for more specifics for our listeners, in May the High Court said that a claim for compensation could not proceed with the judge ruling there was no new evidence linking the tests

with fetal harm and no real prospect of success I mean that seems pretty black and white. It does and it's also very wrong because the other thing that we couldn't do was produce any new evidence that we had because at the time it had not been published. So we were in a position again where there was only limited evidence that we could actually release to the court at that time. And we were in a really difficult position because the original solicitors that we'd had had withdrawn. So we were actually working without a group of solicitors also. So you would put not being able to provide that evidence down to financial problems? Financial and COVID was the other reason because the scientists that are currently working on the components of PrimaDOS had a two-year hiatus basically in being able to complete their studies. We did request an interview with the health minister.

We were told that a minister wasn't available but the Department of Health and Social Care did give us this statement. It said patient safety is of the utmost importance which is why our published response to Baroness Cumberledge's review in July 2021, we accepted the majority of the recommendations and 50 actions for

improvement. And they go on to say the scientific evidence available does not support a causal association between hormone pregnancy tests, promoters that we're talking about, and birth defects. So let me turn to you, Hannah, then. The debate that is taking place today,

I believe a two-hour debate, a cross-party group. What are you trying to achieve? Justice. Justice and the truth, I think, for the victims, for my constituents and for the many constituents who've been damaged. My constituent, Wilma Ord, is now in her 70s.

Her daughter's in her 50s. She has profound disabilities and profound challenges. And I think Marie talks so passionately and has worked so hard on this. And she's right. Some of this has come down to technicalities and it's come down to money. And we have a very challenging situation where we see this time and again in society and in the UK and indeed in other countries when you have claimants who've been damaged or disaffected up against big corporate interests. We're talking about a company that now Bayer, it was Shearing at the time that produced this drug. It gave it to doctors unregulated. They then

gave it to women. And, you know, they made £4.4 billion in profits last year and they benefited off the back of Primidos to the tune of millions of pounds. And in my view, benefited off the back of damaging children and mothers. My constituents still blames herself for taking that tablet. And so in terms of today's debate, it's about not just highlighting that, but trying to move it forward because there's a fundamental moral contract between government, between patients and citizens, and those corporate interests that they allow into our space, into our health space. And for me, that contract has been broken, people have been damaged, and we need to right that wrong.

There's a lot that I want to pick up on what you say there, Hannah, but before I do that, I do want to read a couple of statements from the companies, the pharmaceutical companies. Bayer, as one was sharing previously, now owned by Bayer, has always had sympathy, they say, for the members of the association given the challenges in life in which they have had to deal. But Bayer maintains that the totality of the available scientific evidence does not support the existence

of a causal relationship between the use of promoters and adverse outcomes in pregnancy. Sanofi instead, another pharmaceutical company. We have sympathy for the people involved, but we have always believed that their case could not succeed.

We hope that the court's decision, which reflects the views of the regulatory assessments, brings some closure to the people involved. I'm hearing that's not the case with you, Marie, or indeed from your constituent, Hannah. But not enough sympathy to give them some money to help them just get the basic care that they need.

Let me go back to the debate today, though. Is it a debate? It is. Absolutely, it's a debate. And it's an opportunity for... I mean there's people on both sides of the issue that are arguing. Well the government disagrees and unfortunately we're in this situation that we were in with Hillsborough, that we were in with contaminated

blood, that we were in with thalidomide, that people have to go through the courts, they have to campaign for decades. Many have died before they've ever known what really happened or they've got reasonable recompense for the damage that was done. And we've ended up in a very adversarial system, in fact, an adversarial society,

where this is how these things play out. And the damage and the re-traumatisation is actually one of the major issues of it. So this is a cross-party group. Absolutely. You talk about the government, that they disagree with what you are trying to advocate for. Well, they're using the legal process as the ultimate test.

And I think there's a point here about them taking a step back from that, looking at, you know, the Baroness Cumberledge's report. She's a Tory peer. I mean, Theresa May, who was Conservative Prime Minister, she commissioned this. She's supportive of this. There are many across all the benches who have constituents who want to see this resolved satisfactorily and for people to get justice. And the government is hanging its hat on a legal challenge that, in my view, was in many ways flawed because of the reasons that Marie has highlighted and indeed just the legal structures

of our system. So there is that debate within the Conservative Party, it sounds to me, as well as between other parties and the government. It would appear so. Yes, absolutely. And we have people within the Conservatives that are incredibly supportive. And that is, that's politics at its best. But even with that cross party support, we don't seem to be getting the results that we need and the justice that folk deserve. I want to turn back to the personal because you have not mentioned your child, Marie, but this is part of why you started. That's the initial start, yes, because I had no idea when I took those tablets that they contained 40 times the dose of a neurocontraceptive. Sarah was born without her arm from just below the elbow, which was a challenge at that time because that was actually quite rare. And of course, the reason I mention that, Maria, is because I've been struck, Hannah, by your constituent that you mentioned.

That she blames herself. Of course she does. I mean, she was given something, you know, by her doctor that she believed to be safe, as people do. You know, in many cases we hear tales of women who the doctor opened their drawer, took it out of their top drawer and handed it across to them. And they'll be asking themselves, well, if I didn't take that tablet, if I hadn't put my trust in that health professional, what would have happened? Would my child have lived? Would my child

have not been with the disabilities that they have? And certainly for my constituent, Kirsteen, she's in her 50s now. Her father died last year. He died before knowing what really happened. And that is a tragedy. And it feels like the government's just waiting on folk to die, rather than actually giving people justice. And that is a terrible indictment on the government and on our society. Marie, what do you want to happen? Give me a couple of lines on what is a successful outcome for you. A successful outcome would be that the government actually acknowledge and we can get rid of that guilt

because I feel that same as Hannah and same as every one of our mothers, I would like them to do a full independent review of all the scientific evidence, including the new evidence that we haven't been able to show. I would like them to start some kind of fund to try and look at these hormones

to try and check the safety for women in the future. That's really what we want. So get rid of the guilt. Please acknowledge that it wasn't our fault. Try and get some funding to get these tablets or these components a full scientific review for safety. That's important to me. And some would say that there was a review in 2017 as well that went, I know you're nodding your head no to me, just to illustrate that for our radio listeners. But that was, that would have come out on the other side that you did.

And then, of course, we've gone through some of the arguments that have been put forward by the government and also by the pharmaceutical companies. And I will let you go. But that question of guilt, is that what pushes you on? Oh, it's awful. But I want to know it wasn't my fault. And so do our mums, and particularly the ones whose babies died.

They are riven with guilt every anniversary, any Christmas, every single time that their baby should have been there. The guilt is the thing that we carry more than anything else. It's horrible. Marie Lyon, Chairwoman of the Association for Children Damaged by Hormone Pregnancy Tests and Hannah Bardell, MP, Vice Chair for the All-Party

Parliamentary Group on Hormone Pregnancy Tests that will be having that debate this afternoon. Thank you so much for coming in. Thank you. Now, you may have seen this morning in the papers

how one of the last surviving Bletchley Park codebreakers, those women who worked helping to decipher enemy communications during the Second World War, has died at the age of 99. Margaret Betts, who lived in Ipswich in Suffolk, was just 19 when she was headhunted to work on the project. Earlier, I spoke to Tessa Dunlop, author of The Bletchley Girls, which was published in 2015, to find out a little bit more about Margaret.

It's interesting from looking at her obituary, listening to her son speak, there was some very set patterns for girls, school-leaving girls during World War II that by the early 1940s it was actually a legal path. Conscription was introduced in late 1941. So women actually had to step up and serve in some form. That didn't mean they had to go down the military service line. But what's interesting about Margaret, and if we may be allowed to deduce from voice alone, she sounds like a fairly middle class sort of girl, just right type for the wrens. Now, it's uncomfortable, I think, for modern ears to hear that class was very much used as a recruiting tool in World War II. And the Wrens

was absolutely seen as the elite service. It was the only one that didn't depend on conscription. It was much smaller than the WAFs and the ATS, the female army and air force, about 70,000 girls. And often you had to sort of pull strings or know someone or be the right sort of girl to get into the Wrens. And by definition, then almost a self-selecting virtue circle, many of those top end of the Wrens get creamed off for Station X, which is Bletchley Park. And how was her journey to Station X, do we know? Well, again, it would seem that, and again, by the early 1940s, there are tests. You don't just get girls into these services. You rigorously test them in the first few weeks, as well as square bashing and marching about and wearing uniform, which is all very novel and exciting.

They were actually put through their paces so you can work out where their talent set lies, which is why you saw in many respects, just to slightly contradict what I said, girls often from very working class backgrounds doing really important jobs on gun sites. If they had good aptitude, great hearing, they had great logic, then they would be given pretty impressive jobs. It sounds like Margaret was up to the mark in terms of her intellectual acumen and her ability to think on her feet and work quickly, which would have been one of the reasons why she was given the tap or the nod and sent off.

Well, look, it's funny. It's quite ironic because at the time, most of them, and I presume she was the same, they were a bit disappointed to be stuffed away in Bletchley Park. You know, they all thought they were going to go to sea and meet a sailor. This was what they were excited about. And suddenly they end up in this very secret, but as she said herself, humdrum organisation. But let's talk about her work. I mean, I think codebreaker is often the term that's

attached to Margaret. What was she doing exactly and how important was that work? Well, and that's why there's so many, when you read about her story, all these contradictions bounce off the page because that's her own, well, it was quite humdrum a lot of what we were doing. Clearly she had a think bubble thinking sailor at sea. But actually they were, again, by the early 1940s, what you have as a code breaking experiment in Bletchley Park at the beginning of the war has become more of a code breaking factory and it's become more mechanised. And she was a bomb girl. She worked on the bomb machines and they were generally Wrens who manned, in inverted commas, those machines. Now, we know the storyigma codes, the way into

those codes on a daily basis could be ascertained very quickly because enemy communications have to be read in the now, you know, they're no good sort of 24, 48 hours later. And that's what the bomb machine did. But of course, it had to be plugged up. You had to put the day's settings in. And there were stations outside of Bletchley Park, one or a couple of them, in fact, in North London, where there were these giant instruments that these girls worked. And then as soon as you had the settings for the day, they would rush through, sent back to the park. It was quite adrenalised. It was called a stop, if you got a stop. And they all talked in code, you know, Norway, Stenza, you know, there was this kind of lingo. And for girls like Margaret, who have up until then

stayed in the private domain been going to school wearing a school uniform this was a very exciting moment it may have been the work the minutiae the everyday setting up the bomb machine wiring it up that might have been pretty repetitive but actually being part of a bigger mission there was this was a liberation and independence bizarre bizarrely, because there they are in uniform, stuck in a park, being told to be secret, that they'd never experienced before. And actually, then after the war, you see most girls encouraged, very much encouraged, to go and get married. Bagging a man, of course, became the big deal. So I think so many of them held on to this experience. It is really a very precious one,

even though they weren't allowed to talk about it. And she kept quiet, is my understanding, for more than 40 years, saying she worked in an office for the Royal Navy and their fame, and I suppose the impact of their work only came to light years later. It's funny, Nuala, when you express surprise. You know, academics who have spent a long time looking at the profiles of those who worked at Bletchley Park, incidentally, at some point, three quarters were women, particularly young women, mainly school leavers. Well, there were some differentials within class,

for instance, towards the end of the war, especially. The one thing, the one uniform aspect of their memory, their experience of this time was the secrecy. And it was never in question. Actually, young girls, biddable, tending to be biddable, girls just out of school, they did what they were told particularly in the environment of war and then lest we forget when they leave that war setting and when we start remembering world war ii as a nation it's all about brave men britain on the edge of the imperial abyss we've got the big man's war all those epic films in the 1950s nobody's asking women what they did in the war so it wasn't that hard to not talk about it because people weren't asking you about it. And your identity, mainly as a mother in a baby boom era,

wasn't staked around what you did in the war. And the irony is, of course, it was the likes of Churchill. He had to have all the mentions of Bletchley Park scrubbed out of his histories. And it was men very much marking up their time in posterity, who were champing at the bit to tell their narrative. And that's precisely what happened by the 1970s. And so what would you say is the legacy of Margaret? Margaret, and the likes of Margaret, and there are still a few alive today, just a few, which makes them super special and made Margaret, because they were outliers, not just in terms of what they did, you know, serving their nation so young, but also as these wonderful reminders of a bygone age. I think it's very easy to use superlatives and get overexcited about a bygone generation that ties us back to the Blitz and so forth and our finest hour but without doubt there were and I've met many of these women

unifying qualities um a a matter of factness an inbuilt modesty that I think was gendered very much at that time um a recognition of what they achieved and a deep pleasure that they got towards the end of their life when finally it was their moment in the sun. And there is something just delightful, I think, about Margaret and her generation, that there they were as young girls doing this extraordinary job and then as very, very old women, a reminder of what they managed to achieve.

And there is something, it gives me goosebumps actually, just thinking about it. So rest in peace, Margaret, because you've earned it. She has indeed. Margaret Betts, who has died at the age of 99. And you were listening to Tessa Dunlop remembering her there.

What I want to turn to next is rebuilding my life. We've been talking to women who've been examining what happens after a major loss or indeed a traumatic event and how it is possible to recover, to rebuild. On Tuesday, we heard from Martine Wright,

who lost both her legs in the 7-7 terror attacks, yet says she believes she was meant to be on that tube train. You can catch up with that interview and also with my guest from Monday. That was Clare Russell on BBC Sounds. Today, I'm joined by Wiz Wharton. She is a screenwriter and a novelist. Her book Ghost Girl Banana came out earlier this year and Whiz has a complicated history of mental

health issues culminating in when she was 30 and being sectioned after she was stopped from attempting suicide. That led to a diagnosis of bipolar and Whiz was forced to confront her demons and also work out what needed to change, including being able to own her identity as a British Chinese woman and also learning how to stand up to the racism that she had experienced all her life. Wiz, welcome to Woman's Hour.

Hi, Nuala. Thank you for having me on. The word identity, now this has come up in both of my previous interviews with Claire and Martine. They expressed that they needed to hold on to their sense of self to get through their trauma. But would it be fair to say that you had lost your identity at that point when you were 30, when you were sectioned? Yeah, absolutely to martine and claire's segments uh with massive interest and uh it was what they said you know how they overcame their respective traumas was by holding on to a sense of who they were and i think self is a word that we use without really thinking about it you know it's in

our common vernacular we talk about a sense of self yourself myself but for me um identity had always been quite a slippery thing um and quite a movable feast during my childhood and my you know growing up when I did. And do you want to tell us, Wiz, why that was? Why was it such a slippery concept? So I was, my parents, my dad was white. My mom was from Hong Kong, a Hong Kong immigrant. And back in the 70s, when I grew up, that was still, grew up, mixed race marriages were still incredibly taboo. And so I had this conflict growing up where we were allowed to celebrate our Chinese heritage behind closed doors. But we weren't allowed to speak Cantonese or learn Cantonese.

And because of the racist attacks, which my family had been subjected to, we were advised, I suppose, by my dad and, you know, people around us, you know, just keep your head down. You know, don't admit that you're half Chinese. Don't confront anybody. You know, so I had this, you know, duality, I suppose, of self. And I never really knew which one I was supposed to be on any particular, on any particular day or any particular moment. And I think that created, you know, I think of it as sort of an ambiguous loss, I suppose, in that I was physically present in my body, but psychologically a lot of the time I felt absent, you know. And that's distinct, I think, from what later I found out to be my

bipolar disorder. But I think it's quite ironic and quite telling that, you know, bipolar is characterized by a duality of mood. And that had been my experience growing up of having that duality of self as well. Duality of self. Yeah, very evocative, that term. But, you know, when you were 30, when you were sectioned, you were actually reaching success. You know, there was a lot of things that you had gone through, a lot of this slippery concept of self-sufficiency, but it seemed to be gelling. It seemed to be taking shape. It seemed to be taking shape when you happened to be sectioned. Do you understand now, looking back, why it was at that point? Because obviously we're talking about you've rebuilt from that point

out. Yeah, I think so. You know, however slippery my concept of self was i i had evolved um into a particular kind of person i think uh growing up i was very passive i was a people pleaser i didn't like confrontation but also um i had been taught to be very humble about any academic successes. And so when I got a place at the National Film and Television School, which was an incredibly competitive arena, and then my graduation film went on to win prizes and I was suddenly getting all this attention. It was very confusing to me, I think, because I had become used to being one sort of person. And then the promise of this success, which would mean putting on a different hat, as it were, I found incredibly overwhelming. But that was, you know, it was a culmination, I think, of events. It was that, but it was also I had lost a best friend to suicide not long before. And then my father died very suddenly. And each of those was quite a complicated grief, and I hadn't processed them by the time I went to film school.

And those feelings were emerging in my work, I think, creatively, but I hadn't found the answers. And I think it was just a cumulative succession of feeling overwhelmed and not really knowing who I was and where I belonged and how I was going to cope with this next succession of professional hurdles. And so you were sectioned for how long? So I was put under a section 28. So I was involuntarily detained for 28 days in a secure unit in South London. Yeah. I suppose having people around you would have known that you were sectioned, loved ones, they would have understood that you're going through something, a monumental change. How, and you talk about being this person who kind of was a people pleaser, etc. How you were able to move from there to being able to reconstruct your life?

So I think there were lots of steps towards that. The first one was receiving the diagnosis and the subsequent medication regime was quite important in that regard. A turning point for me, I think, was when I asked to come off lithium, which is and, you know, works for many, many people with bipolar. It's like the gold standard treatment. And it had made me objectively better, think um in terms of you know people around me I was still at that stage very conscious of how people around me were reacting and I think objectively it made me more balanced more um more predictable in my behaviors and uh but the downside of it for me both creatively and and as a woman as well was that it blunted the extremes of my emotion

I was no longer very very depressed I was no longer very elated and that was very difficult for me as somebody who wanted to be a writer, but also because I was starting to realise at that point that I had quite a lot of healthy anger that needed to be expressed. Is that related to being a woman? I think yes in lots of respects but I think everybody experiences moments where they're angry and it can be you know we often conflate anger with aggression and I don't think it has to be that way I think you can have a healthy anger where you know you're learning to be accountable and learning to not just for your own behavior, but learning to call out other people as well who have hurt you. And the reason I say that is because you were talking about lithium not only as a creative person, but also as a woman. I was wondering, was that the intersection there?

So you decided to come off lithium and this is one of the steps because I think for you, it also is not linear, the reconstruction that you're talking about. You've spoken to us about that sense of self or that sense of identity. And I'd be curious how you were able to rebuild that

and how that worked also in the sense of trying to find a treatment plan that worked for you. Yeah. So I've spoken about therapy and one of the most beneficial, I tried lots of different therapeutic sort of outlets. And the one that I found worked best for me was cognitive behavioral therapy, CBT, because it actively involves the participant in their own recovery. You're asking difficult questions of yourself, you know, and you're confronting some of your ingrained and learned behaviors. But also, as Martine and Claire were talking about, I think there is a lot to be gained from being with people who share your lived experience. And so in a group therapy setting, I took part first as a participant and then later on in my recovery journey, I volunteered as an advocate for other people. And I got a sense of immense privilege from that because not only was I speaking to people who were in the throes of the mental health system, and I felt I was able to offer them a sense of hope for their own recovery but also I was talking to friends and relatives of people who had lost loved ones to suicide and I suppose I was in the unique position of being able to speak as somebody who had survived and was able to maybe

they were looking they weren't looking for answers they were looking for insight I think into perhaps what had gone on in the loved one in the minds of their loved ones and and you know listening to my experiences perhaps gave them a sense that you know mental illness is an incredibly personal subjective individual, individual experience, you know, and there is not necessarily blame to be attributed. I was also curious, I'm coming back to identity again, because there were a group of women in Brixton that you were working with, particularly women of an ethnic minority, for example, and able to, I suppose, really find coping strategies of how you deal with microaggressions or macro? Yeah. So, I mean, you know, I had been in jobs where it was almost a daily occurrence where, you know, for example, people refused to use my name and instead called me Yoko. They approached my partner at the time and, you know,

joked that he had yellow fever. And, you know, this was an everyday occurrence. And I felt unable to, or unwilling to sort of enter into confrontations about it because my learned behavior was just laugh it off, you know. And if I did express a sense that I was offended, it was very much turned back onto me like, you know, you're too sensitive. You know, the classic kind of gaslighting, you're too sensitive. You don't know what banter is. You're not going to have any friends if you can't join in with the laughing, you know. And what I learned from this amazing group of women in Brixton was that it was OK to call it out.

If. You know, people were offended by that, then that wasn't my problem, you know, and that I could, I was entitled to be viewed for the person that I was and not some generic race. You know, when people saw me, they didn't see me as whiz, they saw me as an ethnicity, you know, and it was difficult to, to learn that vocabulary, to sort of speak in non-confrontational language and to say to them, when you say this, it makes me feel rather than, you know, you're a really terrible person. It's such a good tool, I think, for our listeners to hear. I was reading where you said that people often minimise their own trauma, that you would shame about your ingratitude, that you hadn't lived through a war or moved countries like your mother, that you only had racism. And that kind of stopped me in my tracks, if I'm honest.

I just want to talk briefly about the non-linear path, though, to rebuilding your life, because you have had relapses. How do you deal with that or knowing that that might be part of this life now yes so I have had um I think three relapses quite serious relapses since I was first sectioned um but I think what I've learned is how to recognize the triggers for myself and not to necessarily pathologize just because I have a diagnosis that every piece of stress that upsets me is necessarily me becoming poorly again. And I think once you learn how to rationalize your behaviors and set it in context, I know when you are entitled to feel upset or stressed, you know, that makes a big difference. You know, mental illness is not a one and done thing.

It's not a linear path, as you say. There'll be bumps along the way but one of the things that also helped me was thinking about the discussions and the conversations about mental illness as a communal responsibility it's a societal responsibility we need to stop, you know, shame has never been a way of building resilience, you know, and we need to rewrite the narrative about mental illness. You know, I feel vulnerable talking about this. Yeah, sure. People will read my book and identify things in there, probably quite true sort of you know autofiction but also you know there is no shame in mental illness and a lot of us will be most of us will be touched by in our lives whether through somebody we know or a loved one and that's why

I think it's a collective responsibility to talk about it without shame. Because, you know, identity and who we are and who we may be and who we've been in the past is such an integral part to good mental health. Well, you've given us lots to think about there. It's so interesting. Thank you so much for coming on. That's Wiz Wharton. And you can catch up on this and other

episodes that we've had both with Clare and also Martine that we were speaking with yesterday. Rebuilding My Life series is on BBC Sounds, the episodes for the 4th and 5th of September. Now exclusive reporting from the Guardian

shows that cricket umpires were paid three times more to officiate the men's 100 tournament this summer rather than the women's. It's a pay gap that's hitting female umpires the hardest with only one umpire for the Men's 100 being a woman, right? So only one woman umpire in the Men's 100 compared to seven for the Women's 100. It also comes just days after the England and Wales Cricket Board, you might have seen this, announced that the women's teams will get the same match fees as the men's. Joining me now is sports journalist, Raph Nicholson, who's been on the story. Welcome, Raph.

So lay out for us what's going on here. How big of a pay gap are we talking about? How much are umpires paid, whether for the men's 100 or the women's 100? Thanks for having me. We are talking about a substantial pay gap between the women's 100 and the men's 100. So for the group stage matches in the women's 100 and the men's 100 so for the group

stage matches in the women's competition the umpires were paid 300 pounds for the group stage matches in the men's 100 they were paid a thousand and then for the finals um so for the women's final and men's final which were on the same day at the same ground both televised and so it's both very similar conditions for the umpires operating in the The umpires in the women's hundred were paid a thousand pounds and in the men's hundred, they were paid two and a half thousand. So a substantial pay gap. Wow. So you've been speaking to some female umpires who officiate women's elite level games anonymously, I should say, for your article. What do they say? I mean well I think that they are first of all there's an element of the ECB making a big song and dance about introducing equal match fees for the England women's team to the England men's team

or some of these female umpires are feeling well hang on a minute we're doing pretty much the same job that the umpires are doing in the men's game why is it justifiable to pay us so much less um to officiate in matches um than than it is in in men's matches um when you're you are you are making a big song and dance now about these moves towards more equal pay for the players well what about the umpires and cricket cannot happen without umpires um and so why is it acceptable to pay women umpires, and it often is women umpires, officiating in elite women's cricket, less than men? So the ECB, they have said in a statement that they're working hard to secure a pipeline of women coming into umpiring. I mean, Raph, how many female umpires are there? Are there hurdles that are standing in the way of getting women in that pipeline i think there absolutely are um and i think you know one of one of the big things that

we see is that there still aren't that many umpires who are operating at the elite levels um of of the sport we've got um one full-time professional women's umpire and who's able to do it on a full-time basis most of the women umpires we're talking about a relatively small number of people um are actually doing it and having to juggle it with other work or with study so they're on kind of part-time retainer contracts so they don't have the same employment rights as you would if you're a full-time professional umpire in this country who are largely men why are they not professional umpires? I think what we're seeing is a situation where the women's domestic game, where a lot of the

umpiring is happening, has become professional very quickly, very rapidly. So that's only happened really since 2020, the last three years. And that has kind of happened at a very rapid rate and the umpiring structures have not caught up with that at this point. So umpiring is still kind of being done in a way that doesn't reflect the new professional status of women's cricket and the fact that there now are a lot more professional women's matches happening. So England cricket player Sarah Glenn has called for equal match fees to be extended to the umpires.

The ECB also in the statement say they'll be increasing pay for umpires ahead of next season. But is there any indication that it will be equal to the men's tournament fees? Do we know? I don't think that they've given any indication of that, no. And I was actually quite surprised to hear that because one of the things that we uncovered in the Guardian piece was that ahead of this season with very little notice the retainer annual contracts for the part-time women umpires were actually halved with almost no notice so went from kind of five thousand pounds to two and a half thousand pounds for their for their season fee and now suddenly this piece is out there in the ECB committing to saying oh we're increasing pay for women umpires, having cut it just a few months ago.

That's so interesting, because I was about to ask whether there is momentum for the umpires to, you're nodding your head no. No, I don't or there is pressure on the ECB in terms of player salaries because of the recent Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket report that has called for the introduction of equal pay in domestic cricket by 2029 and international cricket by 2030. But that didn't particularly discuss the salaries of officials and umpires. And so do I think there's momentum? Well, the indications aren't great. I hope that my reporting can change it and I think absolutely there's no justifiable reason for paying women umpires less or umpires in women's cricket less than in men's cricket but I'm not convinced that

there is that momentum unfortunately. Raph Nicholson thank you so much for a story in the Guardian. Now a quick reminder about our Minister for Men item from yesterday, the idea that Conservative MP Nick Fletcher is championing for someone to advocate for boys and men. It's had so much interest from both you and others.

This is one of the callers to our phone-in yesterday. My brother is an extremely educated man. He's an engineer. He's always been extremely loving. He's always been, you know, a valuable member of our family. And over probably the last probably about two years,

I've seen bizarre views that's come from him, extreme misogynistic views. And he's, you know, said to me that Andrew Tate is king. Andrew Tate is giving him the guidance that he needs to be successful. It seems to be like very extreme views about females not working, females need to be at the home.

Where did that come from, Laura? I mean, it's your brother. I mean, was he always like that or was it, do you feel? No, we had you know, parallel upbringings. He was never, never of that view. I feel personally that it's from YouTube reels that he's watching. I try not to...

I've had another approach with him now where I try to engage with it and say, you know, well, where did you get that bit of information from? And it's mainly from YouTube. It's from YouTube reels that Andrew Tate does. Does he understand your fears for him? He feels that I'm part of the problem, that me saying that Andrew Tate maybe isn't the best person to give you your life guidance.

He thinks that I would be saying that because I'm female. Thanks so much to that caller who remained anonymous. We were calling her Laura on the programme. You can still get involved with the debate. Text the programme. The number is 84844 or on social media where at BBC Women's are. Maggie got in touch about cricket. She says the reason for the pay gap

is simple. Ticket sales for women's cricket. Although sales are going up as we've been hearing. Also somebody got in touch about Wiz Wharton saying interested to hear from her. She's an excellent advocate for women with chronic mental health issues. And that Wiz mentioned being a people pleaser. She says, I work with people who often access support, citing a sense of shame about being a people pleaser. Being concerned for the feeling of others, making adjustments to support and help others should not be seen in such a pejorative manner. I believe there are many

incidences where people pleasers have benefited from what is often viewed as a flaw or weakness. It's an interesting topic. Thank you for getting in touch 84844. Let me turn to Dame Shirley Bassey. She is set to become the first female solo artist in British history

to be honoured with a stamp series. Royal Mail revealed its first look at 12 stamps which take avid stamp collectors through a journey of her career. Eight stamps show Dame Shirley performing on stage, a further four capture during recording sessions and rehearsals. And why don't we on this Thursday morning

have a little bit of her in action now. I'm coming up so you better get this party started now. Always feels rude to interrupt Dame Shirley Bassey with Get the Party Started. Well, joining me is Welsh music journalist Jude Rogers. Welcome back to Women's Attitude. Thank you. So, are you ready to buy some Dame Shirley Bassey stamps? How did you feel when you heard the news?

Oh, they're fabulous, aren't they? They look so amazing. There's nothing to use you up in the morning than pictures of Shirley in various outfits, you know, in action. Yeah, it's great. You know, I think it's very easy to forget her contribution to British pop culture, really. And when we think about, you know, the great female artists of the UK, I think that Shirley does get forgotten a bit. I think that might be because of her colour. I think it might be because she's Welsh. Probably more her colour though. I think a lot of the fact that her

career started in 1953 and she's still, you know, she made an album three years ago. You know, it's incredible. You know, she's not talked about in the same way as Cliff Richard. She's had a longer career than him. And that's so interesting though that you feel she's not spoken about in those terms.

And you are also Welsh, so obviously you'd be following her maybe a little bit closer than others as well. But does something like this make a difference? I mean, it does show her over the years it is celebrating her life and achievements. I mean, what does it mean to be on a stamp? I think it's, you know, national treasure status, isn't it?

You know, she has been a national treasure for many, many years. You know, she was a Dame in the last century. And I think it just, it's very easy to kind of forget her contribution. As I said, you know, she's had albums that have been in the top 40 in the last seven decades. Those facts like that though can just you know be in the news and disappear you know seeing the stamps you know that will be everywhere in the media and it's a lovely celebration and you know them being a visual celebration also helps as well because there's something about the joy of Shirley's music if you like that show-stopping vocal or not um you know

there's so many uh memories people will have of her. Earlier this year, I went to a self-esteem gig and a disco mix of one of her songs was played at the end. She still feels relevant. For Welsh people, we think of her in 99 at the Rugby World Cup wearing her Welsh flag dress. You know, she's got that camp element about her as well that makes just people's hearts brim over.

That will be one of the stamps, actually. Yeah. Yeah, I see that. What an outfit. It's a sequined dragon, however. Yeah, it's a bit like two flags sewn together, but obviously not. It's obviously much more expensive because it's Shirley. And why not?

But yeah, she was brilliant there. I mean, what does she mean to you? You allude to it briefly there in wales and kind of going to the self-esteem gig as well but but talk me through a little bit more i think even you know um what she's made of her career given her upbringing you know she was um born in beatown in cardiff um you know to a very you know chaotic family lots of kids, parents, they're not there. And, you know, she left school at 14 and went to work in the steelworks, you know, that was her, you know, her path was like that she had, must have encountered so much racism in that part of Cardiff, you

know, we know her as the girl from Tiger Bay, you know, that is a very multicultural area in Cardiff, Cardiff being a big port city. But you know she made her way you know so early in her career as a teenager. She had a child as a teenager as well, who then got brought up by her sister. But kind of she had this you know very full-on life and had her first number one in the late 50s you know. And you know we think of her straight away as you know the Bond singer, you know I always do you know. And there's nothing better her um straight away as you know the bond singer you know i always do you know you know and it's there's nothing better than trying to do goldfinger as a karaoke session in my book yeah exactly you're belting it out um but she's also talked about how when she

was a little girl you know she was told off for singing um in the corridors of school because she was so loud um i was talking to the singer rowetta from the Happy Mondays who had the same thing. And it's something about the young black girl kind of voicing herself and not being allowed to fall through that despite herself. And I absolutely love that about her story. Will you be buying the stamps? Yes, of course I will.

I'll be sending postcards from Welsh locations to all my non-Welsh friends. And if you had a favourite song of Shirley Bassey, what would it be? Oh, I was thinking about this. I do love the performance of My Life, which is a song the Pet Shop Boys wrote for her, which is on an album that came out in the 2000s with lots of covers by the stars, which showed how loved she was. That is a great one.

But yeah, I think listen to that one. Or as I said, the disco mix of This Is My Life is, oh, it's just wonderful. People conger to it at self-esteem gigs. It's brilliant.

So brilliant. Welsh music journalist Jude Rogers speaking to us about Dame Shirley Bassey who will become the first female solo artist in British history

to be honoured with a stamp series. Now join Anita tomorrow. She's going to be joined by the actress Roisin Gallagher, who will tell us all about her TV series. It's new. It's called The Lovers.

And I'm going to end with a comment from Scott. Back to the Minister for Men. I'm quite manly in some senses, but from my point of view, Andrew Tate is a terrible role model, toxic to the bone, and we should not be giving him the time of day.

The conversation continues. I'll see you Monday. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Can you just tell me who he is? No. Has he got any distinguishing features? His anonymity. What's his name? Banksy.

I'm James Peake, and I'm on a mission to find out how Banksy became the world's most famous and infamous living artist. He could literally be anyone. Banksy essentially humiliates the art world. With dealers, critics and someone who once worked deep inside Banksy's secret team. Do you wish you didn't know he was? Sometimes I wish I'd never heard of Banksy. The Banksy Story with me James Pe James Peake, on Radio 4. Listen now on BBC Sounds. How does he smell? Like paint.

I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth.

How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.