Woman's Hour - Priya Ragu, Olena Symonenko, Mountain climbing

Episode Date: March 4, 2022

We have music and chat from the Swiss-Tamil singer Priya Ragu who has been shortlisted in the BBC Sound of 2022 Poll – joining Adele, Jessie J and Celeste. She tells us how her music plays homage to her heritage and is a fusion of traditional Tamil music, RnB and Soul, which she uniquely calls ‘Ragu Wavy’. The number of refugees leaving Ukraine has reached a million. If you were listening last week you'll remember the heart-breaking interview we did with Olena Symonenko. She had decided to flee Kyiv, and was down in a bunker with her 6 year old son. She had left her flat, which she had lived in as a child and all her adult life: and just as well she did, because her block of flats had been bombed and was on fire. She sent us a picture. We've been keeping in touch with Olena all week, tracking her journey and she's now in Poland. Sharmadean Reid is the Founder and CEO of The Stack World. Her mission is to create economic and social empowerment for women through technology and media. She has been building Women's communities for 16 years, starting with a print magazine called WAH which she created while at university. She tells us about The Stack World, and how the platform helps women entrepreneurs to monetise their micro communities through buying and selling from each other. We celebrate the emotional power of old clothes and today we hear from Sarah who tells us about the Janet Reger frilly knickers she received from her friend Ruth on her 21st birthday nearly 40 years ago. Mountains have long inspired climbers to write about their adventures. It’s been a male dominated field but we hear from two women who are inspiring the next generation of climbers. The author and poet Helen Mort tells us about her memoir ‘A Line Above the Sky’ and author Amy McCulloch talks about her adult fiction debut ‘Breathless’.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. This podcast is sponsored by Wise, the app for doing things in other currencies. If you're sending or spending money abroad, you should use Wise. You'll have up to 40 currencies in the palm of your hand. Wise gives you the real exchange rate, which means you'll spend less on fees and more of your money gets where you need it to be. Download the WISE app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply.

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. Here's a question for you all. Where's your happy place? The place you take yourself in your mind when it all gets a bit too much from BBC Radio 4. Here's a question for you all. Where's your happy place? The place you take yourself in your mind when it all gets a bit too much or you just want to tap out of the chaos around you. It may be difficult things in your life

or huge world events like the terrible conflict in Ukraine that play on your mind and overwhelm you. So how do you cope? Where do you go in your mind to escape? Life is unpredictable and can test us to our limits but if we close our eyes and pretend it's not happening even if it's only for a few seconds of respite it can sometimes help. So where's that special place you close your eyes and disappear to? Tell me where you imagine yourself to be and what's going on in the real world to take you there. I'm tapping into your fantasies here, so do get in touch with me to tell me what they are, but keep them clean.

The reason I ask is because I'm going to take you to my happy place today, mountains. I'm talking to two remarkable women who've written about their love of climbing and being in the mountains. Helen Mort has written a memoir about her love of the sometimes solitary sport of climbing and becoming a mother and Amy McCulloch became the youngest woman to climb Mount Mansulu and realized it was a great setting for a thriller so they'll be talking to me about that um so where is your happy place you can text me 84844 text will be charged at your standard message rate so do check with your network provider and you can contact us via social media. It's at BBC Woman's Hour

or if you wish to send us an email, go to our website. We're also discussing old clothes or rather the one item you cannot bear to part with. What is it? And what's the sentimental attachment? I'll be chatting to two friends

about a rather special pair of old frilly knickers. Maybe you too have a pair of pants you've clung on to. Whatever that item is, tell me all about it. We're also turning the spotlight onto a singer-songwriter, Priya Raghu, who will introduce us to her vibe, which she describes as ragu-wavy. And building a career as a businesswoman or entrepreneur can be a lonely place.

Well, we'll be talking to Sharma Dean-Reed, who's created an online platform to make it less so. But first, the number of refugees leaving Ukraine has reached a million. The UNHCR are projecting that over 4 million refugees may need protection and assistance in countries neighbouring Ukraine. On Woman's Hour last week, we spoke to Elena Simonenko and she decided to flee Kiev and was down in a bunker with her six-year-old son having left her apartment, which she'd lived in as a child and all her adult life. She left just in time as that night her block of flats was bombed. When she spoke to us last Friday, she described how her six-year-old was coping. situation with this and that's um that's a very bad he he he's trying to be okay and you know exactly what he said he said yesterday before we went to sleep because we could sleep that was

quiet and we said okay we need to sleep at least for a few hours because we don't know how the night will be and we told him this and he's's a very active boy, but he said, OK, yes, we will go sleep. And he said, I never slept in this house before. I said, you know, there is the saying in Ukraine that if you sleep in the first house for the first time, you should make a wish. And he told his wish. You know what was that? He said that he wants the war to stop and he wants for the president of Russia

to become a good person. This is my son. He's six and he's saying this himself. Just imagine. Well, we've kept in touch with Elena all week, tracking her journey, and she's now reached Poland. I caught up with her earlier this morning and halfway through our conversation,

her son came into the room to join her. She started off explaining why she left seven days ago. Basically, we've been trying to reach the border of Ukraine. We didn't want to leave. I feel myself betrayed that I leave the country. But on the other side, I understand that they have the six years old with me and I have no right to ruin his childhood totally. So there was the possibility to live with him and we left.

And where are you now? Right now we reach to Warsaw, where we are staying with some amazing people and we don't know them before. It's just a friend of a friend and they give us their shelter, their home

but that was a long trip. We've been on the road for like six days. So you're in Poland and when did you arrive we arrived yesterday night and you're on the road for six days yes tell me about the journey where did you travel through uh we i think we got the last chance to leave the city. And my mom, she was so scared to leave the basement because it was

bombing all over and she said that she will not make it. And she has a problem with leg and she said she cannot be in the car. It's better for her to stay with them together in the basement. She feels safer to stay in the basement.

So, yeah, sorry. safer to stay in a basement so yeah sorry so we just put on every window in our car we wrote kids in Russian дети because our son was in the car and then we tried to make it to

one city and normally it takes like one hour and a half and we've been on the road and then we tried to make it to one city. And normally it takes like one hour and a half and we've been on the road nine hours nonstop. I was six years old in the car. And then we slept in a motel room just across the road. And then we slept like five hours and sit down in the car again. And then my husband, he was driving us to the west of Ukraine, which is the closest cities to the border. It's Uzhgorod. So we've been driving there 20 hours. You know, you look in the traffic and you rarely see men driving their cars

and small like women and kids, like two women and they're like three, four kids. And everybody driving non-stop. Because if you stop, then you will be, for these five minutes, you will pay like one hour. And when we were driving through Chernobyl,il and luckily my son he fell asleep and then the you know the siren because of the other attack warning was in air and we just standing in the middle of the road and the siren was going yes so that was so scary um but good that my son he didn't hear it because he he still uh we've been afraid of like in a safe place for a while now but he's still like if the car engine is outside the street and it's going on and he he's like, what is this? What is this? What do you say to him when he asks, what is this?

Look, he knows what is this. And he said, you know, I know that we're not going to a trip. I know that we are trying to save our lives. And I understand everything. You think I'm not understanding? I understand everything. You think I'm not understanding? I understand everything. So he knows. And so your husband

was driving you to get you to safety. Is your husband with you now? Yeah, of course not. So at what point did he leave you? He drove us to Uzhgorod. We

slept there one night and there was the humanitarian train that brings some items to Ukraine, like food, necessary medicine from the Czech Republic. And on the way back, they take women and kids in this train. And these people, they're like angels. They're organized, it's super good. And you don't need to buy any ticket for that. And you just have to queue. But we were queuing from 12 to 4 to reach the train. That was a seven-hour drive to one of the cities in the Czech Republic. So you went on the train to the Czech Republic? Yes, close to the Polish border.

And then my friend, who is Ukrainian, she lives in Poland now for 12 years she's done all the logistics for us she organized everything she because my brain you know cannot work properly unfortunately but she organized so she organized her friends and two girls, her friends, they pick up us from Ostrava, from Czech Republic, and they are from Wroclaw. They drive to Wroclaw, three hours to take me and my son, and they brought us to Wroclaw like midnight already. And we stay in the apartment for one night, and then they brought us to the next day to the railway station and we come to

the Warsaw and my friend she who organized all that she she found a place for us to stay in Wroclaw with these amazing people and they're strangers you don't know these people you're staying with yeah yes but you know it doesn't feel like strangers to us because, you know, people let you go in their homes. They're really amazing people. And, Elena, you had the logistics organized for you. Somebody came to pick you up and took you into Poland. What about the women, the other women and children that were on the train?

Did you talk to them about what their plans would be? Yes, yes. The other women, they they just somebody has somebody and you know people are so united these days they just you know at least you know one person and another person tell another person and somebody's you know picking up but there are so many people that don't know anybody abroad so for those people there were like buses organized to bring them to the shelter and it's my friend sophia she's as well in in warsaw these days and she say she cried she just cried she said i feel because i'm homeless i'm i'm i feel like i don't have any future. They took our future, the future of our kids. We have everything, you know, prepared.

It was nice. It was our home. And that's it. They all vanished. But the most horror is for those people who, sorry, who stays in Ukraine. Have you spoken to any of your family? Have you managed to contact your mother?

Yes, we have the rule to my mom. She is texting every hour. And how is she? Every hour. How to tell you? She's saying she's doing good. Where is she? Is she still in the basement?

They're trying to be at the house, but when it's Syrian, they go in the basement and stay there. But it's about three or four times a night. And now we have this news about my son here. Is that your son? Yeah. How is he? That's my son He's playing He's playing Because he's playing with the guys They're trying to convince him

And play with him as much as possible They work from home these days And trying to play with him Just for him to forget all this You described him last week When we spoke to you on the programme as your brave boy. Yes, he is, he is. But he couldn't last that long because when we arrived already

to this place in Warsaw and he was crying from the bottom of his heart, you know, like huge cry before he was managing he didn't cry any single tear not dropped from his eye and then he was just you know probably he felt at a safe place and then he started crying and then he fell asleep and in the morning i asked him he said mom i was crying yesterday I was so I'm so you know I was so crying I said it's okay you have to cry I mean you have to cry and he said mom I feel so tired traveling yeah so have you spoken to you have you spoken to your husband Elena are you in touch yes we, we spoke yesterday evening.

He stayed in the west of Ukraine. He's helping all those people who are arriving, managing this, and also he's doing some other good things that supports our army. I know you've only just arrived in Poland, but do you have any idea of how long you will be staying there? I have no idea. I have no idea. And I'm in a position that I don't know what it's going to be.

I don't know where we can go, where we can... I mean, everybody is saying, stay with us. We can organise this for you from different countries, all over my colleagues. But, you know, I mean, he should go to school in a few months. And I know there's a real sense of urgency and we're reading and seeing pictures of refugees crossing the border and we've heard that there's about a million,

predicted to be over four million. What do people need right now? You know, the worst thing is that people probably think only about now and today and to escape. It's about to get the kids to the peaceful environment to protect the kids at least. But what supplies are needed, do you know? I know that you're lucky you're in someone's home,

but for people who are traveling with their children, what's the essential requirements? It's cold. So basically people don't have even the proper clothes. And some of them traveling like a week or so and sitting somewhere in a week in the same clothes so they have no even place to wash so they need a shelter they need like the warm stuff

obviously food supplies and that's. We all need psychologists to talk to us and to our kids. That's the most important and I would really ask all the people with this profession try to help

and talk to Ukrainian people somehow because we have to talk. We will manage it. We know the Ukrainian people, we will manage it. But to keep it all inside is not healthy. That was me speaking to Elena Semenenko who was talking to us from the safety of her home in Poland. Some people had taken her and her son in after they'd spent six days travelling on the road to safety. If you would like to comment on any of the stories you hear this morning, then please do get in touch with us.

Our text number is 84844. Now, our next guest, Sharma Dean-Reed, is no stranger to success. At just 24, she founded her own business, W next guest, Sharma Dean-Reed, is no stranger to success. At just 24, she founded her own business, Waa Nails, an East London nail bar, which became the go-to salon for fashionable nails. She then worked alongside hundreds of brands delivering pop-up nail salons and created a product line with a Boots Alliance. Alongside her success in the beauty industry, she's organized events to help young female entrepreneurs feel empowered in business. Her most recent project, The Stack

World, is a community-led platform which enables women to connect with one another to help get to the next stage of their careers. The platform offers events, clubs and workshops that female members have access to. And Sharma Dean is here to tell us all about it. Sharma Dean, you've made me feel like a massive underachiever already. You've done so much. Let's talk about Stackworld because I'll tell you how I came across it. I was scrolling through Instagram and I saw a group of quite fabulous women in a room together holding up a newspaper that said, you know, stories by women for women. I thought, what is this tell us about

Stackwell tell us about how it all came about yeah so if you cast your mind back to summer 2020 I had a startup beauty style that was in its very early stages really exciting visual booking system all about powering the next generation of beauty professionals. When the pandemic closed their business, they couldn't operate and they were looking for information on what to do. They were looking for someone to kind of pass the information that was coming from government about whether they could operate or not. And we essentially became a kind of communication service for our users, whereby we were telling them what was happening, what was going on. So then I started to realise why are they coming to us for information instead of like reading the newspaper or going, you know, on trusted sources. And I looked and

realised there was nothing there. So in the very early days of the pandemic, people weren't really talking about the fact that women were having to do three times as much work, not double the labour, but three times as much labour. They were having to do all of the homeschooling. The fact that more women were in financially insecure roles, the more women were in the service industry and the hospitality industry on the shop floor level. So, you know, at that point we started to think, what would a newspaper look like if it was written for women? And we actually did a bit of a thought experiment, which was we took all the big broadsheets and we rewrote the headlines as a fun afternoon thing to do if they were targeted for women. So, yeah, that's kind of how it got started and then in November 2020 when tier four lockdown was announced I believe it was then we thought we have to pivot the business because beauty is not going to reopen for a while what are we going to do with our startup and we decided to launch the stack. So we launched it on March the 8th, 2021, International Women's Day. So in just eight weeks, we created a brand new website, brand new tech

platform, brand new messaging branding, launched on International Women's Day 2021. And it was, yeah, it's been an incredible year. And I can see, well, I'm looking at an online version of the Stack World. I'm sure we'll be able to somehow put it up on our social media. And there's some of the headlines, you know, big, big time female founded food waste app raises a record 43 million. So it's still tech stories. There's street fashion. But what women wear to work, women in politics, you're celebrating female MPs. Why did you I mean, we covered it lots on Women's Hour, you know, the lack of attention that was given to female-run businesses.

And like you say, a lot of beauty businesses just weren't paid any attention to at the beginning of lockdown because they just weren't seen, taken seriously. A hundred percent. And so many, so much of, you know, our inspiration comes from such a small amount of sources, including Women's Hour. So it's like, how can we highlight the equivalent of what we're seeing in the newspaper all day, every day, but from a women's angle? So in terms of tech founders, you know, I'm one of the few women, black women, who have ever raised venture capital in the UK in 10 years.

That is like atrocious. Black women get less than 0.02 percent of funding. Women get one P in every pound of VC funding, which is just crazy to me. So we have to work harder to highlight the stories in a business way. And I was very intentional in terms of it not being a magazine. It's not about being a magazine. It's not about being just inspirational. It's about actionable advice as how we can operate in the system. And how's it gone?

You've only been up and running a year. It's been amazing. So we've had 4,000 members now, 4,000 paying members actually, subscribers, and then a few thousand who are on the free version of the platform we've been growing over 20 month on month and most importantly women just tell us that they found a community um they found friends they found collaborators clients co-founders and my whole theory is that we could talk about female founders or we could talk about stay at home moms or we could talk about whatever it is. But actually, women just need networks and community to thrive. And that's what we power.

I suppose men have been doing it for centuries by sitting in wood panelled rooms and smoking cigars. And you've created somewhere for them to come in, for women to come and do it. You know, it's really funny. I'm quite obsessed with this um traditional gentlemen uh systems and culture so from gentlemen's clubs you know like whites all the way to what happens you know on the golf course and I think there's a conversation we often have in the community do we want to replicate these systems or actually do we want to redesign them and replace them because there's something about like you know an image of a woman in a boardroom like looking powerful but actually that's still a very masculine view just with someone else in the chat you know how can we create something that is far more collaborative

community driven um open-minded, more flexible. And I live right in the city, so I'm surrounded by this 24-7. But yeah, one of my favourite quotes is that you can't dismantle the master's table with the master's tools. So how are you dismantling it? What are you using? What have you done differently? So using tech. So it's really important to note that we are a tech company.

All of our work is underpinned by an incredible app and platform. We have amazing data, both quantitative and qualitative, on what our users are worried about, what they want to work on, what their fears are, what their hopes and dreams are, as well as, you know, what stage of career they're at, what their salary is. And what are they telling you? I mean, this is invaluable information. Like, what are you...

It's really cool, actually, because we designed the profiles in the app to not be, like, kind of either social media-y shiny to professional and accolade and awards driven so we design them to be like what is important to you so as well as telling us like hardcore data like you know i'm a um corporate person looking to develop myself in my role and i'm looking for mentorship there's a space called let's meet to discuss which is what my favorite section is so some people say let's meet to discuss dog walking gut health and philosophy that sounds like me let's meet to discuss you know what I mean like web3 and nfts is really popular right now. So you kind of get a more 360 picture of who you are as a person.

And I feel like everything prior to us has kind of put you in a box, like I am a corporate woman or I am a working mom or I am, you know, let me join a black founders community. Whereas what we have in the platform is a black founders community and a working mom community we actually have a climbing community also which is kind of cool very good so we have discussing that we have all of these different communities to help women speak to

their whole self which is absolutely incredible what you've done um and where you started from and how you started by setting up the nail company, Warnails, which, you know, has been a big name for itself. Lots of people may have heard of it. How lonely was it for you when you were first starting out? Awful. It was awful. I was 24 years old, one year out of graduation, and I just had a good idea that I somehow cobbled together to be a business. And then people loved it and I didn't know what I was

doing I got pregnant when I was 26 years old um so then running you know all my friends were still raving while I was like sweeping the floor and like breastfeeding um and it was just yeah it was not not a fun time actually and my friend who also had a baby when we were 26, she started a community called Mothers Meeting, actually. And her, so it was Jenny, Scott, me and one other person turned up to our first ever meetup. Just three people. And then, you know, 10 years later, it's like 15,000 members. And now these women feel supported. So when I look back on my career, I've tried a lot of things out. So don't feel like an underachiever. I just tried a lot of things out so don't feel like an underachiever I just tried a lot of things out but actually when I look back from the age of 13 when I threw my first school

party I've been building some form of communities and the salon was successful because it was more than a salon it was a community. And you started by giving me those shocking statistics of how few women in business are backed by venture capitalists and the amount of money that's pumped into female run businesses. How did you do it? Well, where do I begin? Firstly, I am very an obsessive planner and thinker and, you know, strategizer. So I definitely thought, thought okay here's what VCs are looking for I'm going to design a business that fits into their thesis which was key the

second thing is I created a lot of thought leadership in fact do you know what I have a free video for staff members that's what we're gonna do and she's such a pro she even knows I've run out of time. I was like, why am I telling her this? It's going to take ages. I've got a free video for STAT members, 10 steps to raising your first million. Brilliant. And that tells you how to do it. That's it. Sharma Dean, it's been such a joy speaking to you. I bet you'll be coming on to tell us about your next project very soon as well. Good luck with STAT World. Thank you. Thank you so much. Bye bye. Check it out. If you are a woman a young woman

feeling quite lonely in business and want to create a community check out the stack world um next in our series we're talking about which celebrates the emotional power of old clothes the things we can never throw out even if they don't fit or we're never going to wear them again for me it's a pair of old levi twists and a brilliant tank top with a skull and crossbones on it that says fame will come later. But it's sentimental because I bought it with my late uncle when I first moved to London. Well, we've been asking you to, and many of you have been in touch with stories, a 46 year old bright red hippie skirt owned by Caroline, no longer worn, but much loved. And you're coming in with your texts as well.

There we go. Here we go. Here we go. I have a pair of old dungarees, says Anonymous, that I made myself from scratch in 1984. They're white cotton with a splash pattern in black. I wore them in Crete that year and many times

during the next couple of years. I've also worn them in 1988 when I was pregnant and can't get rid of them. And Anita, my jewel's stool in Maidstone says, my boyfriend brought me a burgundy cord jacket

for my 21st birthday. That was 41 years ago and we've been married for 38 years and now my daughter treasures it. Well, listener Sarah contacted us to tell us about a very special pair of knickers given to her by her dear friend Ruth on her 21st birthday,

almost 40 years ago. Both of them join me now. Welcome to the programme, Ruth and Sarah. Before we get into Pant Chat, I want to find out a little bit about your friendship. So Sarah, how long have you been friends? When did you meet? We met at university, so quite some time ago. And well, we came from quite different backgrounds. So I came from the country and was more used to wearing wellies and

a cagoule. And Ruth came from Epsom and so she had a great appreciation of the finer things in life and so my education began. So tell me about the knickers. Well my education was varied in all sorts of things I mean obviously at university it was a really informative time of life. So we discussed everything from philosophy to makeup to, you know, I learned so much from Ruth. So when it came to my 21st birthday party, I had a lovely party and invited naturally all my university friends and especially Ruth. And she decided she was going to give me a really practical present because she knows I'm a very practical person

and she gave me the most beautiful pair of knickers. Describe them to us. Well, they are absolutely gorgeous. They were made by Janet Rager. They're pink silk. They're all frilly and they've got loads of lace on them and embroidered roses.

They are absolutely stunning. But Ruth, I hate to burst your bubble. They are really uncomfortable. Let's bring Ruth in. Let's bring in worldly wise Ruth from Epsom, who opened Sarah's World, who was in her wellies before she met you. Why did you buy these knickers? I had no idea. I was such an influence on her. It was actually because of a frankly hurtful remark, Sarah, you made when you were talking about what you might have for your birthday and you said you would only expect something frivolous. And I thought, well, I was looking for something that would fit frivolity and practicality, and there you were.

But I was looking at the photograph you sent of them the other day and they're so 1980s, aren't they? I'm not surprised you don't wear them. 1980s? I've seen a picture of them. I think we've put them up on our Twitter. They'll be on our social media. They look more like they're the 1820s. I think maybe they were quite retro at the time.

I don't know, but they were certainly the fanciest ones I could find. What did you pay for them? Do you remember? I can't remember now. It was probably quite a lot for the time. I think it must have been about probably about 20 pounds or something. I think she was a very good, a good friend. And you were a student at the time. That is an extravagant, generous gift. What was your reaction on receiving them, Sarah? Well, I laughed because, in fact, actually,

what Ruth wrote in the card to me, she said, I'm going to read it out. She said, you probably expected something frivolous, but what could be more fundamental than knickers? Absolutely. But what I tried to say was... And you... Sorry.

Absolutely. I'm smiling. What a brilliant note to have in it as well. And you've carried on the tradition of buying knickers, haven't you? Oh, absolutely. Oh, sorry. Well, yes, absolutely. For my 30th birthday, I got Bridget Jones style big pants, which I have to say got a lot of wear and were worn out. And then for my 50th, I got a pair of Spanx pants. And I have to understand I've recently had a baby. So it was really appropriate and much needed.

And then I've just had my 60th. And what could be more appropriate for someone who sings in drafty cathedrals than a pair of thermal drawers? Amazing. Thermal knickers. Yes, yes, yes. so so ruth what's she going to get for her 70th you should be very afraid i think after all of this yes i've got plans i've got plans and and what have you and what do you have ruth because we've we've learned about sarah's frilly knickers what item of clothing have you got that you can't part with oh goodness let me think i've got some very old things um i'm just trying to think nothing particularly that i i've nothing is nothing as extravagant as these beautiful knickers no no i mean the present sarah's given me the latest ones were were handcrafted i should say but handcrafted dishcloths which i thought were mats

and very useful as mats but also very good as dishcloths old clothes i've got i don't actually have anything of mine but i do have a very very tiny baby grow which three of my children wore when they came home from hospital which i still have and now um is worn by one of the dolls that one of my granddaughters loves to play with so you can't part with that sarah sarah when was the last time you put these knickers on? An awfully long time ago, because honestly, I don't think I could get them over one leg right now. Oh, Sarah and Ruth, it's been an absolute joy speaking to you this morning. And do get in touch with us. Tell us what those knickers are that you get for your 70th birthday from Ruth.

Enjoy the rest of your day lots of you getting to in touch about this um and telling us about the uh the outfits that um you can't part with um oh no apart from being sentimental someone says um oh about the dungarees she says use them herself using a pattern uh that she made herself and that was another reason for keeping them all these years uh that have a daughter and I was hoping that one day she would be pregnant and wear them. Now she's 12 weeks pregnant and by the spring they will be perfect for her. How lovely. 84844. Now, happy place. Where is your happy place? Because I'm about to take you to mine. You have been telling me in your droves. Cora has emailed in to say, my happy place is Demortis, a beach in the Philippines where my disabled dad used to take me and my siblings. I went back to it in my head a lot

while accompanying my father in Charing Cross Hospital when he was last confined. Saucher says, I imagine myself in a gig of my favourite musician in the middle of a crowd, everyone singing along, pouring our hearts out, united by the love of the beautiful music. This is my happy place and got me through so many things shielding through covid living with a chronic illness my nan dying and my dad being rushed into hospital multiple times for heart problems imagining this and hoping i can get back to it in real life has kept me going in the

darkest of times um 84844 is the number to text when is your happy place thank you to everybody who's messaging in by the way well mountains are my happy place and they've long inspired climbers to write about their adventures it's been predominantly a male dominated field but we're seeing more women sharing their climbing stories a wide variety of female written climbing books have been published already this year hoping to spark a curiosity in the next generation of climbers. Two of them include the author and poet Helen Mort, whose memoir A Line Above the Sky is out later this month, and author Amy McCulloch, whose adult fiction debut Breathless was published last month. Well, both join me now. Helen and Amy, welcome.

Helen, let me come to you first. First of all, congratulations to both of you. These books are incredible and beautiful. I thoroughly enjoyed reading them because, like I say, you took me to my happy place. But Helen, tell me what first got you into climbing. I think it was it was my dad, really, who introduced me to mountains. We'd go to Scotland together and climb Munrose and it kind of growing up on the edge of the Peak District as well it was it was something that that from an early age I found a bit of an escape in really but it was also books because I'm an avid reader have been since I was a kid

and again my dad would give me these mountaineering classics, including books by women about their adventures in the mountains. And it was those that I found particularly exciting and relatable. And I think I'm really glad that he gave me those books. Yeah. Yeah. And one woman in particular that really inspired you. Yeah, Alison Hargreaves, who who was from Belper, so not that far from where I grew up in Chesterfield in Derbyshire. I found her I was going to say her story relatable. That sounds wrong because she was a world class mountaineer and I'm someone who spends most of my time failing on easy climbs on Stanage Edge and Gritstone Edges in the peak. But there was something about the way that she wrote about the things that climbing and the mountains gave her, which I hugely identified with as a writer and as a climber.

And of course, the landscape, I could sort of imagine her learning to climb in all these places where I went to as well and I found myself going back to that that biography of her life and to some of her experiences when I became a mum because the way that she experienced motherhood felt the way she articulated that felt very relatable to to me as well because your memoir is quite quite it's so beautifully written helen and it is it's you talking about your love of climbing but also becoming a mother first time mum and so the opening scene is is remarkable it's you giving birth and whilst you're having gas and air you're actually thinking about climbing aren't you you're you're on a mountain at the same time you're in your

happy place which is on a mountain sort of sort of happy place yeah no it's always struck me that that gas and air um is is very much uh it's it's like being a high altitude mountaineer that was my little little fantasy to get through the pain of labor was um it was that I was actually doing some some high altitude mountaineering of the kind that I've never actually done in my in my ordinary ordinary life but yeah the physical ordeal it felt um it reminded me of running mountain marathons and stuff like that well talking of high altitude climbing I'm going to bring in Amy, who definitely has. Your book is set on a mountain. It's a mountain that you've climbed. Tell us about what took you to this mountain, because you're not somebody like Helen who's been climbing your whole life, are you, Amy?

No, I'm not at all. In fact, I'd never stood on a mountain summit until my first summit was four years ago. So I had, excuse the pun, quite a rapid rise in the world of mountaineering. I really, my journey began after quite a seismic life change that I experienced. I got divorced from someone I'd been with my entire adult life and kind of saw the path that I thought I was going to walk for the rest of my life just disintegrate in front of me. And I really faced this kind of crossroads where I didn't know what my life was going to look like or where I was going to go from that point. And the day that my husband left, I was thousands of miles from my friends and family. I didn't know what to do with myself. And I found myself

Googling long distance walks because walking felt like maybe the one thing I could do in that moment of real emotional turmoil. I found the Kerry Way in Ireland, which is Ireland's longest waymark trail. It's 200 kilometers. And the next day I was on a plane to Dublin and walking this Kerry Way. And I felt myself wanting to put myself in the way of beauty. I think that's a Cheryl Strayed quote. You know, I wanted to get out and exhaust my body while I was trying to deal with these big emotions. And at the end of the Kerry way, I realized that I'd become, I'd fallen in love with the feeling that walking gave me and I wanted to see where else my feet could take me. And my next trip was then to Nepal and the Annapurna circuit, which again, I did completely on my own. And I saw these big mountains for the first time. And I,

Manaslu, the mountain I wouldn't, I would end up climbing only two years later. That was the first big mountain that I'd ever seen, ever laid eyes on. And it was truly quite a transformative experience for me. And I wanted to see, it was just driven by curiosity, really, just wanted to see how far I could go, see where my body could take me. Amy, there's one thing going off on a walk, going along the Kerry Way, I'm sure it's very difficult doing 250 miles but climbing a about 8 000 meter mountain at one of the highest peaks in the world that's that's quite a thing what was it what was it about what is it about the mountains that was that drew you to it well you know I was reading Helen's book as well and she she says this thing you know I've always believed in what my body knows and I think

weirdly I always believed I had this capacity to kind of endure this ability to kind of suffer through something towards this goal a resilience that was kind of that was really tested during my divorce but I wanted to see you know where my body could take me physically and and honestly I just I just kept booking myself on these trips that kept taking me higher and higher. So my first mountain was Toubkal in Morocco. That's quite a short trip. It's only three days. But I summited at sunrise on New Year's Day in 2018. And I just saw the sun come up over the Atlas Mountains in the Sahara Desert.

And honestly, it was sort of so beautiful and the closest thing to magic I've ever experienced. And you know, the higher up you go, the more intense the sky becomes, the blues of the sky. It's almost like the veil between you and the universe is where it sits at its most thin. And I was just, it was honestly just a kind of a curiosity. And I went to Aconcagua next, which was the highest mountain in the Americas. And that's where you really test yourself at on expedition life because it's not just the climbing that you have to endure when you do these high altitude peaks it's also this idea of spending weeks or sometimes months uh in really rough conditions you know run no running water living on a glacier with predominantly with majority men hanging out with majority men hanging out with the boys and strangers. And I'm

going to ask both of you this, Helen, I'll bring you back in. And I'm sure you'll be able to relate to a lot of what Amy's been saying there. But, you know, climbing, mountaineering, they're male dominated sports. Also, they're sports that we kind of seen as solitary and in a way we kind of forgive and allow men to to do that we admire men who go off on these solo expeditions very different when it comes to women right yeah i loved him there's a bit in in in breathless in amy's book where one of the the male characters is talking about this and the female narrator is going, I hope he realises how lucky he is to be able to leave his family to do that and that kind of privilege. And I think the way that men and women are viewed

for doing those things can be quite different, whether or not they've got children. The kind of inherent selfishness of climbing, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I think it's viewed differently for women perhaps. Because Alison Hargroves, you're here on Absol and absolutely you talk about her a lot in the book can't wait to read her biography she actually sadly passed away on k2 but she climbed well six months pregnant didn't she yeah she did she climbed the eiger when she was um six months

pregnant when her son went on to become a mountaineer in his own life he liked to say that he'd he'd summited his first mountain before he was even born um yeah and but she's judged harshly for for that and subsequently in the media completely I mean I found that you know when I went out and to the mountains especially when I signed up to do my first 8 000 meter peak you know I did all the preparation that you could imagine you you know, I went out on training walks and read all the books and everything. But it wasn't until I got to base camp that I really realized the additional layers of difficulty that I was facing as a woman on the mountain, because there was a lot of misogyny, unwanted sexual advances, comments that sort of disguised as banter, which made me feel really uncomfortable and wasn't something at all I'd read or prepared for. You know, I didn't expect to come to an

8,000 meter base camp and have to worry about my personal safety in the same way I was prepared for crevasse danger, avalanche danger, all of those things, but not how vulnerable I would feel knowing that there was just going to be a thin sheet of plastic between me and someone who wasn't taking no for an answer. I guess little did he know that I was a writer and that all of those experiences, you know, no matter what I just made me feel really uncomfortable as well. The thought of being, like you say, vulnerable on a mountain, just in a tent, away from people with just a few people that you have to trust. If you're going to get up to the top of this, you need to become a little unit. But yes, the characters in your book, Breathless, a lot of the men are pretty, well, their egos are massive. We can't give the book away it's brilliant it's a

page turner it's a real thriller um i'm sure you didn't have to reach too far to kind of for a source of inspiration for those massive egos but the female relationships are really interesting there's a there's a character called elise who is a hardcore mountaineer who is also um has a big instagram account and she loves to wear her lipstick but the female relationship I found really satisfying. Oh thank you and yes it was at least it's totally an amalgamation of some of the incredible female climbers that are out there really pushing the boundaries and and making names for themselves in this high altitude peaks and they do you know mountaineering is a big expensive endeavor and some of these incredible women do use

social media to try and drum up that sponsorship you know they uh really play to their strengths in that sense but also it was really interesting to me because i was climbing um on our team with two other women um one of whom had the sort of similar experience level to me but the other of whom was an extremely accomplished or is an extremely accomplished mountaineer from Andorra. And she had climbed Nangapabat just recently, which is one of, you know, incredibly dangerous 8,000 meter peak without oxygen. And so she was summiting Manaslu as well without oxygen. And as soon as, literally without exception, all the men on the team found out that she was climbing without oxygen. They asked our team leader, Nims, if they could climb without oxygen. And he was just, it was, for me sitting there, it was just laughable because some of these men had never

climbed anything higher than Kilimanjaro. And here they were just because a woman was expecting to climb without oxygen. They thought, well, if she can do it, then I definitely must be able to. Macho, macho. By the way, Kilimanjaro is no small feat. As someone who's kind of thought about that, he's like, that is a major mountain. Just putting that out there. That is a major mountain. Nothing compared to what you've done. Helen, this kind of misogyny that Amy's experienced, is that something you can relate to?

Or you must be surrounded by men in a climbing world. Is that something you can relate to or is you know, you must you must be surrounded by men in a climbing world. Is that something you've come across yourself? Definitely. And some of those things that you're describing, Amy, feel relatable on different levels. And it's it's interesting. I mean, I've had really, really great, great experiences of climbing with with men who've been really influential in my my climbing career. And I wouldn't have done it probably without their support. I think things have changed so much from when, for instance, Alison Hargreaves was entering the scene and it was much more of a novelty for a woman to be climbing. But I guess what I've been interested in in the book is that it's only

more recently that I've started seeking out climbing with other women. And I was as interested in my own motives for that in a way as whether I was sort of scared of these other women or had been indirectly put into competition with them in a way. And now that you have discovered climbing with women, how is it? Oh, it's so great. Yes. You can see yourself doing some of the moves when you're watching another woman climbing it. I often feel more relaxed, I think, when I do.

Helen, Amy, I've thoroughly enjoyed speaking to both of you. And if you aren't as brave as the two of them or, you know, just tired at the sound of the amount of exercise it would take to get up a mountain or climb a rock face, then just read their books. Helen's memoir is out on the 24th of March and Amy's novel is available now. Now, the Swiss Tamil singer Priya Raghu

kicked off 2022 by being shortlisted in the BBC Sound of 2022 poll with previous winners, including Adele, Jessie J and Celeste. After the success of her debut mixtape, Damshi Tamil, which is excellent, she released her new single, Luminous. Her music pays homage to her heritage

and is a fusion of traditional Tamil music, R&B and soul, which she uniquely calls ragu wavy. Let's hear a clip of the new track. I come from life lessons, wanna know what's next, keep guessing. Got time, no time for questions. Throw chakra on, show off. Slip it now, slow-mo, you can still get glow up like. I'm supernova, you know I'm coming for ya. Priya, welcome to Woman's Hour. I'm feeling ragu-wavy, I'm feeling it. I can see it. You can see it. Thank you so much for having me. Oh, it's a pleasure to Woman's Hour. I'm feeling ragu-wavy. I'm feeling it. I can see it.

You can see it. Thank you so much for having me. Oh, it's a pleasure to have you on. The song is all about realising your potential and stepping out. Is that something you were feeling when you were writing the song? Definitely. I mean, the song was produced by my brother Jeffner Gold. And it just describes that moment when I decided to choose music in 2017 and then just following that path you know and a lot of things happened since then and I just kind of feel invincible right now. Good you should because the music you're producing is absolutely excellent I'm

going to take you right back because let's let's let's um understand a little bit about your makeup because you grew up in Switzerland but your parents were immigrants fleeing the Sri Lankan war so tell me a bit about your childhood and what that was like yeah my parents, they got to Switzerland in 1980. And my brother was born, I was born. And yeah, we just had like a normal life growing up between two cultures. My father, he introduced me to music. He himself was a musician back in Sri Lanka and he couldn't really fully live his potential because, you know, he had to take care of a family and free the country. So but music was always like within him and he plays the tabla and he also sings.

So he decided to create a band in a small town called St. Gallen in Switzerland. And you used to sing with him? I used to sing with him because there were no other female singers. It was only like uncles singing and playing in the band and my brother. So, yeah, I was like the only option. And I was not even really into singing that much, you know, and especially Tamil songs was really difficult to sing. And so, yeah, he wrote down the lyrics of, you know, Tamil cinema music. And then I was just, you know, performing with him.

And then it wasn't until you moved to New York with your brother that you started producing music together. Yeah, yeah. I mean, ever since, you know, I discovered, like, new soul music, I got really inspired by black music. And then I started to really enjoy singing songs from Lauryn Hill, Brandy, Indie Ari. And it took me really a long, long time to realize that this is an option, you know, to become a musician.

Yeah, it took me a long time. And your parents are fully supportive? They're into it? They get it? No, they were not supportive. They were against it. So I was not even singing when they were at home. So as soon as my dad left home for work, I started to sing. Even though he introduced you to singing,

even though he brought you into it. But then he regretted it because I got into Western music. Ah, right. But actually he regretted it because I got into Western music. Ah, right. So you moved away. But actually, you know, you can really hear the influence of both the neo-soul that you're talking about and your Sri Lankan roots in there as well in the music. I need to talk to you about being a young South Asian woman who's sort of embarking on a career in the music industry because, you know, South Asian female faces in this world are few and far between. Yeah. I mean, so far I've been following MIA like 10 years ago

and ever since nobody really, you know, came into the scene and into the mainstream, you know. And so I didn't think that something like that would be possible for me, especially growing up in Switzerland, speaking another language, being brown, being over 30, you know. So I'm like really breaking all these barriers and I'm here. So I'm really, really really grateful and you are doing so well and I've got to talk about your look as well because the clothes and

your style is so distinctive you you look amazing and you look really powerful in your videos yeah I think you're great um just and do you style yourself no I have I have a stylist. Her name is Nisha. She's also from India. And we found each other like two years ago and we decided to work with each other because she just gets me my visuals and my style and what I feel comfortable in, you know. And yeah, so it's a lot of fun.

And you've got loads of tours happening. You're going to be performing at various festivals. And anyone who's just discovered you, I highly recommend you listen to Priya's backcast log because the stuff that she released previously is excellent as well. Priya, I want to wish you all the best for the future. Thank you for coming on.

Thank you so much. Come back and talk to us again, anytime. For sure. Thank you. And thanks to all you so much. Come back and talk to us again anytime. Sure. Thank you. And thanks to all of you listening. Rachel has emailed in to say, I have a shirt that my mum wore when she was pregnant with my sister, who's 63 next month.

She wore it for me too. I wore it when I was pregnant 30 years ago. Maternity clothes were great in 1959. And she's bought a man's shirt. It's red with tiny black and white stick figures. And I still wear it. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. have up to 40 currencies in the palm of your hand. Wise gives you the real exchange rate, which means you'll spend less on fees and more

of your money gets where you need it to be. Download the Wise app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. 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.