Woman's Hour - Probation and domestic abuse, Gravestone recipes, Black and menopausal

Episode Date: July 4, 2023

Chief Inspector of Probation Justin Russell joins Nuala McGovern in an exclusive interview for the BBC. He'll be discussing a new report inspecting the work undertaken and progress made by the Probation Service over the last 5 years to protect victims and reduce domestic abuse by those on probation. When librarian Rosie Grant was researching cemeteries, she stumbled across a gravestone with a cookie recipe on it. She decided to make it and post a video of her cooking experiment to social media. It was such a success she has since travel across the US to find other gravestone recipes and make them too. She tells Nuala what she has learnt about life, death and family meals since starting her quest. A bar in Portsmouth is due to open later this month, which is themed on Jack the Ripper – described as an ‘immersive cocktail and dining experience with a modern horror twist.’ The publicity features a young woman in Victorian dress, being followed at night by a mysterious man. Objections have been raised to the whole idea of a business which trades on the notoriety of a mass murderer. However the trading licence has now been granted. The owner has said ‘There is always a fine line when working on things like this and we are working really hard not to upset anyone.’ Nuala speaks to Hallie Rubenhold, author of The Five, in which she painstakingly reconstructs the lives of the five women killed by the so-called Ripper, in 1888. Black and Menopausal is the title of a recently published anthology of writing, capturing Black experiences of the menopause journey. Joining Nuala is Yansie Rolston, one of the editors and contributor Yvonne Witter.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Lucinda Montefiore

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 and welcome to Woman's Hour. Good to have your company. We have the Chief Inspector of Probation, Justin Russell, in a moment in a radio exclusive interview. The Inspectorate's new report looking at the probation service found that only 28% of people on probation had been properly assessed as to whether they were at risk of committing further domestic abuse. And that is just one of the findings. We're going to hear more about what the Inspectorate considers failures and also the potential solutions. Also, black and menopausal. We'll hear from black women

about their experience of the menopause. You know, stories that often go unheard and unspoken. My guests are trying to change that. I will also speak to a woman who has recreated gravestone recipes. Yes, people put recipes on their gravestones and it got us thinking, what dish would you like to be remembered for and why? Is it your spaghetti bolognese, your strawberry cheesecake, or if you're like me, cheese on toast? Anyway, what recipe could it be

that you want to be remembered by? Or indeed, what recipe did a loved one take to the grave and all you're left with is a delicious memory? For me, it's every time I take a bite of a chocolate chip cookie. I think this is not as good as the ones my late great aunt made. But we never got the recipe. You can text the programme. The number is 84844 on social media.

We're at BBC Woman's Hour, or you can email us through our website. If it's a WhatsApp message or a voice note that you'd like to send to us, that number is 03700 100 444. Do get in touch. Also today, a bar is due to open in Portsmouth this month, themed on Jack the Ripper. We're going to hear from my guest, Hallie Rubenhold,

who has written about the Ripper's victims, and she is calling for less emphasis and less attention on the notorious killer. So that conversation also coming up. But let us begin with probation, the time when a person is serving their sentence but not in prison. A report by the HM Inspectorate of Probation has found there are too many at risk of domestic abuse by people on probation. And this is a report that is five years in the making.

The Inspectorate looked at how successful the probation service is at reducing domestic abuse and protecting victims. Women, you may know, are disproportionately affected by domestic abuse with an estimated 1.7 million female victims last year. And in his first radio interview, I'm joined by the Chief Inspector of Probation, Justin Russell. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Thank you very much, Nuala. Great to be here. So there are a lot of figures in your findings.

I want to go through some of them. Let me begin with this. 30% of those on probation, which is approximately 75,000 people, are current or previous perpetrators of domestic abuse. Explain to my listener how that translates to potential risk. It is a very large number and it's taken from the probation service's own records and it covers a variety of behaviours and attitudes. It includes coercive control, includes other family members, not just intimate partners, and includes people who may present a risk to future partners.

We looked at a sample of 60 of those 75,000 people on probation and we found that whole range of behaviour. We found that 60% of them had been a domestic abuse risk for at least four years. So are there offences for which they're on probation for? Are they related to domestic abuse? Sometimes they will have committed an assault or domestic abuse, assault or a breach to restraining order but quite often they've committed other sorts of offence which might be criminal damage or other property offences but in the course of an assessment the probation service identifies that they may be a risk to their family or to their partner. So that is one of the figures that I want to lay out there. Another was 45%

of your sample who should have had access to an intervention did not. What would that intervention be? There are a range of interventions that the Probation Service can offer. For the highest risk offenders, there's a programme called Building Better Relationships, BBR, which is a 24-week group session aimed at tackling people's abusive thinking and behaviours. We found that about 6,700 of those requirements had been attached to sentences, but less than half had actually started by the time we came to inspect the service, and only 187 had actually been completed. So we're finding very low completion rates and low referral rates to

other options as well. There was also one more figure that I'll give my listeners. 28% of people on probation, only 28% I should say, had been sufficiently assessed for any risks of further domestic abuse. There are also these huge caseloads for probation officers, which we can get to in a moment. But what about that figure? That was a very worrying figure. We were finding weaknesses at every stage of the probation supervision of these people on probation.

And it's crucial that you get the assessment right at the beginning of that process, because without the right assessment, you don't have the right plan and you're not offering the right intervention. So we were finding that assessments were using too narrow a definition of a domestic abuse. They weren't looking at children in the household or other family members. They weren't spotting examples of previous domestic abuse behaviour in the person's previous history. So this is over five years you've been doing it, as I mentioned. The report has said there's been minimal positive change. strategy which covers all aspects of probation work. They need much better information sharing between the police, children's services and the probation services. All too often, probation officers aren't making the necessary inquiries with the police to see there's been call outs to someone's address or there's other intelligence.

We need to, as you said, make sure there are high quality assessments. And then once you've assessed someone, you need to make sure they're getting the interventions they need to try and stop that abusive behaviour in the future. But with that domestic violence strategy or domestic abuse, is there nothing there? There's a policy framework, which unfortunately, officers aren't always followed. There's quite a good national leadership group, which brings together leaders from across the service with an interest in domestic abuse. But what there isn't is an overarching strategy, which covers everything from assessment to interventions, to whether cases are being reviewed, we particularly feel they need to sort out this issue of the interventions that are offered to people on

probation, we couldn't find any data on the completion rates for those. There's never been an evaluation of the outcomes in terms of whether they actually reduce re-offending or not. So that work isn't being done. But what is this a question of then? Is the solution more money? The government are saying they're investing an extra £155 million a year into the service

to deliver tougher supervision of offenders and recruit of course there's a big part of it record numbers of staff i mean how far does that go there is a big drive to recruit more probation officers at the moment 1500 more trainees are being recruited each year but we're still finding gaps in staffing two out of the six areas we visited they had less than 60 percent of their target staffing levels and that means that people who are a domestic abuse risk just aren't getting the contact they need they're being contacted by phone or when they are coming in they're getting very brief contacts we were talking to perpetrators as you said they traveled eight miles for an appointment and only had six minutes

of the probation officer or they're seeing multiple different probation officers so these were the perpetrators these are the perpetrators that we spoke to about about the courses that they'd been under the contact that they'd had and we found nearly 60 percent of these perpetrators weren't getting sufficient contact with a probation officer what do they want i think many of them do do want to try and tackle their behavior those who had been able to start an intervention a program and there weren't enough of those did welcome welcome, generally welcomed that intervention, felt they'd learnt from that. They wanted help following up from the learning that they'd had from that. And we also need to make sure that we're supporting their partners as well. And the probation service has a service for the partners of

perpetrators. But again, we found some gaps in the way that that operated. Why do you think the recruitment is such a tricky issue that the numbers aren't there? I think the recruitment is going well. It's the issue is hanging on to people. Retention. It's retention. They're losing a lot of the more experienced staff. And why do they leave, do you think?

I think they're being burnt out. I mean, I think if you look at the sickness rates in the probation service, on average, 15 days days a year being lost per probation officers through sickness half of that is because of stress and mental health so it's not necessarily about salaries although that's obviously an issue I think it's just as much about burnout very high caseloads and people feeling the work isn't manageable at the moment. I did see Lucy Hadley the head of policy at Women's Aid said in in response to your report, these findings are alarming. It's unacceptable that so many women and children are put at risk of further domestic abuse from perpetrators who are on probation. So what should those women or the people that are guarding those children do when these are some of the findings that you have,

that they could be at risk from somebody being out on probation when they're still dangerous? Well, if their partner is on probation and they're worried about the supervision or they're worried about the risk to themselves, then I'd encourage them to get in touch with the probation service to raise their concerns. There is a process by which people can ask for information about a new partner from the police, what's called Clare's Law. So there are ways that you can ask for disclosure about someone's past history. There are obviously a range of organisations that support the victims of domestic abuse.

You mentioned Women's Aid and they were on our expert reference group. There's also organisations that work with the perpetrators of domestic violence to try and stop that behaviour. There's an organisation called Safe Lives that runs an excellent programme called DRIVE that we'd like to see expanded and made more use of. So there are services out there and we're really encouraging the probation service to work with those services. But, you know, I feel I've been in this position

a couple of times that a report comes out and the findings are there. And if we look back a number of years ago, those issues were there as well and that there is not enough positive change. I mean, what does a report like this really do if you're just underlining what was said previously? It is frustrating. Last time we looked at this issue was 2018 and it was depressing that we haven't seen more progress since then. And actually, in some of our data has got worse since then.

We've made a number of recommendations both in this report and in our local inspection reports it's particularly important to get that information sharing right to make sure the police are sharing the intelligence they have about the risks that someone might pose and i think there are signs of progress around that i talked to the chief probation officer this morning who said there are definitely improvements in the proportion of cases where probation officers are asking and receiving that intelligence back from the police. And that will really help get the assessments right at the beginning of the process. Let me also talk about children.

They are now legally recognised as domestic abuse victims in their own right. How does that impact or does it into probation practice? You're right to flag that the 2021 Domestic Abuse Act does now include children. Our interviews with probation officers showed they hadn't really caught up with that new legislation and in less than half the cases that we looked at had they probably considered the safety of children when they were doing their assessments. So the service needs to catch up with where the legislation now is, I think. Because you do mention in your report about councils and child safeguarding. What are the concerns?

We found that the relationship between probation and children's services isn't always great. Probation should be making safeguarding inquiries with children's services when someone has access to children or children in the house, just to make sure if they've got any information about that and those inquiries aren't happening enough and they're not being followed up with children's services. The government do say that they're investing a further four million pounds to work with children's services to access that children's safeguarding information but again let's talk about solutions is this what it comes back to, purely more money? No, I think, as you've said,

there has been greater investment in the probation service over the last two or three years. That is translating into more recruitment, but it means there are a large number of inexperienced and untrained staff who now need to get up to speed to know the legislation to receive the proper training of there to be effective. So I think we're moving on now from money to effectiveness to training to people doing the job. But I wonder when it comes to caseloads,

because your findings also found where probation officers had smaller caseloads, some of the work being done was very good. Yeah, we found some positive practice in Cardiff where they have a specialist, what they call the wisdom team, where you have probation staff working alongside police to manage the highest risk domestic abuse offenders. And they have smaller cases and we did definitely see better practice in that case.

And I mean, with that, we talked about, of course, some of the challenges that probation officers are up against, but what would it take for caseloads to go down? telling us they expect to be back up to full staffing by the end of this calendar year. So I am hopeful that that position will improve. But you then need to properly train, mentor and skill up those new staff. What other positives did you find in the report? Well, as I said, we think there are improvements in the way that the police are working with probation service to share intelligence again talking about cardiff for example there is now a pretty automatic system where the police if they have a report of someone on probation committing uh coming to their attention they will automatically share that

with the probation so there's a live feed if you like of that sort of information we are seeing good leadership at a national level in terms of people really wanting to do the right thing. I think the thing now is to see the evidence that's making a difference on the ground. A listener got in touch, he says, I asked Justin if the probation service is also working with women on probation who are also victims of abuse about their risk of further abuse. Yeah, in our sample, we found that about 10% of the cases that we were looking at involved a woman who had committed domestic abuse, either against a partner or against someone else in their family. What we found often was that those women had also themselves been victims of abuse. And that could sometimes be a difficult thing for a probation officer to manage, to both deal with their own victimisation and the fact that they were a perpetrator but

certainly they are part of the caseload yes. Somebody else getting in touch says prison officer jobs I haven't looked at this myself this is from a listener it says they've looked online now the salaries are just up to 30,000 starting at 23,000 awful says the listener. It is there has been a longer term pay deal for the probation service, which will increase those salaries by about £5,000 over three years. And I think the service is hoping that will help to retain people in the service. It's certainly those more experienced staff that they really need to hang on to, to mentor all these new trainees that are coming through. So we've talked about money, we've talked about retention. Is there another solution that you'd put forward if you had a

magic wand i think just encouraging the service to to look outwards to the other organizations that share the same mission in their areas to work closely with women's aid with refuge with the other organizations to jointly train with them to think about the services that why are they not you would think that would have been always part of the practice you you would think so i think it may have been in the past. I think because some of the probation staff are less specialists now in these cases, they haven't built up that knowledge. And obviously a lot of them are new to the service. But that's one of our key recommendations is look out, join up with other agencies,

do learn from their expertise, do joint training with them and try and improve that way of working together. Chief Inspector of Probation, Justin Russell, thank you so much. I will just read another part from the government spokesperson's statement, which says victims of domestic abuse deserve to feel safe. The government has radically improved the support and protections available to them over the past decade, including enshrining protections in law through the domestic abuse act quadrupling funding for victim support and ensuring serious abusers convicted of controlling or coercive behavior are listed on the violent and sex offender register now we're going to move on on woman's hour next to something many of you are getting in touch here's one my mom's shepherd's pie made in the 40s until i left home in 1970 she used the remains of the sunday joint lots of

onions but the best bit was the crispy potato around the dish i've never been able to copy it why are they getting in touch because i wanted to know what recipe will you be remembered for and why or is there a recipe that was taken to the grave and that you haven't been able to replicate um because you might have seen this week right there was the talk of boil in the bag funerals what they're touted at is an eco-friendly funeral solution to cremation i think it's a questionable term but it did get us thinking about death, our bodies, what we pass on to our families and what we might write on our gravestone. So my next guest has some ideas on all of that. Back in early 2022, she's a librarian, she's an archivist.

Her name is Rosie Grant, and she found a cookie recipe written on a gravestone in a New York cemetery. And she decided to bake them and see what they tasted like but she didn't stop there oh no she has gone on to recreate over 20 tombstone recipes from across the states including cookies fudge party dip and she stayed up very late or she's got up very early whatever way we'd like to call this to join us right now and tell us a little bit more. You're very welcome, Rosie. Hi, thanks for having me. So what possessed you to begin this journey? It was a little bit of a weird start. I was interning at a cemetery in their digital archives at Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C.

And part of my library science program, I also was in a class that had us create social media accounts from scratch and just post about a topic. And so I made my account just about my cemetery internship and was just what I was learning in the death industry. And so I was featuring different gravestones that were interesting and just different ways people were memorialized. And that's how I first heard about the Spritz cookie gravestone in Brooklyn, New York, which was the grave of Naomi Odessa Miller Dawson. And yeah, she had a cookie recipe on hers. And it wasn't even just that like she liked cookies. It was like the instructions to like make her cookies. And then

I posted it on TikTok and I got a lot of response from people being like, my mom made this recipe or my family has this recipe or this would be my recipe. And so while learning more about Naomi, I learned there were other people who did the same thing. So I just kind of kept going in that area. It's quite something I had never heard of it before. How did the cookies taste, by the way? Amazing. It's like a really, really good recipe. And they've actually all been incredible recipes. Not too complicated, which is really nice. You know, they fit onto a gravestone. But yeah, they're incredible.

I was thinking about that, particularly the instructions as well. I was like, how big was the gravestone? Nearly all of the people who added recipes to their graves that you've been looking at were women um majority yeah what do you think about that i love it i mean um when it comes to like i guess when people decide to be memorialized for uh there's a few women so there's one woman in particular named um peggy neil who uh her gravestone is in arkansas but she's actually still alive. And so I interviewed her. Why did you decide to put this on your grave? And she was she had a sugar cookie on her gravestone. And she was like, I was really proud of this. Like when I thought about what did I want to be

memorialized for and remembered for was this cookie recipe that she would send her kids to school with. The teachers would ask for it. Her friends would ask for it. She'd bring it to dinner parties. And when it came to like the end of, like just planning for like the end of her legacy and what she wanted to pass on to her family, she was like, this recipe was so important to me. So I think as far as like, you know, women,

whether you are equating it to like any sort of like giving and sharing. But I think for them, at least the women who have like read their obituaries or talked to family members, they were just like very giving and generous people. And they just wanted to share something with others. Would you like to hear from some of our listeners? And they're the ones they want to put on their gravestones or the ones that got away, the ones that others took to the grave. Let me see. Here's Margaret. She says, the one I'll be remembered for is corned beef pie. I was taught to make it at school at 11. I've made it for every major event since. The first meal in a

new home, the arrival of the first grandchild. It always reminds me and hopefully my children of home. Here's another. Debbie Paella. That would be my recipe to be remembered by. I'm not Spanish, but I've spent most of my life adoring the taste of traditional Spanish food. My family have filmed me

doing my thing with a party paella on many occasions as it's a bit of a drama. We have had one for the most special occasions, anniversaries, weddings, numerous birthdays.

It's all about the saffron and not the stirring. Plus a few secret ingredients that we might only find out in later years. Let me see. Clouty dumpling. My granny used to make

a lovely clouty dumpling. I don't know what that is. For birthdays and Hagamene, which she'd put sixpence in. I tried to keep the tradition, but it doesn't taste like when granny made it. You see, there is, it's tied up with certain people, right? Even if sometimes you recreate the recipe. Yes, absolutely. I mean, I think my, both of my grandmothers passed away during the pandemic. And one of them made this yellow cake for all of

our birthdays growing up and when we were at her funeral we were like we all want her cake so badly like if only we could have her cake one last time and my mom was like you know that's just box cake right like it's yellow box cake with chocolate frosting that she just like and box cake you mean something that's in the store storeable something in the store Something that's in the store that's not a homemade cake. I mean, it was in the sense that she would add eggs and oil to it and mix it together and bake it. But it was so tied up with our memory of her and our birthdays and her celebrating each and every one of her family members

and tasting it. I think about her. And so, yeah, I totally agree. It's with the person. A Clouty pudding, I've been told by my producer, is a traditional steamed Scottish pudding made with dried fruit and spices. Now that's something I like the sound of.

Here's another. I feel my dying recipe ought to be my mung bean casserole. It was always bubbling in a large stockpot at our boozy parties. A glorious mix of mung beans, succulent courgette, green bell pepper, mushrooms and celery in a spicy tomato base and finished with a dash of lemon juice served with pita, rice or baked spud and lashings of vegan mayo. Got me drooling even thinking about it.

Oh my gosh, that sounds incredible. We have some more. Isabel, I've been trying for 50 years since my grandmother died, taking her recipes to the grave to reproduce her amazing apple cake. Still not happy with my own versions. And I am not allowed into family Christmas celebrations without my passion fruit and raspberry meringue roulette. Wow. Oh, my gosh, these recipes. I'm like salivating at them. I have more. I have more coming in. Oh, my gosh. Let me see. I don't have the name of this emailer, but they say it would have been mum's 100th birthday today. Oh, my goodness. Thank you for getting in touch.

She was a mum to six and grandma to 14 and great grandma too. And wherever she went, she took a homemade cake. After a visit to Australia in 1979, she bought a pavlova dish. It was not as well known in the UK then. And that would make, she would make the most amazing pavlovas and earned the nickname Nana Pavlova.

Oh, gosh. They're terrific, right? We have another one. My grandma died in 1979 taking her lancashire parkin recipe with her from 1910 i do i have the recipe but it has never worked for any of us since she died wow it goes to show like food legacy like i mean this is amazing that people even have like a dish that they can like somewhat remember and adhere to but like you know food legacy in a family like how did how did

grandma cook it how did my mom or dad make a dish like what was their technique what ingredients did they have accessible like it's everything goes into those like food memories it sure does just before I let you go Rosie um what's going to be on your gravestone? What a strange question to ask somebody. Now that we're on the topic of it. I make a clam linguine that I really, really like. That's probably like my favorite thing

to make for dinner parties. And it's also not too complicated to fit onto an epitaph. So probably that. I love a clam linguine. Thanks so much for joining us. Lots of food for thought with Rosie Grant, our librarian and archivist, who is finding recipes on gravestones.

Now on Women's Hour, let me turn to a different topic. Since 2014, researcher and trainer Dr. Yancey Ralston has been exploring and disentangling the black experience of menopause. Out of her work has come an anthology, Black and Menopausal, Intimate Stories of Navigating the Change. It's co-edited with Yancey and Yvonne Christie. Should I say Yvonne Christie is her co-editor. They also have a film, Our Menopause, that's directed by Nicola Cross, based on women's experiences who gathered together over a weekend.

Let's listen to a short clip. I'm grateful for you to be putting on this weekend that's brought women together. And for a woman to say that she has never spoken about menopause and she's in her 50s in 2022 was heartbreaking. I didn't know that menopause was a secret

i just experienced silence i felt like i was losing my mind but i was i didn't i didn't have anyone that could talk to her some very tetchy the slightest thing sends me off the rails you know the night sweats the insomnia the in myself. Even if the letterbox moved, something... Yeah, yeah. Do you know? Tax returns. You know? Everything. I was like a monster. I just didn't understand what was happening to me.

And I was thinking, why didn't the doctor say... When I went to the GP and I tell him what I'm experiencing, why didn't he say say maybe you're going through menopause, he didn't say a thing to me Right, so many of the stories coming out there, I am joined now by Yancey Ralston and Yvonne Witter one of the participants, at that weekend

we were eavesdropping on and also a contributor to the anthology and the book, it's not a result of empirical data but it is intimate stories about women's experiences. So let me start with you, Yancey, and welcome. Your reasons for putting together the book? As you've seen from the little clips you showed there, women want their stories to be told.

We have been seeing a lot of conversation and a lot of media on menopause, but as Black women, Black people, we weren't seeing ourselves represented there. And traditionally, historically and culturally, we use storytelling as a way of empowering ourselves and gaining information. So we told our stories. And what was your experience of the menopause? I had surgically induced menopause because I had fibroids, but knew nothing about it. I wasn't told that that was to expect that as part of the surgical menopause because I had fibroids. I thought I was losing my mind as a mental health practitioner. I thought I was having a mental health breakdown, but couldn't help myself.

So I went to the doctor and he advised me that I was going through menopause. But because I previously had cancer, the conversation just went back to my cancer recovery. No mention about menopause. He offered, he said, you couldn't have HRT because of the cancer, but you could have antidepressants. And that was the end of the conversation. So I decided I need to find out what is there. You went and you talked, but there was among many women, black women, a reluctance from perhaps, whether it was their mothers or their community now,

to talk about it. Well, absolutely. I mean, one of the things is they didn't know what they were going through themselves. They didn't understand it. But it's also shouted in shame and embarrassment. So some people were saying, but why are you talking about menopause? Keep your business at home. The other thing is, why are you trying to raise this topic

when no one else is talking about it? This was quite difficult. I looked in the academia, the papers to see what was there, and there was not any research apart from one paper. I couldn't find anything that spoke about Black experiences of menopause. So I decided to travel to countries in the world where there was majority Black populations and immerse myself in the cultures. Some of it was to ask questions, but a lot of it was just to live in those spaces for a couple of weeks and see what older people my age and a bit older were doing to cope with whatever it is they were going through. Because in some places,

menopause wasn't actually a word. It wasn't a term they understood. It was just they were going into eldership. So that's where I decided, well, I'm going to bring some women together and write this book. Eldership is an interesting word as well, because I think of respect if I think of an elder. I mean, was that there? Did you encounter that at all? Absolutely. That was the key to it. It was as the women were becoming older in some of the countries I went to,

they were considered wiser. So for the most part, they were talking about the body was getting older, but the mind was getting sharper because they had so many years of wisdom behind them. And there was this respect for elders. And it wasn't, you know, they say respect is earned, it's not given. They earned by virtue of their age, but also the fact that they were storytelling, they were passing on knowledge. I want to turn to Yvonne for a moment and to a different

age really Yvonne because in your piece Understanding My Limitations you describe going into early menopause what happened and welcome. Hi thank you for having me us I should say. What happened was that I just found myself having hot flushes and night sweats and slight memory fog. And I thought that was it. I thought that was all exactly. I turned up at the GP at some point and asked for support and I got some HRT patches which I wore for a while and then one day I was feeling nauseous and I took it off, I never put them back on again. I decided to look at alternative health so I went to health shop and asked about products I could do. I can't remember what I had so I went to a health shop and asked about products I can't remember what I had now because it's a while back

but yeah I decided to go the alternative health route and take some teas and some vitamins and things like that but did you feel did you feel you were being heard did you have other people that you were able to speak to about these symptoms? No, not at all.

I mean, I think in my family, we heard my aunties and stuff talking about the change. And as a young woman, you think it's nothing to do with you. It's the change. And so you weren't part nothing to do with you it's i don't you know the change and so you didn't you didn't you weren't part of the conversation you know um so that's as far as i knew i think somewhere along the line i i i heard about hot flushes and i thought that was it it was only until um yancy um started the conversation around menopause and invited, during COVID, we hosted Zoom chats for women around women's health. And menopause was also a theme there.

And it was through a long series of discussions and the weekend that we organized for women that I realized there's a whole raft of symptoms. And I myself recently realised that things that occurred periods in my life when I was anxiety ridden, made some crazy decisions, selling my home, drastic life-changing decisions were probably due to being in a menopausal state.

And how severe was the anxiety? You say it led you to sell your home. I was horrid. Yeah, it was horrid. I was trying to escape myself, essentially, you know, as if you can run away from yourself. I just wanted to escape. And yeah, I had intense anxiety.

Didn't realise, I didn't even realise it was anxiety. Just had this horrible feeling. You know, everything's retrospective, isn't it it during the time I was working I was successful I didn't have anything to be anxiety ridden about when I look back you know I wasn't in debt I didn't have a anything but just everything was huge you know if I had to call a workman in to fix something it was a huge thing yeah and looking back the hindsight is 2020 yeah yeah when i hear other women talking about their experience i'm thinking oh my goodness when i see the the list extensive list of symptoms and things that women can experience i'm like oh my god i can relate to that one and that one it's it's quite something to watch part of the weekend, which is the film

and just that openness and candid exchange of stories that people were experiencing, being seen or heard for the first time. Yancey, I was struck by one of the essays. This is The Mask of Professionalism

by Sandra Wilson. And towards the end, she writes, menopause has helped me be more myself. I no longer choose to wear the professional mask at all. Tell us a little about Sandra.

Absolutely. So Sandra was a work colleague, actually. We worked in local government together. And she was very much toying the line and doing the right thing or what was meant to be the right thing within the work situation. But subsequently, as she was going on the menopause journey, she started recognizing

that actually I need to be my own person and own it. It comes with a bit of vulnerability because we're talking 2011 when Sandra and I had our first mothers and daughters conversation. So six mothers, six daughters. So from then to now, I can see the change in Sandra. Sandra recognizes that change in her. Because the shame is still there in some spaces in our community. But she owns it and talks about the venipose.

And in the workplace, she's like, I'm not going to put up with nonsense. I'm going to call it out for what it is. I want workplaces to understand that some of us are going through particular challenges and we need support. No more. We're going to stop the job, resign, have another job,

whatever it is. So she fights for that. And I also saw there was a woman who talked about she's going to get as many piercings and tattoos as she likes because it makes her feel better about herself going through this. And I loved that ownership

that people were taking of it. But you do keep coming back again and again that it just isn't talked about, perhaps in the same way as it has been in white circles, particularly over the past couple of years, shall we say. Can you see that changing, Yancey? Oh, absolutely. Actually, I'm that woman who spoke about the tattoos and piercings.

But yes, absolutely. We are trying to change the narrative because you look at the media and you look at the papers and you begin to think it's actually, it's a white thing. And when we don't see ourselves in it, it's a struggle for us to identify, particularly because we experience medical gaslighting, you know, the institutional racism and all of these things when we try to access good quality healthcare. So we have to speak with our peers and come together as collectives to kind of fill some of those gaps

that we should be getting care in the healthcare service. Yes, and we've talked about that before, the issues that black women will come up against within the medical establishment. But, you know, there was also in the book, you say that black women are more likely to have early menopause.

Are the reasons for that known? So some of the reasons are fibroids is one of the things. So Yvonne and I, we both had fibroids. We both had hysterectomy because of the fibroids. My experience, I wasn't told that menopause would be a consequence. And that's happening because Black women are much more likely to have fibroids. And that's one of the reasons. But the research isn't really being done

on Black bodies. Backtrack. Now, more people are interested in doing research on black bodies, but previously there wasn't much research on black bodies. So they're still trying to find out cause and effect. And a lot of the conversations now around HRT, this is my take on it, there needs to be a lot more research in places where the black population are the majority to find out what works. So, for example, they say yam has natural estrogen. Women in particular countries on the African continent, their symptoms are less. Is it because they eat yam, they eat a lot of fermented foods? Some of them do a lot of squat, they carry things on their heads.

We don't know. This is a call out for some research. I understand you're calling for the research, putting some of those things out there. Really moving stories. Really beautiful film as well. Thank you so much, Yancey Ralston and Yvonne Witter for telling your stories.

Black and Menopausal is the name of the book. Now, a bar is due to open in Portsmouth this month and it's themed on Jack the Ripper. It is described, let me quote, as an immersive cocktail and dining experience with a modern horror twist. Now, the publicity features a young woman in Victorian dress being followed at night by a mysterious man.

Objections have been raised to the idea of trading on the notoriety of a mass murderer. However, their alcohol licence has now been granted by the City Council and there's clearly a lot of local interest in the business already. The owner has said, and I quote, there is always a fine line when working on things like this. We're working really hard not to upset anyone, unquote. I got to speak to Hallie Rubenhold. She is author of The Five.

It's a book which painstakingly reconstructs the lives of the five women who were killed by the so-called Ripper. That's in 1888. And I asked Hallie what her reaction was to this bar opening. Oh, well, I mean, it's just more of the same, isn't it? I mean, it's just more of the same, isn't it? I mean, it's more of the same turning Jack the Ripper into a fun night out.

You know, making Jack the Ripper into a sort of scary costume figure. Not really considering that Jack the Ripper was a real person who murdered real people. Do you think that's it? That people who are going or who are intrigued by this idea don't think of Jack the Ripper as a real person? Yeah, I think so. I mean, I've heard all sorts of people say things about, oh, well, you know what happened so long ago, who really cares. And, you know, it's just a lot of fun. But then what's, what's quite interesting is that I've also encountered

people who've had their minds really changed, you know, come up to me and who've said, you know, I used to be really obsessed with this case, I used to be really obsessed with Jack the Ripper, and I found it all really interesting and, you know, I wanted to know who he was and all of this information about him and how he killed the women. And then I read about the women and then I realized, oh, well, maybe it's better that I actually look at this in the round and understand who these people were and come to terms with the fact that these were horrific violent crimes which were perpetrated on ordinary women on on on people on real people and would you name the five victims for our listeners? Yes, they were Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly.

And you reconstructed the lives of these women for your book, The Five. How did you do that? Well, you know, the interesting thing about this is in the past, people tended to just focus on trying to figure out who Jack the Ripper's identity was. And so there's a whole lot of information about that. There isn't a huge amount written. Well, there wasn't very much at all written about who the women were. But the most fascinating thing is actually we know more about them than we know about him. There's more about them in the detail, do research, figure out who

these women were and put them in the context of their era. So we may not know the absolute precise thoughts and feelings of these women, but we will know the experiences of women just like them, who were going through similar things at the same time like giving birth in workhouse infirmaries or trying to raise children on almost no money um you know all of these types of things that are incredibly well documented and so it was about putting these women within a context of their time and understanding their experiences and understanding who they were through that. How do you understand the obsession with Jack the Ripper? I mean, you know, we're talking about this bar, but there are, you don't have to look too far from where I am to find a tour in London that focuses on him and about his crimes?

Well, you know, I mean, I think a lot of people are really surprised when I say that I think these tours, you know, we're never going to stop the tours. And I'm not so sure stopping the tours, and I say this with air quotes, is actually really a good thing. I mean, people have been touring the East End, almost within days of the first woman being murdered. And people have a natural curiosity to understand about what happened. And so I wouldn't want to, I wouldn't want to kind of

ban this. But what I would really like is if people really tried to understand who these women were and the way and to try to tell the story in a slightly different way, which wasn't about figuring out who he was, but understanding the context, understanding the time, understanding the women and their lives and their lives were mysterious to us and are still in some ways mysterious to us because we don't have all the details of their lives and so if you're looking for mystery there's inherent mystery in in them um and you know their lives were so rich and the experiences of women at the time were so rich and and are so untold today. And I think there's just so much more to discover about it. It's so interesting, a lot of the aspects that you bring up there. But it does seem to be that the obsession is on the mystery of Jack the Ripper as opposed to these women. And I believe you, for example, were on the receiving end of some Ripper fans that didn't like that you were putting the emphasis on the women how did you understand that

oh god it was awful I mean it's I I what did they say by the way how did those Ripper fans make their feelings known it's but I god you know I mean I've done a sort of deep dive into trying to understand what exactly was going on with this and I mean I think it's really complex and it's really about personalities and it's about stepping on egos and you know there are there are a whole community of people who feel a sort of ownership over these women and their stories and over Jack the Ripper and the entire narrative like they are the only ones who have ever done any research and know anything about this. And it's really extraordinary because the moment an outsider,

someone like me, comes in and says, well, actually, there's another way of looking at these stories. And you can look at it through this perspective and you can look at it through the women's eyes and you can look here and you can put it together like this and and it was this sort of outrage how dare this woman come in and tell us we've been doing this wrong i've been studying this for decades and you know and and we certainly would have found this out if it were true and and so i was called a liar i i was

accused of just wanting to cash in on all of this. You know, and there's a real lot of gatekeeping going on, you know, that they're the only ones who could possibly ever know anything about Jack the Ripper. It was terrible. I mean, I was I was I was trolled for years. I'm still occasionally trolled by these people. And and I had a stalker as well um off the back of this and uh it's just it's it's it's very very unwell it's a I think you know you can be interested in Jack the Ripper of course we we all have a kind of natural interest in you know in these terrifying things that make our skin crawl but I think then it gets to a point where you can be too obsessed and too interested. So the depth of feeling I find very striking as you describe it there.

I'm curious as well, because this is Women's Hour, was there a gender divide, for example, in those people that were obsessed with Jack the Ripper? Yeah, mostly men. Not not surprisingly i'd say about 90 percent um 90 percent men um and roughly i mean these are just rough numbers about 10 percent women um but you know i mean that's that's not to say you know men and women are interested in this and you know as as you may know women are very interested in true crime it's one of those yes strikes a chord with women well why why do you think that is well you know i think there have been studies about this i mean and certainly the first thing i would say is i'm i'm not a criminologist so i wouldn't you know i

haven't done any any real research into answering this question but from my my sense about this is there is for women an almost primal desire to know where the threat is coming from who the threat is what the threat looks like and how to defend oneself against it and there's there's a you know real urge to understand this and um and at the same time there's something vaguely titillating about it because you're horrifying yourself but you're horrifying yourself from a sort of safe place you feel safe in that moment when you're listening to a podcast or you're reading about something or watching something on television and you can retreat into your safe space. But I also think, you know, it is, there is a kind of almost a thirst for knowledge, which is a type of self-defence that women have

around true crime. And circling back then to the bar, I mean, that's what you're talking about there with women. I can understand, but it doesn't intersect with going out for a night of cocktails in a bar that has a Jack the Ripper theme. No, I mean, this is I mean, this is a real problem and it's a real problem with regard to how our culture understands Jack the Ripper and what it means. You know, it's a sort of joke, it's a gag to some people, it's a Halloween costume, it's not a real thing. You know, the reality is this person or persons brutally murdered five, maybe more women, but certainly five we know of, five women who were on the margins of society, who had addiction issues, who were living horrible lives, who were very vulnerable. And this person brutally murdered these women. And, you know, this caused ripples throughout

their community. It was terrible for their families. And, you know, this caused ripples throughout their community. And, you know, it was terrible for their families. And, you know, and they have descendants alive today. And one of them, a descendant of Annie Chapman, lives near Portsmouth. You know, he's the great, great grandson of Annie Chapman, the second victim. And, you know, he's not thrilled about this. So we have to think, you you know these were real women and jack the ripper was a real person this isn't like it's not jekyll and hyde it's not dracula you know who were all written about at the same time this is a real person who killed real women

it's interesting you say that because even reading about the bar i did see jack the ripper wrapped up with the same names as sweeney Todd a fictional character Pennywise a fictional character for some reason there is not that a division of understanding perhaps among some just one last thing I was just thinking about when you were telling us about these women and even that that people in London were going out just days after it happened to try and understand. Do you think that fascination of true crime is more acute when it is a man that has murdered a woman? That, you know, that's very, very interesting. I think true crime is fascinating no matter who commits it. I think certainly the male crimes, the male perpetrators seem to have a higher profile than any female criminals.

And they seem to be turned in, and I hate to say this, and my toes are curling literally as I'm saying this, they become almost like rock stars. And that's grotesque. You know, so you have, you know, these names that we know, Jack the Ripper, Ted Bundy, you know, Jeffrey Dahmer, who killed men. You know, and we remember these names and we can rattle them off. But why? Why do we remember these names? What's rattle them off. But why? Why do we remember these names? What's the point of that? It's horrific. Instead of remembering the victims.

Instead of remembering the victims. That's Hallie Rubenhold, author of The Five. Thanks to her. We did approach the owner of Ripper & Co. Portsmouth for a, Dan Swan, told us we are working with Portsmouth City Council and looking to partner up with a women's rights charity going forward to help raise awareness in the near future. We've moved away from original plans in terms of the decor in the venue and theming it on

more classic movie horror characters. He also said that the news of the bar opening had been met with excitement and positive comments. Councillor Ian Holder, Cabinet Member for Safety in the Community at Portsmouth City Council said venue names aren't covered by licensing laws however we are in direct contact with the owner of the bar to highlight and address people's understandable concerns as part of the work we're already doing with venues to tackle violence against women and girls. We're working with partner organisations in the city

to establish a network of businesses and venues where staff are trained to look out for abusive behaviour and support those who have experienced harassment or sexual violence. Now I was asking you at the beginning of the programme, and you have responded, recipes you want

to be remembered by, they might go in your gravestone, or the ones that got away. Shall we go through the last couple? Pauline, me and my sister have our great grandmother's Xmas pudding,

Christmas pudding, which had golden label batley wine or stout that can go in it. It's rich and gorgeous and my mum used to enjoy the rest. Oh, it's barley wine

is what she meant. Barley wine in the four pack. Lovely one. Here's one. I like this. It's about grandmother's cake. It says, my granny's gingerbread cake,

almost black in colour with almonds on top with many, many attempts. And still it's not dark enough or rich enough or sticky enough. Maybe it's karma for pinching it from under her larder. That's from Isabel.

Another one, Alison. I've always been a hopeless cook. So much so, when I made Toad in the Hole, my three children renamed it Frog in the Bog. I'm hoping I shan't be remembered for this on my gravestone. That's Alison. And here's Michelle having the last word. She says, I'm simply leaving the recipe for making the perfect gin martini. One of the secrets is chilling the glasses first. No one needs to be slaving away in the kitchen when bereaved. They can toast my memory with it. I'll talk to you tomorrow.

That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the greatest storyteller of all to countless fans worldwide the answer is Walt Disney I'm Mel Gedroych and in my radio 4 podcast Walt Disney a life in films I'm leaping through the looking glass and entering the world of the man behind the mouse who was the real Walt Disney and how did somebody who moulded Western pop culture in his image end up on his deathbed afraid that he'd be forgotten?

Through the stories of ten of his greatest works, I'll be separating what's fact and what's fiction when it comes to this much-mythologised genius. Listen now on BBC Sounds. 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.