Woman's Hour - Puberty blockers - parents' reaction, Pottery, Power List : Diane Gilpin, A Girl from Mogadishu - Ifrah Ahmed

Episode Date: December 10, 2020

Last week the High Court ruled that it was ‘unlikely that children under 16 could give informed consent to puberty blocking drugs. The Tavistock - which runs the only clinics in the UK that have been offering this treatment on the NHS – is seeking to appeal the judgement. Meanwhile NHS England have suspended all new referrals for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for the under 16’s. Children already on the drugs will have their cases reviewed, and a court order will be required to start or to continue treatment. We asked you to get in touch if you were affected. Today, we hear from ‘Jen’ – not her real name – whose 14 year old was due to start assessment for puberty blockers this week. On Friday, a parent we’re calling Nicola who has serious concerns about this treatment for her child, talks to us.Around 90% of the goods we buy spend at least some of their life travelling the world's oceans. Cargo ships are efficient in terms of cost but burn large quantities of thick, unrefined fossil fuels and generate more emissions each year than Germany or Canada. So how can this globally-important industry reduce its impact on the planet? Diane Gilpin, CEO of Smart Green Shipping, believes that harnessing the tried-and-tested method of wind power and sail could halve emissions and save millions in costs on fuel. She talks to Jane about how intelligent, 40m-high aluminium sails will bring shipping into the 21st century.Kate Malone is one of the UK’s leading potters and ceramicists – and she is keen to share the therapeutic benefits of working with clay. She joins Jane along with Charlotte Clarkson, who’s getting the chance to try the medium for herself at a local youth centre.Somali- born Ifrah Ahmed was just eight when she was subjected to female genital mutilation. At 17, she was smuggled out of the country alone and ended up in Ireland. She’s now an Irish citizen and a successful campaigner against the practice of FGM. She was instrumental in bringing about legislation banning the practice in Ireland. Her inspiring story has been made into a film ‘A Girl from Mogadishu’ and she joins Jane to tell her story, along with the film’s director Mary McGuckian Presenter: Jane Garvey Producer: Dianne McGregor

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hi, this is Jane Garvey and welcome to the Woman's Hour podcast. It's Thursday the 10th of December 2020. Hi there, good morning. Today on the programme, the High Court ruling last week on puberty blockers. We'll talk about that in a moment. Green shipping on the programme today. Do say that carefully if you're going to say it at all.

Can you actually fit sales to those huge cargo ships we all rely on, whether we know it or not? That's a little bit later. And the sheer joy of clay. Actually, the therapeutic benefits of working with clay, something we discussed briefly a couple of weeks ago, and it's back in a bit more detail on the programme today. So if you want to get involved, please feel you can, of course, on social media at BBC Women's Hour. You can text us on

84844. Those texts, though, will be charged at your standard message rate. Check with your network provider if you want to know exactly how much that's going to set you back. 84844 is our text number. So to the High Court ruling last week that children under the age of 16 with gender dysphoria are unlikely to be able to give informed consent to treatment on puberty blockers do go on to cross-sex hormones and then transition in almost all cases. The Tavistock, which runs the only clinics in the UK offering this treatment on the NHS, is seeking to appeal. All new referrals for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for the under-16s have now been suspended.

In future, the treatment will only be allowed when a court has specifically authorised it. So those are the facts. But imagine the impact, the emotional impact on families, on real people wrestling with all this. Tomorrow, we'll hear from a mother who believes that her child just cannot consent to the treatment. Today, Jen, that's not her real name, whose 14-year-old was due to start assessment for puberty blockers this week. She was in year four, so about eight, when she just came in one morning and she had on a dress and was saying, I'm going to wear this for school. So we let her. Why not? And she did that for an entire term.

The school were great about it. We were a little taken aback, but actually not that surprised. She was never really what I'd call a boysy boy. What then happened a bit later? When did things start to get to the stage where you were thinking about getting officialdom involved, if I can put it that way? That would be when she was probably in year five, six, that sort of summer. And she confided in her older sibling and asked asked them to come and tell us that she was a girl that it was as simple as that as far as she was concerned yeah okay so she and apparently she always had been is what she said so then what did you do uh we went to our gp and they referred us to cams who then held their hands up and said, we can't help you, we're going to refer you to

the Tavistock, which then took, well, it was November 2016, we had our first meeting at the Tavistock. And was that a relief to actually get there? Yes. Yes. Because she was very young. And for her, it was simple as saying, I am now a girl, whereas we, obviously as adults, realised it had way more implications than that. We wanted to find out why, what we could do to help her, whether this was just a phase, in inverted commas. She was unhappy because she was still at that point presenting as male, so we just needed some expert help. And can I ask, what is that expert help?

Well, for us, it was meetings at the Tavistock. We were going every month, and we'd have done from then until now. We also, after a while, found a local charity who support LGBTQ plus children and their families. And they've been really helpful as well. One of the most difficult bits was when she knew she was going to secondary school, she wanted to just say, right, I'm a girl and I want to go as a girl. And I think there was a little bit of magical thinking because she was so young that she could just say that and that she would go to this new school and everybody would accept that. But lots of children from her old school were there and we knew that, you know, the secret would be out, as it were.

And what did happen? Well, what happened was we decided that the thing to do was for her to be presented as gender neutral. We gave her a new name that was a gender neutral name. And we didn't want to, we were worried as parents that if we said, right, you're a girl now, that that was it. And that she would maybe at some point feel she couldn't turn back, or that we were in some way encouraging her to do it we wanted to let her explore that and that was something that was suggested very much by the therapists at the Tavistock they were like sit with it for a while see how it goes um so we did that and it was a disaster in what way in that she was really unhappy about that she didn't want to do that at all. When she got to the school, even though she was kind of wearing a gender neutral uniform, she looked like a girl and so was treated like a girl mostly and was making friends with other girls. And then some of the students from her old school decided it would be a good idea to tell everybody that in fact

she wasn't a girl. And that was a horrible, horrible experience for her. I'm sure it was, actually. In all this time, in all these monthly appointments, your daughter never once wavered? No. No, no, OK. No, no.

I mean, I can't... She's so brave. Sometimes I don't know how she did that at such a young age and how she continues to do it. Because she's never wavered. So now we're at the stage where your daughter is 14 and a half. Yeah. Now that's very different from being eight, very different from being 10. How is she now, bearing in mind what happened last week? I think she's in a panic.

I mean, she would have taken the blockers two years ago because it's a simple equation for her. But for us, obviously, we've educated ourselves about it and had long discussions with as many people as we can find who know about these things. And now she thinks that's it. She's not going to get them. And she's expressed that her worst fear is to have a male puberty

and to develop all those male characteristics which are irreversible and that she would feel she couldn't. Sorry. That's all right. I'm sorry. This is, it is distressing. Do you want to stop for a bit? No, it's fine. It's fine. Let's all right. I'm sorry. This is, it is distressing. Do you want to stop for a bit? No, it's fine. It's fine. Let's carry on. That she would find it difficult to leave the house,

would be terrified of being recognised and misgendered. She already struggles a bit with her body and is very, you know, if she's having a shower, she's in and out as quick as she can. She doesn't, you know, She's not really in her body. She's just as terrified, I think is the only way to put it. So, I'm so sorry that it's tough for you and it must be very tough for you and for the rest of your family to see a child battling all this.

Clearly a much-loved child, I should say. But where has it all left you? What can you do now to help her? I don't know I think we can continue with our appointments at the Tavistock and hope that they come up with some kind of a plan, give her some

hope, give her some kind of a time frame to try and manage those fears that you know maybe at some point we'll know legally Give her some hope, give her some kind of a timeframe to try and manage those fears. That, you know, maybe at some point we'll know legally how long it might be. Because, I mean, the Tavistock have contacted us and let us know that it may be that they do have to fight each and every case through the courts. So we have to wait and see if that's going to happen to her. Well, perhaps I just need to point out at this point for listeners who aren't aware, we're not talking about a blanket ban here on puberty blockers. The decision means that there might well be a legal process

which could lead to some children like your daughter getting puberty blockers. That's it, isn't it? Yeah, it's all around the consent and you would have to have a court decide on whether that consent should go ahead, unless they do get permission to appeal and that the appeal overturns the decision from last week. But as we know, that will take a very long time. And it's that time that you feel is against you and your daughter?

Yeah, it's, you know, we don't have the luxury of time. We already felt we were at a point of no return. You know, there isn't a magic bullet of therapy which will support a child through that. Currently, the treatment is the puberty blockers. There isn't, you know, a realistic alternative to that. If anybody knows of one, I'd love to hear about it because we would do it like we should.

But Jen, there will be people, concerned people, listening to you and sympathising with your distress but also backing that decision and saying, actually, I don't believe a child, and your daughter is a child, can fully consent to what so many people consider life-altering and irreversible medical treatment? What do you say to them? Well, I think, first of all, you have to split out the puberty pauses from the cross-hormone

treatment because they've been lumped together in the judgment. at the moment we're just talking about the puberty pausing because we take this a day at a time um and that is it all it does is pause the puberty um and yes they can have an effect physically uh there's really not a lot of helpful research around it but they if she were to go through that she would be constantly monitored by the endocrinology department at the hospital that would treat her and for us it's about which is worse the physical and psychological effects of going through a male puberty or the physical effects of going on the puberty pauses hand in hand with a department who are experts in this. What do you say, Jen, to people listening who would say

by allowing a child to take puberty blockers, you are effectively, inexorably moving them on to taking cross-sex hormones and transitioning? I would say that that is the treatment for transgender people. And I would say that there's a huge difference between a child of 10 making that decision and a child of 14 or 15 or 16 making that decision. We have to allow that that may be the right thing for our daughter and we have to give her that opportunity because the alternative is much more scary for us. Is it your belief then that your daughter at 14 and a half is fully able to consent to taking puberty blockers? Yes.

You've no doubt. You don't seem to have a shred of doubt. No, because we've had long, long, long discussions about it. She is an intelligent girl. In a way, you know, has been forced to talk about issues that she may have the intellectual capacity to talk about, but doesn't have the emotional capacity. So that's been a huge part of the therapy we've received and the conversations that we've had with her. You know, I wouldn't do this to my child if I thought it would harm her. I just wouldn't. Well, that was a mother we're calling Jen. Just to emphasise, the Tavistock say they are disappointed with the ruling. They're working to arrange the best way to support young people in the light of it.

And tomorrow you can hear from a parent with a slightly different perspective. Nicola's 16-year-old child, born a girl, has been on the waiting list for the Tavistock for almost two years, but Nicola has serious concerns about puberty blocking drugs. Here's a clip. Puberty itself is a bodily process that teenagers go through, and it's not just a physical process.

It's a psychological and behavioural process too, that their interactions with others, that their relationships, their friendships, all of those feelings contribute towards their development of their identity. And I do think that that's very important. I can understand when people who have children who are very distressed, as my daughter has been very distressed, are looking for a way to instantly take away that distress.

But I think it's looking at the long-term consequences that are unknown that worry me. I don't want my child to be put onto an experimental pathway where they don't know whether this is going to be the solution. Well, that's another parent, a mother we are calling Nicola. That isn't her real name, but you can hear that full interview on Women's Hour tomorrow at BBC Women's Hour, if you want to make a comment about that. Now, let's go to our Power List 2020, our planet. It's all about women who are doing something to make our environment

better, to do something about sustainability, to get issues in the public eye and to get people forming opinions on all this. Diane Gilpin is our guest this morning. She's number 15, I think, on the Powerlist. She's the CEO of Smart Green Shipping. Diane, welcome to the programme. Good morning to you. Morning, thank you. Now, first of all, just tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to be the CEO of Smart Green Shipping. So I grew up by the coast. I grew up in Tynmouth and I left school at 16 when my dad told me that women were only going to be mothers and wives so there was no point in educating

me so I worked for a few years and managed to get into North London Poly where I did an HND which I passed with distinction and then I was able to do a postgrad in development economics and it was just amazing and from there I worked in the cellular telephone industry right at the beginning and what was really fascinating about it was that everyone went oh no no no that will And from there, I worked in the cellular telephone industry right at the beginning. And what was really fascinating about it was that everyone went, oh, no, no, no, that will never work. And now look at us. We're overwhelmed with mobile phones. In that case, then you're going to tell me that it's perfectly possible for these hulking great cargo ships to have sails in the near future. I think it is 8000 years of heritage that suggests that we can move ships through the water. rigid sails that look a bit like aircraft wings are perfectly doable today and they can save about a quarter of the fuel for a significantly large cargo ship. Let's go back a little bit then.

Tell me about cargo ships and our dependence upon them. Yeah, so this is really interesting. I mean, 90% of everything that we consume is moved by sea and um you know this is a number that kind of goes oh well you know that's everything and it pretty much is but it's because the shipping industry is really well it's really cheap to move things around and um so we we're kind of measuring everything by money. And so you might find things that you wouldn't expect to be moved by sea coming into your shopping basket or into your house. I mean, I often look around. Where did everything come from and how did it get here? And most of it has moved by sea. Give me an example of something I might buy, I don't know, a couple of times a month that has almost certainly been brought to me via the sea well so there's a there was a story a few years ago about

prawns that were caught in Scotland frozen taken to the far east to be peeled by hand and then brought back to the UK because it was cheaper to do that than it was to process the food here. Because of the cost of labour, essentially. The cost of labour and the cost of fuel on ships. It's a very dirty, cheap fuel. And the ships are large. So what we're doing is valuing all the metric is just money. We're just finding out what money is. And what that's doing is producing a lot of pollution and emissions.

Sure. But in the end, the consumer's always involved and we like cheap prawns, presumably. We like them all year round. Well, yes, I think we do. But I think we also want to live on a habitable planet and we want our children's lives to be secured and for the community in which we live to benefit from nature and clean air. So I think there's choices that we have to make. And yes, we want to have cheap food. We want to have cheap consumer goods. But I think things are changing and we are becoming much more aware

of the wider value of the things that we're consuming. And I think that that's a shift that we need to be bearing in mind in shipping. All right. Let's talk then about fitting sails. Is it possible to fit wind to any sort of seaborne vessel, however enormous? Not at this point in time to any. We are focusing on bulk carriers and tankers, which have a relatively flat deck. The retrofitting solution is relatively straightforward. The marine engineers that we work with in Scotland, Malin, they're putting rigs and cranes onto ships every day of the week, to one, perhaps not every day of the week but but frequently and regularly to take um materials and and and cranes out to the you know the oil rigs so it's a technology that's

perfectly doable we work with um dave ellen macarthur's naval architects who are great yacht race designers so we've taken that sort of technology and adapted it into um robust systems yeah i find that fascinating, by the way, the link with yacht racing. That's a very real thing, isn't it, I gather? Yeah. So there's yachts racing around the world. They're learning all sorts of fantastically useful technologies, developing them in kind of some of the hardest conditions. What we're doing is taking that back into, if you like into the lab and going how do we make that robust how can we make that work on a ship and you know how can it integrate so we so we're using digital systems we work with some european space agency funding to develop

systems to predict the the quantity of wind available to any ship on any route and to be able to optimize the the wind and the engine call off. So it's all really doable. Electric ships, are they a possibility? Yeah, they are. But I think on a relatively short route. So they would be, there are ships that are being driven by shore power. You can kind of drive alongside the port, plug in and then sail to the other side of the coast, as it were. I see. And then plug in.

But you couldn't go to Thailand with a load of prawns from Scotland, could you? No, no, I don't think you could do that. But we've become very familiar with one form of power for shipping. And we need to be thinking about the whole system. How do we do this better? Yeah, but it's a tricky one, not least because there are, I think, well over 150 maritime nations and they vary, to put it mildly, don't they? Yeah, and that's one of the biggest challenges we have to decarbonisation is the international nature of the industry. It's not under any one national jurisdiction. So in order to get near-term stringent carbon emissions,

which will give everyone a level playing field, which most people want, it's very difficult to get consensus amongst 174 countries. And so... Well, honestly, how would you go about that? Well, the IMO are... The IMO stands for the... Sorry, International Maritime Organization. I'm managing that process

on behalf of the UN. There's lots of lobbying. It's incredibly difficult and challenging work to do. And it's not a job that I would relish at all. What we're doing really is trying to suggest irresistible business solutions that work today in the world in which we live and that will be future-proof when we get into a decarbonised world, which will have to come. Yes, but I gather that the IMO isn't all that confident it can get rid of its use of fossil fuels for decades, was what I saw quoted. Is that just pessimistic or is that a dose of reality for you? Well, it's a dose of reality that we have to live with every day. I think it is particularly unambitious given the technology that we need to decarbonise shipping is already available

and we're inhibited more by politics than we are by technology or business solutions. But the industry is restricted from being the first mover who wants to be the first to take the risk when it's going to cost money. So we really need the IMO to step up and start delivering more ambitious targets and more near term, because at the moment we're looking at a 50% reduction by 2050, which really is an indicator that we can sit back and wait till then. And from an environmental perspective, we just can't do that. Yeah, I mean, I realise you cannot be parochial about this, but let's be parochial for a moment. Britain is a very proud maritime nation.

Do you detect real enthusiasm from the British government for the sorts of changes you're keen on? Yeah, I think there's definitely enthusiasm. We would like to see that backed up with a bit more cash. We've seen in the 10 point plan there is an allocation of 20 million pounds for shipping, but that's really rather too small. You know, the system that we're looking at is going to cost us five million to develop. So we could take a quarter of that and only be one of the solutions available. So it's a big chunk of money required. But I think we are looking at how can we do coastal shipping from one port in the UK to another?

And that can drive the technology. I mean, so there's kind of the international politics, but also the national export opportunities by becoming a real specialist in, say, wind technology, where we've got loads of capability, and we can then start exporting that. This is a huge industry. The international shipping industry is huge. There's a great market. I mean, we think about 10,000 ships can be retrofitted with wind. We think that can save about 1% of total greenhouse gas emissions.

And it's just a relatively small leap from here to there, which is blocked by the need for a relatively small amount of cash. Okay. Well, you put it like that. It sounds so simple. Very, very briefly, a quick word on COP, which we know Britain is hosting, I think, in the November of next year. A few female representatives, as far as we know. Are you concerned about this? rig outside COP26. It's incredibly difficult. I was really disappointed that Claire O'Neill was no longer the president of COP because I know by now, if she had been in charge, we would have been really sorted. I think we need to see representation at COP because women are really good at this negotiation stuff because we're quite conciliatory. Okay. Well, so we like to believe, she said, being careful to balance it out there because we'll only get complaints if I don't.

Really interesting to talk to you. Thank you, Diane. That's Diane Galpin. Some interesting ideas there. CEO of Smart Green Shipping. Siobhan. Oh, no. Siobhan's my colleague. I think she is. Well, she was last time I checked. This is from Alan on email. We had cod last night caught in the northeast Atlantic, packed in China, sold by a supermarket here. Never again, says Alan. Yes, well, that's, you know, we're all, are we not? Perhaps I'm just speaking for myself and for Alan. I've certainly been guilty of similar consumer activity. Let us know what you think. You can contact us at BBC Women's Hour on social media. Now to Somali-born Ifrah Ahmed, who was just eight when she was subjected to female genital mutilation.

At 17, she was smuggled out of Somalia and actually found herself in Ireland. She is now 32. She is a proud Irish citizen and a successful campaigner against FGM. She was instrumental, in fact, in bringing about legislation banning that practice in Ireland. Her story has now been made into a film called A Girl from Mogadishu. And we can talk to Ifrah and to the director of the film, Mary McGuckian. Let's talk first of all to Ifrah. Good morning to you, Ifrah. How are you today? I'm fine, thank you. Good morning. Now, I watched the film the other day and it's very, very impressive.

Your story is a really moving one, but a terrible story initially. To witness, as we do in the film, you as a very young girl being subjected to female genital mutilation. How do you look back on that period of your life if you are you still do you think about it a lot do you have real vivid memories of what happened that day yes i do i um i went back to somalia as an activist to carry on what i was doing in ireland so when i go back to our somalia starting the campaign um first thing i remember is that in 2018, there was a young girl, 10 years old, named Deka. She died on FGM on bleeding.

And during my activism, being in Somalia, I came across with her death, and I went to the village. Deka passed away. For me, sitting on the plane, I thought of a lot of my old pain because there was one of the four girls who passed away. And I was one of nine girls who was cut, but lucky to be survivors. Yes, you did survive. But what a thing to survive.

And when you arrived in Ireland alone, so young, some staff at a hospital discovered that you'd been subjected to FGM. And we should say for anybody who doesn't know, this practice involves the partial or total removal of external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. You read it out that starkly. They are the facts. But what that does to a young woman, young girl, indescribable in absolutely every way. So when the doctors at the hospital in Ireland saw what had happened to you, Ifrah, what did they do and say? Oh, it's really difficult because I remember before I go to the, there is something called SMIT test. Yes.

In my country, women who haven't been married not go through SMIT test because we believe that gynecologist is a mother and women who have baby and things like that. So for me going through that I did not understand any of it but that was not the worst case the worst case is when the nurse and the doctor asked me what happened to you and how it happened how you get injured who did this to you and all that and because they didn't really understand that I was going through female genital mutilation. So they were all shocked and they're running around. And for me, that gives me a little bit of scare because everybody who goes to a general medical check, they are explained about certain things of the diseases or sickness and all that. And I was explained that HIV AIDS and, you know,

hepatitis and malaria and so on. So I was really scared because I thought they're going to tell me something different than that something that I see it was okay and normal to practice in my own culture or my own country. So it was very hard for me to explain, especially when I have a man who are translating for me to explain my private area and everything else. Yes, I cannot imagine how lonely and how frightened you must have been in that moment after everything you'd

already been through. Mary McGuckin, the director, how much did you know about FGM and about Somalia before you met Ifrah? I knew a little about FGM, but like many people, I had a notion that it was something else over there, didn't really affect that many people. I think I was astonished when I started to look at it at the scale of it, that there are 200 million women alive today suffering from the consequences of FGM. That there are countries such as Somalia where the incidence is at an unwavering 98% and has been for a very long time. Yeah, and just for anybody who doesn't know, Mary, why is it done? Why, I mean, most people listening to that would think,

well, why on earth would you do that to your much-loved child or granddaughter? Well, that's a much more complex question that IFra's life work is dedicated to to understanding what it is the combination of cultural historical issues and and um societal societal norms that that condition and her foundation continue to address. You know, probably more authentic to ask Ifrah to speak to that. Well, Ifrah, it was actually your grandmother who, did she carry out the FGM or was she overseeing what went on? Was she just present when it was carried out? She was just present when it was carried out because we grew up with her and she was making the decision and she was just helping the doctor who was cutting us to hold our hand and legs.

Because your grandmother believed passionately, clearly, that it was the right thing to do to you. Yes, because she taught, I mean, like she said, you know, it's something being carried on by her, by her mother, by everyone she knew. And it's something that she to continue her own daughters and her daughters to daughters and everyone else. Yeah, it is so difficult for so many people to understand why she felt she had to do it. Do you think now she was being cruel or was she actually doing genuinely what she believed was best? See, I don't see she was cruel because she did not understand and i had my grandmother passed away in 2015 and i was lucky enough during my activism to land in mogadishu and have a chat with my grandmother and ask her what was all about and why did she do that? And my grandmother explained because she was cut,

her mother was cut. She grew up in a generation where the ignorance there and every girl was cut. And she said that that is where they see protection of young girls. And that is why it's done. I know that at the moment you can't go back to Somalia because of Covid but do you hope to go again? Yes I am I'm just looking you know forward and the everything to open up and normal life and then yes I am but even though I'm in Ireland still I am doing a lot of work being up three three in the morning or four in the morning, talking to people in the grassroots who are doing day-to-day activism because of, as we all know, that since the COVID, FGM has increased all around the world, including Somalia. Yeah. Can you explain why? Why that link between an increase and COVID? And first of all, one is that there was no more grassroots who were going to the IDBs explaining about the risks and the danger of FGM.

Second, the Somali government, they closed the Holy Quran school and schools. And this has actually given the family opportunity to say now my daughter is at home and it's a good time for me to card her instead of she to miss the Holy Quran or school. And that is what actually drove them to do it.

Yeah, that is a very depressing picture you paint. Thank you so much and congratulations to you on the work you've done. And Mary, it is thanks to the work of IFRA that FGM has now been banned in Ireland.

The practice is banned there. Yes, IFRA was at the forefront of that campaign and she would recognise with many others from other grassroots activists in Ireland all the way up to the President of Ireland who's a great supporter of IFRA and her work. Well, that's good to hear. Thank you very much indeed.

That's film director Mary McGuckin. You also heard from the activist Ifrah Ahmed. And that film, A Girl from Mogadishu, is available to watch on cinema platforms nationwide. And indeed, if you live in Ireland, you can see it in cinemas there right now. I know we have many listeners in Ireland. Now, let's talk about the therapeutic power of pottery and working with clay.

And actually, we've had lots of nice contact from you on this. This is Carolyn. I'm a potter living and working in London. My contact with clay has been an enormously therapeutic tool over the years and has helped me deal with grief in a really positive way. Kate Malone is one of the country's leading potters and ceramicists. She's set up a project to get more people into it. It's called Fired Up For Studios. And Charlotte Clarkson is a young woman who's been doing a bit of pottery at a local youth centre. Kate Malone, first of all,

we tried to talk to you a couple of weeks ago. The technology was against us on that occasion. So why do you believe this is all so important and why is clay so therapeutic? Good morning, Jane. Well, how many reasons are there? I mean, first of all, clay is so ever present in our lives. We don't quite realise that our houses are made of it, our roofs, our floors, our tiles, our kitchens are full of it, our bathrooms, our medicine is made of it. makeup's got it in our toothpaste got it's just all around and the earth is making more every day than we can ever use not necessarily where we want it or the type we want it but it's this beautiful cousin of stone in your hands it's so calming it's so rooting and I think personally because I went to a big progressive school in Hembury outside Bristol

that had an amazing art department and I was so lucky to have had it in my life early on and our project Fire Up 4 is simply to try and get that happening for many of the young people in the country. Well, it's really got our listeners going. Jane says, part of my thesis was about the role of women in many prehistoric societies as the makers of clay utensils. It's been discussed that there's a collective, maybe you can react to this, Kate, that there is a collective conscience that awakens when we as women touch clay. Well, have you experienced anything like that? I mean, I made a pinch pot myself a couple of weeks ago when you were on, but carry on. Well, yeah, I mean, whether it's women or whether it's people

in as much, I just think it really roots you I mean it is off the ground it comes out of the ground and when you hold it you're sort of connected to it yeah it's interesting isn't it let's well let's ask Charlotte um Charlotte how old are you I'm 16 right and tell us how much did you know about clay and pots and all the rest of it before this I didn't know that much at all I barely I might have done some air dry clay and just fiddled with that, but nothing really that much. So what have you been doing, taking part in Kate's project? I've done some spinning some pots on a wheel and I've made a bowl and a cup and then I've made a soap dish out of like some other clay, which is getting fired and everything. Well, that sounds brilliant. And while you're doing it, what effect does it have on you?

It just makes you feel really calm because you can just let everything go into it and just focus on that and the way it feels. It's so relaxing. Yeah. Tell me a bit more about it. Is it the way your hands are working with it or is it because you can feel that you've done something quite quickly that the material changes quite quickly

what is it it's just seeing it go from like a blob of nothing to maybe like a bowl that you've made and it feels so smooth it's a bit wet. And then you can just feel it's smooth and you can just move it around how you like it. And like no two parts will probably be the same. No, I think that's it. I mean, you've actually hit the nail on the head there. That's right, isn't it, Kate? It's that it's so individual

and you can create something really quickly, however inexperienced you are. Yes, it's quite extraordinary. Like when you have a sheet of paper and a pencil and you start doing. Yes, it's quite extraordinary. Like when you have a sheet of paper and a pencil and you start doing a line, it can be anything. With clay, it's like drawing in air, really. It's just, it's so free. And as soon as you make contact with it, your imagination can sort of be triggered. It's not like you have to sit and think about what you're going to do. You get your hands in it and it sort of helps you and guides you.

It's the most amazing thing. I've been doing it since I was 14 and I'm addicted, I have to say. How did you get into it? Was it in your family? Well, no. No, I come from a sort of journalistic and sporting family, but it was at school. At school we had this great art department that had metalwork, woodwork, ceramics, sewing, cooking.

And I had a very good teacher. And I just loved it from the moment I sort of saw it through the windows and the sort of alchemy of it. I mean, if you think about it, you take the soft soil from the ground, clay from the ground, and you witness a material change. Because when you fire it in the kiln, it becomes ceramics. It's actually a material change because when you fire it in the kiln, it becomes ceramics. It's actually a material change. So when young people or anybody does it, you sort of feel this sense of magic, really, of physics. Yes, it is. Well, it's part irrational, the whole thing, isn't it, in a way?

It's physics and it's magic. I've explained that exceptionally badly, so I think I'll hand back to Charlotte. I'll just say, Charlotte, are you going to keep doing this? Is it going to be a part of your life for good now? Yeah, Clay's definitely going to become a bigger part of my life. It's just amazing. Well, you've got a convert there, Kate.

Well done. Charlotte, lovely to hear from you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Take care of yourself. That's great, actually, isn't it, Kate? I mean, that's exactly the effect you want to have on somebody. Yes.

I mean, we started this project a year ago, and I asked 32 of England's great makers of clay to give a piece of work. And they really gave a piece. When you make something, it's a piece of yourself. And we raised £100,000 auctioning it a couple of weeks ago. So we're going to build two studios stock them with clay materials and then provide training and teaching with this lovely cooperative called make north up near wigan and shawley and our plan is to sort of roll it out over the coming years

to raise money again different ways and it's sort of makers of of of it's sort of makers of the UK sort of joining together to sort of help young ones. And it's just the most lovely project to be involved with. It sounds really, really positive. And particularly right now, I imagine it's bringing a lot of pleasure to loads of people. Kate, thank you very much. I'm not sure whether Woman's Hour did tweet out a picture of the pot I made a couple of weeks ago, but I've got it with me here now. It's like a large ashtray from back in the 70s. It's absolutely gorgeous. And I just think when I leave the programme in a couple of weeks, I will leave it in the office and people will gaze at it and say, there is, what was her name? She made that pot. I'll leave it here. So much, so much emotion around this. Well, that was how the live programme shambolically came to something

approaching a conclusion this morning. I think it's just getting to everybody, isn't it? It's this time of year. I will make sure that I put an image of my pot out there and then perhaps the programme can do its duty and retweet it and many, many more people can see it. I'm not very creative, but I really do appreciate the creativity of our listeners. And lots of you wanted to talk about clay and about pottery.

This listener says, she's called Jane, I've made things from clay since I was a child. I'm now 74. It's actually been the most reliable part of my life. And it's really helped me through many, many difficult times. From Mary, I've just listened to your wonderful discussion about clay and its importance and therapeutic qualities. Well, I am both a potter and someone who works as an art psychotherapist in the NHS and I have witnessed every day the therapeutic power of working with clay for both my service users and for myself. I find in my work with people struggling with mental health issues that clay can be such a grounding thing to use. You can

smooth it, you can punch it, you can form it into something beautiful. I worked with one lady many years ago who said that stroking a piece of clay brought back memories of touching her husband's hand when she was sitting with him in hospital. It was really very moving. I find the idea that things can be changed and transformed in the kiln can be very powerful symbols for people. Yeah, there's obviously something to this, isn't there? There really is. Claire in York says, I go to my local college once a week for a pottery class

and I have done it for years and years. I think about what I'm going to do in those two hours every week and it really helps me get through life's stresses even when I'm doing it. Oh that's fantastic. Another listener says I had a late miscarriage a couple of years ago and as part of my recovery I did do a pottery course. It was hand building so I wasn't using a wheel and I made about 15 hollow little egg-shaped vessels. It was enormously therapeutic and healing and I credit that pottery course with restoring my mental health and indeed the birth of my child a year after. There's always another side and Simon says I'm so sorry to go against the grain on this, but I hated clay. I found it dirty, awkward to manipulate and generally very frustrating.

It just got all over my school uniform. It was a few years ago now, he says. I just found the whole experience horrible. Fair enough. Wanda says the magic of clay. I started throwing just before lockdown and I'm loving it. Spending the whole of my Sunday learning, slabbing and coiling and I cannot wait. Right, enjoy Wanda. Carolyn, I'm a potter living and working in London. My

contact with clay has been enormously therapeutic over the years and has in fact helped me deal with grief. I totally believe in the power of it as I watch it transform people's faces, self-esteem and sense of self-worth on a regular basis through my involvement with Studio 306 Collective. It's a social enterprise that works with adults in recovery from mental health issues in Haringey in London. Our strapline is recovery through creativity. Quite a motto for 2020, says Carolyn. You can say that again. I'm glad it works. And what else have we got here? Another listener, Alexia. My friend and I have just set up a pottery event in Coventry called Fire Formed. And beyond the stresses of setting up a small business in a pandemic, I have to say that working with clay, especially on the

wheel, is incredibly meditative and relaxing. It does feel, honestly, like an ancient art form. And since you are literally working with mud, it really is very grounding. There we are. There's obviously something to this whole business. Let me just fondle my ashtray. Yes, I am grounded, just as I touch it. No, I don't want to be fatuous about it. It clearly does mean a great deal to people. Catherine says, to anyone interested, the International Maritime Organization does open up its London building

for open house weekend every September. It's worth a visit for anybody interested in the shipping industry. Well, let's hope that kind of thing can happen again next September. It's worth a visit for anybody interested in the shipping industry. Well, let's hope that kind of thing can happen again next September. Erica says, whilst I thoroughly applaud the idea of wind power for ships, I can't help feeling that the answer to the problem of, for example, sending Scottish prawns to Thailand for peeling is this. If you want to eat prawns, peel them yourself. A radical notion there from Erica in Somerset. Yes, I never order prawns on a menu or anything for fear that I may be asked to

do that because I'm never exactly certain how you do it or whether I do it politely or in the so-called right way. So easier just not to bother. But I guess those of us who are not averse to the odd prawn probably from now on, I'm certainly going to look at the packaging and just see where the flipping things have come from, where they've been. Some of them have traveled further than me and they're just prawns. Right. I'm back tomorrow. Yes, I know. I feel the same as you. So join us then, if you can. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like

warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.