Woman's Hour - Remembering the Magdalene Laundries

Episode Date: May 10, 2019

This month there are two important anniversaries in Ireland attached to the way women, children and babies were looked after by the State and the Church. Twenty years ago the Irish State issued a formal apology to them, and 10 years ago the Ryan Report came out looking at church sexual abuse. Some girls were held in Magdalene Laundries and pictured is Sean McDermott St, Dublin which was the last to close. It will be turned into a place of remembrance. We’ve been talking to Mary Merritt who’s 88 and spent time at Sean McDermott Street as well as taking a look at the site itself with historian, Katherine O’Donnell. Why do fewer women hike alone than men? Travel writers, Kathi Kamleitner and Gail Simmons join Jenni to talk about the joys of hiking alone as a woman and why they think it’s much safer than many people assume. Do you have an old teddy that has seen better days? Or an old vase that has the odd crack but you could never part with because it means too much to you? Well, these are the types of items that are taken into the BBC1 TV show The Repair Shop to get a new lease of life. Julie Tatchell and Amanda Middleditch are teddy bear restorers and Kirsten Ramsay repairs ceramics. Jenni talks to them about the skills needed to repair people’s much loved items.We consider our ideas of motherhood and how they measure up to the realities, past and present. What do we know of motherhood in the past? And what are the ideas that shape our expectations of motherhood today? Professor Sarah Knott, blogger and campaigner, Remi Sade and comedian, Taylor Glen discuss.Presenter: Jenni Murray Producer: Kirsty StarkeyInterviewed Guest: Mary Merritt Interviewed Guest: Katherine O’Donnell Interviewed Guest: Kathi Kamleitner Interviewed Guest: Gail Simmons Interviewed Guest: Kirsten Ramsay Interviewed Guest: Professor Sarah Knott Interviewed Guest: Remi Sade Interviewed Guest: Taylor Glen

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, Jenny Murray welcoming you to the Woman's Hour podcast for Friday the 10th of May. In today's programme, a book called Mother, an unconventional history. Where do popular images of motherhood come from? How do they influence our expectations and how do they match the reality? Bringing treasured things back to life, a ceramicist and a teddy bear restorer from the BBC's The Repair Shop. And no slight on Liverpool supporters, but you may well walk alone. What inspires women to ramble by themselves? Now, you may have heard the programme from Dublin on Tuesday,

marking a year since Ireland voted to change its laws on abortion. One of the subjects under discussion was the scandal of how mothers, babies and girls were treated in institutions where harsh and cruel treatment was the order of the day. It's 20 years since the state, which shared responsibility for the homes with the church, issued an official apology. It's 10 years since the Ryan Report into child abuse. Magdalene laundries have become infamous as one of these institutions. The last one to close was in Sean McDermott Street in Dublin. The original plan was to turn it into an hotel, but now it's to become a place of remembrance.

Siobhan Tai has been to meet Mary Merritt, who's 88, and spent time there, and she went to the laundry with an historian. I'm standing on Sean McDermott Street, which about a 10 minute taxi ride from the centre of the city and I'm opposite the Magdalene Laundry here and it's a very large building, takes up a great swathe of the street, red brick, some very big green doors, some railings along the length of it and attached to the railings are a few green ribbons, some of them dirty, shows they've been there for a long time and also a few pink booties. Again they're dirty, dirt from the street and dirt from the cars that drive past. Yes, this is the heart of inner-city Dublin.

Unfortunately, it's an atrophied heart at the moment in that there's a two-acre site of the former Magdalene, the last Magdalene in Ireland, closed in 1996 here in Sean McDermott Street. I'm Associate Professor Catherine O'Donnell, School of Philosophy in University College Dublin. Yes, this has become really a site of pilgrimage for people who want to both commemorate their own family tragedies of incarceration in Ireland's architecture of containment, that is the industrial schools, the Magdalene laundries, the mother and baby homes, psychiatric hospitals, where 1% of the population were held. So we do see ribbons, we do see little booties.

That's to commemorate the lives lost. Whether or not the people actually did manage to live lives beyond the institutions, in many ways they're dealing so much with the trauma of ill treatment, neglect, lack of education that we're still dealing with that legacy as a culture still. So of course we know Dublin is very very popular as a tourist centre now and the city last year they were thinking about turning this site into a hotel and selling it to a Japanese company, but that hasn't happened. Why not? It's very moving to hear Dublin City Councilors' reasons for why they decided not to sell to the Japanese hotelier.

And they gave very different reasons, but most of them was that this was a site that still needed to be explored and understood, that we still needed to incorporate the lessons of how we had treated poor women and their children in 20th century Ireland, that this had the potential to be a site of conscience where we would come together to hear all of the unheard and untold stories. So what is going to be here in the future? What can we expect to see?

Well, plans are being drawn up at the moment. It's a very large site, so there will be potential for more than just an archive, more than just a living museum of untold and unheard stories. There'll also be an opportunity to put in public and social housing, educational facility. So this isn't, you know, to be a site that would be around kind of mourning and grief primarily or only or solely

though I think that's also important but we also need the kind of energy to come together to create more dynamic futures For 17 years I've been scrubbing this washboard ever since the fella started in after me My mother poor soul didn't know what to do

The cannon said, child, there's a place for you I'm serving my time at the Magdalene Laundry I'm towing the line at the Magdalene Laundry The order of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge, and they're the order that ran this particular institution, that giant doorway there... Which is green. Yeah, it's a massive door, and as you can see,

it's behind wrought iron, very heavy wrought iron gates. That was the gateway into the very large industrial laundry at the back of the site. So that's where the delivery vans would come in, bringing the dirty laundry from places like the army, from the government departments, from Aras an Uachtarán, that's the president's house, to be washed here, and clean laundry picked up and distributed back to those places.

There's girls from the country, girls from the town, their bony white elbows going up and down. places. Catherine, you have been inside. Yes. So can you paint a picture for us? Because we're not allowed in today. Dublin City Council says because of health and safety reasons, we cannot go inside. It's quite eerie being up there now. There's so many empty, abandoned suitcases that kind of speak volumes, really.

Very heavy oak doors, panelling, large reception rooms, which I presume were either sitting rooms for the religious sisters and also dining rooms. Walking through one particular set of doors, you're into a very large Roman Catholic chapel. Beautiful Italian marble, extremely high, light-filled, imposing, beautiful artwork. It really is an extraordinary gem to have hidden right in the inner city here. And that was for the private use of the nuns and also the Magdalene women themselves who would be expected to make mass every day and do religious devotions alongside the sisters. My name is Mrs Mary Merritt and I'm living in England and I lived in Clifton in the

industrial school from the age of two. Then I was moved from Clifton in 1935 to Ballinasloe Industrial School. And I lived there for 14 years. And then I was removed from there for stealing me apples to the Magdalene Laundry. I've only been to the outside of Sean McDermott Street. Yes. But what was it like inside? I'd say there was about 50 of us in all in Sean McDermott Street. Yes. But what was it like inside? I'd say there was about 50 of us in all in Sean McDermott Street and the atmosphere.

Well, the women never fought with one another. We had iron beds, there were spring beds, there was the thinnest bit of wool mattress that you could find. There was five dormitories and we had one sink, one cold water tap. You had a locker beside your bed.

You washed your face with cold water every morning before you went to mass and that was what it was like. You had a bit of a cloth to wipe your face. You had no such thing as a towel. Washing rolls of linen, cassocks and stalls and scrubbing long johns for these holy jewels. towel. You're pulling out big sheets, big tablecloths, you have a big trough full of

socks that you're hand washing. It's absolutely dreadful it was. You were soaked, you were swimming in water all day, you know, and all you had was an old serge skirt, an old white apron and a white cap. Oh Lord, won't you let me, don't you let me, won't you let me wash away the sin. What year, 19? Oh God, about 45, wouldn't it be, or 42, when I was in Shaw-McNermist Street. I can't remember now because the years I lose, I lose all the years I do as I go on. But tell us about some recent paperwork that you've only just got.

You've got your birth certificate. I just got my birth certificate. Let's have a look at it. So you've been missing your birth certificate for all this time. I have. And I don't know who my mother is to this day, where I came from, who I was with. They tell me I was born in the workhouse, according to my birth certificate. But nobody knows.

Have you been fighting for this birth certificate for a long time? I've been fighting for this birth certificate for the last 56 years. And you've got nowhere until the last six weeks? for this birth certificate for the last 56 years. And you've got nowhere until the last six weeks. I've got nowhere until the last six weeks. What now for you? Is that enough

or what do you think needs to happen now? No, I want one apology before I die. One apology from the church. That's the apology I want. They controlled us.

They did everything. They did. They ruined our lives. I had no childhood. I couldn't go anywhere. I couldn't They controlled us. They did everything they did. They ruined our lives. I had no childhood. I couldn't go anywhere. I couldn't buy a house. I couldn't do anything. Because you had no documentation. I had no identification whatsoever. I couldn't go anywhere in my life. And every time I asked anybody for anything, we can't find anything of you. Were you really in there? So Mary, on your passport, it says that you were born May 1931. That's it. Yes, May 1931, 88 years of age.

How did I get this far with all I went through in Ireland? Well, how did you? How did I get this far? What do you think it is about you that's managed to get you through all these tough times? Fighting with them and trying to get some information out to them about my mother or my parents or somebody. Or trying to identify who I am, really. And I think the spirit is in me to fight them and still fight them, you know. And I will until I'm 100 I think if I live to that well

there is no doubt that you're going to live to 100 Mary the way you are today I've got 12 years to go I don't think you're going anywhere soon my doctor says that to me Mary Merriton the historian Catherine O'Donnell spoke to Siobhan Tai and happy birthday to Mary who was 88 only last week. Now, You'll Never Walk Alone has been ringing in the ears ever since Liverpool's amazing footballing triumph on Tuesday night. But Gerry and the Pacemakers' sentiment never applies to those who choose to walk alone and love it. But what's the appeal of setting off on a long hike or ramble entirely by yourself?

Well, Gail Simmons is the author of The Country of Larks, detailing her journey across the Chilterns in the footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson. She joins us from Leeds. Kathy Kamleitner blogs about her walks on the Hebridean Way and the Isle of Bute and she joins us from Glasgow. Cathy why walk on your own? Hi there, I walk by myself really to connect with myself to get away from my daily life and my work life and everything that just goes on and reconnect with my thoughts and have time to go through things and process what's going on in my life but then also just to spend time outside and in nature. I know you've said it's become something of a feminist issue for you what do you mean by that? I think it is because a lot of women I talk

to don't want to talk don't want to walk by themselves because they're scared of you know something happened to them or what what if they encounter someone who wants to harm them and also i don't actually know how to walk by myself i don't have the skills i don't have the knowledge i lack the confidence and i don't see the same with my male peers or male hikers that i meet so i do think it's an issue that particularly women face and so hiking by myself as a woman and writing about it that gives me this opportunity to tell other women that no actually you can do it you don't have to be an outdoor you know professional in order to experience this so gail what do you

see as the advantages of walking alone hello there um really like Cathy, I think you can immerse yourself in your surroundings, much more so if you're on your own and not with a group of people that you might be chatting to. Certainly, you know, if you're walking in the countryside, you can see wildlife.

You know, I've come across groups of fallow deer who haven't noticed me approaching. In Italy, where I've done a lot of walking, you might come across wild boar. They're seen as sort of frightening, fierce creatures,

but actually they're very shy. It's very, very lucky to see them. If you're walking with a group of people and you're talking, then you're probably not going to see the wildlife because it will have gone by the time you approach. And also, I think, as a writer like Cathy, I think if you want to talk to people when you walk, and I do, and I meet people and I interview them, I think you can approach them much more easily as a lone person or lone woman,

particularly if you're approaching another lone woman. You know, you're much more likely to be trusted if you're on your own. And I've travelled also a lot in the Middle East and certainly as a Western woman, not always walking, you know, on my own, but as a Western woman, there's huge advantages of being on your own.

You're just much more allowed into sort of female society which you wouldn't be if you were a western man so there are many advantages to walking as a woman alone I think. What's been the furthest distance you've walked alone? The furthest distance I've walked alone was in western Tuscany. I walked all the way through an Etruscan landscape from almost the coast the Marema it's called on western Tuscan coast, to Orvieto and Umbria. And I set out, it was about 70 miles, I think it was, and I was learning a walk that I was going to take a group of people on. I set out with sort of trepidation, thinking, how am I going to spend this whole week on my own? I'm going to be lonely, what's going to happen?

But as the days went on, I just loved it more and more. And, you know, the landscape was sort of talking to me and I didn't really meet many people, but you meet sort of farmers and peasants and, you know, various people like that. And at the end of the week, at the end of the walk, I just wanted to carry on. I just didn't want to stop. It was just such a lovely experience being on your own in nature and the freedom each day of not knowing where you're going to end up. Cathy Kathy you were very dismissive of the dangers of being on your own but what happens if let's say you're up high in the wilds the mist comes down and you're lost? I mean there's certainly very real risks about being out by yourself but also

hiking with a friend or hiking in a group I mean that can happen if you're with three other people and it's just as dangerous and and scary as if you're by yourself I think it's a lot about preparing and having a way out and knowing how to react and also having the confidence to calm yourself down and stay calm and find a solution rather than freaking out and panicking because that's when the mistakes happen and that's when you injure yourself. But if you actually manage to stay calm and you know you got this, you know how to get yourself out of this situation.

It did happen to you once, didn't it? It did, it did. It was actually my first day on the Hebridean Way. I followed a path that wasn't really a path. It was just signposts on the mooridean way. I followed a path that wasn't really a path. It was just signposts on the moorlands in the hills. And it was very misty. The clouds were closing in and I didn't see the next signpost. And I was like, well, now what have you gotten yourself into? Why did you do this? And I started to panic a little bit and thought, oh God, I don't know where to go forward. I don't know where to go back. I don't know where to go back.

But then I just took a few breaths, took a few steps towards where I thought the next signpost would be, you know, pinched my eyes and I saw it through the mist. It was just about staying calm enough and making choices where I knew, OK, I know where I am right now. And even if I just take five steps, I can just take those five back if I don't feel confident. And Gail what sort of preparations do you make to keep yourself safe? Well I think it's just about being well prepared and well equipped for a start you've got to have good footwear because you can't walk any distance with bad footwear so you have to have good footwear that you know will keep you going and keep you safe and with good ankle support usually because if you're walking in rough terrain then you know if you turn an ankle and you're on your

own that's a bit of a problem so um have good ankle support in your boots good maps of course you know look at your maps beforehand plenty of water is important i find a walking stick or walking poles as we have nowadays quite useful not not really so much to help you walk along but you know to swipe away brambles and nettles but also it's a kind of good psychological prop to have that stick you know pilgrims used to walk with staffs there's something about walking and and having that sort of pole with you and stick with you that makes you feel somehow safer i think you said at one point it might be useful if a horrible dog came towards you that That has never happened, certainly not in England, but you've got that feeling that if you were attacked by a fierce animal, it hasn't happened

in this country, that you have that sort of extra bit of protection. But I think it's a psychological piece of protection as well. Cathy, are there any places where you would not walk by yourself? In the UK, no. I couldn't imagine or I couldn't think of anywhere. I think where I would be more concerned or maybe would probably not immediately hike by myself is areas where there's bears around or, you know, large predatory animals

where it just takes a bit of experience to know how to react and how to avoid encounters. And Gail, what about you? Are there any places you would choose not to be by yourself? Well, it's not so much countries that I would choose or landscapes I would choose not to be by myself, but probably just environments. Like I probably wouldn't walk around a town by myself at night.

Somehow I've never felt frightened in the countryside, you know, in the way that you might do if it's sort of two o'clock in the morning and you're lost in a town. So I think I haven't, I haven't come across a place where I feel, oh, I wouldn't want to walk here. Well, Gail Simmons and Cathy Kamleitner, thank you both very much indeed. We would love to hear from you about this. If you do loan rambles, let us know. You can send us a tweet or an email. Now, still to come in today's programme, a book called Mother, an unconventional history. Where do our popular images of mothers come from and how close are they to the reality?

And the serial, the final episode of the readers of Broken Wheel, Recommend. Now, we're definitely in an era of make do and mend. Rather following the advice of our grandmothers, Don't go spending a lot on new stuff, love Keep the work of the old craftsmen and women And just get it repaired The repair shop on BBC One at half past four in the afternoon Is tapping into that trend Last night we saw a battered old miniature tractor brought to life

and a very broken plate with the photograph of the owner's mother printed on it made as good as new. Kirsten Ramsey was the ceramist who fixed the plate and Julie Tatchell makes teddies better. Julie, I've got a teddy who's a bit old and battered. How do you begin to make an old teddy better? Oh, good morning. That's quite a big question because we do have all sorts of different kinds of bears.

We have to, first of all, work out what it's made from. So basically an assessment, a head-to-toe assessment is required, establishing what it's made from, an assessment, a head-to-toe assessment is required, establishing what it's made from, its stuffing, whether it's jointed or not, and all that kind of thing. Now, Kirsten, the woman who brought the plate had such an emotional response to it. I watched you do it last night. Her mother had died very recently.

The photograph of her mother when she was young was there. The plate was so broken. How arduous a responsibility is it to make it perfect when it matters so much? Well, hello. Yes, that was quite daunting, actually, that piece. It was quite a sort of modest piece, but actually, I have to say, with that image on the front of it, I had such a responsibility to actually try and just keep the image of Sandy's mum.

I think the most terrifying thing was actually if I altered that image so that she was no longer able to recognise her mum. And you took it to pieces so carefully, unsticking old glue that had been on there. How long did it actually take you to rip it apart and put it back together again? Well, I obviously didn't rip it apart. No, rip is the wrong word. Yeah, no it actually did take me quite a number of hours. I had to

proceed very very carefully and actually I've never worked on a piece with a photograph on it before so I was quite unsure about how it would actually react with some of the solvents and methods that I normally use to dismantle pieces but I had to take it right back to the beginning and then sort of try and lovingly rebuild the piece. Now Julie old teddy's faces I think are different from the new teddies that you might buy now they're not so smiley if I if I've got that right so how do you get the old faces right when you're repairing them we have to do research if we can if we can't work out who the original manufacturer was or is we have to go by the era so we do put a lot of research into our restoration

work first of all and then we have to rely of course on either our memories or old photographs of similar bears sometimes it is a little bit tempting to try and put a smile on but we have to be very strict with ourselves. Kirsten how does this work compare with what you were trained to do which was to work on 3,000 year old Egyptian pots? Well the interesting thing is that actually you use quite a lot of similar techniques. I think restoration and conservation is quite often about approach, how you actually approach a piece. And, you know, I give the same sort of care

and attention to the pieces that come into the repair shop as I would to a piece that perhaps was being worked on in a museum. You know, it's about sort of considering the piece, its history, and also what is actually going to be done with the piece once it leaves your studio. And Julie, which teddy has stayed with you most? Do you mean from our...

From the teddies that you've restored, which one do you think, hmm, that was my favourite? It's really difficult. We've done so many. And for both myself and Amanda, I know, it is more than just the teddy. It's the whole story that goes behind it and the people that we meet doing it. One that particularly sticks out for me

was a bear called Mr Green Ted, who was brought back by a returning soldier from Burma after the war and he had actually made it himself out of toweling. We couldn't understand why he was called Green Ted because for us it was just filthy brown but once we took him apart to do the work on him it was clear from his sort of armpits and the sort of top of his legs that he had been made from quite a bright green toweling, which he must have just had either in his army kit bag or not quite sure how he came across. But to us, being able to repair and restore something like that, which is a one of a kind, is really special. Well, Julie Tatchell and Kirsten Ramsey, thank you both very much indeed for being with us this morning. The repair shop, by the way, is on BBC One every day at half past four in the afternoon.

If you've not seen it, you can catch up on BBC iPlayer. And they are, by the way, also looking for new items in need of restoration for their next series. Now, there's an image of motherhood which seems to persist even today. It's the Madonna, calm, clearly pleased with herself, with her child lying peacefully in her arms. And I'm sure we all imagine that's going to be us if we become mothers ourselves. But the image does not necessarily turn out to be the reality. So where do we get our ideas of what's expected of a mother and how much do we have to adjust our assumptions if real life intervenes?

Well, Taylor Glenn is a comedian who suffered postnatal depression to the extent she was unable to do her work. Rami Shadeh is a writer and campaigner for more diverse representations of the mother. And Sarah Knott is an historian and the author of Mother, an Unconventional History. Sarah, why was it important to you to write this book? Well, I was already a historian, as you suggested. I'm a historian of the American Revolution. And then I had a child and I was astonished really to realise how little I knew about the past experiences of maternity, whether it was conceiving or miscarrying or birthing or being with an infant. So how helpful was it to find out how women in the past had faced up to it?

It was delicious. It was surprising. It was compelling. I wasn't turning to the past for advice but I was turning to the past to sort of people my imagination more richly about what the possibilities are in mothering. What stood out as common experiences? I think there are certain common experiences we might reach for but birthing would be one. But actually, what I was most struck by was the variety of experiences that people have had in the past. So when I was experiencing sleeplessness, for example, I was struck in the doing the research about the maternal night, how various people's experiences of nighttime were, how various are our expectations about, you know, an eight hour block of sleep which

is a very modern expectation compared to say early modern expectations of sleeping for a first part of the night and then getting up and then sleeping again. How much Taylor do you reckon we neglect what our mothers and grandmothers and people from the distant past knew in favor of modern scientific studies? Oh, I think quite a bit. I think we're neglecting a lot of what we can learn from the past. One of my favorite theories is from obviously British psychoanalyst Winnicott, who coined the phrase, the good enough mother. And I think that we have let that concept go in favour of sort of an intensive parenting. And as you say, this persistent myth of the perfect mother, which doesn't exist. And I think that that myth is doing us all a great deal of harm. Certainly did me.

How much is the myth of the perfect mother influenced women in the past, Sarah, would you say? So that myth has changed. The content of the myth has changed, and I think the story that you're telling about an over-reliance on sort of scientific expectations, that really emerges in the late 19th century, when scientists and physicians really expand their claims about what good mothering is. When male scientists and physicians directly observe. Really, I know you have been surrounded by women with years and years of experience of this what difference has that made to you to be able to draw on other women's experience i think it's made an incredible amount of difference actually i'm currently writing a book and one of the characters in it um hasn't been born yet and she is talking about being born to a woman who is not aware of what came before her

and she's talking about her grandmother's and great-grandmother's experiences and I chose to include that piece because I often thought about my own motherhood experience and the people whose advice I sought and whose expertise I wanted to know about. And I think that by having those conversations with those women, what became very apparent to me was the fact that in order for me to have a truly authentic motherhood experience, I needed to do it by myself. And perspective is everything.

And having various different perspectives taught me that each experience is incredibly individual. I think as well what lends weight to me is because I am of many intersections and diverse backgrounds, I come from collectivist communities. And we as a Western society are an individualistic community. And so when I look back on my cultural experiences and expectations of motherhood, there are certain rituals that we do to transition into motherhood, which makes it an easier process. And so I had that alongside the current and more modern standard and say the familiar images of motherhood that seemed to me to have influenced all of it certainly influenced me how did they influence what you expected your experience

of birth and having a small baby would be? I suppose some of my expectations came down from my own mother and they came from my peer group. And in fact, what was so interesting about turning to history really reflects what Remy is saying, that to turn to actually a more diverse past, a past that's not just the idealisation, but in fact, how women have responded to birthing in many, many different ways. How cultures and societies have handled the transition to becoming a mother in so many different ways, was very liberating. What were the most interesting ones for you that you came across? I think it's very interesting to notice how the period of time after birth has been handled in different times and places. So if we turn to early modern England, there was a period of lying in

when a woman quite literally stayed within her bed chamber if she was sufficiently economically secure and her female relatives and friends helped relieve her of her usual domestic duties same kind of idea comes up in um say early 20th century mississippi among african-american women who expect to stay quote unquote stay the month. So staying away from farm work if they can. Remy, you laughed at the idea. But I also think it's really important to recognise that for some cultures, motherhood is synonymous with womanhood. And it's a stage in womanhood that you aspire to. And I'm a millennial.

So now women do very different things to what they did in the past. But there are still people alive today who see motherhood as a stage of womanhood. And so now I look at motherhood very differently than I did before I had a child. And now I also look at motherhood as not just the journey of mother, but also the journey of child. I think everybody has a relationship with motherhood, even if they don't have a mum, even if they don't have a relationship with that woman, because that is something that is regarded upon. That is something that you will be asked questions about, leading questions. Somebody wants to know more about why is your mum not in your life or why did that happen? And so I think it's motherhood is definitely a birthing process.

And I always say my daughter gave birth to the mother in me when I gave birth to life in her, because I wouldn't be the version of the woman I am today without that experience. But I had an understanding of motherhood prior to pregnancy as well. Taylor, what was your response to the lying in idea as somebody who suffered from postnatal depression quite severely? Yeah, and I think I was thinking postnatal depression forced me to slow down. And I think that again, this persistent myth doesn't allow for that. So I think that's why I laughed a little bit too, because I, I know about cultures that celebrate that. And it sounds very sensible to me. But I immediately thought, Oh, would I be brave enough to be that mother that

didn't leave the house for a month and that said, I'm not getting out of bed. And I think this is the problem with this image. You know, it takes a village to raise a child, but not if that village is a bunch of judgmental, googling, oh, did you give your baby that? Because they think that can cause problems down the line. Yeah, so that was my experience unexpectedly because I thought, you know, I'm a comedian. I had grown a thick skin. I told myself I didn't care what people thought. But I immediately think, yeah, if I had done that at the beginning, maybe I could have spared my own mental health. But I wouldn't have felt the freedom to do that because I thought I had to show that I can do 110% at home with the baby and 110% at work. How do you reckon that worked in the past Sarah? Would women have said you're not going to give your baby that are you

or would it have been more supportive or has there always been criticism of other mothers oh you're not doing it well enough that's uh that's tricky i think in all times and places there has been an abundance of advice and knowledge about how to do what people do when they're caring for a child it's certainly the case that there are particular places and times where the judgmentalism seems ferocious. I think the expectations of bonding and of attachment in the present day are very high, given the conditions under which people become mothers. Where was it ferocious in the past? I would say 19th century expectations of motherhood as sort of pure and devoted.

I think that's the origin of a lot of the images today, not just the image of the Madonna, but actually the sort of Victorian sentimental image of the devoted mother and her very tender child. That's a strong heritage and an unfortunate one, given that actually most times and places women have worked and they've always needed to mother alongside other activities. When I wrote the book, I decided quite concertedly

to focus on mother as a verb. That is to say mothering as a set of activities among other activities, rather than mother as an identity or as an occupation or as a noun, which leads us straight to the individualistic notions of motherhood that Remy is pointing to. But given that background and that image

that is so present in all our lives, how hard is it to get back to be the creative person that you were as an individual before you became a mother, Remy? I wouldn't have been a creative if I didn't become a mother. I think what both of you are saying is quite interesting because I never expected motherhood to be easy. I come from a place where motherhood is not easy. It's a struggle and a sacrifice. And I have an incredibly privileged example and experience of

motherhood in my own household that was afforded to me because I chose to step outside of the bounds of what women who came before me did. And, you know, my grandmother came here in the Windrush generation and had many children and had to work and had to pay bills and, you know, by herself. And so it's interesting. And I was speaking about it before. Most of the women from demographics that I cover do not choose to become mothers. We fall pregnant and it is a circumstance under which we experience and so our expectations are very different and so for me I'm astounded by my experience of motherhood I'm blown away um if I knew it was going to be like

this maybe I would have made different choices in the past not necessarily um and you know I don't intend to have any more children having said that because I don't know because I think this is for me still quite surreal that I can have such a positive mothering experience with not no struggle I've definitely had some difficult experiences but my remit of how to expand myself out of those is something that I wouldn't have had if I didn't have my child when I did in this day and age with all of the motherhood, but it definitely came from 18 months previously of me writing about my life, which included motherhood. And so for me, my creative process, I've birthed this book in the way that I birthed my child metaphorically. Taylor, how easy was it for you to find the comic in yourself again? It was very difficult.

I'm in a good place now, everyone. It was hard for me. I think part of it for me is that I had my daughter later in life. And so I got very used to a lifestyle. What does later in life mean? Well, exactly. All I know is I was labelled a geriatric pregnancy and I didn't appreciate that. But that happens when you're 33.

I know, exactly. But I was a bit older than that, which is fine. And I think, you know, that's become more and more the norm. But yeah, I and I've spoken to other women about this. After I had my daughter, I just felt like my nerves were on the outside of my body. And suddenly, you know, I just felt like my nerves were on the outside of my body. And suddenly, you know, I'd been doing stand up full time. And suddenly the prospect of getting up there, and having that thick skin, and I just felt like I had a humor bypass, and I was too sensitive to

get up there. And I think the past few years, we've seen a real sea change in entertainment. And I think we are lampooning this idea of this ridiculous perfect mother. There are so many blogs, podcasts. I think what's great about things like Remy's podcast, Sarah's book, is that it's forcing us to break this idea of the ideal. But I do think we're slightly at risk of almost that becoming the new image. I was thinking the other day, like I fought so hard to be the bad mother. But now there's almost this cliche of like the perfect bad mother but how much do we still get set back all the time by terms like oh she's got baby brain which I have to say always makes me really cross trigger yes I did a whole routine about this and because I ended up doing an Edinburgh show called a billion days of parenthood about my experiences of postnatal depression just kind of the shock of all of this and I ended up doing an Edinburgh show called A Billion Days of Parenthood about my

experiences of postnatal depression just kind of the shock of all of this and I detest that because it just feels like another word we use to point out how women are so dysfunctional and like you can't even deal with the thing you're designed to do ladies your brain isn't working um yeah so I'm not a big fan of baby brain. I mean, there is clearly guilt and anxiety that runs through mothers these days. How much guilt and anxiety did women suffer in the past? Wouldn't it be lovely to have a history of maternal guilt, to know exactly where that came from? It can't have trickled down from generations of farm women who were mothering alongside other activities, down generations of native women, communal mothering, extended families. It kind of come down from really any group who were below the employing classes. I think it's a fairly modern

invention, the notion that one should feel guilty because one is not perfect or one is not spending all of one's time absorbed in one's baby. that's a fantasy to spend all of one's time is it in a way a problem of the privilege like that's what occurs to me like to have the luxury to reflect on yourself whenever my mother visits she's like you're just thinking about this too much you know you're analyzing this too much but it occurs to me that that's quite a i mean i only pretend to be middle class mind you i'm more like a spy. But yeah, you have the luxury of this time to sort of reflect on yourself. So there's a wonderful black feminist theorist called Patricia Collins, who coined the notion

of other mothering, looking out from Cincinnati among her community in 1990. And she said, you know, it's white middle class mothers who have these notions of absorbed mothering, not us. I was talking to Sarah Knott, Remy Chardet and Taylor Glenn. Emma O'Hagan sent a text saying, incredibly moving segment, read the Magdalene laundries. So, so many women and children who suffered a stain on Ireland's history. And then lots of you got in touch about walking alone. Chris said, I'm 59 and section hiking the Pennine Way mostly alone.

I love the remoteness and the call of the birds. I don't listen to music and just live for the moment. When I'm in my tent, I'm not afraid, just peaceful. There are occasional walkers to chat with on the way, so it isn't lonely. I can't wait to get out again. Kate said, I walk on my own all the time. It's brilliant. Over the moors in Howarth in the Yorkshire Dales, over the three peaks. I've never ventured abroad on my own, but I'm always inspired by others who have. The book Wild is one of my favourite accounts of solo hiking.

Mary Gregory said, I walked the 109 miles of the Cleveland Way by myself. Wonderful scenery, deep peace, personal challenge and great accidental conversations. Louise said, I've been hiking alone for years via Francigena recently, coastal UK. Bring food, a hat and an extra charger for your phone. A brilliant way to relax and get fit.

Helen Wormsley said lovely to hear walking alone being talked about. I do it a lot, a lot in In other countries, as well as the UK. I'm mindful of safety, but liberating, enriching, good thinking time too, for a writer. No one's going to tell me that a woman can't walk on her own. And then Anne said, walking the 500 mile Camino de Santiago solo. It was one of the best things I ever did for myself. By travelling on my own meant that I faced myself for the very first time at the age of 56 and realised that I'm strong and believe in myself. This was probably helped along by staying in the most basic of hostels along the route. I came home with a strong sense of self and inner strength. If I'd walked this path with a companion,

I wouldn't have had the luxury of self-analysis. I would have probably vented my frustration on the other person. And then Alvina said, I walk on my own a lot and with company, and I've travelled on my own extensively in Southeast Asia when I lived in Vietnam for nearly a year. I live in Cumbria and a couple of years ago qualified at the age of 57 as a mountain leader. I now work for holiday companies, leading groups, teach teenagers on Duke of Edinburgh outdoor expedition courses.

I also volunteer walk lead for the Lake District National Park and as a tutor on their women-only navigation skills courses. The longest solo walk I've done is the Cumbria Way from Ulverston to Carlisle. So I expect you'll all be out walking tomorrow afternoon when I'll be presenting Weekend Woman's Hour. Maybe you'll have your ears in and you can listen to us tomorrow afternoon for Weekend Woman's Hour. Maybe you'll have your ears in and you can listen to us tomorrow afternoon for Weekend Woman's Hour when we'll discuss why do so many women love a weekend away with the girls?

The actor Arabella Weir and Tiana Johnson, the founder of Black Girls Campaign Trip, will discuss. music from the cellist, songwriter and singer Ayanna Witter-Johnson and Inside an Honour Killing, a father and his surviving daughter tell their story. That's four o'clock tomorrow afternoon. Do join me if you can. Bye-bye. Beyond Today is the daily podcast from Radio 4. It asks one big question

about one big story in the news and beyond. I'm Tina Dehealy. I'm Matthew Price. And along with a team of curious producers, we are searching for answers that change the way we see the world. Subscribe to us on BBC Sounds. And join in on the hashtag Beyond Today. I went down, you went up. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year,

I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this?

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