Woman's Hour - Repeat removals of children, Joanne Harris on The Strawberry Thief

Episode Date: April 4, 2019

With the numbers of children being taken into care in England at a ten year high, we take a look at the women who face the repeat court-ordered removal of subsequent children. We hear the story of one woman who had already had her first two children removed under court orders - and decided to flee the country when she was 37 weeks pregnant with a third child. Jenni discusses why some women face the repeat court-ordered removal of their children and what support vulnerable mothers require to break the cycle. And the author of Chocolat, Joanne Harris, talks about her latest novel The Strawberry Thief which returns to the story of chocolatier Vianne Rocher and of her daughters, Anouk and Rosette. Presenter: Jenni Murray Producer: Ruth Watts Interviewed guest: Sophie Humphreys, child protection expert and board member of Cafcass Interviewed guest: Claire Mason, senior research associate at the Centre for Child and Family Justice Research and social worker Interviewed guest: Paula Jackson-Key, from Doncaster Children’s Services Trust Interviewed guest: Joanne Harris, author of The Strawberry Thief

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to the Woman's Hour podcast for Thursday the 4th of April. Today we devote most of the programme to the news that there are more children living in care in England today than there were 25 years ago, with increasing numbers of very young children being removed from their parents because they're considered to be at risk of neglect or abuse. Why has there been a doubling of the number of babies being taken into care at birth in the past decade, and what better support might there be for young and often vulnerable mothers? We'll also be joined by the novelist Joanne Harris, whose latest book, The Strawberry Thief, returns to the village of Lankhane-Sutan,

first encountered in Chocolat. Now, the latest figure for the number of children in care in England who've been removed from their parents is 75,420. That's a rise of 4% on the number recorded last year. Every year, a number of mothers are known to flee the UK to stop their babies being taken away. They head to various countries, including France. A woman we're calling Zara was one of them.

She was 22 at the time and 37 weeks pregnant. Social services had already removed her first two children. Zara went online asking for support from others in a similar situation. She was advised to run away and was offered work, support and accommodation. She packed a small bag and left everything behind but her new life across the channel quickly went wrong. Anna Miller asked Zara about her own childhood. Growing up I didn't have much of a role model to learn from. I was more of an equal to my dad and my mother was quite abusive but I got by. I'm Zara, I'm just a mum and that's all there is to me.

And so you left home quite early? I left home when I was 15, ended up going back. I left home again when I was 16 but I went into care briefly. I was 16 when I had my first child and I was 18 when I had my second and I was 22 when I fell pregnant with my third and the hope was that I could actually be the mum that I wanted to be, the mum that I was never allowed to be because my situation had never allowed it. What I want to understand is how did Zara get into the situation that Zara found herself? When I was pregnant with my third child,

I'd already had two children removed. I was, luckily enough, that they went to family. My situation was where I had been in and out of various different abusive relationships. Mentally, my first child removal, it was was difficult it was really hard and it was it was like a chicane for the second child and I never really recovered from the removal you were already at a stage where you'd lost two children sort of let's say into the system even though you knew where they were the authorities and social services technically

on paper saying you're not a capable mother why did you get pregnant for the third time um when you're in a situation where you've had children removed it's like losing any child you you need to be a mother and you have a child-shaped hole in your heart um and there's there's only one thing that will fill it, which is how I became pregnant with my third child. I was in a different local authority to where I'd previously been living. I was living in hope and I think we all live in hope. When you got pregnant again, were you elated or was it a case of, oh no?

I thought it was a new beginning until I was about 22 weeks pregnant and the local authority became involved. I thought that it was the right thing to do to work with them and I worked with them until I was 37 weeks pregnant when I was coerced to leaving the country. How does that happen? How do you go from being pregnant and having hope to possibly thinking I'm going to leave the country? It wasn't something that had crossed my

mind but there are I guess you could call them forums on Facebook and other platforms. Now I put my question in the group asking what my chances were of keeping my child because local authority weren't really giving me any answers that were sufficient enough for me to know what was happening and I can't remember exactly what I asked but I explained a little bit of my situation and I was contacted by a lady. I'm logged into Facebook at the moment and I can show you a couple of examples of people almost coercing these pregnant women to flee. Friends photos, likes. If I go down to groups there are some groups there that are like hidden. They're like secret groups. So this is where you went to on Facebook to get advice on what to do?

Yeah, there are hundreds out there. Just places where you think that you can turn to. It's the wrong place. Look, here's one. She told me to talk to her on inbox and we would go from there and it was at that point she said I live outside of the UK jurisdiction you've not got any hope of keeping your child others were commenting the same sort of thing on on the post that I put up you are 37 weeks pregnant and what is going on? You know, you're sitting there and then now people are telling you, right, you've got to pack up.

I hadn't been scared like that in my pregnancy before. What were social services telling you? They had concerns in respect of my elder children being removed. They had concerns about the fact that I'd been suicidal, concerned about relationship that were abusive. They were concerned that I was isolated. All quite minor concerns. When you say suicidal, two children removed, then you use the words that they were minor concerns. To me, they're not minor. No, to you, they they wouldn't be minor but even to a local authority they're minor concerns in the sense that they were historic as opposed to the present concerns

and the concern that was still there in my pregnancy is that I was isolated or I hadn't had many friends that I think there were easy solutions to that but the problem was that I was being told by everyone else that it didn't matter if these concerns were historic they would be taken as as fact and that's just not the case and you think of the worst so that you can prepare for the best and I was being told that the only solution was to leave the country and you everyone's got that flight or fight reflex and up until I was 36 weeks 37 weeks pregnant I was fighting and then there was a shift and that shift was huge it was drastic it was life-changing and so what then was that trigger then that you decided I'm going? The trigger was a package of a new life being sold to me by a lady out of the country in France. She said that

I could then get a job. She would give me support in finding accommodation. It was a life that was being sold to me that didn't exist. So people were telling you to go to France. I've read that there's other places where they say go to Cyprus, go to Ireland, go to Spain, but you chose France. Once that's said and you've decided, then what happened? Once I'd decided, we were actually told that there was a man called Ian Josephs who speaks very openly about the whole situation that would pay my tickets once I'd arrived in France. He's been in quite a few documentaries and he's very open about what he

does with regards to fleeing. My name's Ian Josephs. I try and help mothers especially, but fathers also, whose children have been taken. I don't want you to think of me as an extremist as some people might so if you want my opinion for example of social workers judges guardians experts and hangers-on i'll say quite simply there are a load of scumbags with this what's it like when you watch that video what sort of reaction in terms of him publicising what he does there's two sides to Ian

there's the legal advice and then there's the fleeing advice or the emigrating as he calls it now I'm all for the legal advice. People need that. But how can you sincerely say that it's the right thing to do in any case

as he does so publicly? Okay, so to be clear, Ian Josephs wasn't involved with your travel arrangements. Yeah, he refunded your travel costs once you left the country and then you yourself found a contact online who arranged somewhere for you to live and then you left how much later it was a matter of four hours of not having any thoughts of leaving the country to actually instigating the leave of the country. What did you do in those four hours?

In those four hours it was absolutely mental, it was horrible, it was scary, my head, it was in circles, it was messy, I didn't understand what I was doing, it was more robotic, more a conveyor belt of what you had to do so I had to get my passport ready I had to get a bag ready I kissed my cat goodbye I bought my tickets I triple checked that I had my passport and before I knew it I was on the train at the time I remember sitting on the star and I had this breath of fresh air because I was starting a new life. I believed the story that I was being told so I was happy, I was excited. Something new was coming my way and no one was going to stop me. That was really cool. Why were your expectations so high when you were so vulnerable? I guess my expectations

were so high because I was so vulnerable and when the story is believable you jump at that opportunity and that's exactly what I did sadly. It was like a scene from a movie where you step off a train and you breathe in and you stretch your arms out and the world just circles around you, you're in your moment. You stepped off the Eurostar. How big was your bag? What was even in your bag? I had a change of underwear for a week. I had one change of clothes and the rest of my bag was just baby clothes. Money? Had my bank card. So the lady, she picked me up from the station. She hugged me. She said, this is my car. Get in. Let's go. She was as bubbly and as happy as I was at that point.

It was beautiful. It was really hot. The reality hit me when we went to this barn. She said, this is my home. I was sold something quite different. I was sold a nice sized house with room for everybody. Although it would be a squeeze because there were three babies on the way so she had three other women there so it was myself one other woman and the lady was also pregnant at the time when i saw the barn i thought oh okay everyone exaggerates

about things um and then we got into the house and she locked the door behind us now ordinarily I wouldn't say that was a problem but one we were in the middle of nowhere and the second part of that scariness was that she took the key out the door it was at that moment that I thought oh shit and then she said to me oh I'm going to need some money for food. So I gave her some money. She actually asked for my bank card. She wanted my passport. She said that the passport was for the hospital and we were going to go to the hospital the day after. So I gave her my passport, no questions asked, along with my EHIC card.

I didn't think she'd clear me out, but I found out that she had cleared my account out so did you give her the pin as well I had to give her the pin there's no contact list there I knew it was stupid at the time and that was the that was the other thing but I believed in it still because I had to not that it was all lies, just to take advantage of people that she claims to have helped, myself included. So, you're in the house. So there's this other girl, I'm introduced to her. I was told on the car journey that she was lazy. She was regularly shouted at by this woman.

And so when Kelly was being shouted at I thought nothing of it there was a one room there was then the kitchen there was then another room and then the bathroom there wasn't even a room for me I had to sleep on a sofa bed in the same room that this lady and her partner were sleeping in. They were also sleeping on a sofa bed. That was the living room, if you could call it that. Her two-year-old daughter was sleeping there. I was never left alone.

I was always accompanied. I was told what I could and couldn't say. I was told if I had said anything about my situation in the UK that the same would happen there. It wasn't just the cooking and the cleaning, it was to wait on her hand and foot. You weren't allowed to stop until she was satisfied. On the fourth day, Kelly was in the room with me and the lady was on the phone in the back garden and I asked Kelly to keep watch and I went into this lady's handbag and I got the front door keys and my passport.

I even grabbed Kelly's passport, opened it up and said to Kelly, do you want this? Her face went white. She was scared. She said that she wanted to come with me but she was too scared of even doing that because if she came with me, would they follow us?

And then? of even doing that because if she came with me would they follow us and then um there was like this run down petrol station thing i walked there and i hid behind one of the pumps cars were few and far between in that area i hid behind there until about dusk um which was about an hour um at dusk i walked a little bit further up the road and I stuck my thumb out. I hitchhiked. I had no money. I had nothing.

I keep forgetting that you are 37 and a half weeks pregnant. Yeah, this lorry driver kept, you know, every few miles. Are you OK? Yeah, I'm all right. I contacted somebody in the south of France who the lady was in contact with I didn't know that he knew the goings on in fact I assumed he didn't know the goings on he sexually assaulted me

I contacted the gendarme who were the police. They helped me contact people that I'd previously been friends with in France. And it was from that moment that I was safe with my baby. I was sick for a few days. Two weeks later, I gave birth. It was us against the world. She was my baby. Salut! Hello!

I had previously lived in France for six months as a child and Melissa was somebody that I'd had connections to and I lived with her. Il y en a beaucoup maintenant! Ah ouais? She helped me get a property. Ah, dommage! The local authority there closed my case quite quickly. There was no

concerns there for my daughter's safety or well-being. I've still got that letter. Oh, this was in France. Look, this was actually at Paris Charles de Gaulle when we picked my brother up. So these are some photos of when you were in France? Yes. Do you know what I find really strange about that picture and I've only just noticed it? It's a picture of you what you said you're 37 and a half weeks pregnant. I was actually 38 weeks at that point but yeah. Right so you're massive and you'd think your belly would

be the most important thing but in front of it what are you holding? It's my passport. It wasn't about being pregnant it was more the fact that I'd got away anymore I've got some more hang on yeah this photo here was when my brother came to visit you can see we're close we're hugging we're smiling doesn't have a care in the world and what were your cares in the world at that point I knew that my time with my brother was going to come to an end. It was this that spurred me to coming back to the UK, really. After a year, I thought, you know, I've done this in France, I can do this in the UK.

So I came back. I've been speaking to other women who've been in the same situation as you. Like you, they experienced abusive behavior there was another woman who said she lived in a caravan with her nine-year-old the same lady that you lived with switched off the electricity in their caravan in the winter and another person said that this person made them homeless there are nine that i'm in contact with that have also been through this there are possibly more but the majority of us would say don't do it fight your battles do not run away from them because of your history people may not give you the benefit of the doubt because

they already believe you're not a very good person. Yeah, when you've had children removed, that's it. You're tarnished, you're branded. But there are people out there that believe that people can change and those people, the ones that aren't in the system, those people should really speak up because we need that. And something you said to me, you said to me really passionately, people like you are struggling to do the right thing. I think what needs to be done is there needs to be some sort of structural change,

but structural change is not going to happen from people running away. So you came back? I came back. People told the UK authorities that were here when they found out they removed my daughter that day. I don't, still to this day, I don't understand. I can't understand that. How can I be a good parent in one country and not in another? Zara talked to Anna Miller.

Now, Zara, of course, is not alone in her fear that her baby will be taken into care nor is she the only young woman who has become pregnant, had her baby removed, gone out and become pregnant again, lost her child and then done it again. Why do so many repeat the painful process over and over and what sort of help might be given to those at risk to prevent pregnancy after pregnancy resulting in the removal of their babies? Well, Sophie Humphries specialises in child protection. She's a board member of CAFCAS, the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service. Claire Mason is a Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Child and Family Justice Research at Lancaster University and joins us from there.

And Paula Jackson-Key is a social worker and practice lead for the charity Paws in Doncaster, and she joins us from Sheffield. Paula, how familiar is the kind of story that we've just heard of a young woman like Zara thinking, my only option is to run away? Good morning. I think as Zara, thinking my only option is to run away. Good morning. I think as Zara explained, her story and the story of the women she met is more an extreme response.

But as a former social worker and practice leader at PAWS now, I have an understanding of both sides of the process and understand absolutely that working with children's services can cause mothers or parents a great deal of stress and anxiety. And like Zara, some of the women that I've worked with have described that as a fight, and I think that gives a good indication of the pressure and emotions that are involved. I think families need to understand the concerns for their children and what needs to happen to keep them safe, but they should be involved in developing the plans and working together with social workers and other agencies

to achieve the aims of the plan and children's services role is to ensure that family environment is safe for that child let me bring claire in here claire zara said she never recovered from the loss of her first child. How does her experience fit with your research? Hello. Yes, our recurrent mother's research absolutely maps on to Zara's experiences in a number of ways. So, first of all, her age. So in our study, 63% of women were teenagers at their first pregnancy. They had quick subsequent pregnancies in the same way Hazara has.

And early trauma, I mean, she described very vividly there the difficulties that she'd had and the maltreatment she'd experienced in her own childhood. And again, that was found in our research, that the women, we've talked about complex about complex trauma you know these are a very vulnerable group of women and she talked about very movingly about that child-shaped hole and what we found in our interviews with women and through our case file analysis all funded by the Nuffield Foundation is this idea of complicated grief so when you've've lost a child, but that child isn't dead,

that child is still out there, the complexity of dealing with that grief alongside the stigma that you hold, having been judged as not a good enough mother, requires a very specific type of intervention. Sophie, what did you make of Zahra's story? How common would you say it is for young women to follow that pattern of giving birth only to have their babies repeatedly removed? Yeah, I mean, I was really interested in and I thought she spoke very eloquently. And I thought she was very reflective, actually, through the process and talking about it.

But I think, I mean, I've founded the organisation PA PAWS which we've worked with now nearly 600 women who have been in that circumstance and as you mentioned with Paula who's in in Dogster in relation to that but what I think sits underneath this is yes that compounded loss is does fill that need and she talked about it very clearly about the need to sort of fill that gap to have another baby but I think the gap represents a lot more than in relation to the loss of that child which is massive and cannot ever be underestimated but it is about the loss of their own childhood and what they haven't had and I think she used the word hope and I think there's a lot of hope and belief that the next one or the next relationship, this time it's going to be OK.

But one of the reasons that pause came about was that what I saw when I used to work with women who were having children removed repeatedly, and I was involved in removing their children, was that nothing was happening in between. So actually, the circumstances were very likely to remain the same. But the figures that I've quoted this morning are alarming. Why are the numbers of children going into care at a 10-year high? I mean, I think there is a number of reasons, and we don't have the exact answers. But I do think unless we start looking at how we look at the structure of services and how we respond to vulnerable people, because ultimately what Zara described is somebody who's very vulnerable. She described being exploited. There's no other word for what happened to her.

She was exploited. That's the same with someone who gets sexually exploited and child exploitation, young people are caught in county lines. And unless we stop looking at the issue as the problem, but begin to look at who is the person, look at their foundations, what's their experience been in their childhood and how can we help them create? But as far as the numbers are concerned, I know in the past past it's often been assumed that that social workers have been maybe a little over cautious following a high profile child abuse case that's been all over the newspapers how much is that still the case

well in my opinion i think that of most of the children that have been removed in relation to women we've worked with, and actually the women themselves will often reflect on this, the decision itself to remove the child probably has not been wrong. However, we are not doing enough to break this cycle and to recognise that this isn't just in this generation, this will often be across generations. And actually we don't put in something that is really intense and about a relationship. I mean, PAWS is built on relationships.

And the reason we've seen such success is because the women have the opportunity to have some space for themselves and have somebody work intensely with them to help bring that change. Paula, just to go to the details of how this actually occurs, at what point is a baby taken away? Again, I think this is on a case-by-case basis. So the research talks about infants and children in the first week of life. Decisions to remove children are not taken lightly and there is a measured process in place which involves a wide range of professionals and that includes health

visitors, midwives, schools, police and other support services who are working with the family and work will have taken place over a period of time through a multi-agency plan to identify the worries for the child and the work that needs to take place to keep them safe. So the removal of the child is kind of the last decision in that process. How much account, Paula, is taken of the the parents wishes and their rights? Children's law and guidance states that parents wishes and feelings should be considered throughout work with children's services and that is throughout all of that process i just spoke about so as part of social care assessments and the court process and parents do have legal representation in court to make sure that their wishes and feelings are

taken into account alongside the consideration of safeguarding the child. But what we also know from our research is that often pre-birth assessments are starting very late, so we're really missing a trick of trying to intervene in that space in pregnancy where often motivation is at its highest for women to bring about that change. I mean, the numbers from our Born Into Care report, which you've quoted, which again was funded by the Nuffield Foundation, has shown that the rates of intervening really early,

so babies less than a week old, has more than doubled. And so we really need to be asking questions about what is happening in pregnancy, what specialist services are being offered to try to bring about change for those women regardless of whether they've had a child removed or not previously i mean actually in our study the born into care study 53 of them it was not a recurrent child and yet they were still having their baby removed within a week of birth claire as far as your research is concerned how would you describe

the kind of women that this has been happening to? Well I think they very much fit Zara's description so these are young women as Sophie has described who've had very early traumatic histories, have lacked a secure base in their own childhood, often very socially isolated, and have somehow fallen through the gaps in services, although 40% of the women in our study were actually looked after children themselves, which raises really big questions about the state's role as a corporate grandparent. And yet as soon as they leave court,

they kind of absolutely, services withdraw, and thank goodness we've got a plethora of services developing like PAWS and others who are trying to pick up that gap. But more needs to be done. More needs to be done to be able to really think about newborn babies and whether we can turn things around at an earlier point for these families. It shouldn't just be about assessment. We need intervention in that pregnancy space. Sophie, what obligations do local authorities and family courts have to try and prevent these recurrent proceedings? Well, I think the difficulty is, I mean, I agree with what Claire says and that absolutely we need to be doing more and local authorities there is an obligation in

regards to doing pre-birth assessments but it's too much assessment sometimes not enough actually getting in there but what we know from Paul's and what I sort of hypothesized before Paul's was that actually it's still too late if you're working with someone at the point when they're pregnant you're always going uphill because the focus but claire says that's when they're most receptive well i think i mean timing i always talk about there's a whole thing about when's the teachable moment and i think it may be for a period unfortunately i think local authorities we do start too late and i agree with that and i think absolutely at every point in this cycle we've got to be doing more but you can't do just a little bit of something these are really deeply

entrenched issues they go back to their own experiences children often that potentially of their parents as well so something during a few months is very unlikely to be what's needed now it may be for some but certainly with the women that we've been working with on pause what we see and what we hear from them is actually this work needs to happen when they're not pregnant because it's only then that they can be the focus otherwise it's always focus on the child claire what approaches would you say work best with these young women well i absolutely agree with sophie you know this is shouldn't be an either-or. We do need to be intervening at an earlier point where we can see that there's been childhood trauma,

where we know that young women in care are particularly vulnerable to early pregnancy. In terms of what interventions are working best, well, we're waiting. This is a fairly new field, so Pools is having an evaluation at the moment. There are other interventions that are being evaluated we absolutely know it's not signposting to a whole load of different services

we know these women need trauma informed practice we know they need proper response to their grief we know they need help with their shame and their stigma and we know that they need that means an intense key worker relationship they need somebody to walk the walk with them not to refer to lots of different services paula that that study that claire referred to showing that 40 percent of these young women have been in care themselves what early intervention might break that cycle one child goes into care she has a child that child goes into care how do you break it i think um at pause doncaster we recognized that we actually learned from that research and we focused our second community which is where we're working now with

women um on care leavers who have had a child removed. So the typical pause community is women with two or more children removed traditionally. However, we learned from that research and we looked at working earlier with care leavers. And again, nationally across pause, there have been some pilot work with care leavers so that we can start to understand more about what does work and what intervention and early intervention can be provided. Sophie, briefly, how would you say you prevent that first pregnancy from taking place until she's ready to be a mother? You have to find that gap and you have to create a space that enables somebody to put something intense in and to work alongside

and you need to focus on the individual rather than their problems and defining them by those. It's time to actually think about who is this person. And by building those foundations, we have a much better chance for people then to go on and be in control of their lives, make decisions that have better outcomes for them and ultimately their children.

Sophie Humphries, Claire Mason, Paula Jackson-Key, thank you all very much indeed for being with us and of course we would like to hear from you about this subject. If you have experience of it we would really like to hear from you. You can send us an email if you have a comment to make you can email or of course course, you can tweet. And thank you all very much indeed. Now, it is 20 years since Joanne Harris published her novel Chocolat. It was set in a village in France called L'Ancunet Soutane and introduced us to Vian Rocher and her daughter Anouk, their chocolate shop and certain magical elements. In her latest story, The Strawberry Thief,

Vianne is settled in the village. Raynaud has become a friend. Anouk has left home with her boyfriend. And here, Vianne's second daughter, Rosette, is described by her mother. Can you do the description? I think it's beginning of chapter two. There she goes.

How strange she is, my winter child, my changeling. Wild as an armful of birds, she flies everywhere in an instant. There is no keeping her inside, no making her sit quietly. She has never been like other girls, never like other children. Rosette is a force of nature, like the jackdaws that sit on the steeple and laugh, like a fall of unseasonal snow, like the blossom on the wind. Women, mothers, like Jolene Droux or Caro Clermont, do not understand. The dread of having a different child is more than they can imagine. Nearly 16 and still Rosette cannot speak in the normal way. To them it makes my child

a burden, pitiful, less than whole. To them she is poor Rosette, as I am poor Vianne, behind my back, left with that child to bring up alone, and the father so shockingly absent. But Caro and Jolene do not know how Rosette looks at me when I kiss her goodnight, or how she sings to herself in bed, or how she can draw any animal or bird or living creature. All they see is a little girl who can never grow up, and this, they think, is the saddest thing. Joanne, what is it that keeps drawing you back to this village and these characters?

I think, in a way, it's not that it draws me back, it's that they keep calling me. These characters, unlike some characters, just never said goodbye at the end of the book. They just keep coming back, and because time passes and life changes them, they have different stories to tell, and those stories come back to me, and eventually I get to tell them. And why the strawberry thief? Ah well there are lots of reasons for this some of which are revealed in the plot. Which we're going to try not to give away. But I shan't give too many spoilers away but the strawberry thief of course we know is a

William Morris pattern. It's a rather intricate pattern and there is a lot in this book about patterns, about reflections, about how people mirror each other, how their roles are mirrored, how they mirror previous selves, future selves. And there is a great deal about imprinting and marking and the marks that life puts on us. And all this is tied in with a story about a strawberry wood, which is left to Rosette by Narcisse the florist when he dies, as a legacy. Now, fruit often appears in your titles. Blackberry wine, peaches for Monsieur le Curé,

five quarters of the orange. What is it about fruit that you love food, anyway? I do rather love food but fruit particularly has a mythic connotation it's often mentioned in fairy tales, fruit often has magical properties transformative properties and because I write so much about folklore

and traditional stories, this idea of these traditional images tends to come back over and over and repeat Now I know you've spoken about how you can smell colours. It's a talent, another talent that you have. It's not a talent as much as a sort of glitch in my brain. But you're bringing out a scent to go with this book.

What is the scent? Well, I'm not bringing it out exactly. It was created by Tim Gage of CPL Laboratories, and I wanted him to have an illustration to one of my books, because I've worked with illustrators before, and I've also illustrated my stories with music. And I thought, well, you know, has anybody done this with scent? And wouldn't it be really interesting? Because scent has a narrative in the same way that words have a narrative, music has a narrative, pictures have a narrative. And to see what it would be like if I could use this scent in limited numbers in some of my readings. Now, central to this story, as you've just read, is Rosette and her shadow voice.

What is a shadow voice? There must be a real life explanation for it. Well, in Rosette's case, it's a bit of a mystery. We don't know why Rosette is how she is. We don't know why she's mostly non-verbal at 16 or why she just makes noises or sings. She has a very strong inner voice. She's one of the narrators of the book. But she also has a shadow voice, which she explains as a voice that she doesn't use because it's dangerous, because it tells the truth, because people don't want to hear the truth. She is in many ways a kind of divided personality, much like Vian herself.

She lives in a kind of fantasy world much of the time. She tells stories to herself. She believes in the stories she tells. She believes in magic. She believes in the power of her wishing well to grant wishes. And she has an invisible friend who is not invisible to her and is largely also not invisible to her mother, but most people can't see. Yes, I mean, in Chocolat there was Pontouf and in the strawberry there's Bam. What is the role of these creatures?

Well, of course, I had invisible friends as a child, and so did my daughter Anushka. She had two, one of which I borrowed, Pantoufle, for her counterpart, Anouk, in Chocolat. And I think particularly with children who are only children or who are lonely or different in some way, the invisible friend isn't just a companion. They are a means of expressing things

which children are perhaps not articulate enough to express. So sometimes the invisible friend is the one who does the naughty things that the good child doesn't really want to do. And so naughtiness is excused. The invisible friend did it. It wasn't me. Sometimes it's a different thing. The friend wants to say something to the parent that

the child can't say. And so they use them in that way. What were your invisible friends like? Oh, I had a number of them. I had a bear. And I also had a little boy called Elle, who popped up from time to time. And an old lady called Rosa. And I had had a little boy called Elle who popped up from time to time and an old lady called Rosa. And I had no idea why they were there, but they were around for some time during my childhood. Now, there's magic in this book again, as you've explained, but there's also a certain menace associated with tattoos. Why tattoos? Well, tattoos are interesting. I mean, I'm not going to give too

much of the plot away here, but tattoos are a bit like chocolate in that they have a long history of folklore and division. They have not always been seen as acceptable socially. And so the tattooist who moves into Narcissa's florist shop is a little bit like Vianne when she moves into the chocolate shop. She divides the community. She is seen to be different and interesting and attractive, but also maybe a little dangerous. Now, as I said, it is 20 years since Chocolat. And I do remember you were told when you had the idea that it wouldn't work. Oh, yes. How did you deal with that negative response the idea that it wouldn't work. Oh, yes.

How did you deal with that negative response? I ignored it and wrote it anyway. I wasn't writing professionally. I'd published two books, but two, shall we say, cult readership, which meant that they were largely unread. I was still teaching. I didn't need to be published, but I did need to write. And so I thought, you know what, I'm just going to write what I want to write.

And if it's not published, then too bad. Good decision, Joanne Harris. Turns out it was, yes. I was talking to Joanne Harris about her latest novel, The Strawberry Thief. Now, inevitably, we had lots of response from you about the removal of children. Somebody who didn't want us to use her name said, I had two children removed. A court expert recommended that as I was of below average intelligence, my children would be better off adopted. That was his recommendation.

With the help of my solicitor, we fought this. The trauma will never go. Even though my children Someone else who didn't want her name used would like to share my story one day. Thank you for raising awareness of this. I'm still battling for my baby. Linda said I think you need to explain exactly why Zara's children were removed She's playing the victim but children are only removed under extreme circumstances It needs to be a balanced report Meg said Support given to vulnerable parents is usually stopped

when children are removed Funding should be provided to allow the parents to continue to receive support for themselves to lessen the chance of future children also being removed. And that's from a retired manager of a family support service. Someone else said please don't use my name but I have some experience of these cases in court and babies are sometimes removed because the woman is in a violent relationship and can only keep the baby if she stops seeing him and women would rather give up the baby than the man. Sometimes the partner might be an alcoholic or a drug user and the same choice is made. Sometimes the mother comes from a family with a history of sexual abuse and she chooses the family over the

baby. Taking the baby away is always a last resort. Peter said, why can't both the child and the mother be taken into care if need be? They should be kept together or problems continue and more are created. It seems inhumane to care for the child, but not the mother. And finally, someone else who didn't want us to use a name. My partner and I want to adopt, and we may be going into the foster-to-adopt scheme, which is where you foster a newborn baby whose social services have deemed as vulnerable, often because the mother has had other children already taken off them. Within six months, the courts decide if the birth family can look after the baby

or if the foster carers can adopt the baby. All of the issues your programme has outlined have reinforced all my concerns about this process, that we would potentially be fostering and then adopting a baby whose mother just needed intensive therapeutic support. And in reality, our family would be founded on the failure of our society to support somebody else through their difficulties. It's very sad. Now do join Jane tomorrow when she'll be talking about the Lionel Bart musical Maggie Mae.

It's being performed at the Finborough Theatre in London. And this is its first performance on the London stage since its premiere in 1964. Jane will talk to Cara Lily Hayworth, who plays the title role of Maggie May today, and Judith Bruce, who played her in the original production, which was at the Adelphi Theatre. And also, just a reminder that there will be information

on the Woman's Hour website and links to sources of support for anybody who has had young children taken into care. Join Jane tomorrow, if you can. Two minutes past ten from me. Bye bye. You know the way late at night in bed, in the dark, your tired mind can wander and strange thoughts float like balloons escaping into the sky? Well, Bunk Bed is a podcast

where Peter Curran and Patrick Marber find the nearest faraway place from the hurly-burly of daily life where tired minds can wander. Why don't you come along and eavesdrop and see if you like it? You can subscribe to Bunkbed on BBC Sounds. 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.