Woman's Hour - Rogue refuges update, Una Marson, Agony aunts, Iran

Episode Date: October 27, 2022

In a shocking report out today MPs say too many women who’ve survived domestic abuse are ending up in appalling accommodation operated by rogue landlords who exploit housing benefit loopholes to cash in on a ‘gold rush’ of taxpayers’ money. Some women and their children find themselves housed in mixed-sex provision, or even alongside their perpetrators. The current rules mean anyone can set up what is called Exempt Accommodation if they offer care, support, or supervision that is ‘more than minimal’. One provider left a loaf of bread and some jam to achieve that standard. Others say fitting CCTV is enough to qualify. The All Party Parliamentary Select Committee on Levelling Up Housing and Communities make a number of recommendations aimed at stopping unscrupulous operators getting enhanced housing benefit without providing the wraparound support and staff they’re meant to offer survivors of domestic abuse. Krupa Padhy talks to the Chair of the Committee Clive Betts Labour MP and Becky Rogerson, CEO of Wearside Women in Need.In 1691, a journalist called John Dunton was having an affair and realised there was no one he could ask for advice about it without revealing his identity. Realising his situation couldn’t be unique, he invited readers of his newspaper to submit their problems. Today agony aunt columns are the mainstay of the back pages of our newspapers and magazines. But why do we still seek comfort from the written advice of strangers? Krupa Padhy is joined by best-selling author and Sunday Times Style agony aunt Dolly Alderton, and author of ‘Never Kiss A Man in a Canoe,’ Tanith Carey.Yesterday marked 40 days since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini who died in police custody after being arrested for allegedly wearing her hijab “improperly”. Thousands of mourners gathered near Amini’s grave in her hometown of Saqqez where Iranian police reportedly fired live rounds and tear gas at the crowds. Protests have taken place across the country since Mahsa’s death on 16th September and women have been at the forefront of the movement, removing their headscarves and cutting their hair in public in solidarity. Faranak Amidi, the BBC's Near East women affairs reporter, joins Krupa.On Woman’s Hour we talk about girls a lot, how we raise them, keeping them safe, their mental and physical health but we don’t often talk to them. For an occasional series called Girl’s World, Ena Miller went to talk to India and Alice at their school about their lives, the things they think about, chat about and worry about. She took along her teenage diary to jog her memory about the secret world of the teenage girl. When Una Marson became the BBC's first black radio producer and presenter in the 1940s, she brought Caribbean voices and culture to a global audience. Krupa speaks to actor Seroca Davis on playing Una in BBC2’s documentary-drama ‘Una Marson, Our Lost Caribbean Voice’.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2. And of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme. Peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Krupa Bharti and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and thank you for joining us. This is the age of the woman. What man has done, women may do. The words of the BBC's first black producer and presenter, Una Marzen, back in 1928. Just one of her many powerful quotes. A new documentary shares the story of Una's life and achievements.

A story that has largely been lost to history. We'll find out why with the actress Soroka Davis, who plays Una. And at a time when a quick Google search can give you the various opinions we might want on our life dilemmas, why does the problem page live on? From just 17 to the magazines in the Sunday papers, I still find it hard to skip past the wisdom of an agony aunt. One, Dolly Alderton will tell us about her new book, Dear Dolly, which is a collection of some of the advice that she has given over the years. And we are keen to hear about your agony aunt experiences on the programme. Maybe you've written in. Maybe you've read some advice that has changed your life.

Maybe you wrote in and never got a reply. Or maybe you are the agony aunt in your social circle, the one who people turn to for those wise words on a dilemma. Please do get in touch. This is how you can do so. Text, that number is 84844 over on social media. That's Twitter and Instagram. We are on the handle at BBC Women's Hour. You can, of course, email us through our website.

And now you can WhatsApp us. Send us an audio note through WhatsApp. That number is 03700 100 444. And we will return to the protests in Iran. Yesterday marked 40 days since the death of 22-year-old Masa Amini in police custody. The 40th day is an important day of mourning in Iranian and Islamic tradition. Thousands gathered by her graveside, thousands more protested across the country. We will talk to my colleague from BBC Persian. But first, we are going to revisit a story we first brought you here on Woman's Hour at the start of the year about rogue refuges housing women who have escaped domestic abuse. Hundreds find themselves in a type of supported

housing known as exempt accommodation. This morning, a committee of senior MPs branded this current system as a complete mess and a gold rush for dodgy landlords raking in millions of pounds of taxpayers' money. Their report is calling for change. Rogue landlords claim that they are using enhanced housing benefit payments to support survivors of domestic abuse, but instead just pocket the money. Now, in a moment, we will hear from the chair of that committee, as well as the CEO of a women's refuge organisation who says she is turning down on average, one rogue landlord a week trying to

source survivors of domestic abuse as new tenants. But first, let's hear from our reporter, Carolyn Atkinson. She carried out that special year long investigation into rogue refugees for Women's Hour. Carolyn, please do remind us what you found. Well, I got a tip off that this particular type of supported housing known as exempt accommodation was being exploited massively by rogue landlords who had spotted loopholes. They worked out there were so many loopholes and very few checks that enabled them to get double or even triple the normal housing benefit payment if they said that they were going to provide some support to vulnerable groups of people

who were desperately needing somewhere to live. Now, that could be people leaving prison or disabled people, people recovering from alcohol or drug abuse, and what we focused on, women escaping domestic abuse. Now, we must be clear there are many excellent providers who do offer this wraparound care and support so that women can rebuild their lives. But as today's report lays bare, an increasing number of unscrupulous landlords are using women sort of as pawns to game the system. They're raking in millions of pounds, but they're providing little or no support.

And that's because the rules are so weak. All they have to do is provide, and I quote, more than minimal support. So what does that actually mean? Well, nobody actually knows. Now, back in February, we spoke to a woman called Charlotte who waived her right to anonymity. And she chose to speak to Woman's Hour about her experience of living in one of these so-called rogue refuges. In one weekend, I was both sexually assaulted and I was stolen from. It's only now I look back and I think I wasn't capable of declining that accommodation, of advocating that it wasn't appropriate for me to be in a mixed sex environment with no staff. I wasn't able to advocate what happened to me that one weekend.

And that's just one weekend. What did they promise would be offered to you to support you? And what did it turn out to be in reality? They just said to me that I would be given somewhere of my own to sleep. So not somebody else's sofa. And I was playing with a man. I was in one bedroom, a bedroom with a locked door. And I was told that that would be sufficient. But it was dangerous. Someone had put a sofa up at the back

of the doors in the living room because it was a known drug house. People had tried to burst in the back door. So there was a sofa. And I did end up leaving after the assault. I went to stay with an ex-boyfriend. Why would I not? Because it's better the devil you know. And I said, I'm not coming back unless I can be where there's some staff. Except accommodation I went to first was not staffed. It was part of a conglomerate of properties that was owned by a provider that on paper it was ticking boxes. So I never met a proper manager. I only ever met people that were on really, really low wages. And often they probably did go above and beyond what they were

expected to do, but they just weren't required to do very much. You know, supporters, I will be in the office and you will present for a breathalyser and I will document it. But that's not support, that's administration. You know, what is support? Is it having a chat with me for 10 minutes? The rule says more than minimal support. That's the guidance. And I think that's too subjective. I would say that getting two toilet roll a week and a washing tablet is not enough.

And I don't believe that two toilet roll and a washing tablet cost £230 a week. The fact you can put a wash on is the least of your worries. You know, what has happened to make you get here? This is not a hotel. It was beyond abhorrent. And what I would say needs to change is that what looks good on paper is not being translated into real life.

How can a woman whose life has got to the point where she needs to be in exempt accommodation, you know, it's not gone great. For whatever reason, how can I be expected to live with a population of people who are allowed to be 20% sex offenders, male sex offenders, mixed at all? It's noisy. It is chaotic. People fight. You don't know if they're shouting to be heard or shouting because they're arguing.

And if you've come from an environment where everything makes you jump, you know, you're a wreck. I've often said, if I wasn't a wreck before I went in, I absolutely was when I came out. I've recovered in spite of going in there. So that's Charlotte who bravely explained how she was badly let down because the support she was expecting and indeed promised never actually materialised. Yes, she's really given us a sense of the struggles that she

went through there. Give us a sense, Carolyn, then, how easy is it to set up a house, a system like this, and then start milking the system? Well, I think the answer is all too easy. The problem is that no one can actually stop anyone opening up one of these rogue refuges. I could buy a house tomorrow in a very unsuitable area. I could open it up, claim to be offering supported housing and basically get people to move in. Then I would get them to apply for this enhanced housing benefit and I would claim to be supporting them to get back on track. It's actually happening all over the UK. I went to the northeast of England back in February and I met a woman called Marnie Burden from an organisation called Expert Link and she gave me a snapshot of what was happening in her area.

These exempt accommodations don't provide support so a person will get one hour of support a week and I mean we've seen examples or heard examples where they'll say the CCTV is part of the support that they get. But these are only manned Monday to Friday, nine to five. You know, like if a woman is in crisis, you know, where does she need? She needs staff on site to provide, you know, really good support. But there are also exempt accommodation providers who do provide full refuge support.

And to get rid of all of them surely would be overreacting. I'm not saying that they're all bad you know because there are some good examples but yeah I just think there needs to be more legislation around it just to stop unscrupulous landlords just coming into an area and making money out of vulnerable people. And how much money are they making? Well it depends on an area because the exempt accommodation rate is different you know so each local authority or a housing benefit department would decide how much people get but they could get anything from you know like 150 pounds to you know 300 pounds a week per person. How does that compare with normal housing benefit? Well some areas say for example I

mean like one that I know if they're over 35 they'd get like £90 a week. And then if an organisation was claiming the exempt housing benefit, that would be getting on for double? Yeah, yeah, definitely. Carolyn, thank you for that all-important context. And Carolyn was talking there to Marnie Burden from Expert Link. Well, today's cross-party parliamentary report into exempt accommodation describes the system as a complete mess the chair of the leveling up housing and community select

committee is clive betts the labour mp for sheffield southeast and he is in our millbank studio for us thank you for joining us clive let's cut straight to it. Why is it a complete mess? Because there's no control and no regulation of the whole system. You just described anyone can set up to provide this accommodation. There are loopholes so that although the organisations providing the service are supposed to be not-profit, those organisations effectively rent a property off organisations which make enormous profits of, say, £1,000 a month for a room, five rooms in a property, £5,000. If you're paying a mortgage of £1,000, you've got £4,000 profit. That's a pretty lucrative business, and we heard lots of examples of this. So lots of attraction from the money side and then very little expenditure on support for people who really are in need.

Let's dig a bit deeper then, because you talk about there being loopholes. If I was a landlord, how would I go about exploiting these loopholes? How are they doing this? Well, landlords have to be not forfor-profit some are registered social housing providers others are not they're just organizations who establish themselves but what happens is that you get a property in an area an organization and some of them are criminal gangs and activities you know on the on the borderline of criminality, and the police have exposed that. They buy up a property. They then get a not-for-profit organisation to provide the service.

They charge that organisation eye-watching sums of money, so they rake the money back in profit from them. Then they get individuals, vulnerable individuals, to rent a room in these properties. For that room rent, they go to the local authority and get an amount of money much higher than the ordering housing benefit. That's why it's called exempt. It's exempt from housing benefit controls. And the local authorities have got virtually no controls over the amount of money they pay out in housing benefit for these rooms. And of course, all that money eventually goes back to the individual organisation which buys the property and makes these sums of money.

What you describe there sounds worryingly straightforward. And thank you for outlining how these criminals essentially go about doing this. You single out the impact of this accommodation on women who have survived domestic abuse. Explain, Clive, why things are so bad for them in particular. Well, because, as I say, you get a house and there's five rooms in it, there's no proper referral process. No social worker, no health worker, no one is coming along and saying, this is a suitable premise for you, you've suffered abuse, we're going to help you find appropriate property. What happens is these rooms are advertised on Facebook, Gumtree,

and anybody can then go and rent one. And you get examples, and we heard them, of someone having suffered domestic abuse being in a property with someone who has a conviction for domestic abuse because there's no regulation no control over who ends up there and then these awful circumstances of people living in rooms without proper locks on rooms where there's drug activity going on outside the property and sometimes inside the property and very vulnerable people are put in circumstances where their vulnerabilities are completely exposed to unscrupulous people. Clive, do stay with us because I want to bring in Becky Rogerson into this conversation.

Becky is the Chief Executive of We're Side Women in Need in Sunderland, which operates three refuges supporting 24 women and 20 children. She's worked in the sector for 20 years. Welcome to the programme, Becky. The report talks a great deal about rogue landlords, specifically targeting survivors, almost tapping them up, we could say. Give us a sense of what you are seeing. Yeah, good morning.

Well, I probably get approached about once a week by landlords seeking referral pathways from our service to fill their properties, sometimes two or three times a week, to be honest, in different patches. question that that we would ask is as part of our sort of due diligence is you know what to where is this property and it's quite interesting that that's rarely disclosed mainly because we've got landlords buying up properties in high crime areas low demand areas uh and we would also ask for their policies and procedures and i can honestly say in three years I've never received anyone's policies and procedures that's usually at the point where they're where it goes a little bit cold so you know as a specialist provider we would always be looking at where where are we sending people and what's the crime area like and we would liaise with police and other partners and work closely with our local authority. That's not happening with these providers. So it's, you know, the Wild West.

So it sounds like they call you up, they express interest, you then challenge them or ask them the necessary questions, ask them for the evidence. And then that is where in many cases that journey ends. And what I want to better understand from you is why it is they are calling you up and why it is that you need to turn to them. Is that partly because there are not enough refuge spaces and suitable accommodation for women who are escaping domestic abuse? Well, I think there's been an underinvestment in the sex between years, as there has in many other similar service areas what we've seen is a

percentage rise year on year of domestic abuse reports to place which is the most consistent sort of figures that we have and i don't think that the provision has sort of kept pace with the increase in demand i guess there's there's lots of other, it's a really complicated area of practice because there's lots of other complications in terms of refuge provision. Move on slows down, obviously that means that length of stay in refuge is longer, so our turnover is less. So there's lots of other issues, many of which I think the report's picked up really effectively. So increasing unregulated supported accommodation takes other housing stock out of the market and therefore slows down the move on process. So there's lots of factors here to take into consideration.

But often these landlords, they do find these women and they do manage to claim that enhanced housing benefit, as Charlotte told us. And often, like in Charlotte's case, they aren't able to turn down this accommodation. And also in the report specifically, the CEO of Women's Aid said that it takes an average of seven years for a woman to leave an abusive relationship. And often when it goes wrong like this, it just means that they will go back to that precarious situation. How does this impact your services when these scenarios end up as they do? Well, it's an absolute tragedy, isn't it? It's a travesty of justice. And Charlotte's story is not an isolated case. I could recite a number of stories very similar to that. Typical cases of prison leavers being picked up at the prison gates, transported miles away, no local connection and you know to be taken somewhere where you actually don't know

where you're going, you don't know that area at all, just disconnects, basically. There's no sort of community there. So that's a huge job for us to then unpick. And as Charlotte said, you're not only escaping a vulnerable position, but then to be put in a more dangerous position, we're unpicking a number of layers there so we're repairing the immediate harms that have happened when they should have been in safe accommodation and of course the historic harms so what tends to happen is that the unregulated accommodation is picking up people allegedly offering support that doesn't happen and then they're contacting

our services to say we'll continue to accommodate but can you put the support that's required here because this person's asking for support that puts us in a really difficult position because another provider is being paid to offer the support and then we as a as a charitable organization that actually cares about people and their experience end up using our resources to put the support in that they're not delivering. That's interesting. That puts a huge strain on services. I can imagine.

Sue Ellen's been in touch to say, I used to work as a domestic abuse charity. The council pay for hotels at bed and breakfast. That's a part of temporary accommodation. But instead of a cooked breakfast, the family's got one slice of toast and a glass of water. Also, that is just jumped. And she then adds,

also a lot were calling themselves women's refuges, but they had male tenants. And another one here says, regarding the supported housing discussion, who sets the rules in the first place? Who agrees that they are appropriate? No regulation, no control, says Clive.

But why not? If inadequate rules are in place, how did they get passed in the first place? That's one for you, Clive. Well, they don't get passed. That's the simple answer because there aren't the controls, there's not the regulation. And what we're calling for is that all these properties and providers ought to be registered. So we know who they are. Currently, we don't know how many there are, who they are, how many people are living there. We think there should be standards laid down for the accommodation itself, standards laid down for support and local authorities should be able to oversee this

and have enforcement power so they don't pay money out where these standards are not backed and very importantly with particular recognition of women fleeing domestic abuse there should be proper referrals processes so women in this situation indeed anybody with vulnerabilities doesn't get referred to accommodation and providers who are not appropriate. Let's talk about money, because how much do you think this is costing not only the women, but the taxpayer? We've no idea. We've asked government repeatedly, please tell us how much you're paying out in housing benefit, because in the end it is housing benefit paying this money out and they can't tell us. And why is that?

Because they don't collect the figures, they don't collect the information. It's not been seen as a problem in the past worthy of particular investigation. They are starting to collect the figures now and there have been some estimates in the past. I think the National Audit Office said around five or six years ago, it was probably costing two billion pounds a year. It's gone up a lot more since then, almost certainly. So billions, not millions of pounds being spent on inadequate accommodation,

no support in many cases, people have been put in completely inappropriate accommodation. And at the end of the day, rogues and in some cases criminals milking the system for millions of pounds of profit. Another message and thank you to all of you for sending in your thoughts on this. This one writes local authorities do have some control. The one I work for has subcontracted out the provision of temporary and emergency housing, which they have a legal duty to provide to a totally unscrupulous company who provides poor quality housing and scant support. Vulnerable people are placed wherever is free,

not according to vulnerability or need. The amount of housing benefits pouring into this company is eye-watering. And another here who writes, I am a nurse in Bedfordshire. We had raised multiple safeguarding alerts against an organisation like this. And I've never had to do that

against an organisation in my long career. It's worse than awful. It is very dangerous. Let's look forward. I mean, what are the next steps, Clive, in terms of recommendations when it comes to housing survivors of domestic abuse? What people fleeing domestic abuse are going to be housed, then there has to be specific standards of support in that accommodation

that meets part four of the Domestic Abuse Act. In other words, there's a recognition that women in these circumstances need particular care and support to a particular standard. Those standards are laid down in legislation and they should be applied in all cases. And local authorities should be given the powers to check and apply them. Of course, local authorities are going to need resources to do that.

But as we've said, there's so much money in this system being paid out inappropriately to rogues making enormous profits. There is money there to make sure this can be done properly. Thank you so much clive bets there and also becky rogerson for your insights and expertise and we have had a response from a spokesperson at the department for leveling up housing and communities who says it is unacceptable that unscrupulous landlords are trying to profit at the expense of vulnerable

people and we are bringing forward a package of measures to stop them in their tracks. This is backed by a £20 million investment to drive up quality in the supported housing sector and protect the most vulnerable in society. For victims of domestic abuse, there is practical and emotional support

to help them rebuild their lives, as well as £250 million in funding for local councils to provide support in safe accommodation. Thank you to our guests and to Carolyn as well, our reporter, and to the many of you who have been getting in touch to share your experiences of your on the ground experiences of dealing with vulnerable women in these situations. Thank you to all of you. Now, have you ever turned to an agony aunt for advice? Maybe you're just an observer or we're skipping straight to the back page of the magazine to read other people's problems. Agony aunts have been handing out wisdom in response to the public's dilemmas for centuries. But why do we still seek the advice of strangers?

I'll be speaking to the author Tanith Carey, whose book Never Kiss a Man in a Canoe explores the golden age of agony arts. But first, I am joined by the best-selling author and journalist Dolly Alderton, whose new book, Dear Dolly, collects together some of the advice that she has given over the years as the Sunday Times Style magazine resident agony art. Very good to have you on the programme, Dolly Times Style Magazine resident agony art. Very good to have you on the program, Dolly. Thank you for having me. Pleasure to have you on the show. Now you have shared that the idea of being an agony art came to you when you were about five years old

in the playground, five years old, a young girl still discovering the ins and outs of life. How do you come to that decision that I'm going to answer the world's problems? I just love telling people how to live their life. I've always been very nosy. I love hearing about people's relationships, people's emotional life. It's the thing that I think makes the best conversation. And I think there's a real opportunity when you're an agony aunt, sort of selfishly, that you are answering other people's problems and you are trying to help make life easier for them. But you're sort of processing your own problems as you do it. It's kind of a communal experience.

It's its own therapy. And you discovered that very young and it's turned into a reality, but not before you shared a great deal of your own problems. I mean, do you have to reach that point in life where you feel like you've shared enough of your own life and it's now time to focus on the lives of others? Well, it definitely provided a space every week in a column where I could talk about the things I find most interesting, which is relationships, friendships, family, love, but not do it in a confessional way, not speak about my own particular problems in real time

and yeah I think I think that it's it's a good thing to have written so honestly about all my mistakes and all my flaws and all my hypocrisies I think there's a reason why lots of agony arts or women who give out advice like Cheryl Strayed or Nora Ephron start with writing memoir. And I think it's because it affords you a space where you have to really reflect and try and find some sort of lesson or some sort of beauty from the mess. And it's good to repurpose that as advice. You've shared in your book that you wanted to be the well-lived woman handing out advice, not a schoolgirl lying on her bed reading it. Just give us a sense of what the term

agony art means to you. An agony art to me is someone who is, who doesn't take life too seriously, who knows what to take seriously and what not to, who looks at life with mischief and a sense of humour and perspective. It's someone crucially who isn't judgment. As we know, you mentioned at the top, we can go on the internet and we can find a million different opinions. And that's one of the amazing things about the internet. And that's one of the awful things about the internet. It's full of judgment. And it's a very moralized place. And I think an Agony Aunt is someone who offers empathy and compassion without judgment. Stay with us, Dolly. Tanith Carey is also with us. Tanith, you have researched this subject extensively. Tell us where the idea of an agony arc comes from.

Talk us through the origin of their story. Well, the first agony arc was actually a man by the name of John Dunton. Who was it? Yeah, in 1691. He was having an affair and he took across the idea of a way of exploring

these sort of the moral dilemmas through readers sending in their anonymous questions. So he actually set up this panel of supposed ethicists who would look at sort of readers' questions, but they also related to things like

maths and philosophy as well as matters of the heart so they could range from a question might range from what is a cloud to does a flea sting as well as bite to is a man justified in divorcing a woman who tricked him into marriage by wearing makeup the whole spectrum there yeah this is so incredibly popular within three years um he set up a special agony out column run um by women and for women and he i assume was an agony uncle in that in that case what makes you decide that this is something you want to explore well i'm also a parenting author, so I was researching an article and I came across some very sort of old parenting advice from sort of the 1910s and 1920s.

And I was absolutely staggered by the certainty of this truly terrible advice. It was stuff like cycling is very bad for little children's legs and paddling, allowing them to paddle will give them kidney disease and never pick a child up because you'll spoil it and start beating your child at one. children's legs and paddling, allowing them to paddle will give them kidney disease and never pick a child up because you'll spoil it and start beating your child at one. And I was just the glorious high handedness that this terrible advice was given. This made me think, oh, my gosh, how much other truly awful advice are there in the archives? And

to be fair, a lot of it is there is a lot of common sense, but there's also a lot of really, really a lot of suppression of women's sexuality. A lot of sort of, you know, really telling women to play by the rules that I mean, time and time again through those archives that you've been going through, but for which the response has changed, has evolved? changed it's just the rules that govern it and as I say agony aunts very much saw their role as imposing those rules and making women make making sure that they stuck to it so particularly sort of from the 1850s onwards Victorian morality right through actually up to the 50s and 60s they were very you know women shouldn't should really be there to please their husbands they should give up their interests like poetry and make sure their supper was at the table when a man came home they should be ready with sort of lip sticking and with their curlers out and this went on very late actually quite so and it was only when the pill came and that women were able to express themselves sort of uh get the

freedom out that agony answered gave up the ghost and realized they just couldn't suppress women anymore you've written a book it's titled never kiss a man in a canoe i've got to ask you the story behind that one well this was a from a fabulous piece of advice to a girl who wrote into a magazine called girls own in 1895 and she was asking whether or not she could go on a boat trip with a young man and the agony aren't replied it surprises us to find that a girl sufficiently educated to write and spell well should be so deplorably ignorant of the common rules of society to think that she may go out alone with a young man in a canoe and furthermore a boy that she only knows slightly like a verbal bucket of cold water which leads leads me back to you, Dolly. Talk us through some of the most, how do I put it, memorable letters you've had sent in to you.

Well, I tell you, I've had some head scratches, but I'll never complain again because I haven't had what is a cloud. I'd struggle to fill the word count there. You know, the questions that I love the most are the questions that really kind of lead you into the moral maze. They're the questions that I sit on for a week and I sort of carry around with me to every time I see a friend or go to a meeting and present them to people to really look at all different sides of the argument and look at the people and the information that might be missing from the person, from the story and the letter that's being written in. One that sticks out to me that really took me a long time to think about what my answer was was a woman who wrote in saying that she had started a relationship with essentially her

stepbrother so her parents weren't married but they'd been together a very long time and I just I don't know about you, but I really couldn't see the right or wrong in this. I could see that there were going to be things that would make it difficult. And I could also see the case for grabbing love with both hands. So yeah, that was a puzzler, that one. And I imagine you are sent in many messages every week, many letters, and you can't answer all of them, can you? No, I have. have I mean the thing that definitely happens is you get about five stock letters that have that keep coming in week after

week after week and they're the kind of agony stalwarts and I do try and address those as often as I can because they feel like big shared problems so the most common one is I can't get over someone I've got a broken heart and the other one is sort of the other side of common one is I can't get over someone, I've got a broken heart. The other one is sort of the other side of that, which is I'm desperate to find love. So those are the kind of main matters of the heart that I get. And I'm sure that throughout history, that's been the source of most agony as well. And I'm sure very telling as well. Cannot let you go, Dolly, without asking you, first of all, who does an agony aunt turn to for advice? And what is the best piece of advice you've been given? So I've dedicated my book to my friend India Masters because she works in marketing, but I would say her main job is

being an agony aunt to all her friends. And I think she's sort of like a WhatsApp agony aunt to all of us. And she's the person I take all my problems to. The best piece of advice that I've ever been given, it's a very trite and obvious one, which is always how most good advice sounds, which is listen to your friends. Your friends are the people that are as invested as you in the outcome of your life, but they have distance and perspective that you don't in your own life and emotional matters. So as hard as it can be, sometimes you've got to listen to your friends. Listen to the girls, all the men as well.

Thank you so much, Dolly Alderton and Tanith Carey there on the subject of agony arts. And we've had another agony art get in touch with us. Bernadette writes, I was an agony art, Mrs. Biggs, for four years on Cosmo Girl magazine in the mid 2000s. My daughter, Sarah, was the beauty editor. I was well equipped to give advice as I had been single, as I had been a single parent at the age of 19, and then had my second child, Lulu, at the age of 45. Well, Bernadette, do send in any pearls of wisdom you may have to the program. Thank you for being in touch and thank you to our

guests Dolly and Tanith. On Woman's Hour we talk about girls a lot, how we raise them, keeping them safe, their mental and physical health, but we don't often talk to them. For an occasional series called Girls World, Enna Miller went to talk to girls at their schools

about their lives, the things they think about, chat about and worry about. And she took along her teenage diary to jog her memory about the secret world of the teenage girl. Favourite outfit? What does Alice look best in? I'm going to ask India instead of you, Alice.

Well, the thing is, I think you look great in everything. Oh that's too easy. Come on India. Oh you have there's a specific dress that I think looks so nice on you. It's your like checked like pink. Oh yeah I know exactly what you're talking about yeah. White one it's like kind of like a milkmaid dress

I think that looks nice on you but then And India's best outfit? I really like her flare trousers. Oh, yeah. India's got so many clothes. Worst outfit, then? Worst outfit. Mmm, you know those, you know those shorts?

You know those jean shorts that you sent me a picture of the other day? Oh, those. They were, I'd say they were questionable, but I did say they looked nice. Yeah. But in the back of my mind, I was like, they wouldn't be me, but if you love them, I'm happy for you to wear them. Yeah.

To be honest, I... She doesn't like your shorts, basically. Yeah. I don't think you've worn any questionable outfits since year seven. Yeah, year seven was rough. Any worst outfits for Alice? I think you're quite neutral with your outfits. It's always the same...

It is the same. It's the same clothes you'll normally wear, like, just the same, like, comfy clothes, so... Dear Diary, Thursday the 22nd of July. Dear Diary, when I get older, I hope I can make something of myself. I'm scared I'll become a failure. If I think about it a lot, I will make it come true

and then I will be a failure in life. I don't want to become, like, beep and live in a beep beep beep beep. I don't want to say because I want to become a somebody not for myself, but for my mum. And I suppose my self-esteem and confidence, as I know through my childhood, I use the bell. And I suppose I know through my childhood I lack the confidence within me. So do you think about your futures? I do and I do relate to what you were saying like I always think about I've got to do this not just for me but for my family because I know my mum and dad have put so much like effort into raising me

like my dad like every day working up to 11 plus so I could go here would just sit me down for about an hour and just he would just be so patient with me and he just came through even if I yelled at him even if I was screaming throwing my mask book onto the table he'd still be there just talking to me and getting me through it and that's something I really thank my parents for so I feel like I do owe it to them to kind of make something of myself and then most people our age have this thing like I'm going to be a millionaire when I'm older yeah but realistically that's not going to happen I just want to make something of myself and have a happy life so that's my only goals to be honest really yeah I think that I have the idea that my parents have put pressure on me to be something or to be

someone I think that that's just my own feelings I I want to be enough for someone. Who do you admire in life? Who do you look up to? Who motivates you? I'd say my parents are my biggest, like, inspiration and motivation. I think that they've done a lot for me and they've tried their best and they've definitely succeeded in, I'd say, raising a lovely girl. And I think that, yeah. I think, for me, it's mostly my grandparents just because they came from outside the country

and they worked so hard to get where they are, to make sure that my mum and her siblings had a good life growing up. And I honestly, I don't know how they did what they did, but, like, it's amazing. So they're definitely, like, two of my biggest role models. And then I also think my friends... I'm literally about to say that I was going to say my friends. I think you are honestly, like, I'll look at you

and you're, like, everything I want to be. Oh, literally, that's exactly how I feel. I think, like, I sometimes... I definitely do compare myself to my friends and think, like, literally India... I definitely do compare myself to my friends and think, like, literally, India's everything I want to be in someone, and, like, she's just the epitome of what I think is a perfect person.

She's got everything right about her, and I just think... Sometimes I wish I could be you, but at the same time, like, I obviously love being myself, but it's inevitable. But if you were India, you'd be wearing those shorts that she sent you. Yeah, that's true.

That is very true. That is very true. That is very true. That report from Enna Miller. And I don't know about you, but listening to those young girls in conversation, I was smiling, my next guest was smiling, and my guest after that was smiling. So that says a lot. Thank you to all of those who took part in that conversation to iran now where yesterday marked 40 days since the death of 22 year old

masa amini who died in police custody after being arrested for allegedly wearing her hijab improperly thousands of mourners gathered near amini's grave in her hometown of sakes where iranian police reportedly fired live rounds and tear gas at the crowds. Protests have taken place across the country since Masa's death on the 16th of September, and women have been at the forefront of the movement, removing their headscarves and cutting their hair in public in solidarity. Farhanak Amidi is the BBC's Near East Women's Affairs reporter. Thank you for joining us again here on Women's Hour.

Give us a sense, first of all, of what happened yesterday in Masa's hometown. Well, the 40th day after the death of someone in Iranian culture is a very significant day in the mourning ritual. So people were planning to go to Saqqez where she's buried. And the crowds were unprecedented. I mean, the first footages that came out, it shows a long road. And this is despite the security forces trying to block all the roads that go towards that cemetery. There was a sea of a crowd and on foot and in cars going towards the cemetery. And one photo became really iconic, which I think says a lot about why everybody's talking about women being on the forefront of this. So you see this road and the sea of crowds going towards the cemetery.

And there is a car there and a woman is standing on top of the car. You can see her from the back, her hair down to her waist and her arms up in the air showing a peace sign. And that became the image of yesterday. But it wasn't only that. There were protests in more than 30 cities around Iran. This huge number is that we are talking about. Tehran was incredibly unbelievable because there weren't protests only in one place or one square or one area. Every neighborhood there was something going on. It's so widespread and decentralized that it's actually a lot of people who are analyzing these protests, they say, this is actually the strength of these protests, because if they gathered in

only one place, they could be ambushed and the security forces could crack down on them. But what we are seeing is this widespread decentralized protest. And again, in Tehran, there were videos on social media showing women leading the protest. So you hear a woman chanting first and then everybody else chanting the slogans. So these are really unprecedented times in Iran.

And we are six weeks into this. Many are saying that these are the most serious challenges to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 Iranian revolution? Because we are six weeks in. There is no sign of this ending. Absolutely not. What we are seeing right now, this is the longest running wave of protests. And what we have to understand is that we are in the fifth day of the month of Oban in the Iranian calendar.

This is a very significant month because three years ago during this month, a wave of protests swept across Iran, and reportedly 1,500 people were killed by security forces in those protests. So the protesters inside Iran are calling this month that we are in right now, the current month, the month of revenge. So they have been planning to do protests all the time. And don't forget, today is the 40th day after the death of Nikos Shakerami, another teenager who was killed by security forces, allegedly. And also then there's going to be the 40th day after the death of Sarina Ismailzadeh,

another teenager. So all of these things are coming up, plus people are going to protest in the name and honour of the 1500 people who were killed three years ago. So this month is going to be quite an intense month. There is no sign of things calming down right now. Farinak, you talk about the videos and the footage that I know that you and your colleagues have been using to verify what is happening on the ground. I know that communication has been difficult, but you have had some communication with women out there. Give us a sense of what they are sharing with you. But in particular, women who might not be from those urban centres,

maybe older women who might be a bit more conservative. We've not been hearing those voices, I feel. I think we are when you're looking at the Farsi speaking, Persian speaking media. One of the most vocal of these women is Fatima Sepehri. She is arrested right now. Nobody knows where she is. She was not in good health when she was arrested. So she is completely, she believes in the hijab. She wears the hijab. Her daughter used to wear the hijab, but her daughter gave out a video just a few days ago without the hijab, took off her hijab and started talking about her mother. It went viral. Everybody was talking about it. Another woman in her 80s, Gohar Eshqi, the mother of Sattar Beheshti, she's a political actor. She's an incidental political activist because her son was a blogger

and he was arrested and killed under torture in Evin prison. She came out 10 days ago, around 10 days ago. I don't know the exact date, but she came out on camera, took off her hijab after 80 years. She said it. So you are seeing that kind of support also from the more traditional religious parts of the society as well, or the older generation. But what we are seeing is not only just protests, we are seeing a civil disobedience that is happening. So people send us footage of streets in different cities in Iran, and women are just going about their daily lives, going to the cash point without a hijab, getting attacked without a hijab, buying stuff, grocery without hijab.

So you're seeing this widespread civil disobedience that is unheard of personally as someone who grew up in Iran. When I see footage of university students in Sharif University, the women are walking around on the campus without a hijab. Explain that to us though. How does it make you feel as someone who was grown up in the country, I imagine wore the hijab, and now you're seeing this mammoth change. It's unbelievable. Seriously, when I see these women on the street just going about without their hijab,

I just never even could imagine it. I dreamt of it, but I didn't think it would be able, like women would be so brave to do it. So it is quite incredible to watch, actually. And important to note as well that there are a lot of men supporting this movement. A lot of men have been killed and injured as well. Most of them, most of those killed are men.

And we are seeing a bravery from younger generation of men. These are not armed men, but they are fighting the security forces who are armed. And we see these videos. Actually, yesterday, there was a video of an armed security force running backwards because a young man was running towards him and actually punched him in the face. I mean, these are incredible scenes that we are seeing and really unprecedented. And I think that's why everybody's just holding their breath, watching what is happening in Iran, because it just happened overnight, really. What will happen next? There is no end in sight right now. Thank you so much, Farhanak Amidi, the BBC's Near East Women's Affairs reporter.

A pleasure to speak to you and get your expertise and personal insights on this. When Yuna Mazen became the BBC's first black radio producer and presenter back in the 1940s, she brought Caribbean voices and culture to a global audience. Her first role in the corporation was working at the Alexandra Palace television studios. When the outbreak of the war meant the sudden closure of the BBC's TV service, she transferred to radio, working both behind the scenes and on air. She presented, then produced, a weekly show called Calling the West Indies,

a show in which Caribbean soldiers stationed in the UK read letters to their families. This grew as the war progressed into a cultural forum hosting writers, musicians and political figures across the Black Atlantic. Joining me now is the actor Siroka Davis, who plays Una Marson in BBC Two's new documentary drama film called Una Marson. Our lost Caribbean voice. Welcome to the programme, Siroka. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I've given a brief introduction there as to who Una was.

A remarkable force, but do tell us more about her. Yeah, definitely a remarkable force. So Una Marson was a Jamaican, a Jamaican lady who was fearless, brave, courageous. You know, she was a feminist, an activist, an advocate for, you know, so many, so many people, black people and women in politics to have a voice. She was the first black British, sorry, black producer and broadcaster to be at the BBC. And she was also the first black writer to have her play on in the West End. So she did some wonderful things, wonderful things. Indeed. And she was one of the first young Jamaican women to make their mark in those early days.

And just to just to state that she arrived here some 16 years before the Windrush generation made a life here in England. What made her want to move from Jamaica? I think a variety of reasons, really. I think the first one is probably, you know, dreams of becoming a part of the literary scene in, you know, England at the time. But I also think it's probably that, you know, the same thing that makes a lot of people want to come to England. You know, the idea that there's going to be a lot more prospects, more opportunity, you know, and just a welcoming environment. And I think she probably would have been really surprised and shocked coming and to face, you know, the hostility and prejudice that she did when she arrived. Yes, and we will explore that in a moment. But first, let's hear a clip of Una interviewing the jazz band leader Ken Snakehips Johnson just a matter of months before he was killed

by a bomb in the London Blitz in 1940. So you left London a tap dancer and returned a band conductor. Well, Una, I first had to convince London that I could conduct as well as I could dance how did you set about it well when I got over here I got a band together nearly all Jamaicans we were billed as the Jamaican Empress of jazz and we got stage engagements various cinemas in the country yes then after a year I reorganized the band with West Indians from all the important islands in the West Indies.

A real West Indian band. Tell me, Ken, what would you say was the secret of your successes? Now you're asking me a rather difficult question. Now let me see. I myself am all for swing music, and I have a fine lot of musicians, young fellows, who don't merely play for pay, but who enjoy every minute of their work. Their enthusiasm is infectious and has stamped the style of the band. The soft, tender tones there of Una Morrison. Una was also a poet. And in fact, watching the

documentary yesterday, my eight-year-old daughter, she stopped in her step to listen to one of those poems called Little Brown Girl. It really connected with her. Talk us through her poetic journey. Her poetry, you know, when she was in Jamaica was was very much about, you know, kind of the tropics and Jamaica itself, you know. And then her voice, we hear a different kind of poetic tone as she comes to England, especially in Little Brown Girl, you know, which is written from the perspective of of those that would have been looking at her, you know, and the alienation that she would have felt. It's a very yeah, it's a very, very... It's very deep and it's very relevant, I think. Completely, completely. Yeah, wonderful poem.

And she's got another great poem called Black is Fancy, which is one of my favourites. And you deliver them so beautifully in that documentary as well. I'm conscious of time and I do want to get through a few more areas and you know we talk about relevance there what makes her story so important to an audience today in your opinion I think because unfortunately we're still kind of living what Una Marson was living you know uh being in a situation where she was, you know, trying to be, trying to not alienate white audiences, you know, kind of bring everybody in, but at the same time, trying to represent where she came from, being stuck in that, you know, that rock and a hard

place of being who she really was, but also trying to fit in. And I think that's why it's so relevant today. You know, we see the things that she went through and I definitely can, you know, it resonates with me. Yeah. A bit of data there to throw in to support what you were saying. According to the Sutton Trust, the makeup of journalists here in the UK, just 0.2% of journalists are black, even though black people make up over 3% of the population. I do wonder what Una would have to say about that.

You played her, and I said you played her beautifully, so, so powerful. What was your biggest takeaway from being Una Marson? I think for me, there's a real poignant part in the docudrama where she is faced with this decision. Does she read a particular poem that, you know, the audiences want to hear? Or does she read a poem that she really wants to read and something that's close to her heart? And, you know, she says that she should have made a better choice. And I think for me, I take away, you know, stand in your truth, stand in your truth, because ultimately the truth will set you free.

It's going to, you know, maybe upset people along the way, but it is going to, you know, set you free. And I think stand in your truth and, you know, be who you are and make sure you continue to open those doors in the same way that she did for us. That is very strong indeed. I've heard you've just had your first baby. Congratulations. He is nine weeks, nine weeks old. So I thank you for giving us a few minutes of your time because I imagined you are in high demand. What is next for your acting career um so a wonderful a wonderful project that that i filmed

in april i'm not sure that i can say much about it okay yes but it is um it is going to be good and um it's working along some fantastic actors so so yeah please do look out for it we will indeed soroka davis there the actor who has played Una Morrison in a BBC documentary about her life. And you can watch that BBC Two documentary, Una Morrison, our lost Caribbean voice over on iPlayer as well. Thank you to all of you for being in touch. Thank you for your company this morning. That is it from me and the team here at Women's Hour.

And do join us again tomorrow. Thanks for listening. There's plenty more from Woman's Hour and do join us again tomorrow. Thanks for listening. There's plenty more from Woman's Hour over at BBC Sounds. Lauren Laverne here with news of a very successful Desert Island Discs rescue. They've been missing for decades. David Hockney. I went to the art school and they asked me

if I had a private income and I said I didn't know what that was. And they said, well, if you've not got one, you can't be an artist because you'll never make a living at it. Dame Margot Fonteyn. What I've always looked forward to most in my life would be an old age on a desert island just playing gramophone records all day long.

And Bing Crosby. Could you build a house? No way. A shelter? No way. A shelter? No way. I couldn't fix a safety pin. But they're all back in Radio 4's Desert Island Discs archive, thanks to the efforts of keen vintage tape collectors. To listen to them, along with Dudley Moore, Sophie Tucker, Noel Coward

and dozens of other castaways, just head to the Desert Island Discs website. I'm Sarah Trelevan, 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'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.