Woman's Hour - Ruby Wax, Murty women, Summer clothes, National Baby Female choreographers

Episode Date: April 28, 2023

What happens when a woman famous for her razor sharp wit is left stranded on a desert island with just her own company and a hermit crab called Spartacus? Author, broadcaster and mental health campaigner Ruby Wax joins Anita to explain why she decided to spend 10 days completely cut off from the modern world and other humans. The Prime Minister’s mother-in-law, Sudha Murty, has claimed that her daughter is the reason Rishi Sunak is in Number 10. She says she herself succeeded in making her husband a businessman, and now her daughter has done the same. To find out more about this claim and the Murty women, journalist and Executive Editor of Politico Anne McElvoy speaks to Anita.What are all the ruffles doing in summer clothes? Why are baggy dresses back? And how do you go about doing your summer shopping without buying the same dress as eight other people at the party? Grazia journalist Hannah Banks Walker and columnist Martha Alexander join Anita to chat all things summer fashion.The NHS Maternity services are in crisis. But how did we get to this point? What was it like to give birth at the very beginning of the NHS? Dr Emily Baughan, Senior Lecturer at Sheffield University, tells Anita how a forgotten book called National Baby can help us understand our current situation. The book was written by Sarah Campion, who had one of the very first truly ‘national babies’, cared for not just from cradle to grave, but in utero by the newly set up health service.Where are all the female choreographers? Liv Lorent is an award-winning choreographer who has spent her career going against the tide in a male dominated arena. 30 years on, she says not much has changed. She speaks to Anita about how women are rare in the industry, which is still lagging behind in putting women behind as well as centre stage.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Lottie Garton

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, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. We're being teased by weather weather people that temperatures are rising. It's due to be 18 degrees here in the smoke today. Question is, is it time to bring out our favourite summer clothes? We're willing it to get warmer. I am desperate to get some flesh out and pack away the opaque tights. So this morning we're going to discuss summer clothes. We're willing it to get warmer. I am desperate to get some flesh out and pack away the opaque tights.

So this morning, we're going to discuss summer fashion. And I'd like to hear from you about your favourite summer item of clothing. What's your perennial piece that comes out and brings you pure joy? The sexy dress that you wore to a birthday party

and makes you feel like Sophia Loren. The floaty floral number that reminds you of holidays and a glass of crisp white wine may be a romance. The short shorts that you can't get rid of, even though the chances of you wearing them ever again are a big fat zero. Did you wear a favourite frock to a wedding only to see, shock horror, someone else in the very same dress? Tell me a story about your favourite summer piece. I have bought a beautiful backless cream number. I got it in the sale in winter. I bring it out every week, have a look at it, and then put it back in my wardrobe and whack on a black polo neck. I am so over the black polo neck,

but I feel I'm feeling good vibes about this weekend. Hopefully not jinxing it by saying any of this. Get in touch with me. Tell me about that favourite summer item of clothing in the usual way. The text number is 84844. You can email me through the website. We'd love to hear a story about it as well. Or you can drop me a WhatsApp message or even better, a WhatsApp nose.

How about sending me a note? 03700 100 444 is the number. And if you're desperate to know what clever fashion people are telling us to wear this summer, or indeed have a question, I'll be talking to experts later. Also this morning, Rishi Sunak's mother-in-law has said her daughter Akshata has managed to make her husband the Prime Minister of the UK. We'll be finding out a little bit more about the vocal mother-in-law and her daughter,

but can you relate? Are you the power behind your partner's success? Could they be who they are without you? 84844 is the number to text. Also, choreographer Liv Lawrence will be joining me today and we'll be hearing about the experiences of giving birth when the NHS first began over 70 years ago. And of course, you can email me through the website. Now, what happens when a woman famous for talking to people and for her razor-sharp wit is left stranded on a desert island with just herself and a hermit crab for company? Author, comedian, broadcaster and mental health campaigner Ruby Wax

decided to spend 10 days completely cut off from the modern world and other humans, and you can see the results on Channel 5 in Ruby Wax decided to spend 10 days completely cut off from the modern world and other humans. And you can see the results on Channel 5 in Ruby Wax's Cast Away. When I spoke to Ruby, I asked her why she wanted to drop the showbiz mask while she was alone on the uninhabited island somewhere near Madagascar. Well, as long as the big cameras are there, you can't help but do show business because I'm so used to doing TV shows and you have to create a front, you know, persona. Otherwise people go, well, who is she? You have to be a stereotype. So I created this kind of American smiley, sardonic, sometimes acidic personality. But when you just have a GoPro, a little camera, we're so used to doing selfies that you don't,

I don't put on a big show. I'm just myself because they're teeny little cameras. And that's what they gave me. That was what's different about my show. And Joanna Lumley, 30 years ago, she always had a camera crew. I was falling out of a plane with no parachute. It was just these little cameras. So it became like a personal journey or a personal journal. Yeah. They do that, explain that really well at the beginning of the

documentary in the first episode where they ask you a question and you respond by saying, do you want me to be funny? I'm paraphrasing. Do you want me to be funny or do you want me to tell you how I'm really feeling? And they say, really feeling. And that really sets it out. Okay. And you mentioned Joanna Lumley there, because she went off and did something similar 30 years ago, and you went to meet her to talk about her experience and for her to give you any advice. Was that useful? Totally useless. I mean, I'm friends with her and we have a great relationship. But how to make a pair of shoes out of your bra was not helpful to me at all.

And she had different challenges. I said my biggest concern was how do you go to the loo? Yeah. Her answer was something, a technique I would never use. So it wasn't helpful at all. But I admire her bravery. What's the technique? What was the technique?

I don't want to discuss it. Please. You should never know. We're in women's house. This is a safe space. we talked about labiaplasty last week oh okay well you take your labia and you bury it pretty much um she used leaves i think and she she didn't have to go uh evacuate her bowels or whatever you call it because she was eating uh rice the whole time and things that would stop her going to the loo. I unfortunately got the runs because I hit a bank of mangoes and there was nothing else to eat and I overdid it.

So I did have the runs. So what happened was a medic came over and gave me something while I was sleeping, a pill, and I never went to the loo again. So miracles do happen. Perfect. I am going to the loo now in case you were. Good, I was going to say, you're all right. Back to normal now. It's stopped now. Yeah. Excuse me. It's switched on now. The pills stop working. Excellent. That's good to know. Did you

underestimate just how real this experience was going to be? Because in that first episode, there were times when I wanted to come and rescue you when you were being pelted by torrential rain and just looked terrified, absolutely terrified. Well, they didn't mention in my contract the word cyclone or sand flies. They left those two things out. So those came as shocks to me. And I had Joanna Lumley's book with me. I never read it, but that was my only entertainment. So at night, in the 70 mile an hour wind blasts and the torrential rains, bugs would come into my mosquito netting. They knew that there was a meeting in there. And I had the head thing on

because I needed to know where I was going when I was going to the loo. So literally hordes of foreign bugs would meet in my tent. I was in a tent. It was a piece of tarp. And I'd take Joanna Longley's book and I'd open it and then I'd slam it shut and catch all the bugs. And it looked like a slaughterhouse. So it was useful. It was very useful. That's when she helped me. Now, we know you're a mental health campaigner. You've been very open about having depression.

And so your pills went with you to the island. They had to come with you. Yeah, they have to come with me. So the deal was they had to give me a protein drink in the morning because you can't, if you swallow pills on an empty stomach, you get really ill. So that was the deal. And it was useful because I didn't have to hunt for food, though I did kill a crab at one point. Yeah, tell us about that. Tell us about Spartacus. No, you didn't kill Spartacus.

I did not kill Spartacus. You did not kill Spartacus. No, because in case he hears this program. My daughter said it. I had to make friends on the island and I wasn't kidding. Like, you want to have some intimacy. So there was a hermit crab that I called Spartacus. And I honestly, I loved him.

And I don't think he stayed as just one hermit crab. I think I named other ones part of this too. But at night when I was alone, he would keep me company. And then I built a Wilson, you know, Tom Hanks. Yeah, great film from the film Castaway. He was a football, wasn't he? It was a football. So I built out of rocks and coral and flip-flops that showed up on the island.

I built Wilson and he was spectacular. I wasn't that interested in firewood. I was interested in building Wilson, which is an art piece in itself, and we really did have good talks. And at the end, when I had to leave Wilson, I did cry. Did you really? Yeah, I was so touched by Wilson.

I would do things for Wilson. I related to him. He stayed with me because he was in the sand. Usually men walk out on me, but Wilson couldn't go anywhere. What was it like being away from your phone, from your emails, from all modcoms? I'm used to this. You know, that's why I thought it would be so interesting. I've done a 30 day silent retreat, but that was very organized and it was in a building and it was mindfulness. So that really was a solid rock. So silence is my happy place.

I know that sounds strange, but when I'm quiet, I can really hear my thoughts. Once they get over yelling at me, then they become pretty creative. So I like the silence. But I never did anything in nature. I mean, nature and I aren't very intimate. So that was what was interesting. I had nowhere to hide. There was no hotel to hunker in. It was just me and them. And I really did learn nature doesn't care what my attitude is. And so I had to succumb to it in a way. I had to let it rule me. And then of course you see remarkable things. There was a Joanna

never saw one and she wanted to, a giant sea turtle. And I watched it getting ready to lay its eggs. And you think, how does nature know how to do that? It knew to the right fin went in and dug deep and the left that moved the stuff out. And you think nature really knows what it's doing. How come we work so consciously that we have to do this? We have to answer our telephone. We really don't

have a time where nature just takes over and I had that privilege too yeah that was a beautiful moment watching you watch the turtle lay its eggs it was very intimate and it just felt actually I felt like there was a connection between the two of you it was a bizarre moment maybe I was just reading into it too much you get into it when time stops and goes slower. You can really watch a bug crossing the road. You really have focus. I think you have focus. You have tremendous focus. You were dedicated to your 45 minute meditation every single day. I do have focus, but I still live in this culture, which is a little bit toxic. So I get drawn to things like late night shopping

and I, you know, I'm only human. If that's a fingertip away, believe me, I'm up at three in the morning looking for that perfect shelf or the Chanel lipstick. I'm addicted. Yeah, talking about Chanel lipstick, you were quite worried about, and it was funny, it was very, very sweet seeing you with your family

at the beginning and your kids being worried about you having to, you, it was very, very sweet seeing you with your family at the beginning and your kids being worried about you having to, you know, take the makeup off and be there. I don't think my kids, my kids were worried for my survival. It was me that was worried. You were worried, you were worried. But you actually had a lot to say about ageing and vanity in your pieces to camera on the island.

Well, because I wasn't performing anymore, the idea of what did I look like started to occur to me. And then you think, well, that's really who cares? I'm in nature. Nature, you watched around you, things die, things were born. And I thought, whatever phase I'm in is totally irrelevant to my existence. I, you know, I really started to like myself. Whereas if I had a mirror, I might start passing judgment. You know, women, I think sometimes feel, well, I do. I'm not going to say women. I feel a little bit of shame when things are falling apart,

as if I can do anything about it. And then you go to the gym and you, you know, you suddenly try to cover up things. That's just the nature of what we live in. When you're taken away from that, believe me, it's really liberating. You just said something that really moved me, actually. You said, I really started to like myself. I think there's loads of women that can relate. We're taught to hate ourselves. We're taught from a very young age to just start disliking so much about ourselves. So to have

that epiphany as someone who's just turned 70. What bothers me then bothers me now, but on that island, it didn't. So you're hitting a nerve with that one. It just happens to be, and you could tell I was so concerned about what did I look like. And yet on the island, I knew that was ridiculous. And yet I still feel it. You can't change in a week. You can't take a pill and change. I mean, it's a work in progress. Can I tell you, you look beautiful. I'm not looking at you.

You're just radiant. You're beautiful. You're funny. You're vivacious. You're Ruby Wax. You're Ruby Wax. Well, when I tell people your age and the age I am, watch what happens. Fair enough.

You'll have an internal spasm. But thank you. You said that you didn't want your phone back when you were on the island. How long did that last? It lasted as long as I could charge it up. You see what I mean? But the point is, is you have the experience of it.

You have the experience of, and this happened when I did a silent retreat for a month, is that your mind, that nagging mind, it gives up. It's as if you were arm wrestling with it. And finally, it's exhausted because you're not giving it distractions. And that's what happened after a few days in nature, is your mind goes, oh, I'm so tired of listening to your criticism. Oh, you're too fat. You're too whatever, you're doing a horrible job, it starts to get tired. And you realize that's not the real you. That's the input maybe you had as you were growing up. The real you is something that's curious and that's funny.

Some things that go through my mind, but I never hear it when I'm busy. So I loved it. I peeled it back. And then I was so upset when the camera crew showed up because they would ruin that. You know, suddenly one of the cameramen, who's really good looking, he looks like Jon Hamm, comes up and he goes, hey, how was it? And I felt myself putting my muscles together to try and gather some wrinkles and put them back and pull them. And I wanted to go. It's great because that's

what they wanted but I didn't I just stayed in my circle and I said could you go away which is odd to do when you're doing a tv show I just wanted to stay on my gopros well that's quite powerful being yes quite yes but I think it's quite powerful to tell them to go away you know that was that's what happens when you're uh when you let your mind finally, the critical part is defeated and the other part comes to the fore. And there was no way I could fake it. And I didn't want him to take me out of my reverie. I wasn't going to let him disturb that. Of course, I had to leave the island a few hours later, but I wanted to hold on to that calm and that peace for really just a few more minutes. And you've done loads of work on your mental health.

You know, you are a campaigner and you've done new silent retreats. This experience took you somewhere else, to a new place. Did you have new epiphanies? You don't, you, I've had experiences in my life. But as I say, if I go back to real life, and this is real life, I've got kids here, I have to make money. I have to, you know, try and not let people down. I have to answer emails from people I don't even like. Eventually, it eats away. It's like a little devil. It eats away. You become that machine. I would like to change that. And I don't think it's about living on an island but when I do my mindfulness in the morning there is sometimes a moment of peace my brain

the thinking brain shuts up for a minute there's still thoughts but they're not unpleasant you've got a new book out next month yeah it's called I'm not as well as I thought I was and what does that what does that? What's the title about? I think it tells you everything. That even though you do, for me, I do mindfulness, and God help me if I didn't, is that I have depression. But I hadn't had it in 12 years. So the idea of the book, try to follow me on this one,

when I pitched it was that during COVID, I realized without my distractions, nobody really cares that much. I'm not that important. And what was I giving the best years of my life to on a telephone, on an iPhone? So I thought, let's get a little deeper. And I think a lot of people do of all ages. I mean, they still work, but they want to know what's the point. I think everybody got an existentialist slap in their face. So I lined up all these journeys that would not change me. And I'll tell you, Castaway could have been one of them. But I did that in February.

I had to hand in the book before that. But I did do the 30-day silent retreat. I did swim with migrating whales. That was for a sense of awe. The other one was for peace. Then I went to a living Christian monastery for faith, and then tried to get people out of Afghanistan for compassion. But at the end of it, I ended up in a mental institution. Now, I can't say it's because I did those journeys. I did line them up a little too close to each other. And maybe I've drained myself.

I know this sounds terrible, but it did make a better book to be writing from a mental institution about these journeys where you were looking for meaning. I didn't find meaning because there was something really wrong with me, which I don't find out until I'm in the mental institute, because they make me have a shrink and she she plows down and locates something that's really quite traumatic that I was never aware of before so you know it's a journey inward and it's a journey outward and how are you now how are you oh I'm okay and that was um it was helpful to know. I haven't had therapy in 25 years and I happened to get a good one and she did EMDR. And I said, I don't have trauma. That's an Oprah word. Well, it turns out there is something really that tripped me up, that really tripped me up. And I find that out throughout the book. Are you looking forward to getting back on tour and being in front of the audience? That's my happy place too is I know a lot of people think that's

totally the opposite of what they'd like. I like living out of a suitcase. I like not knowing where the loo is every night. I love that. And that's sort of the book to me. I find out why I feel so rootless. Primarily because I was a lock-in as a child. I didn't realize that. I thought that was normal, is that I wasn't allowed out of the house, except to go to school and to see people that my parents approved of. But I didn't know that. My parents were crazy. And so you're locked in with madness. So all you think is, I got to get out of here and I never stop running. So I have a very bizarre relationship with home, but I'm not going to be angry at myself for wanting to travel. I don't hurt anybody. I just like to travel.

The rather brilliant Ruby Wax and her two-part series, Ruby Wax Castaway, continues this Sunday, the 30th of April at 9pmpm and it can be streamed on My5. Eve has been in touch to say well what else would you call a hermit crab apart from Spartacus lol four exclamation marks 84844 is the number to text I'm also asking you to get in touch about your favourite items of clothing for the summer. Annie says I went to a wedding five years ago and had treated myself to a new outfit I was horrified when I saw the mother of the groom as she was wearing exactly the same as me. I hurriedly put on my coat to cover up and spent my entire time hiding behind people. That's straight out of Bridget Jones.

84844, tell me about your favourite summer piece of clothing. Now, Rishi Sunak's mother-in-law Sudha Murthy has made the bold claim that her daughter is the reason he's our PM. At a recent charitable event in India she said that she was able to succeed in making my husband a businessman that's a reference to her own husband N.R. Narayana Murthy nicknamed India's Bill Gates for founding the 63 billion dollar business which is called Infosys and that skill seems to have passed on to the next generation as she added that her daughter Akshata has managed to make her husband the Prime Minister of the UK. So are the Murti women the real power behind the Prime

Minister and can you relate to this? Are you the power behind your partner 84844? Well to discuss this I'm joined by the author of that article which is in the Telegraph today Anne McElvoy who's also the executive editor at Politico and welcome to Woman's Hour and may I say thank you for joining us I don't know you're in you're you're somewhere where it's very very early in America aren't you? I'm in Washington DC and it is yes I think it is reassuringly five o'clock and something. We are very grateful that we managed to get you out of bed. How nice it was to get that call.

At three in the morning from my producer. Brilliant. My loyalty to Woman's Hour cannot be doubted. And it's been noted. Let's talk about Suda Murthy. She seems like quite a force the mother-in-law. She is. I came across her really when I was writing a cover on Akshata

Murthy on Rishi Sunak's wife for Tatler and I just got more and more fascinated actually by the story of both of her parents, the founding of Infosys and how it's also linked so tightly into the history and that sort of 50-year history of India and Indian business, but also the role of women and particularly, of course, the role of Sudha Murthy, who is the most extraordinary, outspoken, chatty woman. And I know that those comments, when they first emerged, could sound a bit like the mother-in-law from hell, frankly. It was my daughter that made him prime minister.

But when you follow more of the way that Sudamati communicates, which is in this very open and off-the-cuff way, she's also very funny. I think she also means it. And that was the balance, really, that interested me. So when the Telegraph asked me to write about her, I was happy to do it. As someone who comes with an Indian mother,

I'm not surprised that she's making these comments. There might be something cultural there. We'll come back to that. But what is her background? Who is Sudham Ruddy? She was an engineer, wasn't she, who once wrote a postcard to the boss of India's largest conglomerate, the Tata Group, saying it was a great mistake not to hire women. She sounds like a force. This is really interesting. And as you say, it's where she starts to come into her sounds like a force this is really interesting and as you say it's where she starts to come into her own as a young woman she was from a middle-class family you know she wasn't born into the purple if you like at all but she was phenomenally clever and she from

1968 i think she decided she was going to be an engineer well you can imagine that was not a choice that was very common at the time even among intellectuals and she was growing up at the and wanted to become a computer engineer in what was the early tech boom of the 70s where india also played a very important part and she couldn't get herself sort of hired onto a training program at Tata. Tata's still a very important company, but was then absolutely the gold standard, most dominant household name in emerging computing. So, yes, she sat down and she wrote a postcard exactly as you say. She also said she cut her hair short and her father was horrified. He was horrified she cut her lovely long hair short and even more horrified that she wanted to be an engineer. And this postcard, which she also describes writing in the way that you do when you're young and quite fired up about something, she then sent it to the

wrong place. And somehow, in a way, I think it would be wonderful to have this somewhere in a movie. It makes its way through this company and ends up at JRD Tata's desk. And he calls her in and she says exactly the same thing as she said on the postcard. And she gets hired. And that is also where she meets Narayanaya Murthy, Akshata's father. And he then leads to found Infosys which goes on to become this massive international computing giant. Now I've said the word Infosys, you will kind of see it around everywhere, wherever

you are, it has some footprint in information technology and big sprawling conglomerate and he wouldn't let her work with him which is really interesting he didn't like people working together. And they got that actually from a tradition.

But Nalini Ammerti was very strict about it and said not even the fact that he was a co-founder of the company. So she had to go off and run the foundation and became a children's writer and did good works. You know you're going to have to interview her to find out how she felt about that, aren't you? I would love to interview her. Somebody's going to have to interview her to find out how she felt about that, aren't you? I would love to interview her. Somebody's going to have to get There you go. The bid is in. We'll put it out there. Obviously, the name emphasis

is, I guess, the equivalent of Microsoft in India, but how well are the Murdis known in India? They are pretty well known. I mean, as you know, it's a vast country and there are lots of very rich and billionaires, it turns out. So they do stand out and they particularly do so, I think, in Bangalore. And that's where the family grew up and they have their their home.

They're also very well known as philanthropists. They're an interesting couple, the Murtis, now obviously rather older, I think just over 70, in that the father is seen as quite autocratic, really, within his world. He doesn't speak much, but when he was hands-on running the company, he had not only the rule that I've described, but he was very strong at the core of the company.

And over the years, and this happens a lot as a conglomerate when you get you know you've all seen succession so we you know a bit what it's like even if we're we're not born into a leading behemoth in in technology that it's it's had its ups and downs it would be fair to say there'd be boardroom battles he very much comes out of a tradition that from gandhi onwards but was also very briefly a communist as a young man, that business should be a social enterprise, it should put back to society. So they wear their ethics on their sleeve. And then obviously, when things go wrong, as inevitably they sometimes

do in a vast business, there are problems. There is also that charge of well, you are holier than thou and you have all these good works, but don't you see what's happened here? There was some problem in the reporting of the revenues or whatever the latest crisis was. But I have to say they're both very directed, just keeping on going. And she goes out there no matter what the noises are or what the business press is saying in India and beyond or whether the share price is down, which it has been recently. But it's down from a very high base, from a high top, sorry. And I think that is something that Akshar Tamirthi has really inherited from her parents is that you choose your themes and you just keep going. Yeah. And how close are they? How close are they to the Sunaks? They are very close, very close indeed. In fact, they became, it was called number 10, now number 10,

he's number 10 now, finally got there, called it the quartet. There was the two lots of parents, and we shouldn't ignore his parents here, who don't have some of the same problems that Sudha Murthy has about, when she flies business class and she was once kicked out of the queue, or they tried to because she was so humbly dressed well that's not a problem that you have if you're a gp and a pharmacist in southampton usually so these two sets of parents come from different backgrounds of wealth but in that way which i found very admirable actually the indian tradition of sort

of getting together once the couple get together the parents often become a sort of unit. They flew over and supported Rishi Sunak when he was on the campaign trail. And I guess Akshata's father, who's only ever seen in a business suit, even wore a T-shirt ready for Rishi and went out on the campaign trail. So you do get the sense that this is a family enterprise. And I think that's also what Suda was referring to when she said the making of Rishi Sunak was, I think, seen very much as something

that all the family were involved in. I wonder, how do you think Akshatha herself will feel about the comment? Well, I think Akshatha, who's obviously devoted to her mother, and she came up with quite a fulsome, not to say gushing, tribute to her mother recently on Instagram when her mother got a big award in India. So they're clearly very close.

And I know when I was researching the pieces that I've written, she spends quite a lot of time and she goes back, she takes their daughters back when her mother is getting an award, which she often does, or indeed launching a new book. She writes children's books, Sudha Murthy. She's actually best known, particularly in the language, the local language of southwest India, Kanada, as a children's writer. And these fables, slightly moralising fables, but very well written.

So, yes, they spend a lot of time together. The comments, I think Akshata will think, oh, well, there goes my mum again. And I think number 10 communications will be, oh, that wasn't hugely helpful. I think sometimes they don't like too much focus on it because they think it makes people remember how wealthy the Sunaks are, both Rishi Sunak in his own right, but really particularly through that Murthy connection. But, you know, in some ways, I think at this point, you just have to own it. They are very wealthy. They do try to do some good works with it.

And clearly, yeah, if you're in British politics, you would fight a tough general election. It's going to be a theme. And occasionally someone, in this case, the sainted mother-in-law is going to put her foot in it. Have you met Akshatha? What can you tell us about her? I had access when I was writing around Tatla,

to her world and to a lot of what she was up to. We haven't actually done a sit-down interview together. In fact, that's another one that we can, with the help of Woman's Hour, we can get that one going. The bids are out there. But she's very, all the bids are going in today. This is far too much information for the audience

about what it's like being a journalist. It's like you never stop bidding for things. So it's passing people in the street and asking them for an interview. But no, I think what she is also very much in her mother's tradition, she sent herself off, but there was clearly family wealth there but when

she went off to the west coast where she went to a couple of different colleges and then she worked for a startup she was very independent and having spoken to people who knew her then and hired her then including in an led light bulb company It was the beginnings of a sort of green awareness about light bulbs. She never said to her employers that she was from this family, that she could maybe help with this or that connection. So I thought that was really admirable. I'm not sure I would have had that restraint. And she was clearly a very motivated young woman to do well in her own right.

And I think that comes from that. Chip off the old block. chip off the old block chip off the old block when you looked into her background you've got a bit more just a bit of context that's not only some glossy rich you know very good looking glossy you know rich girl and i rather enjoyed finding out about that yeah and we've loved listening to it but very quickly um how influential have mother-in-laws been throughout political history or we just got us chatting in the office this morning about other wives and partners. It got us thinking about Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton and even Queen Consort Camilla and just how instrumental they may have been in putting or supporting or standing next to their partners when they got these great positions. It's often a bit of a family trade politics or an affliction, depending which way you look at it.

I was thinking about that coming onto the show. George Osborne's father-in-law was in politics, Lord Howell. There have been many people I think have had, John Knott, who was in the Thatcher cabinet, is the father-in-law to Hugo Swire, who's now in the Lords, who was a big sort of figure in the Cameron years. I was just thinking it's also mothers very directly. I mean, Winston Churchill had a very difficult,

I think, a relationship of longing with his mother that was not satisfied, which then sort of manifested itself sometimes in his need for attention, which he was able to channel, of course, very fruitfully into his political career. You can't ever really shake off your relationship with your mother and you can't shake off your mother-in-law,

whatever you may feel about her when she comes into your life, as Rishi Sunak has just found out. Anne McElvoy, real pleasure. Thank you so much. We really appreciate you waking up in the middle of the night to talk to us this morning. Thank you, Anne McElvoy, on The Power of Women. 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. So many of you getting in touch with stories about your summer clothes

because supposedly summer's on its way. But clearly nobody's told the weather it's almost May but does that mean we can finally get rid of the tights? Is it floral dress season? Are they still in? What's with all the perry style dresses with ruffles? I would love to hear what you are most looking forward to wearing this summer and perhaps most importantly how do we avoid buying the same dress that everyone else is wearing? To unpick all of this, I'm joined by Grazia Daily's fashion and beauty editor,

Hannah Banks-Walker, and freelance journalist, Martha Alexander. Welcome, both of you. Hannah, I'm going to start with you. We've got loads of our listeners getting in touch as well, but I'll come to those in a minute. What should we be wearing? I'm seeing a lot of these baggy dresses around at the moment and lots of ruffles.

Are we all meant to be in ruffles this summer? I'm probably always in a ruffle. You are in a ruffle. Look at that. You look beautiful. My sort of go-to style. Has it always been? Yeah, I do have a penchant for the dramatic.

So that is my vibe. But I would say if you're talking about what we saw on the runways for spring, summer, which is obviously always kind of the starting point of influence, it was really a tale of two extremes. So you did have the sort of, you know, frills and flounces, 3D flowers, bright colours, gaudy metallics. But then on the other hand, you had this emphasis on really wearable clothes, which sounds silly because, of course, clothes should be wearable.

Yes. But as anyone who looks at fashion might know, it doesn't always feel that way. But actually we saw, I mean, one of the most Instagrammed images from the shows was when Kate Moss appeared on the Bottega Veneta runway. Yeah. And she was just wearing a pair of baggy jeans,

a white tank top and a plaid shirt. Loved that. Back to the 90s. Exactly. Except it wasn't simply just that, was it? It wasn't just a pair of baggy jeans and a plaid shirt. No, exactly. And so there is, if anyone's read an article recently, you've probably heard of this stealth wealth dressing and quiet luxury. Who tells? Well, it's really the idea of taking basic wardrobe items and elevating them through, you know, a nicer material or a more interesting way of making them.

It's all about the craftsmanship of those clothes rather than sort of screaming logos. I'm going to bring Martha in. Martha, are you making notes? Are you paying attention? How are you feeling about your clothes this summer? Do you refresh your wardrobe? Do you bring out something you've worn 20 years ago? Will you be in ruffles? So many questions. I dread summer, actually, because, well, I never know what to wear at the best of times,

so I definitely need to be taking notes. But I think a lot of people have a kind of ambivalence about summer because obviously in the UK we're always waiting for some heat and some sunshine but there's such a small bracket with which you know for which for when we can wear clothes suitable for hot weather but there's always such a kind of big fanfare about summer wardrobes and most of the time I think a lot of us just pull out what we've had from for the last few years um whether we like it or not that's certainly my take on things I find I get worried about summer dressing because it's sort of a big reveal of skin

and all of that stuff so there's a lot of anxiety that goes with it that's beyond clothes if that makes sense oh yeah fully can relate to that yeah absolutely and I think um I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing though that we're pulling things out season after season because I think especially at the moment then there does there is and there does need to be a focus on sustainability and I think if you find something that really works for you then it's absolutely brilliant that you'd be wearing that year after year I would say I've definitely been wearing what you'd class as summer dresses for quite a few weeks now because I just got so sick of of winter um and I think there is a way of wearing them for those colder months as well you know I mean I heard you talking mention a black polo neck

earlier yes and I mean I've just I'm still in a jumper we're all still in jumpers yeah exactly but I mean I wear a polo neck under a dress for probably the whole of autumn and winter um and then just you know whip it off when I even see a glimpse of sunshine um one of our listeners has been in touch to say that she's made a dress out of old doilies oh wow yes we have a very creative listenership on this hour um yeah so it's just you know we and it's fine to be bringing out old clothes and and refashioning things someone else has been in touch to say that they've they're getting out but pair of jeans and turning them into shorts oh wow yeah that's a classic will you be doing that i don't know if i will be doing that, but that's only because I am, as I say, my sort of natural style is Amish school teacher on holiday.

So I'm not really a denim cut off kind of gal. Can I talk about shoes? I've done something that I've never, I thought I would never, ever, ever, ever do in my life. But I was actually seen in public wearing Birkenstocks with a pair of socks. So trendy. Is that on my on trend or am I going to look back and go what the hell was I thinking in the year 2023 well I can't guarantee you won't do that but at the moment I think everyone will be just looking

at you with admiration um Martha I know you've got some questions for Hannah so well yeah I do well listen I've got loads of questions about all sorts of stuff relating to fashion. I suppose what I want to know is what shoes should we be wearing? Because I kind of feel I'm very Birkenstock as well. There's a lot of Birkenstocks and socks going on other other sandals are available just gonna say yeah but there's also I've been I'm afraid things have got so bad around here that there's there's socks and crocs going on so I definitely it's bad so I do need help um but I feel that that I don't know what what sandal am I meant to be wearing next I hear you I hear you and also when you've got life and practical things to do like walking um what do you do? Yeah, I have been struggling with this recently as well because the weather is obviously very changeable at the moment. I have to say, and bear with me when I say this, I have been living in a pair of cowboy boots.

Mother your face. She's fashion. She's prairie girl. I think that actually if you just find a great pair of boots they're comfortable easy to walk in you can wear them under long dresses and they don't necessarily look wintry if you're wearing a cotton dress um or even just a pair of trainers I mean you can never go wrong with a pair of trainers um they've got to be clean don't they which makes me sound gross but you know once you've worn them basically twice I think that they're that they're ruined yeah yeah I don't know well you say that but some

fashion brands have been selling pre-dirty trainers um I mean what is happening what is happening I don't get rid of any shoes i might i've got an entire room dedicated just to shoes no i mean because your feet never change shaped or size do they so what do you do i've got classic shell toes i'm not getting rid of those from the 90s yeah converse they're not going but they're they're timeless i guess they're never gonna go up style and i think also ballet pumps are a major thing for this season again. Oh, this is good news. But what about skinny jean? Surely not. Well, the skinny jean has really been replaced by sort of slouchier styles that we saw emerging post-pandemic.

Very happy about that. Vanessa has been in touch saying, I absolutely love the summer and stripping off to the minimum in my garden to sunbathe. But I'm 66 and a size 16. I find it so difficult to get really nice, comfortable summer clothes in fabrics which are sleeveless and cool but don't mean you're showing too much unnecessary cleavage also so many dresses are either too short or extra long what happened to dresses that finish a little below the knees it's a constant search for me so I end up in shorts and a vest a lot of the time the the summer the summer tea dress yeah i think i do think they are out there i think um i think marks and spencer always has a really solid range of summer dresses in all different lengths um and

i do there's um also a brand called nobody's child which is a sustainable label which still has that sort of high high street price tag. And they have just all sorts of dresses. I mean, I hate to use this phrase, but there really actually is something for everyone because there are short and long dresses and they have a really good size inclusive range. Do you actually keep up with styles yourself? You have the same style, don't you?

Yeah. You work in fashion, but you don't follow the trends. I don't have a very good advert for it because I'm just constantly in a ruffle and a headband. You have a very good advert for it, very stylish woman, both of you. How about you Martha, what will you be wearing this summer? What's your favourite item that you bring out? My favourite thing that I wear is a black t-shirt dress that is cotton because you've got to wear cotton, you can't be wearing man-made fabrics

because the sweating is indescribable and really uncomfortable that's my that's my top fashion tip with the summer with with trainers that you've only you're only going to wear twice and then you're going to wear twice um no and with and with uh and with i'm sorry i'm going to say birkenstock again i wear i wear them i wear my t-shirt dress the birkenstock i dostock. I do wear only cottony stuff. I don't wear man-made fibers. I'm slightly inspired by this cowboy boot situation. I'm telling you, it'll change your life.

I might watch this space. Thank you so much, Hannah Banks Walker and Martha Alexander, for joining me to talk to me about that. Someone else has been in touch to say, my bargain jungle print caftan covered in parrots reminds me of holistic holidays on the tiny greek island of skiros i waft around cool as a cucumber in the searing greek heat no makeup frizzy hair and a sense of ease oh delightful yes oh to waft around in a kaftan 84844 is the number to text now nhs maternity services are in crisis the care quality

commission and the Ockenden Review, among others, have warned that mothers and babies are being put at risk because maternity services are still providing unsafe care. But how did we get into this situation and has it always been like this? Emily Bourne, Dr Emily Bourne, I should say, senior lecturer in 19th and 20th century Britain at Sheffield University, was researching the history of maternity services when she came across a forgotten book published in 1950 called National Baby. The book was written by Sarah Campion, who found out that she was pregnant in July 1948. She kept a diary of her journey through some of the first NHS antenatal clinics. And Dr. Emily Bourne is going to tell us all about it because you discovered this book and read it in one sitting.

Yeah, I mean, I don't want to say I discovered it, like it's in the British Library, anyone can get it out and I think historians can have a bit of a tendency to sort of imply that they've, you know, found something for the first time and that wasn't the case but it is this incredible birth story essentially and really written before the era where people were thinking of a birth story as a personal sort of as a personal thing to narrate um and I was so

struck by it because well I suppose because I've had two children quite recently and and I'd read a lot of birth stories and I'd had them in this moment where people were either birth stories were these very sort of singularly focused tales of, you know, personal kind of bravery and fortitude, or they were these stories about kind of, I suppose, victimhood in the pandemic NHS. And I found this story so interesting because she's both talking about her experience,

but she does it in a way that's really contextual. So she doesn't leave out the bits that are difficult. She doesn't, she neither kind of has herself as all powerful, but also doesn't leave out the context of the new NHS. So this is what we want to hear about. Tell us about her experience of being pregnant and giving birth under this newly created NHS. What were the antenatal appointments like?

What details does she give us? Well, she gets given a bun within about half an hour of being at the first appointment. And she says that she feels that they're kind of, in one sense, they feel like cattle markets. Some women are kind of lining up and they're these all-day affairs. But you will get tea and buns and you'll have classes on how to look after a baby. And often things are being done for the convenience of doctors, not women. So she spends a lot of time sort of stripped off in her underwear, kind of just waiting for the next person to come along and poke and prod her. But what about the actual birth?

So the birth itself, she gives birth in a hospital and she knows very little about what's going to happen. She's part of a generation of women that haven't really spoken about that. It's all shrouded in mystery. Yeah, very much so. And so when she arrives, she's spending a lot of time trying to guess, like, where am I in my labour? Where am I going to go next? So she wouldn't have known much about pregnancy before she got to the hospital, the birth. She had read a book by someone called Grantley Dick Reid,

who's a kind of early advocate of what we might now think of as hypnobirthing, sort of the idea that maybe birth doesn't have to be painful at all. And when she's going to the hospital, her friend says to her, forget Grantley Dick Reid, it's going to hurt like hell. Is Grantley Dickreed it's going to hurt like hell. Is Grantley Dickreed a man? He is a man he's also his ideas then went on to be very influential in founding the NCT so he has this kind of big influence actually on birthing culture in Britain. So what happened to a post-birth?

So after birth she is confined to her bed for three days. She ends up having a forceps delivery under general anaesthetic. And she writes about, she feels really triumphant when she comes down from theatre. And she says, you know, I came down from theatre as a queen, even while I was sort of snuffling stale chloroform out of my nostrils. But then she's confined to bed and she says that she and the other women on this maternity ward where she spends two weeks feel like they're treated like idiot children um and the babies are brought to them they feed the babies the babies are taken away she's not allowed to get up um the meals are you know the meals are all standardized and she she has bits of that she doesn't hate um

she does become very kind of friendly with a lot of the other women there and they do seem to have quite a lot of fun um what my favorite bit of the book is actually when a handyman comes in to fix a light bulb and he can't do it and all of these sort of bored women stuck in their beds just start chanting push push push at him um but sorry I want to know a bit a bit about her background who was she what was well so she's actually called Mary Rose Coulton um and she's a novelist and she's from a sort of reasonably wealthy background she's gone to an all-girls boarding school and she also spends the war sort of managing an air raid shelter in London. So her background is one where actually being in a postnatal ward and being around a lot of women and being part of a crowd and being part of almost a kind of regime is very familiar to her because of her boarding

school background and because of her experience of war. And she's also she'd also identify as a socialist. So she is really writing this despite everything that she does criticise to say, actually, the NHS is something we all need to get behind. And she particularly the middle classes. Yes. And why was that something that you had you had to state back then? Well, at that point, she is someone with a reasonable income does have the option of having a paid for birth. It's not beyond the realm of affordability or having a birth kind of on the NHS, but then moving to a private ward. And she thinks that

if people do this, they're not going to kind of collectively invest in the institution. And actually, she sees the role of women like her, both as to sort of get involved in the institution, but also to be these kind of critics from within. And so her political agency as a woman that gives birth in the NHS and makes that choice to give birth in the NHS, but then also kind of feeds this criticism back into the system. And she does it with an eye to, you know, she's thinking about affordability and she's thinking about the long kind of history of hierarchy in medicine. She's not, she's actually not a kind of starry-eyed idealist about it, but she thinks that having a baby in the NHSs even if it's not exactly as you would choose it is a political and pragmatic choice and and the conversation for her arose around class yeah and i find it really interesting fast forward 75 years the conversation

is again and particularly in maternity services about class yeah and and privilege um and and what what what sarah uh cannot see is is her level of privilege and that she is essentially allowed to kind of opt in and she does know that any minute she can she can opt out she can move to that private ward and when you know when when she gets home she and her partner move to a kind of working class area and she's so delighted by her sort of communal washing line and then the neighbor kind of pushing her baby pram to rock it to sleep and and this communal life but it is all a choice for her yeah um and it yeah and that's that's different it is a fascinating story and we've thoroughly enjoyed hearing all about her and her

experience thank you so much for coming to talk to me, Dr. Emily Bourne. And thank you for joining me on Woman's Hour. Thank you for having me. Now, can you name a well-known choreographer? Is it a man? Names like Matthew Bourne, Wayne McGregor and Akram Khan are huge in the world of ballet and contemporary dance. But where are all the female choreographers?

Liv Lawrence is an award-winning choreographer and artistic director of Ballet Laurent, which she founded 30 years ago. But she's a rarity in this world. And she's joining me now to tell us more and how it feels to be a rarity. You've been in the business for more than three decades. How much has it changed in the time that you've been making work and i think now there is i think people are noticing it if there are uh not enough representation of women you know you can go see lots of triple bills and there won't be a male choreographer or

you don't see many female choreographers take the large scale or do the full-length work so I think that there is change now and there wasn't so much as conversation 20 or 30 years ago so I'm encouraged that there's change. So tell me about your story because you started life as a dancer when did you choose to become a choreographer? I realized early on that I had terrible stage fright and as a training ballet dancer I was around mirrors all the time and what I saw in the mirror was not my type so I have I have a really wide-ranging type but I'm not it. Oh that makes me sad. It was okay it was okay because there's so many beautiful, beautiful human beings that I adore to choreograph on. And so I'm very happy about that. I like to make work outside of my body.

I take a feeling from my body, but it's on other people's bodies that I like to create. So the sad thing is that I wasn't able to go, look at me. This is how it can look. I couldn't able to go, look at me, this is how it can look. I couldn't evidence early on. I don't think that I was a choreographer of talent because I wasn't a dancer of talent. So how did you do it then? There are so few women and 30 years ago, even fewer.

How did you make inroads? I think it's about trying to find the side door sometimes. If you don't get invited into a mainstream opportunity, it's always a hustle. It's about how do you, you know, how do you make, if somebody's not letting you make work on stage, then you will make work in a nightclub or a concert hall or ballroom. If someone isn't letting you have 30 professional dancers, then you have four professional dancers and 26 dancers from the community of all different ages

and make the most of that abundance. So I think it's about being really kind of creative with it and not just waiting for the best most prestigious opportunity but having a real hunger to want to do it and finding ways to make that happen yeah yeah far more creative being on the outside breaking your way in smashing smashing the doors open um so what are the barriers and what needs to change i i saw an article recently how the Tate is going to be in its next re-hang doing 50% of female artists and I thought that's fantastic and then you think oh why wasn't it always like that and perhaps there is now going to be I'd like to think that men and women who know they have

empowerment within the contemporary dance and ballet industry perhaps can think how they can give more women and other other people who may be not represented as well in as choreographers leadership positions give them chances to make work I mean making dance is expensive we need a lot of things a lot of set music costume if you have very little to work with, it's very hard to make large scale work. So I think that is good if we all make a deliberate effort to think, how can I help someone else who's not getting a platform? And can it not always be the same person? I should tell the listeners that you were awarded an MBA in 2014 by our late queen for your services to dance.

How did that feel? It was lovely. I mean, like most things, I think there's things I did. Do I deserve it over other people? Probably not. You know, I've dedicated my whole adult life to dance, but so have many other people. We are, those of us in dance have a great advocates for what we do um so i'm very grateful but but um i think loads of people deserve it and

anytime i see a new dance person uh get some award i'm delighted well you know you're obviously very humble however you know from the story that we've heard you've you were an outsider breaking your way in did that must have felt quite monumental did you feel like okay this is recognition um I guess I guess it is I I haven't really thought of that and I think um I think this little moments when maybe that acceptance happens those things don't always last but uh so everything and in certainly in dance is a very competitive industry so we're always having to prove ourselves all the time you have to make work that attracts audiences and

keep them coming back and you know you're only as good as your last work it feels so yeah I think it's an onward fight I've never had a moment of going oh I can relax now and it's all going to be fine you know I'm really fortunate I've got arts council support you know who are really championing I think trying to create more equality

amongst artists and representation and I think that I want to want to honour that and there's female stories that I want to talk about and have lived through. And that's how it happens you have women doing what you do who then want to tell female stories and will encourage more women to come into the industry. I think you're absolutely wonderful. What you do is incredible. Keep creating, keep doing what you do and come back and talk to us when you've got a new show on Live Lawrence. Thank you so much. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hi, I'm Helen Lewis and I want to tell you about a podcast I've made for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds.

It's called The New Gurus and it's about how everywhere you look on the internet, people are giving advice. Advice they claim will transform your life. Advice that gets them thousands, no, millions of devoted followers. These online prophets are telling us how to eat, how to think, how to get rich, how to find love, how to manage our time. These are the new gurus. Just as people will say the Protestant Reformation and the printing press went hand in hand, so too did this birth of the new internet culture really give rise to this new religious landscape. Subscribe now to The New Gurus on BBC Sounds. 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 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.