Woman's Hour - Sally Wainwright, drink spiking, Gurinder Chadha and Debbie Wiseman

Episode Date: December 31, 2022

Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth joins Krupa Padhy to talk about the new figures released by the National Police Chiefs Council which say there were nearly five thousand cases of needle and drink spiking recorded by forces across England and Wales between September last year and August this year. Do you remember the first time you really felt ‘seen’? For a special bank holiday programme, all about representation, hear a conversation between Bridgerton actress Charithra Chandran and her hero Gurinder Chadha, who directed the iconic film Bend It Like Beckham.As part of a new series called Finding My Voice, Jessica Creighton speaks to the author Milly Johnson about the moment she realised her success lay in embracing and enhancing her Yorkshire voice, instead of trying to supress it.The scientist Dr Jess Wade joins Jessica Creighton to talk about the representation of women in science, and how she’s trying to improve that by joining the Wikipedia community of volunteers and creating pages for women in science and all their achievements. The writer and director Sally Wainwright joins Krupa Padhy ahead of the final series of Happy Valley to discuss how she created the iconic character of Catherine Cawood, and why Sarah Lancashire was perfect for the part – and her mum was her best script editor. What’s the best way for you to feel rested? Does music come into it? Jessica Creighton speaks to the award-winning composer and conductor Debbie Wiseman OBE about the relaxing and restful impact the right music can have, not just on our mind, but on our body and our heartbeat too.Presenter: Krupa Padhy 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, this is Krupa Parti and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Good afternoon and welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour, where we collect together the best bits of Woman's Hour from this week and put them all together for you. Coming up on the programme, ahead of New Year's Eve parties tonight, hear how to be extra vigilant in looking out for drink and needle spiking

and what to do if you think you might be a victim. Plus, the third and final series of Happy Valley starts tomorrow evening on the BBC. I've been speaking to the incredible genius behind that and other series like Last Tango in Halifax and Scott and Bailey.

Sally Wainwright will be on the programme. It's tough to write things like that. You know, it does take you into dark places. And, you know, it makes for very interesting drama. But it's, you know, it's that idea of making entertainment out of difficult things, which I have a bit of an odd relationship with. I do find it difficult sometimes. She'll be telling us all about how she created the character

of policewoman Catherine Kaywood and the scientist using her spare time to promote other female scientists and get her work recognised using none other than Wikipedia. So grab a cup of tea and a mince pie and settle in. This evening some of you will be heading out to bring in the new year with friends and family. 2023, can you believe it? But amongst this celebrating, we're being warned to be vigilant. According to the National Police Chiefs Council, nearly 5,000 cases of needle and drink spiking were recorded by forces across England and Wales between September 2021 and August 2022. Women account for three quarters of the victims.

So ahead of tonight's celebrations, police are reiterating advice on what to do if you or someone you know might have been spiked. Earlier this week, I spoke to Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blythe, the National Police Chiefs Council lead on violence against women and girls about this issue. She told me why the data they're gathering around spiking is so important. We started looking in detail at spiking data at the end of 2021, when we first started to get quite unprecedented reports about needle spiking. And you'll recall there was a lot of fear and concern. And quite rightly, women and girls felt unconfident about what these incidents were saying. So we looked in detail at needle

spiking, and then also reinforced our understanding and building up an intelligence picture about drink spiking per se. So the data that we've released today is both needle spiking and drink spiking. And I think as a bit of a pretext, there are several crimes covering spiking under the Sexual Offences Act, Offences Against the Person Act, General Assault. And these are extremely serious offences. Spiking is a vile crime and policing is ruthless and wants to be ruthless in pursuing anyone responsible. So in releasing the figures, we want to try and provide some reassurance to our communities about what's going on, but also to raise awareness about both needle and drink spiking.

And I think what the data broadly tells us is that drink spiking remains more of a concern and is more prevalent. And on a monthly basis over the last 12 months, we've been able to say that that has remained quite steady at the number of reports into us each month, whereas needle spiking has actually stabilised during 2022. Those reports in at the last quarter of 2021 often associated with universities and freshers week freshers month at the time have not been repeated this year and we think that might be largely because of the work that has gone on with universities in preparation for freshers month this year with licensing authorities with pubs and clubs to really be the ears and eyes of spiking locally. And this all goes back to what you were saying about raising awareness.

But before we continue to unpick some of what you've just said, raising awareness, some of that is simply defining what needle spiking is. How is it defined in the eyes of the law? It's defined very broadly by saying it's essentially an offence by which a victim is administered against their consent without their knowledge by a needle or an injection. There are several crimes, as I said, covering spiking. Those link to Sexual Offences Act, they link to assault, offences against the person. And the sentence that can be given to a perpetrator, to anyone responsible for spiking, is that not the kind of fundamentals of the problem here? Because you're trying to encourage more people to come forward when they feel like they may have been spiked in any way. But if the definition is so broad, does that not just play

into the problem? I don't think so. I think the legislation is there. And we want women and girls in particular to report, though it's worth saying that there are male victims, too, of spiking. But predominantly it's the victims are women and girls. We want them to report because we can prosecute. We have got legislation that allows us to pursue that. We are very interested in whether the secondary offending, once a victim knows they've been spiked, the sooner they can report it to us, the sooner we can look into whether there's been any secondary offending. At the moment, the information on that, again, is quite low. Our reports suggest around 17 percent of spiking reports also indicate sexual offending, a sexual act or robbery.

Those remain quite low. So understanding the motives behind who these people are that are perpetrating this type of crime is still something we want to gather, which again is in encouraging people to come forward and feel confident in us to report is important in building up that intelligence picture. And in putting the data out again today, we are saying to anyone who's out there who is a perpetrator, don't think you can get away with this. We are working so closely with our partners. Policing has really mobilised itself against spiking, preparing itself for the night-time economy. Most of the offences appear to be taking place on weekends, out in towns and cities in the nighttime economy,

that that's where the large propensity of reports are coming from. Again, just looking at the detail that we went into through festivals in the summer and preparing for Freshers' Week, we didn't get the level of reports that we thought we might. And can we explore that a bit more? I mean, first of all, you say time is of the essence, essentially, because these drugs, they pass through the system very, very quickly. This can make prosecution difficult. But before we explore how equipped the police are to deal with that specifically, that point you just made, women aren't necessarily coming forward. They don't feel reassured that they are going to be taken seriously.

How do you reassure them? And it really concerns me that and my message today is please report because police will take this seriously. We are told and I am regularly in contact with both police forces and with victims who say we don't feel confident to report because we're not sure you will take this seriously. We've also been told that some victims may have knowingly taken drugs. And the message today is don't let that stop you reporting. It's not a crime to have drugs in your system. And we are only concerned at the moment about catching the predators behind this type of crime, behind spiking. So don't think you won't be taken seriously. We also know that some victims

aren't aware they've been spiked till perhaps the day after, or it's only when talking through with friends that they think that this might be something that's happened. We also know that some victims turn up in emergency departments within A&E, at the moment, very stretched emergency departments. So don't assume that that means we get to know about it either. Please report to us directly. Yeah, sorry to interrupt there. But how does that time lag impact the potential for prosecution? Because again, that goes back into reassuring people, doesn't it? Yes, it does. Gathering that intelligence is really important. So for example, if we pick up over a period of a few days that there's been a number of spiking incidents in a particular venue,

we can work with licensing authorities, with local authorities to go into that venue to understand what's going on there, look at CCTV, look at the measures that the venue has taken to protect victims. We also know that if we can get in quickly with evidence, we can send off our forensic tests, which is following a urine sample to get those back quickly to see whether there's been a drug administered link to spiking. We could also very, very frankly, have much better chance of other sorts of evidence gathering to try and find out who the actual perpetrators are, look at witness statements, go into CCTV again. So it's really important to respond quickly.

The more days that go by, it's much, much harder to do that evidence gathering and bring people to justice. Moving on to a wider look at your current role, it's just over a year since you took on the role of coordinating the National Policing Response to Violence Against women and girls. What changes have you implemented in the approach to preventing violence against women? I think this has been an unprecedented year in my view.

And policing has really mobilised its response to violence against women and girls. All 43 forces have VOG as a clear priority, have clear action plans involving partners at local level, listening to victims and witnesses, listening to women and girls. We've still got a long way to go, but I'm absolutely confident that violence against women and girls is a number one priority for every police force, addressing the violence and harm that many women and girls face every day. And that was Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth talking to me there about the rise in spiking cases. Next, it's time to be part of a very special conversation.

The Bridgerton actress Charitra Chandran got the chance to meet her hero, the writer and director Gurinder Chadha, who directed the groundbreaking film Bend It Like Beckham. For Charitra, the film was a huge moment in South Asian representation, something she's now continued by being part of Bridgerton. As you can imagine, there was a lot for these two pioneering women to talk about when they met to discuss being seen, representation and breaking boundaries. I'm Charitha Chandran. I'm an actor. You've probably last seen me on a show called Bridgton and I was lucky enough to play Edwina Sharma. Hi, I'm Gurinder Chadha, writer, director, producer of movies. You know, movies. So we first met months ago at an industry event and, you know, I think we were probably the only South Asian women in the room.

Yes. And we sort of gravitated towards each other. There was a lot of the great and the good of the industry there. And I saw you across the room and I said, oh, that's the young lady in Bridgerton. I mean, for me, I think I was a bit shell shocked because you sort of framed how I viewed myself growing up, which is, you know, a big influence on my life. And there I am just right in front of you talking to you, which was mad. Do you think about the legacy of your work and how much it has influenced South Asian women, particularly in the UK? Bender Like Beckham was a hit because everybody related to that film.

And what I was able to do was show the world what Britain is like for me and for us. Certainly for me when I made End It Like Beckham I totally identified with Jess Bumrah. I was Jess and I relived my whole childhood with my parents, how I kept trying to sort of bend the rules and duck and dive to do what I wanted you know and those two were definitely based on my parents, the parents. But now, 20 years on, I really identify with the mother, with my 15 year old daughter, who says, when can I start wearing crop tops in front of boys? And I'm like, oh, the shackles, and the shackles rise. And I'm like, no more crop tops. So yeah, I mean, that's the amazing thing about film is that it lasts forever.

I grew up in a fairly white area. I didn't see many people that looked like me, but I think I was one of two Asian kids in my school. And so I think a lot of the issues that members of the diaspora go through, I felt like I was the only one experiencing it. So watching Bend It Like Beckham and seeing all these characters have the same thoughts and the same conversations I was having with myself, I felt less lonely about it all. And I even think about your casting. I mean, when I, I love Bollywood movies and I really enjoy them.

But even in Bollywood movies, I never saw anybody that really looked like me with my skin tone. And so in Bend It Like Beckham, all of these beautiful women that had the same skin color as me, it's the first time that I felt like, I genuinely felt seen in media, including media in India.

Well, that's amazing. I wanna tell you two things. When Bend It Like Beckham came out, there were three important things, actually, that I think sum up how important this discussion is. The first is when I made the film, before it was a hit, I had a screening up in Manchester. And I went up on the train,

and I got a message to say that it's so popular that they've had to open a second screen in the multiplex, because they're going to have to show it into the cinemas. I was like, oh my God, the Asian community has come out in force, that's amazing. When I got there though there were hardly any Asians in the audience it was all Mancunians and obviously because of David Beckham

right and I was I was like amazed at that actually because I had in my head seen it as an Asian film at that point and so that was mind-blowing for me but then afterwards I will never forget this lady it was a very significant part of my career in my life afterwards this English woman came up to me and she was blonde and she had white trousers white shirt and white stilettos and she came up to me and she'd been crying. And she said to me, you know, you don't realize what you've done.

You know, you think you've made a comedy, she said, but what you've shown us for people who live around here after what's been happening. And she was referring to the Oldham riots that had been happening a couple of years previously, where the local Pakistani community and the white community, that had been happening a couple of years previously where the local Pakistani community and the white community there had been clashes you know because there's so much unemployment and poverty and all the rest of it and she was referring to Oldham riots and she said

you know what you showed us is that everyone wants the best for their kids and everyone's going to fight for their kids. And I was like, oh my God, if I never make another film in my life, just hearing that woman say that to me in that way is like, what an achievement that I, I set out to challenge racism and sexism and how we were depicted in the media. And for that woman to say that to me that was amazing and then my final story which I think really rounds it all up is uh when I was in LA and I had I was pregnant with my twins I I just conceived them actually and I was in the clinic and getting checked up and everything and there was another doctor there not my doctor and she said do you mind if I

come in and talk to you and I was all sitting there all you know getting ready to be you know have the scan and everything and I said no sure and she said I wanted to tell you that when I had my daughter I went into the delivery room and I was allowed to take some things with me and I took a DVD of Bed and Life she said this doctor and she said so when my daughter was born I played that on the screen because I wanted her to come into the world that within a space that was full of love and so she played the movie as she came there I was like I was a little bit like okay TMI but then I thought well I am in

California and that is a very California thing yeah but then I went to a thought about it I thought what an absolutely beautiful thing for her to say to me, you know, and, and, and I'm so pleased that the impact of it has been so wide. If you were making Bend It Like Beckham in 2022, do you think you would change anything? Do you think the pressure is off a little bit that we now have more representation thanks to your work? Or do you feel like, no, you still kind of face

the same questions and issues within the industry? Sadly, I don't really wanna say this, but it is true. If you put Indian characters in the lead of films, it's still really hard to get your films financed. No one will say, oh, no, we're not going to do it because there are Indian leads. But people will say, oh, we don't know if it's commercial enough, you know, or it's not quite what we want to do right now.

So, Charithra, tell me about your journey. I know you were one of the dancers in Eternals, doing a bit of Bollywood right there. Yes. And then suddenly you land this amazing part in such a popular show by the, you know, irrefutably amazing Shonda Rhimes, you know, in Bridgerton. So how was that? That must have been a wow moment. I have to be honest, I think I did feel a certain level of pressure playing, you know, being in a show that is as popular as Bridgerton

is because you feel like, especially with season one being such a hit, I think I was really worried that if season two wasn't as big a hit as season one, then it would be my fault. And you then worry about the repercussions of, oh my goodness, have I compromised other brown characters being included in scripts, et cetera, et cetera. Which, you know, is a burden that I put on myself. I don't know if necessarily if anyone else put it on me. But I was, I think when I actually got to set, I was just playing a character.

I wasn't necessarily thinking on a day-to-day basis, oh, you know, this is going to be representing so many brown women across the world. There would be moments, you know, in like the Haldi scene and when we'd refer to things that are very noticeably Indian that I'd remember. But I think I was in an environment where I was given the freedom just to be an individual with their own flaws, their own gifts. And I think what's really interesting is often people would say to Simone and I, you know, you guys are the first time we've seen this, et cetera, et cetera. And I really dispute that. I am so aware that I stand on the shoulders of giants, people like you and Mira and Deepa and Parminder and Archie, just to name a few,

individuals who fought the good fight and who've worked so hard so that we could be in a position where we're leading a massive Netflix juggernaut. It's amazing, you know. I think that you being in Bridgerton, you know, with Simone, I think that was a game changer. Just watch with my kids. It's interesting to see you in Bridgerton, you know, with Simone, I think that was a game changer. Just watch

with my kids. It's interesting to see you in Bridgerton. It's not a big deal for them. They're like, oh, OK, you know, because for them, it's normal. A candid chat there between the Bridgerton star Charitra Chandran and writer and director Gurinder Chadha. This week, we've started a new series on Women's Hour called Finding My Voice, which is all about that moment for women when they realise they had something to say or stand up for. First in the series was the author of 20 novels, which have sold over 3 million copies worldwide, Millie Johnson. A review of one of her most recent books,

Together Again, describes it as being peppered with the author's down-to-earth, Yorkshire-flavoured humour. Jessica asked Millie if this is how she would describe her own writing. I absolutely would, yes. Yorkshire is, in all my books, it's almost a character in itself. So when did you realise that writing about real life and writing stories set in Yorkshire was going to be so successful for you? For many years I had to write a book and just couldn't find my niche at all. Just before my 40th birthday I got pregnant um as did two of my best friends and we went through our pregnancy journeys together now at this point I'd been trying to write a book for many years and say um it was when I we'd all given birth they were in my front room my friends and it was like it's like a thunderbolt going off. I thought, why aren't you writing about this? I'd kind of been looking on the horizon for many years

for what I wanted to write about, and it was at my feet all the time. So I kind of embraced my Yorkshire-ness, if you like, and I wrote this story about three women on the cusp of 40 from Yorkshire all having babies and an agent I'd been chasing for 15 years just turned around and said this is the one we've been waiting for. Is that when you realised yourself was there a point before that where you thought I can I can make something of myself here I can do something that I love and turn it into a living that's what I wanted to do but I didn't think anybody would want to um read about the north um because the books at the time were quite London centric it was the kind of chick lit um phenomenon with books set in London

um with people in jobs in PR sharing flats. And that was a life I knew nothing about. So I was trying to ape these books and I couldn't write about them authentically because I hadn't lived them. So I hadn't really thought about the Yorkshire thing at all. It was only, as I say, when my hand was forced, as it were, and I felt this very powerful feeling that this could just work. Because for many years, you know, I had been,

people had told me to change my accent. I think certainly women who got regional accents through the years have been told to change their accents. I've had loads of stories about, well, you'll never get anywhere with that accent. I was actually sacked from a job for not having the right accent. What's the right accent? Well, they told me because I was working in North Yorkshire and, of course, in South Yorkshire, we've got much shorter vowels and um and they told me that my

accent was better suited to the textile industry where I came from right um and so you can either you can either make that into a fuel that powers you or you can crumble and I did crumble for a while and then I I kind of thought do you know what I'm going to use this I'm going to embrace my Yorkshireness and uh and it wasn't long after that that you know I got pregnant and the two worlds combined the pregnancy world and embracing the Yorkshireness and I've never looked back I mean all my books are stuffed full of Yorkshire because I always thought if I ever bumped into this woman again i'd like to i'd like to make her sick with the amount of yorkshireness that's in my books and it's given me everything i ever wanted we don't hear very often about people

particularly women making um able to turn their passions into a business, into a living so late in life. Not that it was particularly late being 40, but it's later than perhaps we're taught when we're growing up about when we're going to land that dream job or land that dream career. Do you think your life experience made you successful? It was the reason that you became so successful absolutely I couldn't have written the sort of books um that I write now back then I think it's there is a season I have a theory that God thought okay this bird wants to write books I'm going to give her 40 years of experience and then I'm going to let her loose and that's really what happened to me I you know I didn't have much to say at 20, but at 40, I had lots of life experience.

I've been kicked around the ring a few times. I've had good jobs, bad jobs, travelled a bit. I had, you know, lovely men, nice men, wonderful friends. And the friendship is a women's friendship is a massive ingredient in all my books. And has it changed you finding your voice being a celebrated author? I think it's, this is going to sound a bit weird. It's changed me because I don't, no longer want to change myself. It's made me content with who I am because these, these short vowels, this has given me everything that I've, because these short vowels, this has given me everything that I've ever wanted. I don't want to be anything other than I am.

And I'm very happy with my career. I feel in my niche, and I think that's a wonderful thing. I don't think many people feel that they find their real niche, and I feel very lucky that I do. Would you inspire others then to follow their passion like you have? Absolutely I mean there was a time in my life when I felt you know I was in a rubbish marriage rubbish job and I thought is this it is this it is this all I have and in my books I write about women who have very ordinary lives. That doesn't mean to say they can't have their happy endings.

And with a few tweaks to people's lives, they can make themselves so much happier, as I did. It just took a few a few steps out of the world I was in and a bit of bravery to give me all I wanted. And I get so many letters from women saying, I've read your books, the women in it are so ordinary, I can relate to them. And because I think the women are so ordinary, that women see themselves in my books, they see them walking in the skins of the characters.

And so that gives them the hope that they can change their lives as well, which is a wonderful thing. The author Millie Johnson talking to Jessica about finding her voice. Still to come on the programme, Sally Wainwright, the writer of Happy Valley and Last Tango in Halifax, on how she created the police officer character played by Sarah Lancashire. And how music can really help us to rest and relax, not just in our minds, but by calming our bodies down too. And remember, you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day. If you can't join us live at 10am during the week, just pop over to BBC Sounds and search for

Woman's Hour. Now, when was the last time you used Wikipedia? It's the largest and most read reference work in history, and as of 2022, the fifth most popular site in the world. But it also has a gender bias. Only 19% of the profiles we can see on Wikipedia are of women. Someone who's trying to change this is Dr Jess Wade, a physicist from Imperial College London. She's part of the community of volunteers known as Wikipedians who write and maintain the site and spends her evenings creating wiki pages for women in science.

Jessica spoke to her and asked her why she chose Wikipedia to promote these women in science rather than something like social media. I think it's kind of critical that women's stories are told and women's contributions are documented on platforms where we document men's, you know, if I'm looking at a history book, a kind of history book that's written before, I don't know, the past five or 10 years, it's mainly written by a man about other men. And Wikipedia is really our platform and our opportunity to change that, you know, we choose what we document, and we choose what's important. And hey, I think that the contributions of women scientists and their discoveries and the way that they've changed each

and every one of our lives is critical to document in those places as well. So I want their stories in places that everyone's reading them, not just on a social media platform where maybe a select few of the population look. So what was the first profile you created? The first profile I created was an incredible climate scientist, a woman called Kim Cobb. She's now a professor at Brown University. She's one of these absolutely phenomenal climate researchers who does a huge amount of kind of experimental field work, goes out on ocean missions and collects kind of corals and ice cores and looks at their chemistry and tries to work out how humans have impacted climate change. She's hugely involved in kind of policy

and advocacy and also on trying to transform science so it's a more equitable and inclusive space. And I'd read her work. I saw her talk, I looked her up on a search engine, realised she didn't have a Wikipedia page, and thought someone needs to put that together. And then just kind of got addicted, you know. I thought Kim's story is fantastic. But actually, there are so many phenomenal women scientists, phenomenal engineers of colour, phenomenal people from all of these different backgrounds whose story hasn't been told. And I can do something about that. There are so many women. Break it down for us in terms of numbers, because I mentioned that gender bias of just 19% of profiles on Wikipedia are of women. So how many is that? Oh, gosh, I think there's about probably about

two and a half million biographies on English language Wikipedia. I think the kind of interesting thing is it's not unique to English language Wikipedia. English language is by far the biggest. But when you look at pretty much any language Wikipedia, there's a considerable gender bias. So part of that is about how society celebrates these incredible people from historically excluded groups. You know, Wikipedia isn't a primary source. I have to collect references when I'm writing these biographies. So who's written about these people before? Where are their stories documented? But also it reflects the diversity of the types of people who edit Wikipedia. So if you've got a population of editors, whether that's

on German language, Wikipedia, English language, Wikipedia, French, you name it. And that's incredibly non-diverse. Then that reflects the content that's on there, too. So part of it is me writing these Wikipedia pages and kind of, you know, trying to excite other people to write Wikipedia pages, too. But the other part of it is that we really, really need as a society to do better, to honour women, whether that's in awards, whether that's in fellowships, whether that's in awards, whether that's in fellowships, whether that's covering their stories in newspapers, whether that's inviting them onto radio programmes like this, so that then I can go and write their Wikipedia pages.

Hence why a programme like Woman's Hour exists and is still very much relevant. You've written profiles of women that have been taken down. Is that right? Why? I think, you know, certainly at first I thought everyone, everyone I'm impressed by should be on Wikipedia. And then it was like a learning curve to realise that actually, you know, it's a general interest encyclopedia, they have to fulfil some kind of notability criteria to be on there. Unfortunately, the way... But isn't that very much tied into how society views them in the first place, which is skewered towards. Exactly. And if you're taking something like an academic or a scientist, the way that we define success in academia is very skewed towards white Western men.

You know, it's the big grants they brought in. It's whether they hold a prestigious chair in a learned society or a university. It's the number of awards they've won. So, you know, alongside this Wikipedia editing, I have to have this side hustle of nominating more women and particularly women of colour for awards in science and engineering, because they're really not getting that recognition. But at the beginning of my wiki journey, I was getting a bit too enthusiastic. So sometimes I got a little flag saying this is a little too soon. You know, this Wikipedia biography is going up too early.

Sometimes it was because I came on radio shows and I said, you know, other Wikipedia editors are pretty sexist and racist. And then other Wikipedia editors are like, oh, no, I'm going to take her pages down. But actually, you know, of the I've surpassed 1800 biographies now. You've written 1800? Yeah. So that's a huge milestone for me. But out of that, only about 15 have been deleted. And out of that 15, about seven of them have been recreated. So you know, it's not it's not a huge number. And it's not that all other Wikipedia editors are out to out to get anyone who does get on the site. It's really that my job, anyone's job as a Wikipedia contributor or someone writing books needs that source material.

So we don't only need to celebrate these women on platforms like Wikipedia. We need them to be written about and spoken about. We need them to be on our televisions and on our radios so that I don't face those challenges. 1800 you've written. I don't face those challenges. 1,800 you've written. I can't get over that. So I imagine you have to have, as well as your own personal knowledge, you have to fact check, you have to cross-reference.

How long, how many hours have you put into those 1,800 profiles? Maybe a few hours each night. You know, I get home, I think about, I do science in the day. So my main job is being a scientist. And part of that is, you know, I get home, I think about I do science in the day. So my main job is being a scientist. And part of that is, you know, teaching and doing research and hanging out with awesome other scientists. And then I get home, I look after my small dog, I have some dinner, and then

I edit Wikipedia. But you know, I found it like, it sounds like it's this incredibly time, a huge time commitment, but it's it's such an inspiring thing to do you know every night i love learning and and you love learning and and i love learning about science and that's why i'm a scientist and every night i get to i get to get home and kind of discover this new area of science or a new university or a part of the world that i've never been to or thought about before or a new scientific technique or really think about the kind of journey that someone might have had to have around the world to be able to do the research that they love. And that's so inspiring. And then

seeing the way that people respond to a Wikipedia page is so inspiring. You know, it's not a static thing. It's not like a page of a historical encyclopedia that gets printed and then that's it. That's done. I put up put a biography on Wikipedia someone may translate it into a different language someone else may expand a huge section someone may add a photograph you know they're dynamic living biographies and and I love that and then and then you know a few months after I put it online that person may receive recognition in another place and then I have to go and update it and put oh and so and so wonand-so won this award. And I love that part of it too, you know. I love now when I look at BBC's top 100 women list or who's speaking at a huge conference

or who's just been made a fellow of a prestigious society and seeing names that I recognise and thinking like, hey, I wrote their Wikipedia page. Like, it's, it's, it's, it's, I absolutely love getting people recognition for the incredible things they've done. And I wouldn't have it any other way. There's no point in me doing science if I'm just going to publish it behind some paywall.

And the people who, you know, the society whose taxpayer money contributed to us being able to do it never get the chance to see it. So actually, I feel like academics have a responsibility to communicate their science and their discoveries with other people. Wikipedia is an extraordinarily cost effective platform for doing that on. So usually I'm trying to get academics excited, not only to kind of tackle this, this gender gap or other biases on Wikipedia, but also because I think science is critical. It's massively important that we get society on board with it. And this is one really easy way to do it. Do you have your own Wikipedia page? I do, but I never look at it out of you didn't write it i did not write it you cannot write your own wikipedia page it's like wiki rule number one is don't write about yourself and don't write about

anyone that you love or pays your salary or that you hate because you you can't be neutral about those people wikipedia requires neutrality or else it wouldn't be that incredible and useful encyclopedia it is i was inspired to go and write my own profile no don't we can do that somewhere else another social media platform dr jess way talking to jessica about how she's using wikipedia to promote the achievements of women in science and we got lots of messages about that talk with jess but i just wanted to share one in particular. This is from at Marbleys B on Twitter, who says, Listening to Jess Wade right now and feeling a sense of pride,

as I do when I hear my own daughters talk passionately. Thank you, Jess, for what you're doing. I have tried hard to show my children the contribution of remarkable women. This is inspiring. And you can hear the rest of our Women's Hour special programme on the importance of representation. Just head to BBC Sounds and search for Women's Hour and go to the episode for the 27th of December. Tomorrow evening, the first day of 2023,

the multi-Bafta winning BBC drama Happy Valley returns to our screens. It centres on police sergeant Catherine Kayward, played with humour and grit by Sarah Lancashire, and it's about the reality of law enforcement and the complexities of her own family in West Yorkshire. It's the brainchild of writer and director Sally Wainwright, who's also known for Last Tango in Halifax and Gentleman Jack. I was lucky enough to speak to Sally.

I asked her how she came up with the iconic character of Catherine Kaywood. I think with characters like that, I often create people who I kind of wish I was. They're kind of superheroes to me. But I don't have a superhero kind of mentality. So for me, superheroes have to be very real as well. They have to be very down to earth. They have to be people to whom things have happened.

You know, I mean, the thing with Catherine, I always say is that she's kind of quite a funny person to whom something very tragic has happened. And that really gives, I think, gives her that depth of character that she has got. You know, she's very warm and she's very funny and she understands people and she understands people's foibles. But she's also pretty tough because of this very unusual and tragic thing that's happened to her in the past.

And also the nature of the job, which does make people, you know, it does make people tough. You know, the police women I've worked with as advisors, they're all, well, I say all, I've worked closely with three, four police women. And they're all really, really fabulous women. But they're also, you know, worldly. They're tough. They've seen things that most of us don't ever have to see. That idea of Catherine as a superhero, I think you're absolutely spot on there. Early on in the new series, she talks about her retirement. I mean, she is a woman in her 50s. Are women, in your opinion, at the height of their powers at that age? I think they are in many ways. I'm going to write about this

next in a new series I'm developing at the moment, which is about women of a certain age and the idea that you kind of, you know, you kind of become the person you've always imagined you might be one day, but at the same time, you've got an awful lot to deal with. And so your confidence is probably at its best. And, you know, you're confident about who you are. You don't kind of take nonsense off people anymore much. But you've also got a lot to deal with by this age. You've got, you know, in my case, an elderly parent who needs, you know, help.

And sons who are, you know, they're on the way now, but they've had their ups and downs. You know, partners who are having midlife crises and all that kind of thing. So you have, as well as the menopause, of course, you have that to deal with too. So I think women the age Catherine's at are very complex. She is such a brilliant character. So she's a sergeant committed to defending her community.

Equally, a grieving mother, a fierce grandmother, a concerned sister. I mean, what have you given Catherine to chew on for this final series? It's really difficult to talk about it without giving away spoilers. So she does have a rift with her sister, a big rift. And there is a kind of, there's a big showdown with them, hopefully. Oh, I can't, it's difficult to say. A big showdown. We can work with that. There's a big showdown and it will keep our listeners intrigued. I certainly am, having had a taste of the first couple of episodes.

I can't wait to watch the rest. Let's talk about Sarah Lancashire, who plays Catherine. I mean, with each of your characters, there is such depth to each and every one of them. But in particular for Sarah, it feels like a career-defining performance. Talk us through how you met her and how important that working relationship has been to you. Well, I first met Sarah years ago when I wrote Coronation Street, but not in any, it was kind of only to say hi. But it was when she played Caroline in Last Tango that I just really enjoyed her performance. I just thought there was a real, you know, she really thinks about things to the nth degree. She puts so much into it.

She's got that fabulous combination of being able to do really, really serious drama and then being hilariously funny. And that really, really appeals to me. So, you know, it kind of was a no-brainer to want to write something else for her afterwards. As a writer, you don't often work with actors. You kind of get to meet them and you have conversations with them. But I think really it's the director they listen to um and it was only

when I did Happy Valley that I actually started directing I directed the fourth episode of season one and then I directed the first block and the last block of season two and I have by default ended up directing the first block of this which hadn't been the plan but I had to take over so she's fantastic to work with as you know she's's a perfectionist, which I am. So we kind of get that about each other that, you know, sometimes it can be painful being a perfectionist and annoying to other people, but I wouldn't not work with perfectionists because I think if you're going to make a TV show, you might as well do it to the absolute best of your ability. So I think it's that painstaking care about detail is that kind kind of what makes the show what it is you know that it's

it's it's and that's why I really enjoy working with Sarah so that she really deeply cares about it she cares about it um you know it's the point of making herself ill sometimes so I kind of really respect where she comes from and and hope it's. I don't know. I think she is. Well, you've certainly got a recipe that's working out very well, working between the two of you. There are themes of domestic violence and coercive control in this series. And we do witness Catherine's frustrations, really, at how little she can do as a police officer to intervene. Was that a tough storyline for you to write?

Yeah, I mean, like all the stories in Happy Valley, I work very closely with Lisa Farrant, and this time with Janet Hudson, who makes sure that everything is accurate so that when Catherine, she has to arrest the girl and identifies her separately as somebody who's suffering from coercive control. And Lisa gave very clear advice about how she would deal with that and what she can and can't do.

You know, as she says later to Claire, you can only lead a horse to water. You can't actually make people do things against their will, even though part of coercive control is about people being in positions where they are doing things against their will. So, yeah, it's tough to write things like that. It does take you into dark places and

it makes for very interesting drama. But it's that idea of making entertainment out of difficult things, which I have a bit of an odd relationship with. I do find it difficult sometimes. It's a fine balance, isn't it? Let's go back to your own journey in this industry.

You talked about your time on Coronation Street. I mean, what did soaps teach you about writing and also the wider industry? I think discipline. What you learn on a soap is discipline. You learn that you have to hit your deadlines. And the other big thing I learned on Coronation Street was how important story is, how important it is to be able to come up with huge amounts of story and quite quickly, which is the hardest thing in the world. I'm hearing speed, speed, speed, deadlines.

That's what I'm hearing from you. And then how does that translate into you working on a series like this? I mean, you've talked about Happy Valley being your kind of entry into the world of directing. Could you ever see yourself going back to being a wordsmith only now? Or is this second hat one you intend to keep? Yeah, I mean, my next project I am going to just write. But I hope I will also continue to direct. It's such a big commitment directing, you know, it makes the process so much longer when I write and direct. It's finding a balance and it's finding other directors who can translate what I do into something that I can better watch. You've touched on it, what you're working on next, but could you expand on that a bit more?

I mean, is there, for example, another series of Last Tango in Halifax on its way? That's not planned. I mean, Last Tango in Halifax never actually, I would never say no to doing more. But there's nothing in the pipeline at the moment. I've got a couple of things that haven't been announced yet, so I can't talk about them.

I know in recent days you've lost your dear mum. Yeah. And I know that's naturally had a big impact on you. Can you give us a sense of what she meant to you and your career journey in many ways? She meant everything. I wouldn't have had my career without my mum. She loved Coronation Street and she was really, she had a real passionate engagement with stories

and whether it was reading or watching TV or radio drama, she had a real passionate engagement with story. So right from a young age, I would write stories for, like, school and homework, and she always read them in great depth and offered great... She was my greatest script editor ever, and she was my greatest critic and greatest fan, and she was so proud of what I did, and I really couldn't have done it without her.

And that came to... She often appeared in my work. When I wrote At Home With The Braithwaites, Alison Braithwaite was based on her. And when I wrote The Amazing Mrs Pritchard, the Foreign Secretary was called Dorothy Crowther, which was her name. And then, of course, Last Tango In Halifax was completely based on her. When she... My dad died in 2001. She remarried Alec,

this guy she'd been to school with 60 years earlier. And yeah, so her life became a TV series. So it's boundless what I owe my mum. Thank you for asking about that. No, thank you for sharing that with us. I'm fascinated that your mum played such a big role in your character creation. What did she make of that?

I think she'd be thrilled. I think she was a frustrated writer. She did write plays herself. And, you know, she was one of those women who grew up in, you know, her working class background in that period. She was not encouraged to stay at school. And, you know, she was very clever and she was very creative and she definitely had a creative mind.

She definitely thought outside the box and knowing her as I came to, you know, in different circumstances, I'm sure she could have done what I've done. Sally Wainwright there, the writer of Happy Valley, which starts again tomorrow night at 9pm on BBC One. Christmas can be a very stressful time for some of us. So over this break, it's also important to have proper rest. On Boxing Day, Jessica devoted a whole programme to rest, how to do it right, how it works best for you, and how different things feed into our rest, such as music. To discuss music in particular, Jessica spoke to composer and conductor Debbie Wiseman, OBE,

who has had more than 200 credits for the big and small screen, been nominated for a Grammy and composed the music for the BBC live broadcast covering the Queen's funeral. Jess started by asking Debbie what rest sounds like slower tempo. There's longer held notes. It's played gently, maybe without loud dynamics, usually without a lot of percussion and fast, exciting rhythms, which have a lot of movement as, you know, a lot of movement in music tends to get the heart going. If you think about when you're exercising, upbeat music gives you that surge of energy. Yeah, like when I'm in the gym, for example, I'll be listening to, I don't know, UK Garage, for example, which is much higher BPM. The vocals tend to be quite fast paced, but it gets me energetic. Exactly. So the exact opposite is what you want when you want to rest. There's been some science around this as well. Music played at around 60 beats per minute can relax the brain. It helps it synchronize with the tempo and actually trigger chemical reactions in the

brain that help to stimulate these feelings of calm. It can lower stress and anxiety. So it's having a real physiological effect. It really does. And I think because music gets to your heart so directly, unlike anything else, you know, with language, of course, we talk and we communicate. But music doesn't need anything except getting straight to your heart. So it's very, very powerful. And that's why people do find it very soothing and lowering stress and helping you to relax. One of the most famous pieces of Beethoven is his Moonlight Sonata. Now, if you listen to these very insistent,

brooding arpeggios at the beginning of this piece, it's also that it's the simplicity of a piano. You're listening just to a solo instrument. Even though the music is quite complex with its harmonies and the harmonies develop, it's got this gentle, rippling undercurrent. It's that slow, hypnotic music that helps the brain almost to meditate. It's a kind of sort of trance-like state you get into,

and that encourages relaxation. And it also lowers your body's level of cortisol, which is the hormone that contributes to stress and anxiety. So music is hugely powerful in helping. And if you think about it, when we were children, what was the first music that we heard? It was lullabies. And the reason, and that's why when you sing to a child to get them to sleep,

the idea that you're singing a lullaby, something gentle with a rhythm that's meditative, is so helpful. It's comfortable as well. Is that use of repetition part of it as well? Because it becomes almost like a mantra. Exactly. Repetition is very important. I mean, if you think about it, when you go to a spa, or I don't know if you like spas, I'm not particularly young,

they always play these sort of gentle humming music, voices, pan pipes, to get you relaxed, to get you in the mood. Also, the music we love, we know, releases endorphins, increases our sense of happiness, well-being. And so listening to music that you love, I think, is a great way to relax. And I would always, you know, even if it's not particularly relaxing music, if you love it, it helps you to just get rid of the worries of the day. There's just something about music and the way it's able to direct emotions.

Yeah. One way or the other. One way or another. And during the pandemic, there was a huge increase of people turning to listening to music, whether it's classical or just music they love. It shifts the brain's activity away from pain, emotion, all suffering, and it helps alleviate stress. Jess talking to the composer Debbie Wiseman about restful music. So many of you got in touch about rest, and here are just a few of those comments.

At Lee in Royston on Twitter says, I'm embracing continental Europe with siestas works for me and we've had this one from Amalia on email who says for me the luxury of rest is to pick up a ball of colourful wool and knit or crochet let's get Britain knitting it's so good for you you can easily put it in your handbag and take it anywhere if you'd like to hear more from our special program on rest do head to BBC Sounds. Just go to Woman's Hour for the 26th of December.

That's all from me this afternoon. But remember, Woman's Hour is back from 10am on Monday morning. It's a special programme about turning your passion into a business. I'll be hearing from

female entrepreneurial icons, Deborah Meaden and Lynne Franks, and three women who have made their passion into a business. We'll be sharing your experiences and advice as well, and looking at whether it's a good idea to start with something you feel strongly about. That's all at 10 on Monday. Do have a great rest of your weekend and a very happy new year. 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.