Woman's Hour - Sandi Toksvig, Breast cancer study, Carrie Hope Fletcher

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

Writer, comic, theatrical impresario, TV host and weekend chainsaw wielder Sandi Toksvig joins Clare McDonnell to talk about Friends of Dorothy, her first adult novel in 12 years. When Stevie and Amber move into their new home, they are surprised to find that the old woman they bought it from, a cantankerous and outrageous 79-year-old called Dorothy, is still living there.Today marks two years since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in Iran. She’d been arrested by the country’s morality police for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly and died in police custody. Her death sparked nationwide protests and the birth of the Women, Life, Freedom movement. BBC Verify journalist Reha Kansara talks to Clare about her new reporting on the women who continue to speak out and the horrific consequences they are still suffering.The Breast Cancer Now Generations Study was set up in 2004 to help understand the causes of breast cancer. This 40-year landmark study – which this month reaches its halfway point – is following over 110,000 women to understand why breast cancer develops. Woman’s Hour has been following the project from the start, checking in every decade. Clare is joined by co-leader of the study Professor Amy Berrington and participant Amanda Jones.The trailblazing ballerina, Michaela Mabinty DePrince, has died at the age of 29. A war orphan from Sierra Leone, she was brought to the US by her adopted family and made her way to the Dance Theatre of Harlem, the Dutch National Ballet, and even performed alongside Beyoncé. We hear an archive interview with Michaela when she spoke to Woman’s Hour about her life and career in 2015.Carrie Hope Fletcher is an author, singer, West End star – and now a new mum. She’s about to start a brand new tour around the UK, called Love Letters, which will feature musical theatre favourites and love letters from the audience. She joins Clare to talk about the tour, what it’s like being a musical theatre mum, and why she's chosen not to put photos of her child online.Presenter: Clare McDonnell Producer: Maryam Maruf Editor: Olivia Bolton Studio Manager: Duncan Hannant

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 Clare Macdonald and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to Woman's Hour. I'm Clare Macdonald, taking care of things for the next few days. Great to have your company. Coming up, today marks two years since the death of 22-year-old Massa Amini in Iran. She'd been arrested by the country's morality police for allegedly not wearing a hijab properly and died in police custody. Her death sparked nationwide protests and the birth of the Women Life Freedom Movement. We'll hear from the BBC verified journalist Reha Kansara

about her new reporting on the women who continue to speak out and the horrific consequences they are still suffering. Writer, comic, theatrical impresario, TV host, weekend chainsaw wielder, we'll get into that shortly, Sandy Toksvig is a woman who defies pigeonholing and she continues in that vein with her new novel Friends of Dorothy. It's a story that explodes the expectations around how older women should behave and what family should look like. Sandy joins me in the studio and she's joining me ahead of her book tour. She's a big advocate of those unexpected encounters that can be life-changing if you just get out of the house and connect with people. So

I want to hear from you this morning. Has that happened to you? Maybe a chance conversation on a bus that had a major impact on you? A connection made in an unexpected way that opened up a whole new adventure in your life. You can text the programme. The number is 84844. We're on social media at BBC Women's Hour and you can email us through our website. You can send us a WhatsApp message as well. This is the number you need, 03700 100 444. Also, we'll mark the halfway point in one of the most important intergenerational studies into breast cancer. Pay tribute to the groundbreaking ballerina Michaela Mabinti de

Prince after her death at the age of just 29. Also live music in the studio from West End Wonder Woman Carrie Hope Fletcher, star of Les Mis and Cinderella, who's about to head out on tour. All that's on the way on Woman's Hour, but let's start here. It's a very important anniversary today. It marks two years since the death of 22-year-old Masa Amini in Iran. She'd been arrested by the country's morality police for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly and died in police custody. Her death sparked nationwide protests. I'm joined by BBC verified journalist Reha Kansara, who's been speaking to women in Iran who claimed to have been spied on by the authorities, leading to threats and beatings. Reha, welcome.

Hi. Before we get into your new reporting, let's beatings, even executions and killings. That has dissipated. And what we're seeing now is a more subtle civil disobedience that's taking place online and on the street so you have protests happening or social media posts in protest against the state being public being publicized online but also you have women on the streets who are defying the hijab the headscarf that they wear over their head to cover their hair, which is a symbol of solidarity with Masa Amini, who was killed by them. Well, not killed, but she was killed.

She was sorry. She passed whilst in police custody two years ago. Yes, because it's important to say the police say it was still nothing to do with them. There were many people who would think contrary to that. So do we not take to the streets that is what you're saying because of this really vicious clampdown? Are they finding different ways to protest? Exactly. I mean, there have been bursts of small protests happening since 2022, but nothing on the scale that we saw immediately after Masa's death. In the few months after her death, upwards of 20,000 protesters, according to experts

I've spoken to, were arrested. Now, we don't know how many of them were arrested for their social media posts, but there was a real clampdown by the state and by the authorities to quash dissent. Yeah. And we hear it's being reported a number of female prisoners at a Tehran jail went on hunger strike to mark this anniversary. What more do we know about that? So we know that Evin Prison is notoriously known for holding political prisoners that are against the state, seen against the state. This is just one of many things that have been happening since the two-year anniversary began. The Persian calendar marks the two-year anniversary as 15th,

obviously, here, generally. It was the 16th where news came around that she passed. So we've seen protests across the globe, more so in the sense of vigils and commemorations rallies in Europe women continue to defy by not wearing the hijab a lot of people are posting on social media and not just women but men too because this movement the women life freedom movement started off as one that was in solidarity with women who were being, you know, supposedly beaten or killed by the state to now, it's broadened out to now encompass a movement that's anti-establishment

in Iran. Now you have been back to mark the second anniversary, you've gone back, you've spoken to a number of women who were caught up in this arrested for social media posts for not wearing the hijab and there's pretty graphic testimony tell me what you found so we spoke to in total five people four women and one man um there were two women who who we featured quite heavily in our reporting um one woman we're calling her alif uh we've kept her name a secret for safety, but she was arrested after a post she uploaded onto social media in which her hair, she was walking through the streets of Tehran at night and she wasn't wearing her hijab.

Usually what you'd see in photos is if women aren't wearing their hijab, which is basically a scarf, that they're keeping it around their neck. She hadn't even placed it around her neck. So she was wearing, you know, a t-shirt, no hijab, and she was walking through the streets of Tehran and she posted this photo on social media, which was then picked up by the authorities. When it was picked up by the authorities, she was eventually arrested and interrogated, taken to a place, an unknown place where she was kept in solitary confinement. They tried to force confessions out of her. And eventually she was charged with propaganda against the state. She received a suspended sentence, but not just a suspended sentence. Part of that was lashings. She was lashed over 50 times.

And she says that she didn't want to show weakness, but it was very, very painful. She kept it in. How has life been for her since? I mean, clearly she felt strongly about it, but I guess these kind of punishment beatings are also a warning. Don't repeat that. Are people, has she not protested since? What's happening with that? she did because if she does she has a suspended sentence and that sentence could be you know invoked so she has gone quiet but she she has also spoken about um she's compared the women life freedom movement and her her position in it uh she's compared it to the seat to the seeds of a flower you know you can a flower can bloom and blossom, but when it dies, its seed spreads and it can still bloom and blossom and flower in different ways. Are women under surveillance then? And if they are, how is that happening? Not just women. Everyone, a lot of people are under surveillance in Iran. It's happening in various forms. I mean, the surveillance system in Iran predates, you know, 2022.

In fact, before the advent of the internet, surveillance happened in different ways. There were systems in place where volunteers and neighbours could just dob in on their fellow you know citizens um but with with the advancement of technology and social media it's become much more pervasive so what we have are cyber police systems in place that can monitor people that they want to track um allegedly uh there are ir Iran uses phishing techniques to hack people's phones and data. Internet shutdowns have happened in the country.

And this has not just happened immediately after 2022 protests, but it's happened in 2009 and 2019 when there were other protests in the country. More importantly, though, we've seen the building or reportedly the building of an app called Nazr, which allows the police and vetted volunteers to report women who are not wearing the hijab. So essentially, you can be out on the road and if you're not wearing a hijab,

a police member or a volunteer can take a photo of you or, you know, if you're in a car. It's all very joined up. It's all very joined up by the sounds of things. I know you tried to contact the government. What response did you get? Well, they didn't really say anything to us. We put all our allegations that were made to us

by the experts and the women that we spoke to, but they didn't get back to us at all. Reha, thank you so much. Very important journalism here. BBC Verify journalist Reha Kansara. You can read more about Reha's reporting from BBC Verify. You can find that on the BBC News website. Thank you for dropping by. Now, you will know my next guest from many of the millions things she's been found time to do over the years, whether it's presenting QI, campaigning for gender equality and LGBTQ plus rights, founding a political party or simply making us laugh. Sandy Toksvig is here to talk about her new novel, Friends of Dorothy, which explodes gender norms around age and relationships, about the family you create

rather than the one you are given. Sandy, welcome back to Woman's Heart. It's so nice to be here. It's great to have you here. I have the book here, Friends of Dorothy. Let's talk about the title, A Well-Known Expression. What does it mean in the context of your novel, which is very witty, by the way? That's very kind. It's meant to make you laugh. I had a friend read it on a train, said it should come with a volume control. Laughing too much. So it is an expression that, I don't know if it's still in use, that used to be used for gay people. But in this instance, it is an actual character called Dorothy

and the people who are friends with her. She's a 79-year-old, foul-mouthed, cantankerous, extremely energetic woman who does not believe that age is anything but a number. And she sells her house to a young couple, a young lesbian couple. And when they go to move in, she fails to move out. Yes. And comedy ensues. It certainly does. And the inspiration for Dorothy, do you see any of your self in her, your future self? I would like to be Dorothy. She really doesn't give up.

She's still working as a minicab driver. She's quite happy to use a sledgehammer to knock things down. I'm 66 years old. Yesterday I spent all day with a chainsaw out in the woodland. I don't see any reason why we feisty old ladies shouldn't just carry on and be feisty. We'll get into that in a moment. But it was perfectly legal. I understand what you were doing with it was entirely legal yeah excellent no one was harmed let's come back maybe a little bit of undergrowth let's come back

to the characters and the the young gay couple who are drawn so beautifully in your book um and you'd make a point of saying that family that they have here is sometimes logical, not biological. So what does that mean in the context of the LGBTQ plus community and the message you were trying to convey? I think it is actually true for all of us, but certainly within the gay community, it is still sadly a case where because of cultural reasons or all kinds of reasons, some people are removed from their families when they come out. And then they have to create their own. And often it's extremely successful.

Now, as it happens, I have a very loving biological family, but I also have a huge logical family. And I think that's true of many of us. My friends are part of my family. And I don't know if that happened to you, but I certainly noticed after lockdown, my friends and I now say I love you to each other in a way that we just didn't do before. And we are dependent on each other. I'm so lucky I have a close circle of friends who I could call from anywhere in the world if I needed

them. And I wanted to pay tribute to that kind of family. So you know, I'm sure we all have members of our biological family that we'd happily divorce um but we can't but our but our logical family is the one that we choose and it's the one that we uh probably get an enormous amount of energy from and so the book is a tribute to that and not just uh for for gay people i think for for everybody yeah i mean how sad does that make you that we still have to talk about we still have to use the phrase coming out and the impact that that makes on an individual should they then be rejected or otherwise by their own flesh and blood. But I think that's the saddest thing is that there's a risk that you might be rejected. And that's that really breaks my heart. Now I came out, it's almost, I think it is in fact the anniversary of 30 years ago and it was considered shocking I didn't know any other gay people I didn't know anybody who was there to support me

I had very little support from anybody in public life and I like to think things have changed because we can now get married which is wonderful but I'm afraid that is not the case there are still people who are really suffering mental health stats for people in the LGBT plus community are not good. And I wanted to write a heartening book, but it's not a book written for just for gay people to read. It's a book, hopefully, for anybody. Just the characters happen to be gay.

Do you think then we are at a point in society when there's a lot of visibility for gay people, gay issues, and there's an awful lot of pride, but it's only skin deep. Well, you now can see companies that are beginning to say, I'm not going to take part in diversity programs anymore. We can see some backlash, and I really worry about it. And I feel on a bound. I mean, I'm a grandmother now. I would have loved if a grandmother had stood up and said, I'm on your side. And I am.

With every breath I draw, until I can't draw breath anymore, I will stand up for the up and said, I'm on your side. And I am with every breath I draw until I until I can't draw breath anymore. I will stand up for the community and say, I'm here for you. And your own experience of coming out. I mean, I know that you had a lot of warnings, didn't you? People said this will finish your career. Oh, not just my career. I was going to entirely wreck the fabric of society. I mean, what I wasn't going to be able to do.

And my children would turn out to be complete nightmares and so on. And I now have three fabulous grown up children in their 30s who are incredible members of society. I have three grandchildren and one on the way. None of the things that were predicted have in fact happened, but you still have to keep standing up. I was just spent a year last year as a fellow at Christ's College in Cambridge, and we had the very first LGBT dinner there. And a young man came up to me, built like a rugby player, looked like he could easily defend himself. And at this dinner, he said to me, this was the first time in his life he had felt he could be himself. So, you know, work to do. It's the first dinner of that nature that they'd had there. At that college, yes. Right. Yeah. But good on them for having it. Good on them

for having it. Yeah. them for having it, yeah. What do you think needs to change? If you had the ear of people, we have a new government now, what would you say should be on their agenda to change? I mean, it's cultural, obviously. There's only so much that the people like you can do or governments can do. But what would you put in their inbox?

I don't think there are things that you can legislate. I think the thing that we need to look at is the poison on social media, I'm afraid. I think there's so much polarity and there's so much, you know, ridiculous nonsense about it on social media. I see there's a school organization that has decided to ban phones for kids. I think that's probably not a bad idea. I, you know, I'm about to go out on tour. And one of the reasons is I think we should meet each other in person. We should stop shouting on the

internet and stop shouting via social media and actually sit down and look each other in the eye and say, all right, talk to me, tell me about your life. You cannot know what it is like to be a marginalized person if you have never experienced that yourself. So sit with somebody who has been and let them tell you their story. It's so powerful, isn't it? And you make, I've seen interviews that you've given where you say you go, you love going around the country, because you love that connection it gives to yourself with people in front of you. But also, the fact that people are coming together in a space that they probably would never have met that person otherwise. But that's the wonderful thing, you're going to sit next to this random,

right? You sit next to somebody who you've never met before. And I always say to the audience, listen, in the interval, don't just go to the toilet and have a drink. Talk to somebody that you don't know. I mean, don't be weird, you know. Try not to be. Try not to be aggressive. But it might be the love of your life or it might be your new best friend

or it might be somebody with something interesting. The thing I know every day is how much I don't know. And I enjoy every day learning something. So in that sense, I think I'm still a bit of a Pollyanna. I still think the best is yet to come. It's so lovely to hear that the people when you've thrown that out, and you've said, give us some examples. You said, who's got the strangest job? Yeah, I thought it's all right. What did you get back on? Oh, I mean, all kinds of things. So I had a very old man said, I'm the oldest handmade bicycle maker left in Britain. And he was very elderly. And so he spoke for about five minutes. And we heard about that. And that was fascinating. Anyway, I said, thank you so much. And I moved on to the next question. He came down, he banged on the stage with his hand and said, I hadn't finished. I'm so sorry. So I got a chair and a cup of tea and let him do another 10 minutes. Can't argue with him. He's a historical figure historical figure also the longest baby in Lancashire we did have the longest baby in Lancashire

I get asked all sorts of things I had a woman in Bradford ask me my bra size and I couldn't remember so she had to come up and have a look so you know it's varied it's a two-way street it's extremely varied

we've been asking the Woman's Hour listenership Julie has got in touch to say this I met a man at a bus stop we found out we lived on the same road he invited me onto his quiz team with his wife and others i'm recently bereaved and husband worked for radio 4 actually so it was amazing to have such a fun evening full of laughs but isn't that great you know i've now got i live out in the country since lockdown and we moved about three years ago we have a fantastic group of friends of local people who some we've met by chance and who've introduced us to other people and this is a circle of people that i had hadn't known were going to be so important to me so it's there but

we have to open the door and go out and this takes us back to the chainsaw is that what you're talking about my chainsaw chainsaw use at the weekend. Yes, branch managers. Actually, one of them's a policeman. He's our special branch manager. Of course he is. But it isn't just the boys. It's their partners. It's their children.

We had two girls of 13 who were helping in the woodland yesterday. What do you do in the woodland with the chainsaws then? So it's 40 acres of ancient woodland which urgently needs restoring. It's been neglected for three or four generations. It's being choked to death by holly. And we are, bit by bit, restoring it. And I have to say, we were clearing a new footpath on Sunday. And when the light shines down onto the forest floor, because you have cleared such terrible undergrowth

and awful dead trees that don't need to be there. We just stand and cheer, all of us. It makes us feel good. So, yeah, that's my little bit, my little environmental bit that I'm doing. I know you love being out in nature. You love where you live. Why is that so important to you? Because you're somebody who clearly needs people, is energized by being around people.

As you say, there's all those conversations you haven't yet had, but why do you need both in your life? Because I think we literally need to be grounded. I mean, we talk about being grounded, but it's that. It's paying attention to the earth. Stand still for a minute. You know, one of the best pieces of advice somebody gave me when they knew I was going to start restoring this woodland,

they said, find your sitting spot. Find the bit where you just sit and listen to the woods and you just hear the birds and you watch the, you know, we have six species of bats, watch the bats. Or the deer gave birth in the meadow this spring and they have twins and I occasionally catch sight of them. But only if I take a minute. Take a minute and sit still.

Draw a breath. Look into the distance. Calm your mind. And it makes me feel better and hopefully we're creating a space where lots of people can feel better and people often do that but they take their phones with them the phones in the pocket when they go out on the walk yeah no no no no leave it leave it alone sit still take a breath it's good for all of us and the wonderful thing in this country it is available everywhere you know we do have still have

fantastic parks thanks to the victorians that's something I would say to the government, please, can you create more open space for people. But there is some access. And there is and there's volunteering, the Woodland Trust do amazing volunteering. So there's something we can all do. And not only are you resetting in your book, family relationships, the views maybe people have of older women, you're also trying to take on the internet and Wikipedia with how we understand and reflect ourselves through all of those search engines, Wikipedia being one of them that we use a lot. You've been involved in this fascinating project at Cambridge University. Tell us a little bit about that. So the reason I wrote Friends of

Dorothy weirdly is because I'd written a book before which could not be published. So I sat down to write an atlas of how women are doing around the world because I thought maybe it would be good to have an overview of what's happening. And I was commissioned to write 80,000 words. When I got to 220,000 words, I thought this is probably not a book. And also, it'll go out of date as soon as I publish it. I wonder if it's an internet thing. Now, Wikipedia is a serious problem for us. It is the largest collection of knowledge in humanity's history. It is, because of the way it's sourced, 85% by and about white men. Now, if we carry on with this and AI scrapes that data, what will happen is that women and other groups will be left out of history. So I mentioned this on stage at the Festival Hall. It was a professor in the

audience. She said, come to Cambridge. I went to Cambridge the whole of last year to work on the Mapamundi project, Map of the World, and to see if we can't create an app where you could literally hold the world in your hand and it will be curated by women around the world to tell us what their lives are like, because we cannot know sitting

here and it's not for us to tell. I have high hopes that we're going to get funding. We've already got office space and it will expand into a massive project. So the idea is to change the world, I think. That is a huge undertaking, isn't it? So it's not just

historical, because obviously Wikipedia is often just like, who was this person? What did they do? This is what's life like now. What's going on now? And we need to know, you know, what's happening in Afghanistan to the women is so breathtakingly distressing. But there is still news coming out. There's, if I might recommend, Rukhshana Media, who tell stories by Afghan women now to the rest of the world. We have to do something.

And if we don't, as I say, we'll have a very skewed version of what's actually happening out there. Thank you so much for dropping by again. Oh my goodness, it was so nice to meet you. And you. We met in person. I know, right? We had a conversation. That's what it's all about. Friends of Dorothy is a great read by Sandy Toksvig. It's published on the 26th of September.

And Sandy is touring the UK until the 15th of October. You're also hosting, it says here, the QI-inspired live show One Night Only at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane for two nights only. I know. It's a weird title. What's that about? I don't know. Well, twice the opportunity to see you. 13th and 14th of November and I believe everybody gets a free

copy of this. They come and see you on the tour. They do, yeah. Excellent. Sandy, thank you for dropping by. It's a pleasure. You are listening to Woman's hour on bbc radio 4 do keep uh your texts coming in of those random encounters that we were just talking about there with sandy 84844 some lovely uh stories coming in um here and actually someone's just said does sandy need any chainsaw help i'd love to leave my phone and come and help her. We'll pass that on, whoever you are. Keep your texts coming in. 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's faking pregnancies. I started like warning

everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now. 84844 Now, let's talk about the Breast Cancer Now Generations Study.

It was set up in 2004 to help understand the causes of breast cancer. This 40-year landmark study is following over 110,000 women to understand why breast cancer develops. The study reaches its halfway point this month and we've been following it on Women's Hour since the start, checking in every decade. Now it's looking at what causes breast cancer in pre and post-menopausal women and wants to unlock the knowledge needed to provide some of the 55,000 diagnoses that happen in the UK every single year. Delighted to say I'm joined by Professor Amy Barrington, co-leader of the study, and Amanda Jones, who is a participant and whose daughter Bex died of breast cancer in 2003, aged just 32.

Welcome both of you. Thank you very much. Great to have you. Amanda, we're going to talk to Amanda first of all and Amy in just a second. But Amanda, let's hear a little bit more about Bex. Who was she and how did you get involved in this study? She was a third of my three children and probably the naughtiest. And she just sort of lightened up your life, you know. All of us, absolutely all of us. In fact, I know nobody else can see this. I can see it, yeah. But you can see.

I thought I'd bring her with me. That's a lovely photo. And she's smiling into the camera and looking very relaxed. And I mean, I read a little bit about her. She was a free spirit, wasn't she? Yes. Tell us about her going to France. Yes, she went to France in her so-called holidays from university,

doing a job of earning some money and working goodness knows where and to put it briefly she um she never came back because she fell in love and he with her with the um owner of the of where she was working and that was it and i mean that's just an incredible thing to do, isn't it? Were you worried at all? Did you say, are you sure you've made the right decision here? Yes, I did. And I kept ringing up from time to time and saying,

are you sure? Are you sure you're not going to come back? No, no, no, absolutely. We're going to be running the business together. And they just were for each other and they had a wonderful time running the the campsite in in the in the summertime and going up and running a restaurant up in the mountains the rest of the time. It was a short life but it sounds like an incredible life so utterly tragic to lose your daughter at such a young age.

And how did you get involved in this study? Because it's so, so important. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I just cannot speak enough about it, really. I suppose, really, I got involved with it because when Bex died, I think, well, we were all, her brother and sister and I and everybody was so shattered by it. I thought I've just got to do something.

I've got to find out something about this disease and how I could, in what way could I help. And I just rang up somebody I happened to know medically and I said, look, what can I do? And he said, well, you'll be surprised to know that we're actually starting a new fundraiser immediately called the 1,500 Aim. Why don't you just do that

and see how you get on? And I've been with the charities ever since. Well, listen, let's bring in Professor Amy Barrington, co-leader of the study. Amy, welcome. I mean, since the study launched in 2004, you know, you've talked to people

who've included family members of sisters, daughters, mothers who've included family members of sisters daughters mothers who've had breast cancer um what where are you at with the study now at this halfway point yeah thank you it's so it's 20 years it sounds like a really long time to be running a study but for these sorts of studies where we want to understand what the what causes breast cancer especially in younger women as well as older women we do have to follow them for a really long time collect all sorts of information on them and so where we are now after 20 years is that we've have this hundred thousand women who gave blood samples that we use to

look at genetics. Women have provided survey information on their lifestyle in now six rounds of questionnaires and medical history information, breast screening information. And so the idea is that you can put all of this together, and there have been many findings already, but that also going forward, we can use new technologies and begin to use new methods to further interrogate all of this information. And so we're at the halfway point, a crucial point. What have you already found out? So there have been lots of findings over the last two decades.

I think a couple to highlight is the contribution the study has made to the understanding of the role of genetics in breast cancer. So now this study, combined with many others, have found more than 300 genetic changes that are related to an increased risk of breast cancer. These are common genetic changes. You can put these together and generate what we call risk scores to try and identify women that might be at particularly high risk of breast cancer. So I think that's one really important finding. And then two others about the risk of breast cancer in younger women, which is something that the study, a special feature of the study. So more than half the women were under the age of 50 when they joined the study 20 years ago.

And it was unusual to include so many young women. And then that enabled us to look at what causes breast cancer in young women, particularly before the age of 50. So one surprising finding was that actually women who have given birth seem to have an increased risk of breast cancer for a few years actually after they've had a baby. And that was a new finding because we always thought, and it's still true, that in the long term, the more babies you have, the lower your risk of breast cancer. That's about your risk of breast cancer when you're older. But actually in younger women, there is this sort of temporary increased risk of breast cancer, which is something new, I think, and something for women to be aware of. Yeah. And also lifestyle as well. What did you discover on that?

Yeah, so absolutely. So a new finding from the study, again, combined with some other studies in the last couple of years was about the role of exercise in younger women and preventing, it looks like it can help prevent breast cancer again in younger women. It's already known that the exercise was good for preventing breast cancer in older women after menopause. But now we see that this is also something that's good at helping to prevent breast cancer in younger women. And have you learned anything new about HRT, the kind of treatments women are on, the length of time they're on them and how that maybe impacts on the potential for developing breast cancer? Yeah, so unlike quite a lot of other studies, the generation studies did find an increased risk of breast cancer in women taking HRT. And I mean, understand that this is, can be a complicated

issue for women, because we also know that HRT is extremely effective at helping menopausal symptoms. But, and the good news and something to emphasise is that after women stop taking HRT, their risk of breast cancer begins to decrease again. So on balance, the message is still if you need to take it, take it. But maybe, you know, look at the length of time you're taking it for. Yeah, exactly. So I think that the NHS guidance is quite clear that women who are suffering from menopausal symptoms and particularly need to talk to their doctor about their risk of breast cancer and also blood clots. But if they really are suffering from these menopausal symptoms, then the benefits should outweigh the risks. But then with the sort of additional message is,

once you think the symptoms have gone away, the advice is to stop taking it. Just a brief look to the future then. The next phase, we're at the halfway point now. We've spoken to you at the start, 10 years, and now we're 10 years on, so at the halfway point. What does the future hold for the researchers? What will you be looking at?

And will AI play a part in what's coming next? Yeah, absolutely. So next 10 years, very exciting, the ability to use these new technologies and also new types of data we've been collecting. So we've been collecting mammograms from the women from their breast screening and also breast tissue samples. And so we have images of the breast tissue samples and all these images of the breast from the mammograms. And that's where AI has this really amazing potential to look at patterns, to look at patterns that we humans can't see.

And so perhaps to detect patterns in the mammograms, some of the images of the breast, see things that we can't see that might help predict women who are going to get breast cancer. And similarly, looking at the tissue samples, again the ability to to look at the tissue and put AI to find patterns that might predict risk. Amanda just just final word to you I mean hearing all of that I guess you think thank goodness I was involved in this and thank goodness that terrible loss losing your daughter at such a young, it spurred you to be involved in something so important as this study is? Absolutely, Claire. I think that once I'd got over, well, we never get over losing her. But when life had to restart, I thought, this is what I can do. And so from literally from October of the year she died

until here I am sitting here with you now and thank you very much for inviting me. It was, I've just been part of what's been happening and I know, I just, I know that you've heard everything from just how everything's doing. And I mean, it's quite amazing that the advances that have been made. And I've just, I felt so blessed, as have my children, my big children. We've just been, this has been part of our lives, her death, but now the progress that is being made

both by generation study and by breast cancer now. Well, listen, we're honoured to be part of it as well. Such an important day to mark the halfway point in this 40-year study. Thank you so much for dropping by. Thank you, Claire. So lovely to meet you. Amanda Jones, participant in the study,

whose daughter Bex died of breast cancer in 2003, aged just 32. And our thanks to Professor Amy Barrington as well, who's co-leader of the study. Thank you so much, both of you, for joining us on Woman's Hour today. Now, the trailblazing ballerina Michaela Mabinti de Prince has died at the age of 29. A spokesperson announced her death on Friday on her personal Instagram page, but a cause of death has not been given. Her story was quite honestly remarkable. She was born during Sierra Leone Civil War, which took the lives of both her parents.

She was sent to an orphanage where all the girls were given numbers. Michaela was number 27, considered the least favourite child. When she was four years old, she was adopted by an American couple and moved to the US, where her adopted family nurtured her love of ballet.

Michaela made her way to the Dance Theatre of Harlem, the Dutch National Ballet, and performed alongside Beyonce. She spent much of her career promoting the inclusion of black dancers in ballet. In 2015, Michaela spoke to Jenny Murray here on Woman's Hour and told her what her early life was like. I can't remember what my father or my mother looks like, but I remember the feelings and I remember, you know, I remember holding my father's hand and, you know, just always feeling safe. And that was the memory that I can always keep. You know, I'm just happy that I don't have to think about, oh, when they passed away, I can think about the happy memories. But what impact

did the civil war have in the village? A huge impact. There were bodies everywhere. You know, people were getting killed for absolutely no reason, and it was sad, and I had no idea what was going on, what was the reason, and for me, I've never accepted, you know, seeing bodies like that, and it was just absolutely horrible. But how do you deal with the memories of the horrors that you witnessed there? I mean, your teacher, Sarah, was pregnant and was brutally murdered right in front of you. It's hard for me, and. I mean, your teacher, Sarah, was pregnant and was brutally

murdered right in front of you. It's hard for me. And, you know, of course, you have to pretend to be strong. But really, I do have days where it's really, really hard for me. It's really hard for me to always talk about it. And sometimes I'll be on the phone with somebody having an interview, and it's just I have to make sure, you know, don't think about it. Don't think about it, because then I won't be able to sleep at night. I will have nightmares for a few weeks or a few days. And it's just it's hard to recover from and I just try not to focus on it. Now, you were born with a skin condition called Vigiligo. Yes.

And when you were taken to the orphanage, the children there were really cruel saying they didn't want to catch your spot. How did you handle that? You know, I just, like I said, you have to put a front and pretend that you're okay with people hurting your feelings. And, you know, of course I had me, I had number 26 to save me and she didn't care that, you know, I had spots, you know, it was pretty cool to her, I guess. And she was also left-handed, which is why she was number 26. So she and I got along well and that's all I needed. I needed one person there. And you and she shared a sleeping mat? Yeah, she was my mat mate, and she used to sing to me every single night and tell me stories.

And she ended up being my best friend, and then somehow we ended up getting adopted together. I know that it was when you were in the orphanage that you saw a picture of a ballerina in a magazine. Why did it have such an impact on you then as a little girl? She looked happy. And, you know, if it was a tennis player who looked happy, maybe I'd be doing tennis right now. But it was a ballerina. It was something I've never seen before. And it was this other creature. It was this inspiration. And it was light for me. It was hope. And it inspired me to continue dreaming. And how did you come to be adopted by the DePrince family? I was lucky. Me and I had the same first name. Her name was Mbinti and my name was Mbinti, but we had different

last names. And so when my mom was talking to the agency, she was explaining how I want to adopt Mbinti. And they said, well, which one? She said Mbinti, you know. And they're like, well, we have two. And there's this other girl, Mbinti Bangura, and nobody wants her because of her spots. And people are afraid that she's going to have self-esteem issues. And she's like, okay, let me see this girl. My mom also has vitiligo. And my mom used to teach for special ed. And she's worked with so many different types of people. So for her, it was like, oh, this is nothing. You guys are being dramatic. So she said, okay, we'll take her too. So she calls my father and he's in Japan at the time. And it's nighttime there. So he's sleeping. And she says, Oh, there's this little girl. Do

you think we can adopt her too? And he's like, Yeah, yeah, sure. Okay. Yeah, that sounds good. Good. And just hangs up. He calls her the next day and says, Well, I have a strange dream. And you know, you said you want to adopt another child. And she's like, Yeah, I have all the paperwork done. And that's it. And that's how I got adopted. How did you begin your ballet career? Well, I started classes as soon as I came to the U.S. after I saw the Pennsylvania Ballet do Nutcracker.

And I noticed that one of the girls messed up. And so I think my mom realized this girl is a little obsessed with ballet. So maybe I should take her to classes. But I loved it. I loved every single class. I worked as hard as I could. And, you know, a lot of teachers believed in me and they pushed me.

And I was always the youngest girl in my class. And I just, I kept going. Michaela Mabinti-DePrince there, speaking to Jenny Murray back in 2015. And a family statement said, Michaela was an inspiration to everyone who heard her story. Her family are also dealing with the death of her mother, Elaine, who adopted her from Sierra Leone, who also died this week in hospital.

We pay tribute to both of them here on Woman's Hour. Now, my next guest is the only British woman to have played young Eponine, Eponine and Fontaine in Les Miserables. She's been nominated for two Grammy Awards and she's written a book that was on the Sunday Times bestseller list. And if that wasn't enough, she's also a new mum.

But now she's heading out on tour, taking on one of her most challenging roles, playing herself. Carrie Hope Fletcher, nervous laugh. Very nervous laugh. Joins me. And I know you're in the. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Thank you very much. And I know we're going to hear some live music in a moment. Malcolm's

over there on the piano. You're nicely warmed up, Malcolm. You okay over there? I'm fine. That's a beautiful, look at that beautiful setup over there. The music, I can't wait to hear you sing. I can't wait to hear you play. But let's talk about what you're doing, this Love Letters tour. Tell us about the idea behind it. Yes, well, I'm just utterly petrified of being myself on stage. So I have to make it more like a show, which is where I feel the most comfortable, you know, acting and hiding behind a script. So we came up with this idea.

I say we, me and my lovely team who helped me put this show together. We came up with this idea of writing love letters to people and things that I love, that we all love, whether it's someone or a thing like musical theatre or books or Disney in my case. And we wanted to pay tribute to all kinds of love, whether it's maternal, platonic, unrequited, obsessive. But yes, also paying tribute to the many, many things that we love as well so i've written a series of love letters and with each letter there is a song attached that i will dedicate to whoever or whatever the letter is written to um but the audience have influence over which letters and therefore which songs i sing on the night the audiences are currently voting online for which letters i read so it means that the set list is ever changing throughout the tour which is absolutely terrifying. Wow.

Do they know what song is attached to which letter? No. Ah, because I was going to say you could end up singing the same song. Exactly, yeah. So it's all completely

sort of blind choosing. They're choosing the letters, but they have no idea which songs I will end up singing. That's such a great idea. Thank you. Because you get them invested in the story.

And it's also just a lot of fun. It means that, you know, we're all, you know all taking part in the show together and we're all kind of creating this show as we go. Very organic. Yes, yeah. And also you've asked for their stories too, is that correct? Yes, so the audiences are currently sending in letters,

writing to whoever or whatever they want to write letters to. We've had a lot of people write in letters to people that are coming with them to watch the show who obviously don't know that they've written this letter so one letter might be read out one night and it's to you in the audience because your girlfriend boyfriend mum sister brother whoever has come with you has written this letter in and you will have a song dedicated to you on the night you're not doing any breakup letters are you no no it's all about love it's all about love absolutely not you're chucked. That would be something, wouldn't it? Absolutely not. You're chucked.

No, no, let's keep it on the positive. And what kind of letters have you been receiving? It sounds fascinating. We've had some amazing ones. And the great thing is that we've had such a variety. You know, we've got the ones that we kind of expected to, you know, their mums or to their daughters and their children and that kind of thing. But we've also had letters to, you you know inanimate objects and feelings and to younger selves and future selves it's been really amazing to see the vast array of of um of letters that

we've received oh it's such a great idea to say because it's an engagement with the audience before they even walk in the theater yeah so listen i'm going to get into talking about that a little bit more uh and i know you're a new mum. I am. So you're taking your daughter on the road with you. We'll talk about all of that. But you're going to perform. I am. So which one have you chosen to sing for us from the show? Today I'm singing

Journey to the Past from one of my favourite musicals, which is Anastasia. Well, I'll let you take... I'm going to take a big glug of water before I step up to this mic. Take a big glug of water. Absolutely.

So this is the wonderful Carrie Hope Fletcher and Malcolm on piano this is Journey to the Past from Anastasia that was incredible if you could do that at a quarter to eleven

on a Monday morning I've been up since six so I've had a lot of warm up we will get to that that was just so lovely oh thank you. Why does that song mean so much to you? Anastasia was my favourite movie

when I was growing up to the point where when I was a kid I used to tell everyone my name was Anastasia just because I wanted to be her so much. So I feel like that song is sort of embedded in my soul. It's the song that I know

along with On My Own in Les Mis. Those two songs are like the songs that I could probably sing backwards if you asked me to. But please don't. No, I won't. You were just worried that you might forget the lyrics. I know. But I mean, it's in your DNA, isn't it? Incredible. Let's talk then about you going out on the road and you are a new mum.

How old is Mabel? She's six and a half months. Wow. Yeah, super young still. Yeah. That is quite an undertaking. Yeah. I mean, it's definitely a challenge. I know that it's going to be pretty tough. And, you know, we're taking it day by day.

You know, I've not committed to taking her to the, you know, the full thing. If she's hating it and it's a real, real struggle, we'll figure something else out. But I also think that it's going to be a lot of fun. And, you know, what a thing to tell her and sort of, you know, when she's old enough to understand that when she was six months old she came with me on tour yeah who's coming with you my mum my mum's coming to help trusty trusty mum um she's going to be there for the for the whole thing oh that's brilliant because your other half is in the business as well yes he's currently playing king george in hamilton wow yeah let's give him a name check uh joel montague that's my husbandague. And how does that work out?

Because what a wonderful way, what a wonderful creative career to have, but to have two parents doing that with a small child. That's a juggle. Yeah. Trying to figure out the schedules is pretty difficult because, you know, we don't work the usual nine to five. We both work six till, well, when we get home is sort of like just before midnight, which, you know't isn't great when

you've got a tiny baby who you know needs you to be there for the whole day so we're very much you know juggling at the moment he's currently taking care of her whilst i'm here there'll be a crossover because he needs to be at work at 2 30 today so we're going to quickly do a little tag team um so yeah we're we're figuring it out and you know we're not the first people to do this the the thing that sort of gives us hope is that there's so many of our friends, you know, people that we know in the business who are making it work with more than just one kid. So, you know. Do you think that more needs to be, a light needs to be shone on that more about help for artists, for musicians, who actually are working really antisocial, you know, live blood of the, you know, creative cultural fabric of this country. And yet, if you want to

have a family, that's really hard. It's really difficult. Yeah. And I feel like there's this real mentality of the show must go on. You know, if you're not 100% into, you know, your job and, you know, you need to be really grateful to have the job that you have. And of course, everyone is so grateful, especially after the pandemic, to be working in the arts. And, you know, we're all we all kind of have this reinvigorated sense of gratitude for what we do because, you know, we missed all so terribly when it was, you know, gone. But there also has to be a balance between life and family and working.

And so, you know, we've taken massive steps as an industry. We're doing job shares now where, you know, new parents will do four shows. You know, there'll be two people cast in the same role and one person will do four shows and then tag team, but the next person will do four shows. And that's just not an understudy thing. No, no, no. They are both billed as the people playing those roles, which is, you know, huge. That's a huge step forward. But I do think there is a lot more that needs to be taken into consideration. I'm interested to know, are you kind of withdrawn from Exabit or you've

handed your account over to your team to deal with? I know you're still on Instagram. Yes. But was that a move because you were, I don't know, when you're pregnant and you know that you've got a baby on the way and you kind of want to, you know, shield them from that as well, which is also why we don't post on social media, because she's not for entertainment. You know, she's our child and she's a human being that we're bringing up in this world. And she's not she's not for anyone else's entertainment, which is why we've kind of kept her away from it. Yeah, Sunny Toksvig was saying just that, that in fact, we think it's a way of connecting with people. Being on your phone, being on social media can feel incredibly isolating. She was the one saying that's why she loves going out on tour, telling people, get out, go to theatre. And when you go in the interval, maybe just don't go to the toilet.

Maybe turn around and have a conversation with someone. Is that something you're hoping for as well, that people will connect at your show? theatre you know and when you go in the interval maybe just don't go to the toilet maybe turn around and have a conversation with someone is that something you're hoping for as well that yeah people will connect at your show absolutely nothing makes me happier than when someone comes up to me and says oh I actually you know I'm here with my best friend we met at the stage door of a show that we went to see you in six years ago that's like oh my god knowing that something I had created has brought people together in that way is so, so wonderful. And of course, social media can do that. But there is, you know, so much negativity in that as well.

And you also find that what people say online, they would never say to your face in front of you when they would be able to see your reaction, how it's, you know, received. So, yeah, I think I'd love it if people started chatting to each other at my tour. That'd be so wonderful. And you are exposing yourself in a way. You say you're always used to playing characters and this is you getting up there and saying, OK, this is the personal stuff to me as well. How are you coping with that?

Well, I went on tour last year with sort of a similar concept of sharing stories and singing songs and that was very much me on stage. And I was so nervous going up to it and so terrified about what this would mean and you know how I would feel being on my own on stage and I actually had the best time which is why I'm doing it again this year um but it is exposing it is really vulnerable but it's also you find that those shows are also the most rewarding we've been talking about chance encounters so many people getting in touch thank you to everybody elaine says i got my

first acting job via my butcher 45 years ago uh i'm not at all well known but i'm still a professional actor and i work i'm a vegetarian these days but forever grateful for the day i bought some chops and started uh my career there's so many of these wonderful stories coming in and i guess that's what you're hoping will happen at your shows too. I would love that. I really, really hope that people, you know, meet future friends, future partners. Who knows?

It's a love, it's a show all about love. So why not? Hope so. Excellent. Thank you so much. Thank you, Malcolm. Yeah. He's amazing.

I know Malcolm's going out on tour with you as well. Look, I'm coming. I am coming. That was incredible. Thank you. Carrie Hope Fletcher and Love Letters Tour kicks off Friday, the 27th of September in Guildford. That is it from Woman's Hour for today. Join me tomorrow for my interview with Kim Cattrall, best known for her character Samantha Jones in the US TV series Sex and the City. She's now starring in a new audio drama thriller, Central Intelligence, here on Radio 4. Talk to you tomorrow.

That's all from today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Imagine a scrap of data that could help rescue a man lost at sea. That far north, most people aren't found. This is a race against the clock. Or expose staggering financial fraud. All the Swiss banks, the British banks, the French banks. What I was looking at was a horror show.

Within 10 years, the whole world was convinced that he was right. 10 extraordinary adventures of data and discovery. Uncharted with me, Hannah Fry, on Radio 4. Now available 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.

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