Woman's Hour - Sara Canning, partner of Lyra McKee

Episode Date: May 20, 2019

It’s been a month since Lyra McKee was killed in Londonderry. She was 29 and was already making waves in journalism as well as being an advocate for the LGBTQ+ community. The night she was shot she had been watching rioting in Creggan, a housing estate on the outskirts of the city. The New IRA said its members carried out the murder. At her funeral politicians were urged to find solutions to Northern Ireland’s problems and Lyra’s partner, Sara Canning, addressed them personally, seizing the opportunity to speak to them candidly. From the very start, she faced the TV cameras to pay her own tributes to her girlfriend. This weekend she’s been speaking at an equal marriage rally in Belfast. She talks to Jane Garvey.Ashton Applewhite is calling for a movement to end ageism in her book 'This Chair Rocks'. Maggy Pigott’s twitter account @AgeingBetter, about the unexpected joys of aging, picked up huge numbers of followers overnight; Her upcoming book is called How To Age Joyfully. So why is the conversation around aging so negative? And how much could our lives, health and economy improve if it changed? In 2018 over 100,000 online images of child sexual abuse were taken down by the Internet Watch Foundation. The UK-based organisation is seeing a sharp increase in self-generated content, particularly girls aged 11 to 13, who are filming themselves on webcams in their own bedrooms. Chief Executive Susie Hargreaves discusses what can be done.Shakespears Sister. The nineties pop duo have reunited as a band after not talking to each other for 26 years. Siobhan Fahey and Marcella Detroit look back, explain how they got back together and to perform their new single, live in the studio.Presenter: Jane Garvey Producer: Kirsty StarkeyInterviewed Guest: Sara Canning Interviewed Guest: Ashton Applewhite Interviewed Guest: Maggy Pigott Interviewed Guest: Susie Hargreaves Interviewed Guest: Marcella Detroit Interviewed Guest: Siobhan Fahey

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. Hi, this is Jane Garvey and this is the Women's Hour podcast. It's Monday the 20th of May 2019. Today we look at how to age, why women have such a problem with ageing, alleged, what we should do to stop people making assumptions about older women and there are loads of emails from you on this subject. And our two guests in the studio, Ashton and Maggie, are still with us. And you can hear more from them at the end of the podcast today.

Also today, we hear from Susie Hargreaves, who's in charge of the Internet Watch Foundation. She had some pretty troubling things to say about removing images of child sexual abuse from the internet. And there's an interview with Shakespeare's sister who are back together. They fell out fairly spectacularly amidst their enormous success back in the 1990s. They are together again now. They've written new material and there's an album and a tour. So Shakespeare's sister, Marcy Detroit and Siobhan Fahey on Women's Out Today. First though, on Saturday, just a month after her partner Lyra McKee was killed in Londonderry, Sarah Canning addressed a crowd of

thousands of people in Belfast and her message was a really simple one. Same-sex marriage is legal in the Irish Republic and in the rest of the UK, so why not in Northern Ireland? Sarah spoke to us from our studio in Derry, and I asked her how she was able to do the incredible work she's doing right now. I'm not entirely sure. I think that, I mean, a lot of people just keep saying that maybe it's Lyra who's with me and she's carrying me forward. She would have used her platform, and she's always used her platform, to voice just about the injustices

and the unfairness in our society. So I just want to carry on doing what she did. It is a very difficult truth, isn't it, this? But it is a truth, nevertheless, that her terrible death has given you this platform. Yeah, I mean, I'd give it back in a heartbeat and just continue our little boring life together where we didn't do very much, but we loved every minute of it.

But the world doesn't work that way, and I have a platform, and there are some people who want to listen to me at the minute, so I'm going to use my voice while I have it. What happened on Saturday? Could it have happened even five years ago in Northern Ireland? What would you say? There's been a massive growth in the support for same-sex marriage. It didn't surprise me that there was such a big crowd.

I think that it maybe surprised me some of the voices that have come out in support. We've seen massive changes within some of the unionist parties even, like some members of the UUP, the Ulster Unionist Party, marched with us on Saturday and carried little placards,

Ulster Unionists for marriage equality, and that's huge. You know, four years ago, Mike Nesbitt said he still opposed gay marriage, but he warned other unionists that they would be on the wrong side of history if they continued in their opposition. And now, on Saturday, he was out in force with the rest of the crowd, marching proudly for, you know, marriage equality in Northern Ireland. So that's progress, isn't't it it's huge progress you know and you have to in northern ireland baby

steps are important that was more of a a giant leap we know that when it was debated in stormont the mlas there they did support same-sex marriage admittedly only by one vote, 53 votes to 52. What stopped it being implemented? So there was, there's a thing called a petition of concern, and it was introduced in Stormont to ensure that no, we're quite a divided society. We call our divisions orange and green. So the orange side would be unionism, Protestantism, loyalism. And the green side is nationalism, republicanism and Catholics.

And although our society isn't quite that black and white, to use another colour analogy, we can't have any one side being seen to have an upper hand. We have to have a parody of esteem. It's something that we've been saying for many, many years. So the petition of concern was introduced so that no one side would be seen to have a right or an upper hand in Stormont.

And the DUP used that petition of concern to block marriage equality. With the support of, no doubt, quite a lot of people. We can't deny that. Some people would believe that was entirely the right course of action. So Stormont, of course, isn't sitting. But since Lear's death, there have now at least been talks to resume Stormont. How are they going as far as you know? I haven't actually heard anything positive or negative from it. It's kind of, they've been ongoing and I've heard very little about them, to be fair. You know, there's bits and

pieces on the news, but I can't say that there's been any massive, massive movement as yet. At Lear's funeral, you did get the chance to talk directly to Theresa May. What did you say to her? What I said was, basically the message that I gave to every politician I spoke to that day was that they have to do better. To Theresa May, I said, you know, to say that Northern Ireland is a devolved part of the UK is unacceptable at this point. We haven't had a government in almost two years.

Our politicians are still getting paid, but they're certainly not sitting on the hill making decisions for us or positively improve in our society. So I said to say that she's like same-sex marriage and abortion rights are a devolved matter is ridiculous because we aren't devolved. And at the minute, we really need to look towards Westminster to actually legislate on our behalf. Was she sympathetic? She was typically politician-y. You know, she nodded her head, she said yes, yes, yes,

but there were no assurances, there were no promises made, and I didn't expect it. But again, I had a chance to say my piece, and I took it. Yeah. Would you have ever thought of yourself as being the sort of person, I mean, in your professional life, you're a nurse, aren't you? No, I'm a phlebotomist. Okay, forgive me. But nevertheless, that's some world away from standing in front of the current prime minister and, well, letting her have it in the nicest possible way.

Oh, yeah, 100%. I mean, I would be somewhat active on Twitter. That's about as much as I would do. I did a little bit of campaigning in the Republic around the repeal of the eighth referendum. Aside from that, yeah, it's never been something that I could have imagined myself doing. And in terms of the investigation into Lira's death, the police have described, described i think the atmosphere is difficult and challenging um but people have come forward and have given information um haven't they over 100 in fact oh yeah i mean i think it's something like between 140 and 150 people have come forward with information which you know might not sound like a lot but in dairy it has a lot you know we have this culture particularly in in Republican and nationalist communities,

where the police aren't trusted. And it would be very, very rare that you would contact the police. And lots of people stepped forward and contacted the police off their own merit to provide information because the people of Derry don't agree. The vast majority, anyway, do not agree with the actions that were taken on Holy Thursday none of us want to see guns on our streets again none of us want to deal

with murder and bombs and just the destruction of our town and the destruction of people's lives so for people to step forward has been amazing. And I massively, massively appreciate the contribution and the bravery of the people who did. Nevertheless, there have been arrests,

but we haven't come close to anybody being charged with the killing of Lira. Do you think that is going to happen at some point? It's hard to say. You know, I have to have hope. Hope is the only thing that carries us forward and I think hope is something that

can be lacking, particularly in cases like this. But I'm putting my faith in the police. They've done an amazing job so far. They're taking some of these people off the streets. And that might not sound like much, but, you know, the fewer of them around to indoctrinate young minds, the better. My hope is that they will find the person who murdered Leara

and that he'll be put away for a long, long time because he deserves nothing less. But in the meantime, if they can keep picking these people off one by one and putting them in jail and keeping them away from the society that wants to move forward, that can only be a positive. I think you described your life with Lira as not very exciting earlier on, but happily unexciting, if I can put it that way. That was the case, wasn't it?

Oh, yeah. I mean, we lay on the sofa and watched murder documentaries, which is ironic. All we wanted to really do was be happy, have enough money to pay our bills and go on holiday a couple of times a year, and that's what we did. And perhaps be allowed to marry. Oh, yeah, 100%. I mean that was it was on the cards but we knew that we couldn't do it in Northern Ireland

we would have to go to the Republic. So what of your future now? That's a very good question I have absolutely no idea at the moment I'm taking everything one day at a time one step at a time um lots of things are up in the air for me I work in the hospital where Lear was pronounced dead and the idea of stepping back through those doors absolutely terrifies and nauseates and um ticks the wind out of my sails you know um so there are so many parts of my life that are, you know, affected outside of just the future that I dreamed of with Lyra. Are you fearful?

I don't know. I haven't actually had the time to sit and think about it. You've made yourself a very, very public figure, haven't you? As I mean, you know, you're aware of this. As I said, like, I've been given this platform. And there are some people who want to listen to me. And I'm sure there are lots of people who don't. But not making use of it didn't seem feasible. It didn't seem like something that I could let go of. So I'm making my voice heard.

And hopefully, you know, what I think is like, Lyra and her talks and all of the bits and pieces that have been put out have given people like an idea of who she was and what kind of person she was. So that's opening hearts and minds. And that's what I want to continue doing if I can. Sarah, you're a tremendous person and you have a lot of support. I hope you know that. Thank you very much indeed for talking to us. Thank you.

That is Sarah Canning, partner of Lyra McKee. And we do send our very best wishes, obviously, at BBC Women's Hour on Twitter. And you can email the programme whenever you like, of course, via our website, bbc.co.uk slash women's hour. So ageing is something that we're obliged to think about and indeed talk about quite a bit, because wherever you look in magazines, online, wherever you go, you've got to get rid of your wrinkles. You've got to make sure you don't look old. That would be terrible, wouldn't it?

Ashton Applewhite is here. She's written a book called This Chair Rocks. And Ashton, you're 66. I am indeed. Yes. Maggie Piggott has written How to Age Joyfully after starting a Twitter feed to celebrate good things about ageing. It's at ageingbetter.

Maggie, you are? I'm going to be 68. Strictly speaking, you're 67. Yeah, but I'm pleased to say I'm approaching 68. All right. OK, approaching 68. What do we have to be aware of, Ashton, when we look at particularly the media? Instagram.

I've joined Instagram relatively recently, I am bombarded with all kinds of ads, sponsored ads on Insta, which are designed to make me feel slightly worse about myself and spend a few quid on looking younger. And I'm sure I'm not alone, am I? You are not alone. And with the spend a few quid, you're right on it. If we can be persuaded that ageing is a problem or a disease, we can be persuaded to spend money on, you know, things to stop it or cure it. And of course, it's not a problem or a disease. It's not stoppable or curable. The subtitle of my book is A Manifesto Against Ageism, which is stereotyping and discrimination on the basis of age. I'm urging people and women in particular to look at the

culture in which we age and at the way it frames it as a problem. Okay. Have you ever thought of it as I was in my mid-50s, because I was afraid of getting old. And sort of the light bulb thing that happened was I started looking around and researching, interviewing older people, and learned in about 30 seconds that everything I thought I knew about what it was like to be older was way off base or flat out wrong. Was there any example in your family that you looked at and thought, oh, God, I never want to be like them? Not in particular. You know, I just I think it's very hard to imagine being old when we're younger, because we age slowly. And because a lot

in the culture says, oh, it's all going to be awful. Don't go there. Even though I've never actually met anyone who actually wants to be any younger. Think about that. Okay. I remember there's a bit in your book I particularly liked. As the years pass, we remain ourselves just older, you say. And that, of course, is absolutely true. We're all essentially about 15, regardless of what our age actually tells us. Maybe not 15. Okay.

I see you disagreeing with that. Maggie, when did you stop your other job? Because I know you had a high-flying job, didn't? Well I had to retire at 59 because due to ill health and I was devastated because I absolutely loved my work and what were you doing? I was my last job was as joint chief exec our job shared running the judicial studies board which is the training organization for judges And I was basically a civil servant, but also a barrister. And I didn't want to give up. I wanted to go on working for as long as possible, basically. And when I did give up, I found it a huge shock to begin with, actually.

For the first year, I didn't know what I was going to do, and I thought I'd never be really happy again. And yet, eight years down the line, I can quite sincerely say, and I'm amazed to say it, I've never been happier. I've never felt more fulfilled and I absolutely love my life now. And what have you done to make that possible? Well, I just think that this time in life is just such a great new stage to have more time to enjoy yourself, to spend time with friends and your family. I've taken up dancing, which is my new passion.

I took it up before I retired, but then when I was ill, I couldn't do it for a while. And then I went back to it and it got me better. And dancing has absolutely changed my life. My mantra is you don't stop dancing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop dancing. And I'm going to go on dancing for as long as I possibly can because it's transformative. Right. Transformative. Well, that's a bold word. What would you say about the anti-aging products, which I do think, Ashton, actually mess with our minds in a culture that bombards us with these negative messages. We need to absolutely challenge that by accepting the idea that we do grow old.

We may feel younger inside, but I am 66, you are 67. And it is by acknowledging that and embracing it, or at least accepting it, that we get over this idea that it's embarrassing to be old, because it's embarrassing to be called out as older until we let go of that idea and are perfectly at least comfortable with our age and ideally proud of it. Yeah, now a couple of months ago on the program, might even be a year ago, I talked to one of our listeners who was contemplating stopping dyeing her hair. And this was a serious point in her life. She was actually trying to have a real conversation with herself, got a huge reaction from the audience. I certainly dye my hair and can't. Yeah, okay. And I put it to you, Ashton, you might as well. So I actually put the white in my hair. I figure no one believes me if I say I don't dye it. But we're aren't we all complicit

in in the whole business then by doing this? You've hit the most difficult nail on the head. I don't like to blame people for problems that affect them. But when we women compete to stay young, or, you know, foster this idea of, you know, judging each other by age, and we all do this, no judgment, we each need to age in our own way and at our time. And, you know, dyeing your hair is a really good way to hang on to your job. For example, I wish that weren't a successful strategy or lying about your age or knocking early accomplishments off our resumes. But when we do that, we become invisible as older women. And when a group is invisible, so are the issues that affect us.

And again, no judgment about the strategies that any one of us has to engage in. But when we do that, those behaviors aren't good for us because they're rooted in shame about something that shouldn't be shameful. And it gives a pass to the discrimination that makes those behaviors so effective. Has any society anywhere in the world got this right in terms of valuing older people? We used to be told the Japanese were rather good at it. inroads where you have start to have separations of the generations ages and makes inroads where you have all generations living together that's better um societies that venerate older members are great places to be old in but not necessarily great places to be young in so what we need you know we we're looking at a massive global phenomenon of longer lives and we need to

really think in terms of equity across the lifespan. And we should actually celebrate the fact that people are living longer. It's a massive achievement. If you're fortunate, of course. It shouldn't be something any of us take for granted. What about sex relationships and dating, crucially? Because you do, you mentioned in your book, that actually sex, apparently, horrifically to some of our younger listeners, possibly, sex carries on and sexual urges do not stop. Sex carries on. And for many people, women in particular, sex in late life gets better. I mean, it can be the best time of all. The biggest obstacle to that is between our

ears, as you really sort of already referenced, when we internalize this idea that because we are older, we are lesser versions of ourselves. And I defy either of you to think, you know, who you are now, we're all older women to think, are we really less attractive, less fun in bed, less interesting than the woman we used to be? And if we are, where do those notions come from? And I think it's a total opposite. I think actually, as you get older, you have more to contribute. You have more wisdom, more experience. And you can contribute so much to society. And we have a huge amount to offer.

And younger people recognize that. And we ought to be doing as much as we can to encourage people to take their own steps to age well and improve their own lives and improve the lives of others. What I'd love to see is more friendships between younger women and older women. Yeah, reach out. Reach, absolutely. Make friends of all ages. One huge advantage that women have in aging is that we maintain social connections.

And that is the most important component of a good old age. Ashton, thank you very much. Maggie, thank you. Perhaps we could squeeze you into the Woman's Hour podcast. We'll see if we can arrange that a little bit later. Thank you very much. And something we are going to be talking about on the program in a couple of

weeks is dating um dating for women in your 50s uh there's a certain well how can i put this some people believe it can be rather tough for a woman to date in her 50s it's a lot easier for men to do it we want to hear your stories and experiences we can certainly keep those um anonymous we don't need to use your name on experiences. We can certainly keep those anonymous. We don't need to use your name on air, but email the programme via the website if you're a woman dating in your 50s and you're finding it tough going. That's bbc.co.uk

slash womanshour for the website. Nigel Slater was on the programme last week and if you'd like to hear more from Nigel, we've got a video of him now on that womanshour website. You can find out why he's eating less meat and get his tips for eating healthily. He's got a new book out at the moment. Now, Susie Hargreaves is here. Good morning to you, Susie.

Good morning. Susie is the chair of the Internet Watch Foundation. Now, this is the body, it was set up in the 1990s, wasn't it? So it's been around for a while now. Its chief purpose is what exactly? The IWF was set up in 1996 to remove online child sexual abuse. And we're the UK hotline, so members of the public can report to us if they find what they suspect is child sexual abuse online. And we also have the ability to go out there and proactively search for that content.

The scale of the problem back then was probably, well, you tell me, what was compared to how it is now? Well, in the first year, I understand they removed about one and a half thousand web pages. So each web page could have one or thousands of images. And last year we removed 105,000 web pages. So that equates to millions of images. Right. I mean, that certainly puts it in perspective and makes people realise that this, it's a very, very real and absolutely horrific problem. You say get rid of, what actually happens? Can you completely eradicate those particular images from the internet forever?

Well, obviously, it's a really difficult problem to fight because all the time we remove images, people are uploading new images and one of the big issues for us is the amount of duplication so to give you an example I met a very wonderful young woman in the states who'd been rescued when she was 12 she was now 18 and we know that one of her images in particular had been circulated and viewed over 70,000 times so you know the challenge it's a bit of a war of attrition. You know, you just have to keep going at it and remove them. But the good news is that with increased new technology,

we've got a chance to be able to do that. So we're now able to what we call hash an image, so put a digital fingerprint on it. And that means we can go out and search for duplicates and remove those. But, of course, the demand is there. And that demand, crucially, isn't going away, is it? No, this is the big issue, actually, that whilst in the UK we have some very strong success stories,

so we host less than 0.04% of content in the UK, but the police will tell you that at any one time, we have up to 100,000 people looking at child sexual abuse. That's at any one time? Yeah, absolutely. And that's just in the UK? Just in the UK. Can we just get down to the nitty gritty of what even terms like host mean? You say that Britain has made progress, and I don't doubt it. But what does that mean in terms of we're now hosting, relatively speaking, a tiny amount of this horrible stuff? So that means that where the Internet companies are based, so they may be a legitimate host as like Internet service providers, you know, ones we have in the UK, people like BT and stuff. But actually, they're in other countries and they are there.

Their networks have been abused. So basically basically people are using their networks to put their web pages up of child sexual abuse. And the issue in the UK is that we have a zero tolerance approach to hosting. So if we find it, we will issue a notice and take down and have it removed generally in under two hours. Compare that to the Netherlands where of that 105,000 web pages, 47% of them were hosted in the Netherlands last year. So the Netherlands need to take more of a leadership role. And they're not? No, I mean it's not for lack of trying by the Dutch hotline.

We really need to see in the UK, whilst we have a huge problem with people looking at child sexual abuse, we actually have a commitment from government, from Home Secretary downwards in terms of saying this is a big problem and we're going to fight it. So there is zero tolerance to hosting it here. And if the Netherlands had that kind of leadership and law enforcement support that also took the same approach, we wouldn't be able to host it. It does surprise me. The Netherlands and the UK are both at the moment in the European Union. Isn't there a policy overarching cross European Union policy on this? No, there is some legislation that applies to us all.

But actually, when it comes down to it, different countries are different. So we're in a very unique position in that we can act before the courts so we can actually go directly to hosters. We work closely with the police and they will work with us on a voluntary basis to get it removed. So we just need everybody to take that approach. And unfortunately, it's just not as big a priority in some countries. You have, I know, reached out to young men here, young men who may very well be watching porn in various forms. And you've tried to make them aware of the possibility that some of the images they may inadvertently come across are, frankly, something that actually would be illegal. Yes, so, you know, a big target group of ours

in terms of looking at child sexual abuse is young men aged 16 to 25 who are kind of starting that journey. And often they will find this content via adult sites. And actually what we... How do you find it via adult sites? Well, I guess if you're super curious, you know, you can click and click and click a few times too far. So you might be perhaps looking at legitimate adult content of people dressed as schoolgirls or whatever, and actually just keep

looking and you might find links within that. So obviously we don't tell people exactly how to find it. No, but people need educating about the risks, don't they? Yeah, they do. But also when it comes to young men aged 16 to 25, they need educating about the fact that child sexual abuse is clearly wrong and they should report it. So you don't need to be told when you see a 10-year-old being sexually abused that it's wrong. So do the right thing and report it and do not develop the habit. No, well, yeah.

Reporting it, who do you report it to and are you anonymous? Yeah, so you can report to us, iwf.org.uk, and you send the web page, the URL link, and we investigate it. And yes, you can report anonymously to us, and 80% of the people who report do report anonymously. We don't pass information about you on to the police. The only information we share with the police is on victims. So if we see a new victim, we do everything we can to try and help locate that victim and we escalate that yeah i was going to ask you about that because i know there's been a big rise and this is awful in i mean you must be completely honest about this young girls effectively in their own bedrooms filming themselves that's a sharp increase in

that kind of behavior yes we've seen a really scary change in trends so you've got the one end of the spectrum you've got child sexual abuse, which is children being sexually abused and filmed by whoever, family web pages, has been what we would call captures of web webcam captures. So basically, this is children in their bedrooms or domestic settings who are actually there's no one else in the room. They're clearly being coerced at the other end of the of the device. How do we know that? Well, we know that because children who are eight or nine or ten don't actively participate in sexual activity without some encouragement so we often hear we can hear the child's response we can often you know we we know they're being commanded to do

certain things so clearly they are being sexually abused but they're in their bedrooms and really worryingly 81% of what we saw since January is of girls, 99% of them aged 11 to 13 and some quite serious sexual abuse taking place and the real scary thing for us is that people think live stream is all happening in the Philippines and actually that is a really really big problem but actually people need to be aware that if you've got a child in a bedroom with a camera enabled device and an internet access your child needs to be properly supervised or needs to be supported because they are vulnerable yes i mean that that is horrendous and what is even more horrendous is that you are able to identify them in some cases because you can see a scrap of

a school sweatshirt in in the background or something like that yes i mean the a child that we did identify we aged as 10 and the sexual activity was category a which is the worst level and actually luckily we were able to see uh the primary school logo in the corner of the room on a sweatshirt and from that we were able to help identify and have her safeguarded there are going to be some of our listeners will just be in despair this we've created this world haven't we these children it's not their fault that they've been born into this society. It does make me teeter on the verge of despair, I have to say. trying to resolve it but we mustn't forget that the internet is a really good thing as well so we need a sense of balance but what we need is to all jointly work together to ensure that we raise awareness of the issue not just for young men to stop viewing these images but also to protect children and we can do that through awareness through technology

through working with the police but we need a collective acknowledgement that we have this huge issue and that if we work together in the same ways we tackle drunk driving or something else, we can actually do something positive to change the situation. Thank you very much, Susie. Susie Hargreaves,

who's the chair of the Internet Watch Foundation. Thank you very much. Now, I'm delighted to say Shakespeare's sister are back and if you needed one, here's a reminder. Your history. Your history. No good for me. No good for me. Your history. Your history.

Na, na, na, na, na. You enjoyed it, didn't you? Siobhan Farhe is here. So too is Marcella Detroit. Is it Marcy or? You can call me whatever. No, what would you like me to call you? Just call me Marcy.

Okay, I'll call you Marcy. That's fair. You are back together. Yes. Now, how long did you not speak to call you? Just call me Marcy. Okay, I'll call you Marcy. That's fine. You are back together. Yes. Now, how long did you not speak to each other for? Because I've seen various estimations of how long you weren't. 26 years. Yeah.

When we sat down and had the coffee, it was Marcy who said it's been 26 years since our last conversation. What did you start to talk about, Marcy? Well, you know, I mean, just... How have you been? Yeah, that kind of thing, initially. And, you know, what each other were doing. And then near the end, we got down to... The nits gritty.

Yeah, airing grievances. But it was great because we were able to clarify things. You know, like Siobhan said, you know, recounted a situation. And I said, well, actually, that's not what happened. And, you know, hereobhan said you know recounted a situation and I said well actually that's not what happened you know here's from my point of view and vice versa you know so it was really good great to clear the air yeah and honestly how long did it take to clear the air well we I fought shy of it for 26 years coming from our culture where we like to brush things under the carpet and not confront our demons.

But it just simmered on the back burner, the resentment. And, you know, it was awful not being able to look back on that glorious year when Hormone Lior sold a million. And you were everywhere. And all that stuff. And eight weeks, number one with stay, et cetera. And you'd look back on it with a kind of mixed feelings. And it's really important as

you get older if you can have find the courage and and evolve to the point where you can sit down and and and make your peace with your past and and and the people that you know because like the opposite to love is indifference and And love and hate are kind of... Quite linked. Yeah, they're like the other side of the coin, aren't they? So from the moment we sat down and that, you know, a year ago today it was, I think, it popped up on my Facebook feed this morning.

Where did you meet, just out of interest, on nice neutral territory somewhere? In a coffee shop in LA. Oh, great. Okay. I can place myself there. Okay. You're not just back.

You're back, back, back. You're going to perform live for us this morning, which we're excited about. But there's an album coming up as well. That's right. Our singles, the greatest hits, right? Yeah. Singles party. It's a collection of all Shakespeare sisters' singles over the years.

And we're halfway through recording an EP of new songs, which we've written together. The first of which was the new single, All the Queen's Horses, which we're going to perform in a minute. And that's on Singles Party. Yeah, and the EP will be on vinyl. And we're doing our tour at the end of the year, beginning on October 31st, Halloween.

Yeah, really exciting. In the UK. Halloween. Well, nobody's going to forget that, are they? No. I think it might also be significant for a number of Brexit reasons as well. Yes. No, we're not going there.

So you, I was looking at your, you have worked, Marcy, with everyone in music. I have, yeah. I mean, Aretha Franklin. I know. She was my, you know, vocal idol. And when I moved to LA, you know, I left Detroit and I moved to Oklahoma, believe it or not. It was a musical center, you know, Leon Russell's Shelter Records. And that's how I ended up working with Eric Clapton. And when I left there, because I met a lot of people. And you co-wrote which song? I co-wrote

Lay Down Sally and The Core. And there were about a total of eight or nine songs. And then I moved to L.A. and I just did loads of session work, and Aretha Franklin was one of the records, one of the people I worked with, and Bette Midler and George Duke, Stanley Clark, a lot of R&B and soul stuff, a lot of movie things, like Time of My Life, you know, that I'm singing on that. That's you, right.

Singing in the background. So you've got one heck of a CV. Yeah, plus my own albums. And now you're working with Siobhan. Yeah, again. So I know you fell out and fallouts happen, but when you were good together, you were really successful together, weren't you?

Didn't you, over those 26 years when you weren't communicating, did that cross your mind did you miss her well I I really didn't like the fact that there was this ugly you know festering thing between us and I wanted to resolve it resolve it I reached out a few times via email through some friends that gave me their email but um yeah it bothered me it bothered me you know it's this it's not good to have these unresolved issues in your life and it really did bother me and Siobhan the last time I saw you you were with Bananarama yeah and um is it fair to say that

you fell out with Bananarama as yeah yeah okay there's a pattern emerging well and I'm not very good at dealing with my emotions and I tend to pull up the drawbridge and say nothing and then walk from very successful bands it's a bit of a pattern but you're back with Marcy now and that's good yeah it's wonderful creatively particularly

I mean that's the amazing thing that's happened through resolving our issues between us. It's created this whole creative renaissance. We went out to the desert, just the two of us, to see if we could still write together. And all these songs poured out, you know, fantastic songs. And I'd forgotten what a great combination we were of like, we bring very different things to the table.

Yeah. Okay. Well, we're going to hear the new song now. This is all the Queen's horses. If you make your way over to the microphones, that would be great. But I have seen the video and it's good.

It's, it's all in the desert and it's got that wild West field, which I really love. And you're reunited in the bar and there's, you really sense the atmosphere between you. I urge people to have a look at that. But anyway, we're going to hear an acoustic version of that song right now. So if you get over there, that would be great.

She said, get over there, she said. Getting over to the microphone. Sitting down. And we're going to hear, this is the first, I think, the first ever acoustic performance of this song. Certainly live on national radio. It's Shakespeare's Sister and All the Queen's Horses. Here we go.

All the queen's horses All the queen's men They couldn't put us back together again That song is All the Queen's Horses, Shakespeare's Sister, Back Together, and they're touring the UK in October and November. And yeah, it was great to see them and they seem to be getting on very well for now. So let's hope that carries on. Now, thanks to everybody who contacted the show today. This is a tweet from Langley about Sarah Canning.

It's actually hard to listen to Sarah talking when her loss is clearly so terrible, but I do think she is incredibly strong. Yes, I wouldn't disagree with that, Langley. And from Katie, this was excellent and heartbreaking. Sarah, I'm just so sorry for your loss. It's amazing what you're doing now. And from another listener, a good interview with Sarah. While the north of the island of Ireland is ruled by Britain with no effective devolved powers, surely the same laws should apply. Equal marriage now. Equal health care choices for women now as well.

That, of course, a reference to the fact that you cannot get an abortion in Northern Ireland either, unlike the rest of the UK. And yes, it's always worth just mentioning that. So people are aware that we do know and it's something we aren't going to stop mentioning. Now, on the subject of age, this was the subject that got you going more than anything else today. And I'm delighted to say, by the way, loads of emails about dating in your 50s as a woman. So that's the subject we will be going back to on the programme in the near future. But this is from Wendy. I'm 61 and I'm loving it. I had a difficult time adjusting when

I arrived at 60, menopausal and grey. I was depressed and upset. But I worked hard on this. Acceptance was the key and now it's liberating. So Maggie and Ashton are nodding wisely. So Maggie, what about acceptance? Is that important? Yes. Acceptance of what exactly? Well, acceptance that it is a different stage in life and that things do change.

I mean, I'm always amazed when I get offered a seat on the tube and I think, why? I'm young, I feel about 20 inside. Why are they offering me a seat? But I take it. As I would, yes. But you suddenly realise that you do look different and you accumulate quite often medical conditions as you go.

I think I've accumulated one with every decade that has passed. And now when I go on holiday, my hand luggage mainly consists of pills. But even so, once you accept that it is going to be different, there is so much more that you can move on to. And it's different. It is different, but it it's even better in my opinion my ex-mother-in-law my outlaw um she as i call her affectionately she said quickly has a rule when she meets her friends that for the first 10 minutes they can talk about aches and pains and grandchildren and then both subjects are banned i actually think there is a lot to be said for that approach i like it too yeah okay we'll adopt that yeah I mean, you want the catch up, you want to know, but you don't want it to be the entire topic.

I mean, I would salute exactly what you said, but I would divorce it from the idea of feeling young because the fact is we feel fantastic, we feel energetic, we feel purposeful at our age. Those are not attributes of youth just as feeling invisible or incompetent. I mean, that's the way I felt at 13. So I think it's important to divorce this idea of young equals insert positive thing and old equals negative. Let's concentrate on the actual way we feel, which is generally has not much to do with our chronological age. I'm really glad you made that point because I have become so much more capable and we all become more capable, don't we? For the most part. I mean, another stereotype is that all older people are wise. I've met older people who don't seem to have learned a thing along the way. A

positive stereotype is still a stereotype, right? It's what are the specifics of the individual and the situation. Here's Chris. Now, this is on dating, actually, which, as I say, we'll do on the show in a couple of weeks. It's not me that thinks I'm a lesser version of myself now I'm older. It is society. Yeah. Well done, Chris. Chris says, I'm happy in my crone power, my strong, mature body, but everybody else sees a hag. I'm the same age as Paul Hollywood.

You won't be troubled by Paul Hollywood. Don't worry, Ashton, but Maggie and I know him. And as Chris says, fat chance of me finding a lover half my age. Well, she's right. Well, I mean, I'm afraid she's right. Well, I was talking with a friend and she would, she's in her 50s. And I said, Have you considered somebody younger? And she said, more than 10 years younger. And I said, sure, why not? And she said, he wouldn't know who Eisenhower was. And I said, how much time do you

spend talking about Eisenhower? You can tell him who Eisenhower is, he can tell you who Cardi B is, that has very little to do with your fundamental compatibility. Yeah, and it's all about your values and what you like in life and what you can enjoy. We're not looking to start a family. No, and you can learn from each other. You may or may not get along, but whether or not you do has relatively little to do with age, except in the way that society sees it. You know, which is why we need a grassroots movement. Think where women would be in the world without the women's movement. And think where feminism and sexism,

you know, what role they carry in any discussion about women and women's lives. That's what we need to do with ageism and, you know, mobilizing against it. I mean, the women's movement taught us to claim our power. We women are leading the movement against ageism, which is necessary if we want to hold on to that power. They are intertwined. I don't think there'll be another radio program or podcast in the world that's referenced Paul Hollywood, Eisenhower and Cardi B all in about two and a half minutes. Norma says no point complaining about ageism against women when you, Woman's Hour, rarely have anything for women over 70. We are not just unseen. We are unheard.

I might as well grow old disgracefully because there's no point in growing old gracefully, says Norma. Well, Norma. OK, well, we'll work on that. Items for women over 70. I should say that I'm interviewing a lady who is 94 on Friday, which you will hear on Woman's Hour in the next couple of weeks. So but I take your point. Kate says you can enjoy and afford to retire if you have the luxury of a good pension. I will be working for years to come, even though I paid into a pension for 28 years. You can't we can't deny the economic reality that faces many older women in particular, Maggie,

that economically life can be challenging, to put it mildly. Absolutely. And financial security is one of the components of a good later life. I know that the Centre for Ageing Better has said that financial security is key, as well as physical and mental health and social connection. And clearly that's absolutely right. And I don't dispute that for a moment. But having said that, I do think there's an awful lot of things that people can do, even if they're still having to work, to make your later life a good later life and an enjoyable later life. There are steps you can take actions you can take attitudes and behaviors that can

still around that financial problem of needing to work to actually really enjoy life and make the most of it but i can't pretend that people haven't been in contact making similar points here's another one from joy i assume your two contributors don't have arthritis, a small pension or live in a rural area with no decent public transport or activities and clubs to join. Loneliness, just saying, says Joy. The British government has paid a lot of attention to loneliness among older people. I have tons of arthritis, if that's any comfort to your listeners, which I doubt. A good attitude cannot get you out of poverty, cannot get you out of isolation. And that is why we need to look at the way these problems are framed.

Women do have this one advantage, which is that we talk more. We are the custodians generally of social relationships and our marriage. And the strongest component of a good old age, I assumed going into this, it would be health. It's not wealth either. It is having a solid social age. I assumed going into this, it would be health. It's not. It's not wealth either. It is having a solid social network. So, yep. And I would say the most important thing we can do around that is to build as much of a network as we can. Again, money plays an enormous part in this. No question about it. Women have lesser pensions because we we're penalized for time out of the workforce and because we earn less.

So, you know, I'm in the social change business. We need to close the gender wage gap so that women can decide, you know, whether or not to stay home with their children, for example, instead of arguing about who's a better mother. You know, we need to have wonderful programs like this that focus on issues for women of all ages. I would venture that, you know, things that are of interest to 90-year-old women, many of them are also of interest to 30-year-old women. I think age is a much smaller gap than we imagine it to be. Mel, for men, getting older signals greater experience, knowledge, and wisdom. For women, it appears to mark decline. That must surely be because women's principal value has been our fertility.

Now is the time for older women to grab attention, influence and power, not by trying to emulate youth, but by asserting the positive benefits that ageing can bring. Women in the workforce in the US start being discriminated against. Stop getting promoted to managerial positions at 34 because they might have children. So we are penalised because we are fertile. We might.

Whether or not you ever have children. So you're penalized because you're fertile. And then the minute you hit menopause, God forbid, you are made redundant in your 50s because then there's very little health research done on women over 55 because we cease to be reproductively useful. So it's not it's we get it from both ends. Our value is pegged to our reproductive status. And that is a triple injustice. Maggie? Well, I absolutely accept everything that Ashton says. And I totally agree with what what your listeners have said and the tweets. And there is ageism.

I've seen it. I've experienced it. But having said that, I still come back to the fact that what we do about how we age can make a huge difference to how good a later life we have. And in the book, because of my personal experience over the years and my involvement with a wonderful charity called Open Age, which is a community organisation which helps people from 50 to 100 to connect, to make those social connections, I deeply and passionately believe that if you adopt certain attitudes and behaviours, if you're positive

about getting old, if you have, there's research that shows that if you have a positive attitude to ageing, you live on average an extra seven and a half years. And Samir Gray, the professor of public health, a supremo in the NHS, has said that it's actually true that the biological effects of ageing are relatively insignificant until you are in your late 90s. So really, it's down to us to do what we can by making, as Ashton says, a social connection, having a purpose and a goal in life, by being grateful, by being positive, by eating well, by not becoming obese. And by that way, we can improve.

It's both and. Yeah, I mean, it's easier for some people than for others. I'm just making that point because I know people will say. I totally agree. Thank you both very much. Actually, as you both talk, you both just grow in, you look about 25, the pair of you. So something's going right.

We can only look 65. Oh, yeah, sorry. I'm happy to be, I'm happy to be. I just want to mention the tweet from a listener who's disgusted by the fact that he believes, I think it's he, but I could be wrong, there's a trend, as they describe on Radio 4, for presenters to refer to programmes as shows.

And apparently I'm beginning to sound like Steve Wright. Well, I can't think of a greater compliment. So thank you to that tweeter. And I'll stop, you Well, I can't think of a greater compliment. So thank you to that tweeter. And I'll stop. You know, I won't stop. I'm going to call the programme a show from now on. Thanks to everybody who's been in touch today. We are back tomorrow amongst my guests,

Deborah James, who has done so much to talk, very frankly, about bowel cancer. That's on Woman's Air tomorrow. This is Planet Puffin. There's a fair chance you will get bitten at some point. Planet Puffin is a new podcast coming to you from a tiny island off the east coast of Scotland. Across the summer, we're going to be following the breeding season, no matter what it takes. Now there's an encouraging piece of poo at the entrance.

There's some nice white guano. So Becky, I'm going to let you take the first game of Puffin Roulette. Summer 2019's hottest Puffin podcast. Well, only Puffin podcast. For BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven and for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody.

Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in.

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