Woman's Hour - Sharon D Clarke, Food and class prejudice, Gender stereotypes

Episode Date: December 19, 2020

Sharon D Clarke talks about her role as The Narrator in an audio adaptation of “Peter Pan”.Three women from this year's Power List - physicist and climate researcher Prof Joanna Haigh; one of the leads from the Climate Assembly Prof Rebecca Willis; and Guardian Environment Correspondent Fiona Harvey discuss how we understand and talk about climate change.Sharon Hague from Pearson talks about a new study by the Fawcett Society into gender stereotypes and the damaging effect it has on society.Leading gynaecologist and early pregnancy specialist Dr Jessica Farren talks about miscarriage and and the grief that can be exacerbated by the festive period.Food historian, Pen Vogler talks about our eating habits and reveals how they are loaded with centuries of class prejudice.The Panamanian-American conductor Kalena Bovell talks about her international conducting debut at the Southbank with Chineke!Presenter: Jane Garvey Producer: Paula McFarlane Editor: Lucinda Montefiore

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, good afternoon and welcome to this edition of Weekend Woman's Hour, the best bits of the last Woman's Hour week. Now, this Saturday we have got Sharon D. Clarke talking about her role in an audio adaptation of Peter Pan and much else besides. You can hear from three brilliant women from this year's Power List, the physicist and climate researcher Professor Joanna Haig, one of the leads from the Climate Assembly, Professor Rebecca Willis, and the Guardian's environment correspondent Fiona Harvey.

They all talk about how we understand and talk about climate change these days and just how much has changed over the last couple of decades. Sharon Hague from Pearson Educational Publications talks about gender stereotypes and will discuss miscarriage and the women that the early pregnancy specialist Dr Jessica Farron has cared for. Plus the brilliant food historian Penn Vogler on our eating habits and just how loaded they are with centuries of class prejudice. If you read somebody in the 17th century, they will be saying, no, white bread is something that's appropriate for the aristocracy or the upper classes. You, if you're working in the fields, if you have a difficult, hardworking, labouring job, you require brown

bread, partly because you need the solidity of it, but you have a sort of peasant digestion. That's so rude, isn't it? A peasant digestion, the very idea. But how many of us deep down, well, we put up with brown bread, but secretly everyone prefers white, don't they? More stunning controversy of that nature a little bit later in the programme. Actually, Pen was an absolutely fantastic contributor. You'll really enjoy hearing from her a little later. First up this week, let's have a conversation with Sharon D. Clarke, the fantastic Olivier Award-winning actor. She's involved with an audio adaptation of Peter Pan, which is going to be launched on iTunes on Christmas Eve in support of Great Ormond Street. Loads of brilliant people also involved, the likes of

Kenneth Branagh and Jane Horrocks and Clive Rowe and Olivia Colman. Here's Sharon, though, talking for a start about her role in Peter Pan as the narrator. Charlie Cameron had this fantastic idea of doing something because nothing was happening. Great Ormond Street is just such a wonderful, wonderful place with the work that they do, the essential work that they do. And so she was like, you know, let's do Peter Pan. But it's not an audio book. It's a full audio play.

There's been Annabelle Brown has done a fantastic musical score and there are just some wonderful, wonderful performance on it. Sean McKenna has done the adaptation and some of the children from Great Ormond Street Hospital are playing the Lost Boys. So it's really fantastic that we've got people involved from every kind of quarter. You know, Kenneth Branagh's playing Hook and Bertie Carville's playing Mr Darling. Joanna Riding's playing Mrs Darling. Clive Rose playing Speaks Me.

Oh, this is a real deal then, isn't it? Yeah, it's a full-on audio play. I play Wendy's great-granddaughter, so I'm the narrator. You're the narrator. Actually, before I go on, let's just hear a quick clip of you. Here we go. When Captain Hook's cannonball whizzes past Peter and the darling children, the whoosh blows them all in different directions. Wendy and Tinkerbell are blown towards Peter's home. This is at the centre of a clearing in the wood, which enjoys all four seasons at once. You will never find the entrance to his home, though,

unless you look very carefully at seven hollow trees dotted around the glade. From one such tree one boy, one lost boy, is just emerging. Let's pop back then and over the course of your last year, you were, I think, on Broadway in March. And then what happened? What were you doing there, first of all? I was doing Caroline or Change, going for my Broadway debut. And we were just about to do our final dress rehearsal on the Thursday to do our first preview on the Friday. And on the Thursday, the news came in that Broadway was closing because of coronavirus.

And so we didn't get to do our dress rehearsal. We didn't get to do the show. And I came back home to absolutely nothing like everybody else. Caroline O'Change had been a really big success in Britain, hadn't it? Award-winning for you. For anyone who didn't see it, just tell us about that show. What is it about? It's quite a complicated and yet simple little show. It's called Caroline or Change. And the change deals with Caroline changing or her resistance to change, the change that is happening around her in the world. So we're at a time where the civil rights movement

is just gaining momentum. Kennedy's just been shot. So the world is a bit in flux. And the change also deals with the fact that the young boy in her household, she's a maid in a Jewish household. The young boy keeps leaving pocket change in his trousers. And his mum tells him if he doesn't look after the change and put it away properly, any change that Caroline finds in his pocket, she can keep. And at first first she resists that but then she starts to take the change because his nickels and quarters and dimes are actually food for her family they pay for the dentist the glasses so she takes the change quite quite resistantly until they have a hanukkah and he gets a 20 bill from his grandfather and leaves it in his pocket and

then there's that dilemma as to whether or not knows it's a present and she does and then all hell breaks loose right and that's where everything starts to unravel you're right it's such a clever clever show and are you going to get the chance to do it on Broadway then do you know well God willing yes um I'm one of the lucky ones or us with Caroline or change of one of the lucky ones that with roundabout they have said that they want the show to continue so when lockdown first happened and a lot of shows closed a lot of those shows are not coming back so I'm in a very good position that I know at some point next year I will be doing the show the dates have been pushed back since lockdown started. You know,

first of all, it was going to be July. Then they were talking about September. Then they talked January, then March. Now we're talking August. But at least we're still talking about putting it on. What psychologically, what was that like for you? So all that adrenaline, the big build up to this amazing opportunity for you, which you richly deserve on Broadway. And then this, it's like a balloon just deflating. What did you do? We all went to the nearest bar and got slathered, actually. To be completely honest. What was your immediate reaction?

That was our immediate reaction. I mean, there wasn't a lot else that we could do. First of all, the thing for me was dealing with the kids because we've got six boys in the show and they were just gutted. Of those six, some of them are old Broadway hands at that young age and for some of them it was their first show. And so, you know, they were just in bits. So dealing with them and trying to say to them,

look, we'll be all right and we'll come through this and we will get a chance to do this again and then getting back home and just crying going oh Susie I can't believe this it's all finished it's all ah but then just having to get on with it because it's not a personal thing you know it's not as if it was just our shoulder closed when it happens to everyone you have to think this is happening to a whole industry. And what was quite good about it happening on Broadway, the way it did, is that Broadway closed down as one. So there was this unified decision where everybody knew where they were,

as opposed to over here where we had some people trying to go on and some people going under and everybody not really knowing what was happening. It was just great that they came out as a community. So, you know, it was difficult. I didn't have any work until July. I got my first voiceover coming in July. So those months between March and July were they were rough. They were rough. Well, your partner, Susie, is also in the creative arts as well, isn't she? So I guess she's an associate director at the Kiln Theatre.

So when it all happened over here, they just went into firefighting mode. And Susie was part of the freelancers task force and on lots of Zoom meetings about how we go forward. What can we do? All of that. Yeah. And it's tough for everybody, including people like you who are absolutely at the top of your game, Olivier Award winning. And still this year, these months have just been a slog and a lot of stress and worry for you. Well, I'm lucky. But, you know, there are friends of ours who we know have lost their homes. There are friends who are working in Sainsbury's or at Heathrow Airport or driving cars or not doing anything at all.

And actually, I'm really feeling for the graduates who are just coming into the business and what this means for them, because there is nothing. And if experienced people aren't working, I'm just thinking about people at the other end who aren't even going to get a looking or a chance at the moment because there is nothing there. I'm just thinking about the range of stuff you've done.

So Death of a Salesman, for example, you've been on massive television series like Holby City. People will know you from Doctor Who. What actually is the thing that thrills you the most? If I were to really ask you what is the bit you revel in or think about most after you've done it? What would you say? It's got to be the singing.

It's song. It's sharing that with people and having that kind of exchange when you're singing. You know, one of the things that people would say in the moment, one of the things that people would say to me is, oh, God, I wish I could sing. So to have that ability and to be able to share it is wonderful. In the moment. In the moment. One of the things that people always say to me is, oh God, I wish I could sing. So to have that ability and to be able to share it is wonderful. But the medium, I love it all. I'm not one of these people who just goes,

I'm an actor and I do straight plays. I love it all. From the kids' voice art, I did a thing called Tiny Wonders, which is about showing the macro world to kids and getting kids to look at things closely, you know, and look at little tiny bugs and little tiny plants and dew drops. And I love all of it. As long as I'm performing in some kind of energy, whether that is through song or through voiceover or through a play or through dance sometimes, back in the day when I used to dance. I love the industry. I love the medium. That is Sharon D. Clarke, who, of course, in common with everybody, has had a challenging 2020, but I really wish her the very best for next year.

And let's hope she gets to Broadway for what will be, I'm sure, an amazing run of Caroline or Change. Now to three incredibly inspiring women from this year's Power List, Our Planet. They are the physicist and climate researcher, Professor Joanna Haig, Professor Rebecca Willis, who is one of the leads from the Climate Assembly. We'll find out what that is in a minute. And the Guardian's environment correspondent, Fiona Harvey. They all came on the programme this week to talk about how we view climate change and how conversations around that subject have changed so much in the relatively recent past. First of all,

here's Rebecca explaining exactly what the Climate Assembly is. Yeah, so it's this amazing experiment commissioned by the UK Parliament, and it brought together over 100 people from all walks of life who were selected to be representative of the UK as a whole. And we met, this was just before COVID, we met in a hotel in Birmingham. And when I walked into that room, I saw my own country represented before me. And so those 108 people got to listen to experts, including Joanna, about climate science. They listened to what we can do to tackle the climate crisis. And then really crucially, they gave their own expertise and views and made their

own recommendations back to Parliament. I see. Well, that sounds brilliant and really positive. You mentioned Joanna. Let's talk to her. Professor Joanna Haig, physicist and climate researcher. Joanna, I've worked at the BBC long enough to have been here doing news programmes at a time when conversations about climate change had to be, quote, balanced. When did that change? I suppose it's changed most over the last 10 years. I mean, we've known about climate and how it's changing, but probably over 100 years. But people have continued to question it. And, of course, it's right to question science. We need people to put out contrarian ideas. But the whole idea of balancing something that's completely wrong,

so, you know, the Flat Earth Society against some decent science really ran out of steam just a few years ago. Yeah. Well, when? When did the tide finally turn? Well, I think it's been sort of gradual, as I say, over the last 10 years or so. It's less and less people actually saying that they don't believe it or it's not due to humans. There's still some, actually. I still get the odd email from what we call a denier, but not nearly so many. So we need to move on now to talking about what we can do about it rather than whether it's happening or not. What should we all do to really lessen our great-grandchildren's chances of living in a version of hell? So there's lots of things that individuals can do. For a start, you can just use less energy if you can insulate your home and try and save energy.

You can buy your energy from renewable resources, so electricity companies that provide wind and solar energy. You can eat less red meat because that's production of red meat is very carbon intensive. So it's going to produce greenhouse gases. You can talk to your friends, and I think this is probably the most important thing we can all do, is talk to people about climate change, in particular talk to the politicians. Finally, of course, you can stop using fossil fuel vehicles like cars with internal combustion engines and move over to electric vehicles or public transport. I mentioned this hellish vision, and there are people who talk freely about our planet burning, millions dying, climate refugees everywhere you look. Honestly, if we don't act now, Joanna,

could that happen? Not to us, but to people related to those of us who are around now? Well, I think those sort of things are going to happen in the very distant future, in decades to come, if we don't do something now. But individual things are already happening. So if you look at the forest fires taking place, even in Siberia and places you wouldn't have expected, they're already happening. And you're looking at sea level rise where places are becoming inundated with water on the coasts. So these things are happening gradually. But if we don't do something about it now, it'll all get much, much worse. Rebecca, you mentioned the Climate Assembly and talked about the energy and the positivity of it.

Do any solutions come out of it? Any new ideas? Yeah, I mean, the amazing thing about a process like the Climate Assembly is that it really shows that if you give people access to good information and the time and space to reflect and actually the respect and assurance that their views are important, they give you really sensible answers. So the number one recommendation, the number one principle that the Climate Assembly put forward is that we should talk about climate change more have a much more open conversation having been part of the assembly the um the participants couldn't believe that this conversation about climate wasn't happening everywhere it had really opened their eyes to

the issue and you know they they really wanted government to show leadership and they wanted us all to be involved in a collective conversation about dealing with the climate crisis and then they also put forward a whole suite of detailed recommendations on what should be done in our homes to tackle carbon emissions from travel you know the whole gamut of policy solutions it's all there. Yeah, it is all there. It has to be said, Fiona, that most people, although they may very well support the cause, they don't go out and vote for the Green Party, for example. They don't give up their cars. They don't entirely give up red meat, do they? Not yet. Well, there's only so much that individuals can do. And we saw that very clearly

during the lockdowns earlier this year, because what happened was that emissions fell, greenhouse gas emissions fell quite dramatically, because people were not using their cars, the streets were deserted, the skies were clear of airplanes, we were using energy in different ways and so on. But greenhouse gas emissions only fell globally by about 17% in April. In the UK, they fell by about a quarter. And that shows that even in the UK, three quarters of our emissions were still intact, despite the fact that we had essentially completely shut down the economy. What that shows is that we need structural change.

We need changes to the way that we generate our energy, changes to our industry, changes to our houses. OK, forgive me, I thought it had changed. On Twitter, there's a wonderful, you can follow the National Grid on Twitter, which sounds the most nerdy thing I've ever said. But it's actually fascinating because it tells you how we are generating power on any given day. And I was looking the other day and wind was providing an enormous amount of power. So things have changed for the better, haven't they? They have changed and they are changing. but we need to change a lot more

because we need to get to net zero emissions by 2050 at the latest. That's what scientists are telling us. If we want to avoid the worst ravages of extreme weather, that's where we need to go. And that's a big demand. Right, OK. Is the media to blame? I mean, The Guardian, to be fair, I don't think you can get at The Guardian for not having taken this seriously. Some national newspapers have only just hopped on board with this. But it is seen or was seen as a somewhat lefty liberal thing that certain people obsessed about and nobody else really cared.

Yeah, it wasn't seen as hard news. Or mainstream, particularly. No, it wasn't seen as hard news. Or mainstream, particularly. No, it wasn't seen as mainstream. And even over the weekend, the UK was hosting a climate action summit and the Prime Minister was referring to eco-freaks eating mung beans. So, yeah, it's really not about eco-freaks, as the Assembly has shown. This is about everyone. And it's really important that we do take everyone together. It must not be a political issue and seen as a kind of left or right issue, because otherwise you just alienate half of the population.

Joanna, what do you want to say about that? Well, it's not a left or right wing thing. And we've known about the science since the 1820s. And it's not an invention of left wing people at all. It's just people understanding the science and seeing what's going to happen. And as Fiona rightly says, now we know more about it, we really know how to act on it as well. So the governments need to take action to reduce carbon emissions across the piece. Let's put to one side what the Prime Minister said at the weekend. The government has put money behind its initiatives, hasn't it? We keep getting this figure of £4 billion quoted.

Then, of course, I know you're going to say, well, what about HS2? So, Rebecca, quick word on that. Well, I think we are seeing the government putting money into this agenda. But what I would really like them to think about is actually not just putting money into green stuff, but also looking at everything else that they're spending money on, everything else that they're doing and asking, is that compatible with the climate crisis? So, for example, we're still digging up oil and gas from the North Sea. There are still huge tax breaks for oil and gas extraction. There's public money funding fossil fuels.

Just up the road from me in Cumbria, local politicians have given planning permission for a new coal mine that would result in nine million tonnes of carbon emissions a year. So I think now the focus has to go to how we get to the root of the problem, how we stop digging up and burning the fossil fuels that are fuelling the dangerous climate change. That is Professor Rebecca Willis and also involved in that conversation, Professor Joanna Haig, and Fiona Harvey, who is The Guardian's environment correspondent. Now, the Fawcett Society, which campaigns, of course, on equality issues, has been looking, amongst other things, at gender stereotypes in publishing, particularly in the sorts of books and the sorts of material provided for very young children in British schools.

Sharon Haig talked to us. She's from Pearson, which contributed to the Fawcett Society's report and has now decided to update the teaching and reading material it gives to schools. So we conducted a review of the sorts of materials that you would see aimed at very young children and the sorts of examples we saw was for example two children going on a camping trip you know the boy is an avid bug collector he spends his time going collecting spiders to scare his sister who you know really doesn't like camping and doesn't like insects so you see the boy cast as really adventurous daring enjoying the outdoors whereas the girl is cast more in a caring role you know preparing for the adventurers to come back organizing the trip so can i just stop you there

um when was this written and published so um this is a an an example of a book aimed at very young children that, you know, is available currently in the market. You don't know when it was written? I don't have the precise date, but, you know, it will have been in the last perhaps five years or so. And it is aimed at children of what age? It'd be children that are beginning to learn to read. So, you know, very

sort of five, six year olds. And that does seem actually on the face of it, ludicrous, quite alarming, actually, that that is being that narrative is still being fed to children. Anything else? So that was a really good example. And I think we absolutely agree with your all of our authors and editors to really address this issue in our resources and textbooks. We think it's the first of its kind commitment from any learning organisation. Yeah, but just to be clear, the example you gave us, that was one of your books, was it? Yes, it's an example of a sort of a Pearson book that has been... Well, not a sort of a Pearson book, a Pearson book that is currently out there

and being read to and by very young children. Which is why we've taken this commitment to make sure that we have the gender equality guidelines, which, as I say, are first in its kind commitment of any learning company. Yes, but that doesn't mean that the book you've talked about is going to be withdrawn, or does it? So what we're planning to do is use these guidelines with our authors and our editors to really make sure that all of the resources that we publish going forward, you know, really make sure that we tackle these gender stereotypes because we know

that they do hit children hard and we're going to you know really make sure that we not just kind of neutralize everything but it's really about flipping stereotypes to make sure that children boys or girls see themselves in different roles you know demonstrating kind of different characteristics so that children's choices aren't limited yeah because boys can be stereotyped in just the same way as girls let's go back to that camping example then would it now be written that the boy is a little bit scared of spiders and his sister is the one who's going out there collecting bugs and chucking them down her brother's T-shirt. That's right.

So you might actually reverse those typical sort of stereotypes to really kind of challenge thinking and make both boys and girls feel that, you know, there's a whole range of different behaviours that are appropriate. It all does seem, forgive forgive me but it sounds quite bearing in mind um today's young people have very real and active conversations about gender fluidity and about being non-binary um you've got to catch up with all this haven't you and it doesn't sound as though you're really on track with it all quite yet um i think it's not just about you know one part of society i think this is something that across you know home toys advertising you know a whole raft of different aspects of society

that there's still more work to do so we have made good progress as a society but there's still more to do and i think you know the Fawcett Society Commission the the guidelines that we've um adopted are all you know really positive practical things you know this this job will never be done we need to continue to tackle it and address it to make sure that every child you know can reach their full potential and that's what this is all about you know making sure that we're not limiting children's learning choices we're not limiting how they feel um they can behave you know that they have to conform to a particular way of behaving and ultimately that all sorts of employment choices are available and open to them that is

Sharon Haig from Pearson. Lots of response to this when it went out on Friday morning. Let's catch up with some of your thoughts. Here's Sue. I'm in my 70s now, but when my two girls were young, I'd read to them every night and would point out the gender stereotypes and discuss them with them. The boy in the garage with dad, the girl in the kitchen with mum. I would say, why isn't the girl in the garage? Why isn't the boy in the kitchen? And also, why isn't the mom in the garage? Why isn't dad in the kitchen? Sue, it sounds like you were ahead of your time, actually, but well done you. Viv says, I'm a 56-year-old ex-secondary school English teacher, same age as Jane then, and I learned to

read like Jane with the Peter and Jane books. As we have long since been aware how outdated and sexist this series was, I'm horrified to hear from your Pearson's representative that a book written in the last five years was written in more or less the same vein. Have we learned nothing? However, on reflection, I then remembered that for most of my teaching career of 25 years, I taught Golding's Lord of the Flies and Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men relentlessly because boys could relate to them. The first is entirely comprised of male characters without a woman in sight. It probably would have been a very different outcome if girls had been on that wretched island. And the second features one female character only,

always referred to as Curly's wife throughout. And she's referred to as a tart, a catalyst for trouble. Do you know what, actually, that brings to mind an item we did on Women's Hour a couple of years ago about Lord of the Flies still being taught for GCSE when it doesn't have, as you point out, a single female character. And we were told, I think, it was because it was acceptable to both sexes to teach Lord of the Flies. I wonder whether that has changed. Candida says, I was looking at the John Lewis website last week with the intention of buying socks for my granddaughters. The oldest is seven and is currently interested in marine biology, so I was delighted to find a pair with sharks and fish and turtles. They were labelled, guess what,

shark socks for boys. Looking further down the page, there were numerous examples of socks for girls or boys, e.g. boys space slipper socks and girls unicorn socks. I emailed the chair, Dame Sharon White, and pointed this out to her. She emailed back saying she agreed with me and would look at changing the labelling. Indeed, the shark socks have been changed to children's, but there are still lots of others that specify the gender. There we go, that's incredible. From Pippa, I was a secondary English teacher for 20 years and then an English advisor. I was lucky to train in the 80s when

stereotyping was actively questioned and teachers had time to explore how we're all bombarded with images reinforcing stereotyping, making us want to buy certain things and even behave in certain ways. Over 10 years ago, I was approached by Pearson to develop textbooks with a team of English teachers. These issues are so important, they should not just be left to publishing companies. I think the Fawcett Society should have got much more coverage on this really important issue. Thanks to everybody who told us what they thought about that item, actually. It really did get people going, and I can understand exactly why it might. Now, miscarriage is something that we've certainly talked about on the programme before.

It can be, well, it's always a miserable experience. It's particularly miserable dealing with something like this at this time of year. Dr Jessica Farron is a gynaecologist and a researcher specialising in early pregnancy based at St Mary's Hospital in London. Andrea Catherwood asked her this week why Christmas was such a difficult time for women who have lost a baby. Our research at Imperial College does show that pregnancy loss is a major life event whatever time of year you go through it.

And in spite of how shrouded in secrecy it is. So when we looked at the emotional impact of pregnancy loss we found massive levels of anxiety, of depression, even one in three women experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress and significant results too in partners. But I think what's important about Christmas is it's a time when everyone around you seems to be joyful and you're supposed to be joyful. And so your own emotions when you're going through something like this are in very stark contrast to how you think you're supposed to feel or everyone around you is feeling. And it's recognised, as you said, in other contexts that people who have suffered other bereavements have a difficult

time around Christmas. But because this is something that's not openly talked about, people don't tend to get the same level of support. I think it's also worth saying that traditionally Christmas is obviously a time associated with family and with children. And I think that many people, as soon as they start thinking about starting a family or have that positive pregnancy test, will fast forward and imagine the next Christmas and what that's going to look like with a bump or with a baby. And so when it rolls around and your arms are empty, it's a very stark reminder of what you don't have. Now, I know that many of us have chosen not to share the fact that we've miscarried,

even though it happens to so many women, we tend not to talk about it still. Is that one of the reasons that it can be particularly hard because even very close friends and family don't know what you've been through? Exactly. I think until it's an event that we sort of routinely talk about and are open about, it's a bereavement that you deal with in silence, which makes it unlike all other bereavements where you will, people reach out and get the support from from friends and family. You've been through this yourself not as a doctor although of course that is the area that you work in but also as a patient as an expectant mother who miscarried

because you knew so much about the the physiological physiology of what was happening to you did it still affect you more than you expected? I think it did, yes. And I think, I mean, it's always important, I think, when I talk about my own experiences. I'm always very open about my own experiences as part of my general mission to be, to break the silence, essentially. But of course, as you've alluded to, it's very important to recognise that my own experiences were in many ways much easier because of my lowered expectations from working in early pregnancy for so long and also my familiarity with the sort of physicality of it. And therefore, I sort of always feel that my own message is stronger as a researcher and as a clinician, having spoken to women going through it for many years and as a patient. But I recognise that in spite of all of the reasons why I should have found it easier, I still really struggled to have hope and to have patience. And I think that in turn has made me more empathetic, I hope, as a clinician going forward.

It's interesting you talked about lowered expectations because, you know, many of us understand how many pregnancies actually end in miscarriage. So do you think that when women like Meghan Markle and other celebrities have recently come out and talked about their own experiences, do you think that's helpful? Is it something that you welcome? Absolutely. I think it's massively important. And I always advocate that people talk about it if indeed they feel able to, while obviously respecting that some people feel they don't want to. Because I think for every announcement like that, there will be a group of people she felt. In the New York Times article, she talks about dropping to the floor and feeling this sharp cramp. And what we know from our research is that these sorts of flashbacks are actually very common and that these sorts of vivid memories

tend to stay with people for a very long time. So I think it would have been reassuring to people going through those sorts of symptoms and hearing that Megan had had such a similar experience. I would say that I'm absolutely delighted that the conversation is starting about miscarriage, but I do think it's also at the same time important to recognise some other groups of pregnancy losses that aren't so commonly talked about. So our research included women going through ectopic pregnancies, which are less common but still affect one in 100 women.

And also the huge group of people going through infertility and failed IVF cycles, or women going through the sort of heartbreaking recommendation to potentially terminate a pregnancy. Indeed, a really important group of people that often get overlooked. What advice would you give to any of those women, any of the women in the categories that you've talked about, who are feeling feelings of grief and maybe isolation and slightly dreading the coming Christmas period? Absolutely. I mean, I think our research has shown that, as I say, that lots of people suffer from significant psychological illness after these sorts of things. And so

I think the first thing to say is that if you feel that you have symptoms of depression, of anxiety, or post-traumatic stress, that it's important to recognize those, to go to your GP, and to get the help that you would in any other context for those sorts of conditions. We're planning to look and see what we can do to help women going through pregnancy loss in future studies at Imperial. There are lots of support groups out there. So the charity Tommy's supported my research and they have a really good miscarriage support group. I'm also a medical ambassador for the charity Saying Goodbye, which offers very good support. And I've heard good reports about people's interaction with the Miscarriage Association and the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust do. Dr Jessica Farron, who works as a gynaecologist and a researcher

at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington in London. Pen Vogler is a food historian and writer, and I just really enjoyed talking to her this week. She has written a fantastic book called Scoff, which is all about a history of food and class in Britain. And she says most Brits could read a shopping basket as though it were a character sketch. Taifu or Earl Grey, Kingsmill or sourdough. Here's Penn. Scoff is about the way we eat now, what we eat, and about how probably the last thousand years

of our history has changed it in terms of sort of social class and social pressure. And so it's a lot about how we judge each other on what's on our tables, what's in our shopping baskets, how we've sort of tried to manipulate other people into eating what we consider is right for them. That's very much kind of part of the story. And also how we've tried to use food and dining and all the kind of paraphernalia around it, you know, the knives and the forks and the napkins to say something about the class we feel either we are in or that we aspire to. And so it's about how food has kind of driven change in our kind of social networks, but also how our social status has driven change in food. Now, I make a cup of tea. First thing I do every single morning of my life, I'm afraid to say I lob in a bag, a sweetener and the milk and then the hot water. That's appalling, is it?

Oh, Nancy Mitford would just disown what she'd think of me yes go on so the milk in first came to light as it were in the mid-20th century when people like nancy mitford and evelyn war were defining their elite status by saying this is how you should drink tea. And to them, the correct way of doing it was to put the milk in last. Now, whether that makes any difference to the tea or not, I have absolutely no idea. Well, in actual fact, I've done this scientific experiment where I've tried it both ways. I feel that if you put cold milk into scalding tea, that actually it slightly scalds the milk and it tastes less good but you know anybody is entitled to the experiment and figure out their own outcome but I think it's just a really fascinating example of one of those tiny things so you can be drinking exactly the

same thing across the country yes but the way that we think about it talk about it whether you put the tea you know the milk in first whether you call it builder's tea, will say something about yourself or will say something about what you want people to think about you. We all know it does say something about ourselves, doesn't it? I mean, I think there's a great part in the book where you talk about how the British could analyse somebody else's shopping basket or trolley and simply know just about everything about them. I think we read each other's shopping trolleys in the supermarkets as though they were a character sketch. You know, we go, oh, that person's buying kind of, you know, monster munch and I don't know, you know, deep pan pizza, but I've got Earl Grey tea and spinach in my shopping basket.

But you also say that younger people are not as judgmental and they're rather more free flowing in the 50s or the 60s, you had this very sort of hierarchical view of what you were, you know, what was common, what was respectable. And I think what younger people do nowadays, they're much more confident. I think class or, you know, your kind of social background, if you're confident in your taste, then you'll choose white sliced bread and builders tea or something. But you still have the choice of eating good, fresh, locally grown food or whatever it is, you know. But you do make the point, and it's a powerful one, that if you have a hard life, in whatever way that might be, you're economically challenged, you've got two part-time jobs, you're a carer,

you're in low-paid work that frankly frankly, is arduous and perhaps boring. You may well want to treat yourself by having easily obtained, quickly cooked and available, sweet, hot, spicy food. What's wrong with that? interesting because this is for every generation that there has been somebody like Hogarth for example you know Gin Lane showing how appalling it was that the lower orders or whatever he called them at the time were drinking gin there has been somebody else saying we've got to understand why you there's been a Dickens saying you know once you've cleared up destitution and distress and disease then consider why people drink gin for for example. And Orwell puts it brilliantly. He says, you know, if you're exhausted or miserable or low, you want to run out and get

some chips, some ice cream, some sweet tea, something to get an instant lift. And I think it's very difficult for people who don't understand why people eat badly, because eating badly is not in your long term interest. But it might be it might feel like it's in your short term interest. We need to bear in mind those people who don't have time to consider their long term interest. And it's almost an indulgence, isn't it? You could argue. Okay, supper. Why is that used differently in different parts of the country and by different sorts of people? Breakfast, I think we're all OK with. We all more or less subscribe to the kind of idea that breakfast is OK. And then as soon as you get to elevenses or lunch or dinner or whatever it is in the middle of the day,

then when you have your cup of tea at four o'clock, is that tea or is that afternoon tea? That's a cup of tea, isn't it? Yeah. But if you have it with scones and a sandwich, is it then afternoon tea? That's a cup of tea, isn't it? Yeah, but if you have it with scones and a sandwich, is it then just tea, which it is if you're fairly aristocratic because that's the only tea you have. But if it's a special treat for you and you have your dinner, you know, in the middle of the day and your tea in the evening, you'll call that afternoon tea.

So every single word that we use for our meals, and even the word meal itself, you know, is seen as something that's a kind of slight cop-out. It's a word that you use if you don't know whether it's dinner, tea, supper or whatever. This is all, Penrith is so loaded, isn't it? We've had a thousand years of it being loaded. Class is incredibly sticky. You know, we can't just, I think as my friends, you know, kind of grown kids are discovering, you can't just kind of decide to extricate yourself from it. You know, we've had thousands of years of viewing meat in a particular way,

or we've had hundreds of years of telling people that they should be eating white bread or brown bread, depending on their status. Well, let's talk about bread. Lots of people deep down prefer white bread. Sourdough has sort of given people... It's liberated us. Well hasn't it? I don't know. Isn't it funny because again it's a hundreds of years thing you know if you if you read somebody in the in the 17th century they will be saying, white bread is something that's appropriate for the aristocracy or the upper classes. You, if you're working in the fields, if you have a difficult, hardworking labouring job, you require brown bread, partly because you need the solidity of it, but you have a sort of peasant digestion that can kind of cope with it, you know. And white bread was extraordinary. It became the kind of flag of working people in this country.

They just wanted white bread. And there's a wonderful economist and vicar, I suppose, in the late 18th century. And he said, you know, people who grow the wheat, thresh the wheat, grind it. Why can't they have white bread? Why shouldn't they have it? And it's so interesting because then you get lots of people who say no that's not good for you you shouldn't be having white bread you should be having brown bread and it becomes a sort of a health stroke class battle which sourdough has sort of given us a kind of you know an opt-out from in a funny kind of way in that case i'm afraid we've done sourdough we must move inexorably on to the inevitable avocado part of the conversation. Now, when I was growing up, you know, it's the colour of your bathroom suite, so-called. And that's if you were posh. Well, I'm very lucky. These days, avocados are everywhere. I live in a household where the avocado is omnipresent. I never thought I'd live in a household where people would say things like we've run out of avocados, but now people do.

Are they all right, avocados? My understanding is actually that they're not particularly good. They need lots of water apart from anything else. Well, I think if you're talking about climate change, somebody else can give you far more detail about that. I think it's interesting because what avocado is doing in terms of its career trajectory is following the potato and the tomato in the sense that it comes in, it's adopted by a kind of elite of one kind or another, and it then sort of becomes popular, and then sort of filters down through the population. And then when it gets to everybody starts to eat it, then people who are, you know, educated or whatever start quite often find reasons why we shouldn't be eating these things. When it got to the subject of tea,

I know I did say during the course of that conversation, I was a milk in first. It's always because I'm just so desperate for the thing to be ready. I'm afraid I have absolutely no class at all, as many of you will know. Bob says milk clogs up the tiny holes in the tea bag and slows down the mashing. My grandparents who who used tea leaves, said that milk first made the cup cold. They were in service and they knew how the posh people made their tea. All crockery had to be warmed before use. Milk first, says Bob, is utter madness. Here's a good one from Pam.

I was looking for my husband in Waitrose one day. That sounds as though she went to Waitrose to look for a husband. And listen, Pam, you may be onto something there. I think Pam's already got a husband and she was looking for him in Waitrose. I was looking for my husband in Waitrose one day when a young assistant asked the other if he'd stopped up on the quail's eggs. I burst out laughing as I didn't often shop in Waitrose and it wasn't a comment I'd ever heard in Sainsbury's where I usually go. From Patty. Some years ago, my son, a painter and decorator,

went to give an estimate for a job to an elderly lady. On answering the door, he was asked, as a tradesman, to go to the back door, which he immediately did. On entering the kitchen, he was offered a cup of tea. He said, in his very best queen's english thank you i'll have earl grey with lemon he got the job and has since done lots of work for her yeah patty i mean i you can't you don't tell us whether he likes earl grey um perhaps he does i can't stand earl grey actually that's another um mark against me isn't it um thank you for that

um your son was obviously on to something, wasn't he? Now, the Panamanian-American conductor Kalina Bovell is currently assistant conductor of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, and she's just made her international conducting debut at the South Bank with Chineke, Europe's first majority black, Asian and ethnically diverse orchestra. She told me just how significant her international conducting debut was for her. Oh, I mean, it's incredibly huge. But then also, you know, to work with Chineke for me was a dream come true because I remember seeing that press release in 2015. You know, I remember seeing this image of this ensemble

of people who looked like me. And I remember saying, one day, I'm going to work with this orchestra. Just for anybody who doesn't know, how long has the orchestra been going? And who inspired all that? So the orchestra has been around since 2015. And it was founded by Chichi Nwanaku, OBE, who was the double bass player. Yeah. So they've been in existence for five years now, going on six. Tell us a little bit about yourself, Kalina. I gather you are, well, you were a violinist and a really good one.

That is correct. So I started playing the violin when I was 11 years old. So my parents are originally from Central America. They are from Panama and moved to the United States in the late 70s, early 80s. Yeah. So I didn't grow up in a musical household. I grew up in a household that was very big on education. And so I actually thought I was going to be a teacher, but I came to music when I was nine years old because I started singing, eventually started playing the violin and didn't come to conducting until university.

And it just kind of fell into place where I just decided this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. But why is conducting better for you than being a violinist? You know, the thing with violin is that one, I was so very late to the instrument. So normally, when you start a string instrument, you're three or four years old. Now, I started when I was 11. I didn't have my first private lesson until I was 18. So I was seven years self-taught in the public school system, which for me already put me behind all of my colleagues by the time I got to university. And so when I got to university, I also kept getting injuries. I mean, I had tendonitis in my forearms and my shoulders.

So there were so many obstacles I was always having to overcome. Whereas with conducting, when I first started, it wasn't like I had to relearn how to physically use my body. It was something that was brand new and something that I could initially just kind of start with as a beginner, as opposed to constantly having to relearn, readjust, and fix. And conducting for me, it was just something about it was so natural from the movements to just seeing how a score fit together to working with the musicians I mean there was just something about it that for me I just knew I had to keep pursuing. I wonder really what it feels like to take charge of an orchestra for the first time how do you how do you play it Kalina

how do you look um what do you say to them? How do you get them on side, I suppose, is what I'm asking. You know, I think the biggest thing that I can do as a conductor is have a very clear vision before going into the first rehearsal in regards to the things that I want musically and sonically. And I think also, you know, the job of a conductor is we're also psychologists. We have to read the room. We have to be able to know what a section wants, what a person needs to hear, how they need to hear it. And the thing about me is I'm not a dictator. I'm very down to earth. I'm very relaxed when I get on the podium. And I think people can just get a sense of my friendly nature.

And most people generally just want to play myth with me and want to work with me. And so for the first rehearsal, I always listen. Let's have a little bit of the music. Here we go. ¶¶ ORCHESTRA PLAYS Now, that is something very, very significant, actually, isn't it, Kalina? That is Adolphus Hailstock's Epitaph for a Man. Tell us about that. Oh, I mean, just hearing that takes me back to the performance. So it was written by Adolphus Hailstock, who is an American composer, who is an African-American composer. And it was written in memorolphus Hale Stork, who is an American composer, who is an African-American composer.

And it was written in memoriam of Martin Luther King. And so that's special to me because, one, living in Memphis, the place where Dr. King died. And then also here we have the African-American Civil Rights Museum. And so it takes place at the Lorraine Motel. And so you're going through that exhibit and you're just seeing kind of the last few steps and the last few things that Martin Luther King did on the day that his life ended. But, you know, what's interesting about that piece is one of the notes that the composer wrote says, A great man is being buried. A few mourners ring the gravesite singing a spiritual. Gradually more bereaved gather and join in they reflect upon their memories of hopes and dreams inspired by their fallen leader and i mean this this piece for me was very powerful and i remember this i actually teared up on the podium because of all

the emotion that i was thinking about as you know being a memphian and the thing about memphis is parts of the city um has stood still since the death of Martin Luther King. And if you speak to many Memphians, they will tell you, you know, there are two things that we will never forgive ourselves for, which is we have killed two kings because Elvis died here and then also Martin Luther King died here. So, I mean, there's this huge burden that they walk around with on their shoulders. Do you really, you really, I've never been to Memphis, so I don't know, but do you really sense that, that people haven't moved on? The place hasn't allowed itself or has it not been allowed to move on? What do you say?

I think it's a little bit of both. And the reason I say it has not moved on because you can drive into certain areas and you will still see the same architecture. You will still see the same paint from the 60s. You will see unpaved roads I mean it really does look like a time stamp it's very interesting yeah I know you're conscious of the fact that you didn't have many role models in the role you currently occupy I guess Marion Orsop is somebody I've been fortunate enough to talk to her as well. She is, is she the woman as far as your profession is concerned? She is very much considered the woman conductor.

But it's amazing to see how many more women conductors are now starting to be present in this field. And that matters. It matters greatly, you know, and I think for me being African-American and Hispanic, I mean, for me that's important because especially with for me being African-American and Hispanic, I mean, for me, that's important because especially with Memphis being predominantly African-American community, I feel like it is my responsibility to be a representation for this community and for other

communities, just like Maren is a huge representation for me being a woman. I don't know whether you watch, what's the American version of our dancing show? Is it Dancing with the Stars in America? It is. Yes, it well here we have strictly come dancing and this week one of the contestants did dance to a metallica track oh my god yes yes the comedian bill bailey he's extraordinary it was extraordinary he's through to the final i should say you've got a bit of a thing for metallica too can you explain why people love Metallica? You know, it's not just Metallica. So I love death metal and I love heavy metal alternative, like just rock and roll in general. And I mean, Metallica is just one of those bands where they have been around

for such a long time and their music is infectious. And even the writing and the lyrical content is just amazing. I'm sorry, the lyrical content of death metal. OK, can you quote something that I'm likely to be moved by? That's a challenge, isn't it? Yeah, first thing in the morning in Memphis. But what I love is just that you're totally Catholic music taste. It's all music and there's something for everybody out there. No, exactly.

You know, but I love the way you said that it's all music. And there's something for everybody out there. No, exactly. You know, but I love the way you said that. It's all music. And I think the most important thing is if it touches you, that's the only thing that matters. She sounds absolutely amazing. The conductor Kalina Buvel, who made her international conducting debut at the South Bank this week. Please do make sure you're with us on Monday morning, just after 10 o'clock. Amongst other things, we'll be discussing the BBC's Christmas adaptation of Ruma Godden's Black Narcissus in the company of the screenwriter. That's Amanda Coe. That's Monday morning, just after 10. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered.

There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this?

From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.