Woman's Hour - Shirley Ballas, Flexible working, Lesley Manville

Episode Date: September 21, 2019

The magic of dance with Shirley Ballas, head judge on BBC series Strictly, Curtis Pritchard, Love Island participant and professional ballroom dancer, and Theresa Buckland, Professor of Dance History at Roehampton University. Vicky Phelan exposed a medical scandal which affected her, and over 200 other Irish women. She found out that cervical smear tests, including hers, were mistakenly given the all clear when they were in fact abnormal. Women didn't get the treatment that might have prevented, or halted cancer. Vicky who is now living with a terminal diagnosis took her case to court and she was awarded 2.5 million Euros in compensation. Her book is called Overcoming: A Memoir.The reality of searching for part time or flexible work. How hard is it to find good jobs that make use of your skills and abilities part-time? We hear from Karen Mattison, Joint CEO of Timewise about their new research. And listener Sarah who is looking for part-time work. The actor Lesley Manville on her role in the BBC's new Sunday night wartime drama World on Fire. In the city of St Louis, Missouri, the number of children who’ve been killed by a gun is rising. Most of them were caught in the cross fire, doing normal things like playing outside their house. Mothers, some who’ve lost a child, marched in the City last weekend to express their anger. Reporter Siobhann Tighe met the organiser, the Reverend Traci Blackmon.Two decades ago, a public health official exposed how contaminated blood and plasma had led to tens of thousands of impoverished villagers and hospital patients being infected with hepatitis and HIV in Henan province, China. Today that story is told in a new production called ‘The King of Hell's Palace’ at The Hampstead Theatre, London. The Chinese whistleblower, Dr Shuping Wang and playwright Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig discuss. British-born Mauritian cook Selina Periampillai describes the diverse cuisine of Mauritius and its neighbouring islands in her first cookbook, The Island Kitchen. She Cooks the Perfect... Tuna Curry. Presented by Jane Garvey Produced by Dianne McGregor Edited by Jane Thurlow

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, a very good afternoon and welcome to the weekend edition of Woman's Hour. Now, what's happening tonight? Well, it's only strictly it's back. And on this programme, head judge Shirley Ballas on the idea of same-sex couples on the show. In our industry, we have same-sex couples. We have two women that dance together, we have two men that dance together and for me when I look at it I just look at the movement to the music and I look at the expression of two bodies and what they're trying to portray. I don't judge whether it's two men, two women,

a man or a woman. Also on this programme the reality of looking for flexible work and you can hear from Lesley Manville. She's the star of the new BBC Sunday Night World War Two drama World on Fire, which starts next week. But here she is telling Jenny about her Oscar nomination for Phantom Thread. It was quite bizarre, the doors that it opened really instantly. I was never going to go to America and sit there and wait for someone to employ me. But an Oscar nomination makes a difference. I wouldn't have thought it, but it does. Also today, the whistleblower, Dr. Xu Ping Wang, she exposed the spread of HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood and plasma in China.

And if you're in the, if you're a bit hungry, we've got a fantastic tuna curry from the Maldives in this edition of Weekend Woman's Hour. Let's start with Vicky Phelan. She is a household name in Ireland. She's the woman who exposed a medical scandal affecting her and over 200 other Irish women. Vicky's now 44. Her children are 14 and 8. And she found out that cervical smear tests, including hers, mistakenly got the all

clear when they were in fact abnormal. And that meant that women didn't get the treatment that might have prevented or halted their cancer. Vicky went to court and was awarded two and a half million euros in compensation. She is now living with a terminal prognosis, but she's getting treatment. She's written a book about her experience called Overcoming a Memoir. When I talked to her, I wanted really just to start by asking how she is. I'm really well. I just had my 25th infusion of the immunotherapy drug that I'm on called Pembrolizumab on Wednesday, and I have an absolutely fantastic quality of life. If you didn't know you wouldn't say I had cancer to be honest. You know at this stage with the terminal diagnosis I you

know most people are in either a hospice or in hospital with pain management and you know I'm not living my life like that. I just go up and down for my treatment every three weeks and I'm living really well. Well can we go back then to the smear test you had in 2011 and the result was negative. Yes so I went for my smear in 2011 about three and a half months after I had my son Dara and at the time actually and they've changed it now but at the time when you had a baby at your six-week check-up with your gynaecologist you'd have a smear and that's exactly what happened in my case. Now, I was a little bit later going in for my check-up. So it was maybe eight weeks or nine weeks after having my son.

I had my smear test with my gynaecologist and got the phone call, you know, a few days or a week later when the result came back to say that, yeah, no, there's no problem at all, Vicky. Everything is clear. You know, you'll just have another smear in three years' time and time and you just you know come and present yourself as normal with the screening program so because I'd never had an abnormal smear gene I didn't worry about it at all I wasn't expecting to hear anything different so I just got on with my life. And when did you notice symptoms? I didn't notice symptoms until about March 2014 so nearly three years. And what I noticed was just, you know, very light spotting really in between my periods. And I'm very lucky that I've always had very regular periods.

You know, I used to literally get them on the same day practically every month. I was like clockwork. And what I noticed was the spotting that I was getting in between my period, it was a different colour and that's what made me kind of think, oh, this is a bit unusual. And that's important, isn't it? Yeah, very important. So it's like a

light pink, I would say to women, you know, with menstrual blood, it's very dark. This was light pink, almost red at times. You know, I now know that it was a tumour that was shedding. And that's, you know, key to all of this, you know, for the different colour, you know, it's generally not menstrual blood. So I kept an eye on it for maybe three months and then on the third month what happened that really drove me into my GP was that I bled after sex with my husband and it was quite a lot of blood and it was red so that really frightened me to be honest so I went straight in to my GP on the Monday after the weekend that we went away. And then you got the absolute and it must have been utterly devastating, the diagnosis of cervical cancer. Yes, it really was. I'd had no pain. I wasn't having any other symptoms.

And I think, you know, if you've never had cancer, you always assume that if you're going to get diagnosed, you're going to be in agony and you'll have very obvious symptoms. But that wasn't the case. So you started treatment, obviously, and you write very explicitly actually in the book and I do think it's important that you do about the immense strain that this put on, the side effects of the treatment are really overlooked. Apart from the physical side effects, they give you all, you know, the drugs to deal with the anti-nausea tablets to deal with the sickness. And they give you steroids because you're, you know, to try and give you a little bit of energy because you're tired. But they actually don't deal with the horrendous side effects as a woman that you feel after having this treatment. So the treatment, you know, that I had radiation, you know, you have external radiation, but then you have this form of radiation called brachytherapy, where they

literally insert rods, you know, up your vagina and they radiate whatever's left inside you. And afterwards, you know, if I literally scraped my nail on the inside of my vagina, even to this day, Jane, it would bleed. Like that's how much it affects you. So you can imagine trying to, you know, resume any type of sexual relationship after having treatment, you know, in this way is very hard. And in our case with myself and my husband, you know, we'd already been having problems because, you know, our daughter had had a very serious accident the year before I was diagnosed with cancer, which really had kind of knocked us for six. So, you know, it's an awful cancer to get. And I've met so many women, to be honest, whose relationships have just not survived because they just couldn't deal with the effect of the treatment. But the diabolical truth is that this shouldn't or need not have happened because your smear in 2011 wasn't negative.

It was positive, wasn't it? Yes, exactly. And that was very hard for me to to take that actually and I mean I only discovered that this was the case when I insisted on a biopsy so when I was re-diagnosed at the end of 2017 I'd had a conversation with my gynaecologist and basically you know he told me about this audit that had been carried out by cervical check looking at women who had already been diagnosed with cervical cancer and what they did was they went back and looked at their smear history to see was there anything that could have been picked up earlier but he never really said it was quite vague that you know I definitely had cancer in 2011. It was when I insisted on the biopsy and was sitting in this treatment room that I decided you know it was time to look at my file

and see what I could find about this audit and I found this report which was in black and white and quite clearly stated that in 2011 when they reviewed my smear it wasn't clear I actually had cancer it wasn't even pre-cancerous I had cancer in 2011

And you were not the only woman? No, I wasn't and at the time when in 2011. And you were not the only woman? No, I wasn't. And at the time, you know, when I discovered this, I assumed I was the only woman. I thought this was something that just had happened to me. And obviously, because I was in a situation where I knew time was of the essence and I'd been given a terminal diagnosis,

you know, I went off and, you know, found a solicitor to take this case. And we found out literally through the discovery process that anything I was mentioned in, obviously, had to be given to my this case. And we found out literally through the discovery process that anything I was mentioned in obviously had to be given to my legal team. And we discovered at that stage that there were 14 other women. And, you know, the day I found out that there were other women, really, you could have knocked me for six. I couldn't believe that this was happening to other women.

I never understand how people like you, who have been through so much and such devastating poor health, are able to fight a campaign of any kind. Where do you get the strength from? I'm a very stubborn person, Jane, and I'm very principled. And I suppose I just felt that I could not stand over this and not make sure that these other women found out. And, you know, I often wonder if I hadn't been as sick as what I had been at the time, you know, because I knew my time was really limited and I didn't start on the drug that I'm on until, you know, literally the week of my court case. So I was, you know, four months after getting this terminal diagnosis and I was on no treatment and I was getting very,

very sick. So, you know, because I was backed into a corner and I had nothing to lose, you know, they often say, you know, don't get somebody like that angry and I had nothing to lose, they often say, don't get somebody like that angry because I had nothing to lose. I was so adamant that I needed these women to know before I died that I did whatever I could to make sure that that would happen. Part of the explanation is that the smear tests, the testing of them was outsourced to the United States to a laboratory there.

That's right, isn't it? That's correct. So this all happened back in 2008. It was a cost-saving measure, really. I remember watching back some of the footage in the Dáil chambers, in the Parliament chambers in Ireland here at the time, and it was very hard for me to watch that,

to see that there were people who were trying to keep this service in the country, and the decision at the end of the day was made on a cost-saving measure, you know, that the quality was not on the top of the agenda at the time. It was basically the cost of the service. Vicky Phelan, who's a really, really impressive woman, and I recommend that book, Overcoming. Now, for the last four years, any employee with six months service has the legal

right to ask for flexible working. And this week, new research from the flexible working consultancy TimeWise made quite a few headlines. The headline in the Times version of the story was boom in flexible working for highly paid employees, which sounds wonderful, but the full story is rather more complicated than that. I talked to Karen Matteson, who's a joint CEO of TimeWise, and asked her, first of all, what the difference was between part-time and flexible work. The broad kind of heading of flexible working includes part-time working. And the easiest way, I think, to think about it is if you have flexibility on where, when or how much you work. So where you work, working from home, remote locations, that sort of thing.

When you work, start times, early starts, late finishes, flexing on your hours. And the crucial one, which many employers are finding more difficult, is the part time, which is the how much you work. One of the challenges of this whole area is that when you say flexible working, some people assume that means part-time, some people assume it means remote. So the Times headline, boom in flexible working, is there a boom? There is a boom in the sense that more people than ever are working flexibly in that broader sense. But the research that TimeWise has just done is actually looking at the jobs market. So we know that you have the right to request flexible working if you're already in a job. But the biggest challenging, the biggest thing that actually traps so many women in part-time or flexible roles is that when you look at the vacancy market, when you want to apply for a new job, what we were told anecdotally and by the

thousands of people on our job site, TimeWise Jobs, is that there's nothing out there. It's a desert. There's hardly any flexible roles. The question is question is is that true and the research that we've said today put out today shows they are absolutely right to feel like it's a desert 85 percent of jobs make no mention of flexibility at all at the point of hire and that's why it's so impossible if you're looking for a flexible or part-time job to know what to apply for. Well, let's bring in a listener, Sarah. Now, you are in Newcastle, aren't you? And tell us just a bit about yourself. How old are you, Sarah?

I'm 50 and I am looking for part-time work. And what in particular would you like to do? Well, my background is working in the media and the NHS. So that type of work, the difficulty I'm having is that any part-time jobs that you see advertised are very low paid and have no prospects. Can I just read out a paragraph in the email you sent to the programme? And it's an interesting point this, many of my female friends are in the same position as me and in order to work part-time are doing jobs in caring, data entry or junior

admin. I must emphasise, I don't think we're above these jobs, but it is a waste of our education, experience and abilities. That's the nub of this, isn't it, Sarah? It is, and it's also about diversity, I think, because I think if employers are serious about including people and diversity rather than, heaven forbid, just showing lip service to it. They really need to employ people part time because it does affect women mainly. And if they want women to be working in senior positions, then they really need to consider giving them part time work.

Karen, if you are overqualified for a role, but frankly, you need a job, you need to pay your rent or your mortgage and the bills. Should you accept that job? If you want that job, there's nothing wrong with rent or your mortgage and the bills. Should you accept that job? If you want that job, there's nothing wrong with you accepting it. But might you get trapped there? Yes, I think the evidence very clearly shows that people who work part time and flexibly, 77% of them say they feel trapped because the problem is, you start off being grateful for having that flexibility. But then when you want to progress, as we do, we want to progress up the ladder, either in the organisation we're in, or externally, because you don't see anything advertised, you feel like you can't move up and you can't move out, which is exactly the

situation, probably that Sarah is in now. So essentially, the market is forcing us to play it cleverly. And I think, unfortunately, many of us don't do that. Was this what you expected to happen, Sarah, when you decided to go back to work? No, I was working full time before I had my family and I arranged with my employers to go back part time after I had my first child. And when I was thinking of going back to work after having my second child and thinking about whether to stay at home, a lot of women said to me, you must go back because you'll never get a part-time job at that level again if you're applying for it from being unemployed. And at the time I thought, oh, that's ridiculous. You know, I've got a good CV, I've got loads of experience, etc., etc.

And they were right. It's exactly the position I find myself in. Karen? So, yeah, I think that's the experience of so many people. But I think there are some tricks to it. And I think, essentially, I think we've got two choices. If we want to look for a quality, progress, part time or flexible job. One is we can sit back like good girls and wait for the market to get better. And by the rate of change, you know, we've gone from 9% of vacancies five years ago to 15% now. So at that rate of change, you know, we've gone from 9% of vacancies five years ago to 15% now. So at that rate of change, you might see, Sarah, your dream job advertised in about 2040.

Or your second option, which unfortunately is what we need to recommend, is that you apply for roles. And where there is no flexibility advertised, you assume that that's something you can negotiate later. Because we understand now that you can negotiate salary, but we're not so comfortable with negotiating flexibility. And we end up talking about our childcare arrangements and things that actually aren't relevant to the role. So probably the most successful way of doing it that you can do it is apply for the role. The challenge is it's like poker, when do you show your hand? If you do it too soon, and the employer hasn't fallen in love with you yet, you just become that annoying person who's talking about what they can and can't do before you've actually got the job. Once the employer wants you, then you're in a negotiation

situation. And we know now that nine out of 10 employers are open to discussing some form of flexibility for the right candidate. So once you know you're the right candidate, that's a different kind of conversation. But I would also recommend that we're flexible about the kind of flexibility we're prepared to take. So it might be your dream scenario is a three day a week job, but it may be you negotiate on a three and a half days or four days or a day from home. So be prepared to give something. Be prepared to give something. And also, I think one of the things we do wrong is we push the problem over to the employer to the other side of the table and say, right, I want three days. What are you going to do about it? I would do it differently. I would say, I've worked in this way in this role, or I know how it can be done. I think the job could be designed more creatively. And with that 20% salary saving, you could do this. So in a sense, you're bringing some ideas and some solutions, not just the request for flexible working do you have conversations

with your friend sarah about all this i mean you said in the email that you know other women in similar situations absolutely i've got loads of friends who are who are doing jobs that don't fit with their education or experience simply because those jobs fit in with their family lives or their caring responsibilities or whatever i get the whole thing about to apply for a job full-time and then negotiate but to some extent we shouldn't be having to do that should we yeah i totally agree with you sarah but unfortunately i think that is the reality and that's why time wise we're obviously working and supporting candidates and and supporting them in the job market with really good high quality advice and also a source of jobs to apply for but we've got

to do the flip side of it, which is work with the employers to show them the business benefits and things like that are very high on the agenda of employers at the moment, like the gender pay gap. Don't lose the women in the first place, like you say. Help them progress. We know that's why women are disappearing from the middle ranks of the ladder because they leave or they stay where they are. Really quick comment from Emma on Twitter who says, I'd argue the chances of being offered that job are minuscule. This is a job for which

you're overqualified. As the employer is concerned, you're going to jump ship for something more senior. So that's another aspect of it, isn't it? So I think that's what I think it's there's so many issues that relate to confidence. And I think we've got to have that belief in ourselves and be able to negotiate just like we would on salary. Some really interesting responses from you. That was Karen Matteson of TimeWise, by the way. This from Rachel, who says, I found this discussion about flexible working very relevant to my current situation. In fact, it brought tears to my eyes. I've got an undergraduate degree, a master's, a professional postgrad qualification and following this I've worked in heritage organisations for 15 years.

I was made redundant from my last job when the government funding ran out. A combination of needing to work part-time around school hours and not being able to commute too far has meant that I've now been job hunting for 18 months with no success. A friend jokingly asked if I'd retired. I'm 43 and it really scared me. Have I come to the end of my useful paid contribution to society? The impact this is having on my mental health cannot be underestimated. I feel worthless and without identity. But the upside of your programme is that I will now look again at full-time positions with fresh eyes

in the hope that perhaps I could negotiate some more flexibility further down the line. Rachel, I'm really sorry that you've been through all that. It's so frustrating, to put it mildly. Please do keep in touch. Let us know if things improve for you. Now, next Sunday, the BBC's new drama World on Fire starts. Over seven episodes, it tells the story of the first year of the Second World War through the lives

of people in England and indeed across other parts of Europe. In England, there is a stark class divide in the programme. Sean Bean plays the father of Lois, who's in love with Harry. Harry's mother, Rubina, who's played by Leslie Manville, doesn't approve. Sean Bean's character is a working-class widowed bus driver. Robina seems really rather pleased that her son has been sent to Warsaw as a translator, a job that rather suits her ambitions for him. In this extract, Lois goes to Robina's house to ask if she's heard from Harry as news of the conflict begins to emerge.

The thing I know about men, Lois, is they do not write. They don't understand passion on the page. They have no desire or inclination to express their feelings. He writes beautiful letters. At least he wrote beautiful letters. Romantic letters. They were in his handwriting, were they dear? Well, he wouldn't be the first man to have his secretary add the kind of florid affectations every young girl likes to hear. I know, Harry. Perhaps not like you do. But I do. He's not like that. No man is ever like that. Until they are.

He told me he loved me. Did he really? How very Harry of him. I just need to know he's all right. Harry must have come to his senses. And I advise you to do the same. I don't like the sound of her very much. That's Julia Brown as Lois and Leslie Manville as Robina.

So what does Leslie make of Robina, who's obviously a quite different character from that of Cathy in her hit series, Mom? Well, she's a snob, as you can tell from that clip. She's an upper-middle-class Mancunian who is a widower and she is wanting the very, very, very best for her son. But as the series goes on, you obviously start to see the other side of her. You do go inside her head a bit and her heart even a little bit to see what she's really about.

But she's a very, very different mother from Cathy and Mum. What drew you to a series about the start of World War II? Script, really. I mean, for me, it always begins with script. This is written by Peter Bowker, and it's a real rich tapestry. And I loved the fact that there is a central character. It is Robina's son, played by Jonah Howard King. He is the thread through the whole thing.

But I loved the thought that, you know, there's going to be Helen Hunt, plays the American war correspondent. There are all these other stories. And so to do something where you are part of a larger plan appealed to me. But script always, really. And what a fascinating character. It is a genuinely star-studded cast. You, Sean Bean, Helen Hunt as the journalist. And I wondered when I've only seen the first episode, obviously.

Me too. But I wondered how much time did a cast of a series like this actually spend together? Oh, well, I didn't ever meet Helen Hunt. I never got to go to Prague where they shot the scenes for Poland and France. I really spent my'll improve as the series goes on, as snobby Robina. And I wondered how different is it to be playing a potentially dislikable character as opposed to one who was so loved, like Cathy? Yes, well, I think the thing that will redeem Robina is her wit. Peter has written some fantastically funny lines, arch, dry humour for me to deliver.

And I think that will save Robina from the nation loathing her. Cathy was often described as downtrodden by her really rather selfish son. Would you have described her as downtrodden? Not at all. I think Kathy completely knew who she was. She was a woman absolutely in control of full knowledge of her emotions and her feelings and the way she wanted to conduct her life. She was as solid as a rock. Yeah, her son misunderstood her, but her son and his girlfriend, you know, they thought of Kathy as old and past it. And the great thing about that series, which so many people have mentioned and admired about it, was that it was a middle-aged love story, which you don't often see on television.

Harry's not the perfect son either, we discover even in the first episode. And I know you've got a son who's 31 I think what does he think of the sons you play with I've had an amazing cast list I've been mother to James Corden way back in a Mike Lee film I've had all sorts of sons what does he think of them I'm not entirely sure he's been a great he is a great son but yeah all the others are fiction aren't they? He's the

real McCoy. Does he watch you when you're on the team? Oh yeah he does and he works behind the camera on the camera crew and I have occasionally worked with him so and that's really nice I keep seeing him and thinking what are you doing here and I forget he's on the camera team um yeah we last spoke when you were Oscar nominated for Phantom

Thread yeah what doors did that nomination open for you oh I mean it was quite bizarre um Jenny the doors that it opened really instantly I mean what feels like within days I was offered a film which is virtually a two-hander with Liam Neeson called Ordinary Love, which we shot in Belfast last year and has just been at Toronto Film Festival. I've just been doing another film in Calgary with Kevin Costner and Diane Lane. I mean, I couldn't have wished for a better career here. I was not looking for anything. I was never going to go to America and sit there and wait for someone to employ me.

But Phantom Thread came absolutely out of the blue. And then, of course, an Oscar nomination makes a difference. I wouldn't have thought it, but it does. So for me, everything feels the same. It's just that this American door has opened a little bit and I'll dip my toe in it when I want to with the same criteria that I give to all of the jobs I choose to do. Is the script good? Is the director good? Are the other actors interesting? Am I going to be able to do something with it? And those rules will carry on applying. The fantastic actress Leslie Manville,

who appears in World on Fire at the BBC's new drama starting next Sunday. Now, knife crime has become a real crisis in this country over recent years, but in America, the weapon of choice is still the gun. In the city of St Louis, in the state of Missouri, the number of children who've the gun. In the city of St. Louis, in the state of Missouri, the number of children who've been killed by a gun just keeps rising. The latest figure from just a few days ago is 23 this year. Most of them were caught in crossfire. They'd just been doing completely normal things like playing outside their house.

Mothers, some of whom have lost a child in this way, marched in St. Louis to express their house. Mothers, some of whom have lost a child in this way, marched in St. Louis to express their anger. Our reporter Siobhan Tai met the organiser of the event, the Reverend Tracey Blackman. Hey Stacey, it's Tracey. How are you? I am good, thanks. How are you doing? I am well and you're on the car phone so be nice. When I was with Tracey, she was planning a mother's march. Just a few days before, a seven-year-old had been shot and killed. And just days afterwards, two children, eight years old and five years old, had died. Tonight I'm having a call about doing another mother's march. You remember five years ago, in October October we did a Mother's March in

Clayton? Sure. And someone called me last night reminding me of that Mother's March and saying it may be time for us to go in the streets again. But the same kind of ethos, remember when we did it before? Mothers who had lost children all kinds of ways showed up. And we want to make it a community cry of mothers saying we cannot continue to sit by while our children are dying. The 23 deaths this year include children who've been killed by playing with a gun, which happened just a few days ago to a three-year-old. But mostly the number refers to children who tragically were in the way when a bullet was fired.

For you, Siobhan, it's knife crime because you are coming from London. But in the United States, it's gun violence. We have an epidemic of gun violence. In St. Louis in particular, we have a problem with gun violence in our inner cities. So what is happening this summer is that we have had a rash of young children being killed. How young? As young as four and averaging about eight and ten. These are not kids who are involved in any kind of action with guns. These are children who were being children and were in the wrong

places. Some of them were killed in drive-bys. Some of them were killed while they were in their parents' arms. Some of them were killed while they were playing with their toys. Some of them were killed in their homes. And is this widely reported? It's widely reported here, but in the United States, we have this happening all over. Chicago has as many deaths as we do because of gun violence, and largely it's communal violence.

The media has been reporting on the deaths of the children pretty accurately, and there's no common thread except that it's random violence. Some of it's random violence. One case that's up now probably is less random, and it was the killing of an entire family. But all we know for sure is that there's violence in our streets that is uncontrolled and that our children are suffering the brunt of that. Is it affecting black youngsters more than white youngsters? Absolutely, absolutely. In St. Louis, it is heavily impacting our black neighborhoods and mostly neighborhoods who are economically challenged. We've just stepped outside because every evening you can hear the insects in the trees and they're buzzing away.

As a faith leader, what are you going to do about this problem of gun violence? What are you suggesting that you and your colleagues do? Well, we're going to start by calling mothers into the streets to cry out for our children and to cry out for the blood that's been shared in our streets and hopefully mobilize our communities in ways that begin to form techniques and practices of protecting our children for ourselves. And that's going to take the entire community. It's not to leave fathers out. There will be a role for fathers to play as well.

But as the carriers of children, we want to come together. Not just, you don't have to have birthed a child to be out there, right? That's not what I'm saying. But we want to cry out as women and say, we need to stop the blood from pouring in our streets. That was the Reverend Tracy Blackman and our reporter Siobhan Tai who is in St Louis, Missouri. Now, a bit later in this programme, we've got a genuine, this was lovely, Jenny loved it, the Moldavian tuna curry that was cooked for her this week by Selina Perriampilla.

So you can find out how to make that. The recipe, by the way, is on the website bbc.co.uk slash womanshour. And if there's anything you'd really like us to discuss on the programme, every week here is Listener Week. It really is. We need ideas and inspiration from you. We'll take anything. Make sure you email us.

You can use that website address and you'll find the way to contact us there. On social media, we're on Instagram and Twitter at bbcwomanshour. Now, I strongly suspect that many of you might be sitting down, who knows, contact us there. On social media, we're on Instagram and Twitter at BBC Woman's Hour. Now, I strongly suspect that many of you might be sitting down, who knows, possibly with a drink in your hand around about two minutes to seven tonight to make sure you don't miss a moment of Strictly. It's the first live show this evening. And on Friday, we simply celebrated dance for a glorious 45 minutes, if I say so myself. My guests included Strictly's head judge, Shirley Ballas,

professional ballroom dancer, Curtis Pritchard, and professor of dance history, Teresa Buckland from Roehampton University. Now, at 18, Shirley won her first major title, the United Kingdom Clothes Championship. By the age of 23, she'd won all major titles worldwide. And she's now head judge on the biggest TV show in the land. When I first got the job, I mean, for somebody of 57 to get that job was amazing. I'd done no TV whatsoever before, but I do know my trade. I've been doing it since I was like five years old. And I wanted to bring a technical aspect that

perhaps the viewers could start to understand a little bit about what we're judging or what I was judging. You know, I didn't want it all flowery and just, oh, I love your dress. I really wanted to try, and I tried with my hands to express what was a heel and what was a toe, what was inside edge of the foot, what was outside edge of the foot. So I was trying to develop little methods that perhaps the audience could identify with. That's my whole thing is I want to reach those people in the homes and I want them to understand why I have to send somebody home if you don't vote and just to generally see things a little bit from the way that I see them. I do try to balance the technical aspect with the energy and the excitement of performing because that's all important for me is how you bring that love of music, just like Curtis said,

you know, that love, that heart. It's all important. It's not just about the technique. At the end of the day, really, I'm going to say this, the technique really doesn't matter. You need it. It's like a little bit of a guide, but the whole body, the whole process of how you're moving is majorly important. And did you expect to be criticised a little bit? I've been criticised all my life

so for me it was just the normal thing. But your credentials, as you say, are absolutely impeccable. Thank you. So there was no reason to criticise you and yet some people do they, is it just that some people don't like to be told things by a woman who knows her business, do you think?

You know, I don't think it's a woman or a man. I think we're in a social media era now. You know, people just like to criticise other people. Sometimes it's hard for them to see the good or try to understand. They're already attacking or firing at you before you've even opened your mouth. There's always chatter around Strictly and there's always a degree of controversy.

There's a lot of froth surrounding it, which people enjoy, of course. But there's been an interesting discussion about same-sex partnerships coming onto the programme, I think, next series. I mean, we've got, we can't, obviously, same-sex couples have been dancing together since humans have existed. But will this be a big televisual first, as far as you're concerned? Well, I think so. I mean, I danced with a little girl partner all my life up until about 12.

And then in our industry, in Curtis and mine industry, we have same-sex couples. We have two women that dance together. We have two men that dance together. And for me, when I look at it, I just look at the movement to the music. And I look at the expression of two bodies and what they're trying to portray. I don't judge whether it's two men, two women, a man or a woman. If you go onto stage, for example, men have been dancing together since the existence of time and so have women. So what's so different about that in our industry? So it would be a first. I think it would be very welcoming. And I, for one of them, look forward to seeing how that goes down. Just technically, in terms of choreography,

if we're used to seeing women dancing with men, certain things are possible merely because the men tend to be taller and stronger. So isn't there a difference then when you get, say, two women dancing together? No difference at all. Not in terms of what's technically possible? Not at all, because a heel is a heel and a toe is a toe.

And also, I didn't have that tall man. I danced with two men that were five foot six. So, I mean, people come in all shapes and sizes and everybody can dance. And like I say, we have a guide and a technique book. It's a guide, not a gospel. And it shares with you what kind of foot placements you have to make, heels, toes. So, it doesn't really make any difference. At BBC Women's Hour on Twitter, and I should have been prepared for this,

but the Morris dancers have been in touch. It's a great way to make fabulous friends, stay fit, have fun and keep your brain active, learning the precision steps required for these dances. Curtis, could your future lie down the line in Morris dancing? Well, I mean, the future is an unwritten path which nobody knows. So we'll just

have to wait and see on behalf of that. Dancing is my passion. I love it. All styles of dancing and there is many styles which I have not yet tried and would love to try. Does the diplomatic service could wait for you as well actually? You met your new partner Shirley at Jack and the Beanstalk.

I did. You were playing Mother Nature. Well, I got that role and I'd never done any actressing. This shows people out there that you really, truly can do whatever you put your mind to, by the way. So Craig suggested I had this go at panto. Acting, singing, the dancing part was easy. And so I decided to try it.

Now, that was absolutely terrifying, the most terrifying thing I ever did in my whole life, but I gave it a go. And yes, I met Danny Taylor there. He was playing Fleshcreep, the villain, while I was playing Mother Nature, the fairy, who narrated the show. Fleshcreep and Mother Nature.

Yes, Fleshcreep and Mother Nature. So did you get together during the production or at the after-show party on the final night? No, he was coming out of a long-term relationship. He has an eight-year-old son, and we became good friends first, which is always a good thing. When you get older, that's a good thing.

And it was about March we got together and were kind of inseparable. You know, he's just the most amazing person I ever met in my entire life. Yay! I just want to say that. Sounds a keeper. Can he dance?

He can move. He's on stage. He's in Blood Brothers. So yes, he's got some rhythm. Can he dance? He can move. He's on stage. He's in Blood Brothers. So, yes, he's got some rhythm. Can he ballroom dance? No. So will we be learning from the beginning? Yes, we'll be going to the Starlight Ballroom

and we will be learning the basic steps from the beginning and I can't think of anything more fun. I could teach him, but I don't want to. So everybody out there can move and try. Go to the local dance studio. I'll be taking him. Teresa, you're here really to talk about the history of dance why i mean big question this but why do people dance people are wired to dance it's like we make music we also dance and that's across the world and

there are different cultures and they may have very different styles of dancing and that's the wonderful thing is that dance comes in myriad forms just like people do and there's a dance form out there for you whether it's hip-hop or Morris dancing or catak or bhatnatyam there's something out there for you it also is a powerful tool because it dancing's been banned and we shouldn tool because dancing's been banned. Indeed. And we shouldn't forget it's been banned in England. Yes, in the Puritan period, of course, dancing was banned, all pleasurable things were banned, but of course it's bound up with the body and also with notions of gender as well,

so that the idea of people enjoying themselves together might lead to illicit activities. So it's a way of controlling society. And we see it across the world today. Even today, yeah, the Taliban. The Taliban, absolutely. That was Teresa Buckland, who's Professor of Dance History at Roehampton University. And she made some really, really interesting contributions to a conversation that also included Sujata Banerjee, a Catac artist and educator,

and Ingrid McKinnon, a choreographer who teaches jazz and ballet, and she's currently working with the RSC. And we also had some fantastic piano from the pianist Jo Stilgo. So that was Friday's edition of Woman's Hour. If you didn't hear it, you can get the podcast on BBC Sounds with additional material as well, of course, as there always is. Now, The King of Hell's Palace is a play about the tens of thousands of impoverished villagers and hospital patients who were infected with contaminated blood in the mid 1990s. This happened in the Henan province of China. Dr. Shuping Wang is a specialist in hepatitis and she was living and working in the

region when donating blood in rural communities was big business. She discovered widespread liver damage in some of the blood donors and her investigations found hepatitis C and HIV infection had spread as a result of the collection and use of blood and plasma. Dr Wang risked a great deal to reveal the extent of the damage. Frances Yachu-Kauhig has written a play about her work. I first met Xu Ping in Beijing when I was 17 years old at a hot pot restaurant, and that was basically 20 years ago. And so as long as I've known her, I've known of her story. Xu Ping and my father worked together when my father was reporting on public health and AIDS for the U.S. embassy in Beijing.

And so through my father, I knew that Xu Ping is considered a public health hero among a lot of scientists and health workers in Beijing and China as a whole and seen as a kind of Joan of Arc figure. And so this has always been in the back of my head that this would make a very compelling play. But for a long time, I didn't think I had even close to the level of craft that was necessary to even begin to attack the play. And the way the Hanan officials were so literally trying to profit off the blood of poor people, off the farmers, was to me a very potent metaphor for capitalism in general. And as someone who's always interested

in the theme of trauma and recovery, the reasons that the government officials were trying to develop the province to kind of put themselves further away from famine, chaos, cultural revolution, was very compelling to me. And so I started to research the world more and more. Shuping, it's been reported that the Chinese government is pressing you to stop the play being performed. Why would they do that? Actually, for my thinking, they want to stop the show because they think the show can damage their reputation, basically.

And how are they trying to put the pressure on? First, I got a phone call last month. My relative called me. He said, oh, I got a phone call from China. State Security Department, the officer, went to there to ask a lot of questions and basically they want to stop the show. Frances, what's been your response and the theatre's response by China's questions? Well, frankly, I'm not surprised because every time Xu Ping publishes something online about her experience with the Henan AIDS crisis, this happens to her friends, family and colleagues back in Henan. 15 years or so since she left China, came to the United States. The theater, of course,

wants to support Xu Ping and wants to support the story having the broadest platform possible. And so we are all just trying to help do what we can to amplify the story, which has not been told inside China. And in fact, the officials who are responsible for spreading a rural AIDS epidemic have never been prosecuted. Shuping, how did officials respond to your concerns about this? Early time, there's no problem for them. When I found out there's a problem, I reported to local government and told him, I said, it's very dangerous right now, HIV spreading among the blood donor. Similarly, HIV spreading like hepatitis C.

He said, really? I said, yes. Wow, you did a great job. Our people will thank you in the future. I feel very happy. Then I began to say, can you report this to high-level leader? Because in our country, it's not our province. It's not our region.

How these things happen is whole China. After I report to the local officer, a couple weeks later, I go back, ask him again. I said, why I didn't hear anything you reported? He changed his attitude. He said, you think you're correct? I said, absolutely, yes. If you not trust me, I will conform to Beijing. He said, can you write a report? I said, yeah, absolutely, I'll write a report. Then local government began to say, what are you doing? You make big earthquake for us.

I said, what is earthquake? I said, it's true. And they have a big conference in Henan province. Then high leader said, we don't allow the people report this HIV spreading. We are unacceptable for this case. The second day, about 30 people sit in the same room. One guy said, the guy,

how dare he can report this HIV spreading 56% to the central government. How dare he? When I hear what he talk, I know he don't know I'm a man or woman. When I stand up after he finish, he talk aloud. I said, I'm not man. You tell people I'm a guy. I'm a woman. I'm a woman.

I report this. If I didn't report, how do you prevent AIDS from people? Frances, why was the Chinese government so determined to shut Xu Ping up? It's not just Xu Ping. It's also many AIDS activists. Xu Ping is just one of many health workers, activists who are speaking up about AIDS. Yeah, I think that basically they worry about it. One is the power, first, I think.

And second is the money. They lost money if reported this. So what happened to you subsequently? Because you're not in China anymore, are you? Were you driven out or did you choose to leave? Actually, when I was in China, when that happened, I lost my job. They asked me to stay home and work for my, and they didn't pay me money. I lost my marriage. My husband was very stressed every day. They didn't allow him to do his job easily. It gave him a lot of difficulty.

And so finally I feel I want to have a job. I want to work. I don't want to stay home. So I began looking for a job in America. My mentor, my relative, told me, Shuping, I think you should go to another country. Don't stay here anymore if you want to work. What you did, the good job, basically should reward you. It's not beat you up. So that's how I feel I have to live for another country. Dr Xu Ping Wang, and if you're intrigued,

The King of Hell's Palace is a play. It's running at the Hampstead Theatre in London until the 12th of October. And now to the tuna curry recipe I promised you. The cook here is Selina Periampilla. She's written a book called The Island Kitchen, Recipes from Mauritius and the Indian Ocean. And here she is telling Jenny what's in her Maldivian tuna curry. Tuna, obviously, lots of coconut milk because coconut is very popular over in the Maldives. We've got some chilli, we've got some curry leaves in there, garlic and ginger and then we've got spices of fennel, black pepper, turmeric,

cinnamon. It's a very fragrant. So what have you done so far? So we've got the onions going in to a pan with some coconut oil. In the Maldives they use a lot of coconut oil coconuts everywhere so we use the coconut oil as a base with the onions and then garlic and ginger in there as well I've chopped up some curry leaves and some green chilli as well you were born and raised in London to Mauritian parents yeah how did they come to be? I think when mum and dad moved over in the 70s to better work opportunities and they started a life over here and then had me and my sister.

So we kind of grew up in London, but we would always go back to Mauritius every year on our summer holiday because we've got loads of cousins and family still over there. So what did you learn about Mauritian cuisine from your parents? Oh, everything. It used to be poised over in my mum in the kitchen when I was little. And she used to make these amazing sweet potato cakes filled with coconut and sugar.

Or like warm purries filled with sugar inside. And I can still just think about them right now and just remember the times when she used to make that. And I think that kind of inspired me into food later on in life, just watching my mum cook. So why did you choose, when you have a Mauritian background, to choose a Maldivian curry to cook today? Well, I travelled around Maldives, Seychelles, these islands, after I'd learnt so much about Mauritian

cuisine but I wanted to see the similarities, the differences on the islands and this is one dish that I love cooking at home and it's quite simple very homely and lots of people love to eat it, really easy to make. Now the Maldives are, if I get my geography right here, closer to India than the other islands which are very close to the African coast. What's the main influence there as far as the cuisine is concerned? With Maldives, I'd say that you've got south of India, Sri Lanka. So you can see through the food, they use a lot of chilies, a lot of coconut and tuna.

So they eat like coconut three times a day or tuna three times a day as abundant with like all this fresh seafood and the spice you can really taste those flavors of spice from the south india influence and the maldives so when i was over there it has a kind of similar flavors now are you cooking the tuna in with the onions and the garlic? No, the tuna doesn't need long to cook it'll need like about three minutes or so that it will go into the sauce at the end so I'm creating the sauce at the moment so I've got the garlic ginger and the onions all together can you smell the the chilies and the curry leaves? You're making me very hungry, just sniffing away here.

So I'm going to add in the spices next. So I've done some ground spices. So we've got four spices that go into this. We've got turmeric for that beautiful yellow colour. We've got some ground fennel in there, ground fennel seeds. Some cumin as well. And some black pepper for that bit of heat that peppery heat and they're the four spices that we add in there so it's not going to be very very spicy is it it's you know surprisingly it's

not blow your head off kind of spicy it's um yeah it's very like fragrant and i think a lot of people when they try it's quite a fragrant dish but when you're in any of these islands there will always be a hot like a pot of chilies or green chillies or pickles on the table. It's such like an island tradition on the table. You'll have like pickles and chutneys. So you won't just have one dish, but so many other dishes to share. You see, you can choose to eat those, but I wouldn't necessarily choose to go for the very hot ones. What's the culinary history in Mauritius, which is obviously closer to africa it's so

diverse it's such a melting pot so you've got from the french and the british that came over to rule on mauritius and then you they brought over well you have the indians chinese african people who used to come and work on the sugar cane fields and with them they would bring their traditions their cooking techniques these spices these ways of making certain dishes and then they became localized onto the island and then the Mauritians kind of added a bit of spice here added a bit of extra you know creole kind of influence in there and so you've got Chinese dumplings that you can see on street corners in Mauritius but you've got like samosas that are very indian or like briannis and things and dal puri which is like one of the national dishes so it's quite a mix

well i suppose that applies across the islands because yeah different people would have come there for different reasons and brought their own yeah culinary history yeah i mean you've even got french as well you'll find a lot of like um really fragrant light french stews things cooked with like fresh tomatoes and thyme and parsley which you wouldn't quite expect to see in mauritius but you do find them people cooking these in their homes now we know madagascar is very famous for its vanilla how important is vanilla in the cuisine there oh yeah there's so much vanilla there and they use it a lot i mean sometimes they even add it to uh savory dishes so i've had it with fish

or like chicken before it's very you know add quite a little bit of it because it's quite overpowering but um it's something i wasn't familiar with adding it into you know i think vanilla in desserts it's nothing like the vanilla that you find here. They're like three times the size, glossy brown, full of seeds and so amazingly fragrant. So where are you with the cooking of the curry? That's why I've put in a very large cinnamon stick because we love cinnamon. You know, if I have them in the back gardens and on the islands and we just literally break off a bit of the bark or curry leaves and just add them into like the food so I've added in like a cinnamon

stick in there and they've added the coconut milk as well believe it or not this is kind of near towards the end of the dish it's very quick it's very quick to do it's really really quick to do so i've just made the base and the sauce and at this point i would add in my tuna steak and then let that simmer for about three four minutes yeah make sure that's cooked because i'm hoping to taste it and i do prefer tuna cooked through sometimes i eat it raw but cooked through in a curry will be really good. Yeah, when Jenny says she prefers it cooked through, she wants it cooked through. OK, I do hope that Selina picked up on that. I wouldn't argue with Jenny in that mood or any mood. I gather, by the way, that that was absolutely delicious, that curry.

Greatly enjoyed by everybody in the office. Certainly none for me when I arrived today, no doubt about that. If you want the recipe, it's on the website bbc.co.uk slash woman's hour. Now I hope you can join me on Monday morning for the programme. I'm going to be talking to Sally Challen, who was jailed for life for killing her husband Richard in 2010. But after changes in the law on coercive control, the Court of Appeal agreed that Richard's psychological abuse and controlling behaviour was provocation. And Sally's conviction was downgraded from murder to manslaughter and she was released from prison.

So on Monday, she'll tell us how she's been rebuilding or trying to rebuild her life and why she is now campaigning to help other abused women. That's Woman's Hour, two minutes past 10 on Monday morning. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this?

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