Woman's Hour - Simran Kaur, 17-year-old national youth champion boxer

Episode Date: February 25, 2019

Monday 25th February is 25 years to the day that serial killer Fred West confessed to the murder of his daughter Heather, and the first set of remains were excavated from 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester, crimes for which he and his wife Rose were found guilty. Lucy Partington was one of their victims, an English student in her final year at Exeter University who vanished while waiting for a late-night bus. For twenty years her family didn’t know what had happened to her. Her sister Marian, author of 'If You Sit Very Still' speaks to Jane about her journey from “murderous rage” towards her sister’s killers, to a vow she made to bring something positive out of Lucy’s death. Menopause and the workplace: What are employers doing to help women with menopausal symptoms? We hear from Deborah Garlick founder of the over 40’s website, Henpicked.Emma Morgan’s debut novel, 'A Love Story for Bewildered Girls', follows three young women in Leeds and their adventures in love. One knows she likes women, one men, and one just isn’t sure. Is it rare to see so much sexual diversity in romantic fiction? She joins us to discuss.Boxer, Simran Kaur, National youth champion, has just won a fifth consecutive National ABA crown. What is it like to already have such success at just 17?'Mary’s Babies' is a fictional play based on the true story of Mary Barton, a fertility treatment pioneer who set up a ground-breaking fertility clinic in London alongside her husband in the 1930s. The real clinic’s practices were controversial at the time and kept secret, with all records of donors destroyed in the early 1960s. It is now thought that Mary’s husband, Bertold Weisner, fathered around 1,000 babies himself. Jane speaks to playwright, Maud Dromgoole and fertility historian, Dr Yuliya HilevychPresenter: Jane Garvey Producer: Kirsty StarkeyInterviewed Guest: Marian Partington Interviewed Guest: Deborah Garlick Interviewed Guest: Emma Morgan Interviewed Guest: Simran Kaur Interviewed Guest: Maud Dromgoole Interviewed Guest: Dr Yuliya Hilevych

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hi, this is Jane Garvey and this is the Woman's Hour podcast from Monday, the 25th of February 2019. On the podcast today, you can hear from a young British boxer, Simran Kaur. She is heading, she hopes, fingers crossed, for the Tokyo Olympics next summer. We'll discuss something I didn't know about,

the social history, really, of a fertility clinic and the implications of what went on there. This is Mary Barton and her husband, who ran a fertility clinic in central London back in the 30s and 40s and continuing, in fact, right up until the 1960s. That's an interesting slice of our social history, though one not without complication, to put it mildly. And you can also hear from a new novelist, Emma Morgan, who's written her debut novel. It's out now. It is called, flipping over the book to

remind myself, A Love Story for Bewildered Girls. Emma is on the podcast today. First of all, 25 years ago to the day, Fred West confessed to the murder of his daughter, Heather. As you'll almost certainly know, he and his wife, Rosemary, were eventually found guilty of the murders of at least 12 young women, including Lucy Partington. She was 21 and a student in her final year at the University of Exeter. I talked this morning to her sister Marion Partington and I asked Marion what it was like for her and indeed for the rest of her family when these anniversaries come round. Yes I find this whole anniversary business a bit exploitative I must say and I had a choice about whether to speak or not. But having developed a piece of work and a way of life, really,

from what happened in relation to Lucy, it felt important to speak again at this moment. But I'm very aware of the fact that there must be other families listening who will find what I have to say difficult, if not threatening, really. Go on. Yes, and that's um something I always you know it's like it is treacherous territory um in every sense um and it's important that I speak um from my own truth um but it's quite hard to communicate what, for want of a better word, the journey that I've been on. And so I did spend 18 years sticking with this journey with the help of a huge help of many people. And eventually it became a book that was published in 2012 called If You Sit Very Still,

and that opened me up again to further media engagements. But I'm glad to say that the conversation that I've been developing has been hopefully about something more positive and uplifting. Let's hear about Lucy, because you and your sister shared a love of words and literature. You were both students of English. That's right. Well, Lucy used to claim to do the opposite of those around her, which was mostly me, because we were both at university in in 1973 both in our final year and um we did share a love of words so we the the poet that we loved was t.s elliott

and we loved the phrase the still point of the turning world so that became something that really felt an important clue in a way, in the way forward. But Lucy was very serious minded. She had a piercing intelligence. She was definitely destined to get a first degree in English and she'd hoped to go on and study medieval art at the Courtauld Institute. And the night that she disappeared, as we used to say, she actually had three things in her bag that to me represent her sense of direction in life at that moment. And one of them was this letter of application to the Courtauld.

Another was my last present to her which was a little cut glass jar a Victorian nightlight jar that she was hoping to take back to her to the halls of residence in Exeter and the third thing was a book a medieval book called Pearl

which some have called the most beautiful poem in the English language and that book was uncannily appropriate in a way to giving a sense of a way forward in this, which was very much, it's rooted in medieval Christianity, but it comes from a genre called the medieval dream vision. And in the poem, the father's grieving the loss of his young daughter and he collapses onto her grave and falls asleep. And then he has a vision in which she comes and talks to him. And by the end of the poem, he's learned something and he's found a way forward.

And I actually had a dream shortly after Lucy disappeared, which helped me hugely, in which she came back and I said to her, well, where have you been? And she said, I've been sitting in a water meadow near Grantham. And then she said the words, if you sit very still, you can hear the sun move. And I felt this huge sense of peace, which I called then the peace that passeth understanding. We weren't actually brought up in a religious way, although Lucy had chosen five weeks before she was murdered to become a Catholic. So that dream was like one pole of the experience. The other was

the terrible fear that got worse as the years went by, the years of not knowing, the years that I call the frozen silence. Well, I just, I find it impossible, Marion, to understand how you as a family dealt with that time. What was it like? Well, it was the first year particularly was hugely distressing. I think it's interesting that as siblings, it's quite hard to suffer the loss of a sibling especially an unresolved loss that took 20 years to be found out what had actually happened um and and i think in a way you lose your parents you know they're they're preoccupied with their grief my friends really didn't know how to to cope with with what had happened and um my relationship with my boyfriend didn't last

although he was very generous but there was this feeling of huge isolation that I experienced that of just nobody really understanding and yet having to find a way forward and I would say that I made pretty destructive choices at that that's time in my life. When you when you saw Rose West I think in particular well of course Fred West took his own life as we know but when you saw Rose West initially in court what sort of emotions did you go through? Well, I went to the committal trial, which was before the main trial. And that was when all the evidence was very hard to match all the graphic depraved details of her actions with this person sitting there who had a very blank face.

She didn't have any emotional expression at all. She just used to push her spectacles up her nose and there was a terrible sort of glare coming. I couldn't really connect. It was quite hard to connect her with what she'd done. Did you feel rage? think what I was feeling listening to the I was listening to five days of each victim being what was left of them in describing the bones that were left the missing bones and the whole tone of the trial was very much Queen's English it was all put into a sort of formal legal context that made it rather difficult to connect with in a way. I didn't feel, I just was, I was deeply shocked. I remember just deeply shocked by Rosemary West's ability to lie. You know, I'd never really, I mean, I couldn't understand how

somebody could talk about their daughter being alive when she knew that she was already dead. But then you discovered, we all discovered, that Rose herself had been subjected to astonishing cruelty when she was a child. That's right. Well, that came later, really. I think that the first year was just really more about reclaiming Lucy in some way from the West and writing about the aspirations of her life. I needed to get her up in an environment where there was very little love and how that would be. And how the whole business of being brutalised really means that you lose touch with the sense of the sacredness of your own knife have you been able to forgive and if so how well this is a long an ongoing long journey and I think the first 10 years were very much about having i i chose to go on on long

silent buddhist retreats um which gave me an opportunity to unthaw the feeling all the feelings that have been on hold and to experience the depth of the the grief and then realize that there were various ways that one could resolve this pain and one of them was denial one of them was was dumping it on others the end extreme example would be murder one of it was letting it corrode you and the end result of that would be suicide and the only way forward that I saw was to move towards forgiveness but I had no idea what that could be how it could be and I didn't like the word at all it was in felt to me it was encrusted with eons of piety it was difficult to connect with but it seemed to me the most imaginative creative way of becoming free and also offering freedom but it took a long time to get to that sense of it and i did i see it as an

ongoing verb not verb not a noun that you can tick off and say you've done. So I never say I've forgiven the West for what they've done, but I would say that I have actually found a way of having authentic compassion for Rosemary West, particularly her. Marion,

it's such a difficult tale to tell in a very short period of time and we're very grateful to you. Thank you very much indeed. Marion Partington and her story is part of a BBC Inside Out West programme about the impact of the West's crimes, particularly on the city of Gloucester. So that is on BBC One in the west of England tonight at half past seven. And it's also on BBC iPlayer.

Now, Deborah Garlick is the founder of the website for the over 40s. It's called Henpicked. And Deborah is going to be talking to the Royal Society of Medicine about what workplaces should do to help women going through the menopause. Deborah, good morning to you. Good morning, Jane. Recall that last year, Women's Hour commissioned a Comres poll and in collaboration with BBC Radio Sheffield revealed that 70% of women don't tell their employer that they're going through the menopause. So has anything changed? Have things got better? We still hear, Jane, that women aren't talking to their employers about menopause. We do know that the majority of women don't talk to employers about their menopause and we do know that the majority of women don't talk to employers about their menopause and what women tell us when we're running our colleague sessions is that they feel embarrassed

to talk about it. We know that a lot of women take time off work because of their symptoms and we also know that a lot of women don't actually realise that what they're experiencing is the menopause. Really? Absolutely. I suppose look I'm coming at the perspective is the menopause. Really? Absolutely. Look, I'm coming at the perspective of a menopausal woman immersed in the world of the menopause here at the Hour of Woman, because there are no taboos here. We talk about it endlessly, as I think we should, because it is pretty devastating, actually, to think that there are women who truly don't know what's happening to them because it must be terrifying. Well, it must be. And I think that this is some of the myths that are around menopause.

Menopausal age, for example, a colleague that we were working with and who came to one of our sessions, she was in her early 40s. And I think her colleague probably carried her to the session. She'd been to the GP. She said the GP had said she wasn't menopausal. Yet when we put up the slide that showed all of the symptoms, she became quite emotional. She had them all. And afterwards, we talked about it and we helped to prepare for a follow-up conversation with her GP. and we got feedback afterwards that within two weeks of being on HRT she felt absolutely brilliant and she'd gone from sleeping two hours to seven. So there are a lot of women out there that don't realise what they're experiencing is the menopause.

And what can employers do to make things easier? What we're seeing employers do now is first first of all, create the environment where it's easy to talk about menopause. I know you just said that at BBC there's no taboo around it, but for a lot of women it's hard to start the conversation. So whatever they can do to make it easier, and included in that we would say a menopause policy or an awareness guide, something that women can look at on the intranet or print off really helps. Yeah, can I just say, I wonder whether some women might feel that the last thing they need actually in the workplace is to be thought of purely in connection with their reproductive powers or lack of them.

And also that it might feel like you're being tainted, as though by admitting that you're going through the menopause, you're basically saying, I'm getting a bit past it, or my work might not be quite what it was. Nobody wants that or needs that, do they? No, nobody wants the stigma. And actually, there was some research done by Professor Myra Hunter at King's College. Women don't want to be stereotyped by this. But what they do want is to understand what they can do about it. They want to be supported if it's needed and they don't want it to be hidden. We do get women asking us what their rights are from an employment law point of view, because of course it is covered under the Equality Act 2010. So at the moment it's a real hodgepodge.

There's a lot of women experiencing menopause. They're experiencing menopause now. It may be affecting their work, and you're right, women don't want to feel that somebody might think, OK, the menopausal woman's not doing her job today. But actually when you raise awareness awareness education and understanding about that and you help women understand actually this is what you can do about your menopausal symptoms there are benefits to the employer. Are there like what? For employers you mentioned women taking time off sick

but also we do know that this could help with staff retention. We know from the Wellbeing of Women survey in 2016 that one in four women considered leaving work as a result of menopause. Now, I personally thought that seemed a little bit high until we started to meet those women that said, actually, that's probably me. I'm struggling to handle my symptoms. So many other things are going on in my life. You know, you have to appreciate in midlife that women may have caring responsibilities as well as some of them still having children at home.

And it gets to be too much. Deborah, thank you very much. I'm really grateful to you. And we know that many of our listeners are in exactly that position. So if that's you, and if you feel your employer actually could do more or like somebody who's just tweeted the programme,

you don't want to be defined by any of this. Ruby says on Twitter, why on earth would you tell your employer we're going through the menopause? For goodness sake, just accept it. It's normal. Women are stronger than that. There are various points of view here. At BBC Women's Hour on Twitter, or you can email the programme via our website. Now

last week we were talking about the forgotten women of the film industry and discussing the Oscars. You might have missed the fact that Nina Hartstone, the so-called sound editor mum in a BBC News Online headline until somebody thought better of that and changed it, did in fact co-win an Oscar for Bohemian Rhapsody last night. So well done to Nina Hartstone.

Tomorrow, it's the return of our series Bump, Birth and Beyond, following the early years of a baby's life. And tomorrow, you can hear from the dads, how they're feeling one year in. And on Wednesday, heads up, Tom Kerridge is on Woman's Hour, making for Jenny. I hope they've lit some candles for this. Actually, perhaps not in the circumstances.

It's roasted winter sprout curry with Tom Kevich on Wednesday. Some romantic music tinkling in the background and the sprouts brewing up there. That'll be absolutely marvellous. Emma Morgan is a young novelist and you're very welcome to the programme, Emma. Good morning to you. Well, I'm not quite so young, Jane, but thank you very much for saying that. How old are you, Emma? Over 40. Let's just go that far. Good grief.

Okay, I'll call you a mature novelist. But the important thing is you're a new novelist. And your first book is called A Love Story for Bewildered Girls. And Emma, I'm going to set it up really just by saying it's about the romantic adventures of three young women in Leeds. One is Annie, who's a lawyer. There's Violet, who, well, her career's not really got off the ground. She works in a new age shop, doesn't she? And Grace is a therapist.

Now, as the novel starts, they're all single. And here is a quick extract read by Emma. Grace is getting ready for a party. Grace liked her earrings. That was the first thing she noticed about the woman. The long silver earrings that grazed her neck as she turned her earrings. That was the first thing she noticed about the woman, the long silver earrings that grazed her neck as she turned her head. Grace was attracted to earrings like magpies are attracted to shiny things,

which could be blamed on the few nice memories that she had of her mother, a ballet dancer who always wore pairs that swayed from side to side as she walked. I like your earrings, Grace said. Thanks, the woman said as she flicked her eyes over Grace and turned away. Her long neck, her 60s blonde pixie cut like Mia Farrow, her earrings swaying. The woman presented her back to Grace and Grace wanted to lean forward and kiss the mould on the nape of her neck. But she didn't believe that would be appropriate with someone whom you'd just set eyes on for the first time. Grace believed that would be classed as really quite strange. Emma Morgan reading from her novel A Love Story for Bewildered Girls.

So that tells us that this maybe isn't, how can I put this, the usual sort of fare for a book that isn't chick lit but would certainly appeal to young women a book that isn't chick lit, but would certainly appeal to young women. Is that fair enough, Emma? What do you say? Yes, I think that's fine. It's a book about women with different sexualities, and I suppose that's quite unusual in this sort of genre, which you could perhaps call a rom-com.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I probably shouldn't have said that i was not describing it as chiclet as though there's something wrong with calling a book chiclet because i've loved lots of chiclet stuff over the years so um rom-com might be better actually in the case of your book um it's essentially about relationships between women some of them are sexual some of them are not but they're all hugely important and sustaining relationships aren aren't they? Yes, absolutely. Some of them are about Violet and Annie, for example, are friends, and quite a lot of the novel is about their friendship. But it's also about relationships with your mother,

which can be quite difficult, as we know, and also relationships with other members of your family, for example, your sisters. So it's a very female-orientated book. And do you know who your readers are or are likely to be? I have no idea I'm I think perhaps they might be younger women perhaps women who are approaching that sort of age group which is late 20s early 30s but I'm hoping that all sorts of women will read it. And you did say that you scandal scandalously, are over the age of 40. So has this been something you've been planning for ages, a writing career?

How has it all happened for you? Well, I've done so many different things over the years, but I've been writing for quite a long time. And mostly I wrote for myself. I don't know if that sounds a bit disingenuous, but I was hoping that somebody would read what I've written in the end and then eventually I got on a great scheme that's called Right Now which is a penguin scheme for representing underpublished writers and so I was just lucky I guess. Yeah how do you get on a scheme like that? You try very hard try and write something that's really good and then you just send it in and go through an insight day, a workshop process and then eventually on to the scheme if you're lucky enough to get shortlisted and then chosen. Did you say underrepresented writers? That's right.

So who are these people? Well, people from different backgrounds, say people with disabilities, people from the LGBTQ community, perhaps women of colour, for example, or men of colour. It could be anybody. Yeah, but people who, I mean, I've interviewed a lot of writers over the years. And I suppose if you asked me to describe an average writer, I know exactly how I'd describe them. And you're right. There is a type, there's no doubt about that. There is a type of woman who writes books in Britain, Emma, I put it to you. What sort of woman is that? Well, you know exactly what the type of woman is. A heterosexual white middle class woman

tends to write a lot of novels that I have discussed on this programme. There's no getting away from that, which is why schemes like Right Now are really important. Yes, absolutely, I think so, because we do live in a very diverse society. And I think also because of the internet now, people are exposed to lots of different people's lives and maybe fiction hasn't caught up with that quite yet. So that's part of the idea behind the scheme.

Also, the women in your book are at a time in their lives when questions are being asked about what they intend to do ultimately I guess about settling down in quotation marks how important was that in the structure of your book? I think that was very important actually I've spoken to young women or younger women about this subject and a lot of them seem to be having some sort of early midlife crisis, trying to work out exactly what they want to do with their lives, trying to get away from the influence of perhaps family members or other people in their lives.

So I think that's something hopefully that everybody can relate to. Yeah. Did you go through that yourself? Absolutely. that's something hopefully that everybody can relate to. Yeah did you go through that yourself? Absolutely I didn't start really meeting out lesbian women for example until I was about 28 and started a lesbian relationship at that age so I think this book totally reflects my confusion and hopefully might help other people other women along the way. Yeah, it is important, isn't it, to include in a contemporary novel different sexualities, different sexual journeys. I think perhaps things, and you can take me up on this, maybe things are not as rigid in a generation born in the late 20th century,

for example, as they might have been 30 years before. Well, I hope that's the case. I hope people feel more freedom now to be able to express themselves and to be able to do whatever they want to do and love whoever they want to love. Do you think though that that is true of everybody in contemporary Britain? I mean I think to go back to my point about novels tending to be written by white middle-class women perhaps white middle-class women find it easier to explore their sexuality in a variety of relationships than women from other ethnicities, for example.

Well, I'm not really the expert about that because I'm a white middle-class woman myself, so perhaps you'd have to ask somebody else. And the book ends, well, I don't want to give this away, but basically the book ends with, how can I describe this without giving it away? It just emphasises the sustaining quality of relationships between women rather than an overemphasis on romantic love. How about that? I think that's perfectly put.

So in other words, OK, no, we're not going to go there. Thank you very much indeed. Really enjoyed talking to you, Emma. Thank you. That's Emma Morgan, a love story for Bewildered Girls

is out now. Now, Simran Kaur is our next guest. She's in our studio in Shrewsbury, I think. Simran, good morning to you. Good morning, Jane.

We've been all over the country today. How are you? I'm good, thank you. How are you? Yeah, very well, thank you. Now, you are a Sikh female boxer

and you've just won your fifth consecutive ABA crown. When was that fight? That was last Sunday. Right and how obviously it went well. Can you take me through it? Who were you fighting? Yeah so I boxed in the semi-final on Saturday against a girl from Portsmouth and she's like a fellow England teammate and then on Sunday I boxed a girl from Portsmouth and she's like a fellow England teammate and then on Sunday I boxed a girl from Newcastle and she's also an England teammate but I got both of the wins right um when you fight people you know is that is that very different um it is a bit because like you're on training camps with them and you're always with them and you like you speak to them but once you're in the ring you just kind of forget all about it

and then afterwards you can be friends again. Yeah, I was going to ask, what's the dynamic like between you before the fight? Do you meet and mingle or avoid each other completely? Probably avoid each other because it's just awkward if you see them around. Well, it must be really, really awkward. I can't think of anything worse, actually. And then afterwards you can have a coffee together and everything's all right? Yeah usually but sometimes because you've just beat them they

really don't want to talk to you but mostly like the sportsmanship squad in boxing. All right now can I ask what weight do you box at? I box at 51 kilo flyweight. Flyweight okay so how did you start Simran? I mean surely I mean you tell what your family make of it. You can get onto that in a minute. But what was your first trip to a boxing gym like and how did it come about? So like before boxing, I didn't really do much. So me and my brother, we tried out different sports. We did football, gymnastics. I just didn't like any of it.

And then like one day he was like, oh, let's just go to a boxing gym. So we went and we didn't go there thinking oh we'll get this far we'll go this we'll do that we just went there for fun and then now i just love it to many people that and particularly for young women that would have seemed like a really alien environment but you took to it straight away did you uh yeah but my family didn't really like it like my mom and nan. They didn't want me to do it. So my brother had to, like, sneak me off. I've got to be honest, I might be with, well, on paper,

I might have been with your mum and your nan. I might worry a bit about my daughter doing that. How do you calm them down and stop them worrying? Yeah, so they didn't come to my first fight, but once they came and then they saw me one day, like, crying with tears, like, happy. And, like, now they love coming to my first fight but once they came and then they saw me one day like crying with tears like happy and like now they love coming to my fights they always come to every single one do they and where do they sit um they don't sit right at the front no yeah no um and like in the videos you can hear my mom screaming but like they sit sit like in the middle and then afterwards when i go up to

them and i win and show them my trophy, they're always crying. What's next for you? Because, well, I don't want to heap pressure on, but the Olympics are next year. Do you fancy that? Yeah, that's the goal. So I have GB Championships in May, which is against Scotland and Wales.

And then in September, I have European Championships again. I've been there before. Yeah. And then hopefully I have a GB assessment soon. So if I do good there, I should get on the GB team. And then hopefully that's the road to the Olympics. Be honest, when you're, last thing at night, when you're lying there in bed,

are you already having those Olympic dreams? Yeah, that's all I think about. That's all I want from boxing is the Olympics. Yeah, why is it so... I can understand, I guess, but is it just the appeal of the... Well, you've watched Nicola Adams and you just think,

oh, that could be me with the gold medal sometime. Yeah, her exactly. Like, she's been to two Olympics, won two golds. That's what I want to do. That's my dream. Just make sure your mum's not on the front row. Yeah. Because that would be too much for her and for you, I suspect um so we're going to keep an eye on you and follow your progress if

that's all right um it sounds like you're really on the road to a lot of success so um in terms of fitness what would you say about the difference between getting fit for a boxing for a fight and getting fit for I don't know for the gymnastics that you mentioned earlier i think it's completely different because for boxing you're getting punched in the face and like i have to wake up at six to go for a run and then i go home and go sleep and then i have to train again at like two o'clock and then i rest then i have to train again in the evening so it's a lot and you have to cover everything so you have to cover running strength you have to spa like everything adds up to that only like three three minutes do you know how casually you just mentioned getting punched in the face you do actually we should say in

amateur boxing you wear a headgear don't you yeah, yeah. Yeah, and there's no way that's ever going to change. You'll carry on. All amateur boxers wear that headguard. Yeah, so females wear headguards no matter what, unless you're professional. But males, once you go over 18 years old, then the headguard comes off. But for females, it will stay on as an amateur. Right, okay. I mean, it's something that you do take very lightly, but I keep thinking about your mum and I completely understand why she's careful about where she sits.

Best of luck to you, Simran. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. Take care of yourself and all the very best. And that is a name I suspect we might all know in the years ahead. That's Simran Kaur, who is a female boxer and she's just won her fifth consecutive ABA crown. Now, to the play I mentioned at the start, this is Mary's Babies. It's a new play based on the true story of a couple who set up a fertility clinic in London in the 1930s. The woman was called Mary Barton. Her husband was a man called Bertolt Weisner. Now, in many cases, as it's materialised, he was the sperm donor. The playwright is called Maud Drumgool.

She's here. Welcome to the programme, Maud. And joining us from Cambridge is Dr Yulia Helovich, who is studying social relations and reproduction. Yulia, good morning to you. Good morning, Jane. Maud. Hello. Yulia, I hope you can hear me all right. I want you to tell me actually I confess I didn't know anything about fertility clinics in this country as far back as the 1930s. What did you know about Mary Barton? Well that's fair enough because Mary

Barton was among the few actually six doctors in Britain who practiced artificial insemination by Dana until 1958 and then in the 60s would be part of the NHS in the late 1960s. But Mary Button, I think she's one of the most controversial figures in that story because, as you mentioned, that her husband, he fathered approximately 600, maybe even more children. But she also was very active in the debate of the promotion of artificial insemination in Britain. Yes. But this is something that clearly what her husband was doing was, to put it mildly

controversial, it's caused an enormous amount of trouble for some of the people involved. Did she know that he was doing this? Well, the story goes that actually this wasn't known until very recently when the DNA test emerged. So when we hear her interviews or when we hear her talking, it wasn't really coming permanently. It was mainly her husband who was involved it would be several other doctors as well and most likely also medical students that would be the way how it would be presented to the practitioners of the time and also to the probably to the public as well. We should say of course that there wasn't any regulation at the time there most certainly

is regulation now isn't there? That's right that's right so basically when we talk at the time. There most certainly is regulation now, isn't there? That's right, that's right. So basically, when we talk about the time around, well, basically before 87, artificial insemination by donor was actually illegitimate. So children who were born before 87, Family Law Reform Act, actually valid illegitimate children. The way how they were registered though probably wasn't so because most times they would be registered as yeah, where they're not biological but they're

a father of the husband of a woman. So in that respect, it's really hard to trace that history back in the records. But certainly it was controversial and a legitimate issue as well. I take your point that it's hard to trace the history, but there are people living with the implications of what went on at that place. We need to make that clear. Maud, you're the playwright. How did you come across this story?

I actually heard it first from a woman called Lucy Blake, who was working at the Centre for Family Research in Cambridge. And it just, I think it's extraordinary. It's been around my head for sort of four or five years before I found the play that I wanted to write about it. But anybody who I mentioned it to reacts really strongly to it. really extraordinary and i think it brings up a lot of issues of genetics and heritage and family and the interplay between those things that affect all of us and that we all feel very confident um we all feel very conflicted about um and uh it's within the group of people who you mentioned who are alive, who are affected by it today,

they think very different things about it. It's a very diverse group of people. They're all over. And I think sometimes the angriest voices shout the loudest. Well, you can't blame them for being angry because obviously one of the dangers might have been that people who didn't know they were related to each other formed relationships it's not that unlikely. No of course and it's from quite a small social set of people all of whom

were aware of this clinic and could afford this clinic and that's absolutely true and that's something that we explore in the play as well. So what do you feature in the play, in fact? Well, it's a story because it's a story about an impossibly large group of people. We've got sort of 40 characters in the play that look at these issues from many different perspectives. And that includes the vast majority of people who will never find out and don't know that this is their story. And it features people who feel very happy to find this huge genetic family and feel connected to the world in that way. And it features people who feel incredibly angry and something that comes up a lot is that it's not the conception it's the deception and

it's not to do with being donor conceived that causes uh upset it's the absolute network of lies that surrounds your birth and your uh personal identity um and uh but it's a it's a it's a fiction the play is all imagined people um but i don't so you have have you spoken directly to anybody who has told you their own story? I have, yeah, I have. And I think I'd be wary of representing anyone now because I think the best articulation of what I gain from that is the play. But these people, the ones you've spoken to, I've just had a tweet actually from a listener who says, a friend of mine is one of the offspring from that clinic, found out a year ago from a DNA test that his daughter took,

and it's had a really complex effect. Well, I'm not surprised. No, of course. What was the overwhelming emotion amongst the people you spoke to? Were they angry? Yeah, there's a lot of anger, and there's particularly a lot of anger about the lack of regulation. And actually quite a lot of the Barton Brood have been... Sorry, the Barton Brood is a... The Barton Brood is the collective name for the babies conceived at Mary Barton's clinic. And a lot of them have done a lot of work to changing the laws in this country.

And I think that when you have a genetic technology, it's very difficult for us to keep up both in how we think about it morally and legally. And particularly when you're bringing a child into the world who then you can't really ask how they think about anything until they're legally an adult. But actually, the Barton Breed themselves have been at the forefront of the campaign to change the law so that now in this country, we can't have anonymous donors, they have to be registered, which is not true in America. And it's not true in lots of countries. But of course, we know we know we know julia that that um has led to a shortage of sperm donors yeah that's uh that's probably very much the case and actually when we think about this historically the time when mary barton was practicing and also throughout

1960s 1970s in one of the it was one of the issues actually in nhs clinics there was a shortage of donors back then as well. So it was actually really hard to find recruit people who were ready to do that, even for a price. Yeah, but having heard Maud describe the impact on some of the people you've met, you can understand why that regulation is actually so important, isn't it? Yeah, and I think that we as a society really have to listen and talk openly about these things and respond. And I think that this is an example where you have a very damaging, potentially, technology that was also incredibly fantastic movement in enabling people in order to have children um that was driven underground by secrecy and ideas of adultery and taboo and the archbishop of

canterbury smoke out very publicly against donor insemination and uh we we're catching up and we are responding and we have changed the laws and that doesn't help the people who are our London. Now to your thoughts on what we discussed in the programme today, mostly about the menopause and what it was like to go through the menopause in the workplace. And people really are divided between those who think, yes, employers should do more, should know more, should be much more helpful. And those of you who just do not want to be defined by whatever stage of life you're at and don't really want to involve anybody at all. And as a couple of you have pointed out, if you're self-employed and you're going through the menopause, who do you tell?

Well, I would say I would put up a strong case that you should just tell women's hour and we'll absorb that information on your behalf and help you through it. Here's one email. Talking about the menopause in the workplace doesn't mean a woman isn't strong. If anything, it means she's strong enough to be able to stand up and say, this is a difficult time for me that not every employee will have to face. My work may be affected and this is the reason. It's all part of being 100% human at work for both employee and employer. We're in the workplace for the majority of our lives.

We need to create a more open and honest environment where we feel comfortable being ourselves, talking about physical and mental health problems that we may be facing and that may be affecting our ability to work, thus creating a more supportive and productive environment for ourselves and for future generations. From another listener, can I point out that not all women experience menopausal symptoms and sail through with no problems.

You're giving the impression everyone should have symptoms, so may make people feel odd if they don't. Well, I certainly didn't want to make anybody feel odd because, let's face it, we're all odd. I mean, I cling to that because I fervently hope it's true. From Kathy, not every woman has difficult symptoms using the menopause. I didn't. There you go, there's another woman. It just happened. I was looking forward to not having to pay tax on sanitary products any longer. So there's Kathy, a liberated post-menopausal woman.

Furness Girl tweets to say do employers actually want to retain women they think are past it and need extra support? Yes, I suppose that's a fair point. And Aisha says, I love that Simran Kaur's brother sneaked her out to boxing training

because her nan and her mum weren't keen. Now they have ringside seats. Well, actually, Aisha, her mum chooses not to sit on the very front row. And I've only ever once been to a boxing match. And that was at the, dropping a place name here, that was at the Athens, I'm pretty sure it was the Athens Olympics. It was Amir Khan. And I found the whole experience both exhilarating and a bit frightening.

And I've never been back to a boxing match for precisely that reason. The sounds of the punches, the impact of the punches, I've never forgotten it. It was quite extraordinary. Mark says, as an ex-boxer, I'd just like to extend my heartfelt respect to Simran and point out that amateur boxing head guards offer no protection from the impact of blows and they're used purely to minimise problematic cuts

thank you for that Mark I do have immense respect for anyone prepared to enter a boxing ring I should say that really does take courage and from Jude interesting Emma Morgan interview talking about typical women writers and who they may be. I have just spent a weekend at a literary festival and considering the audience there, I would concur.

I am trying to break the mould a little. And a rare moment for me, some praise from a listener from Leslie who says, can you just thank Jane for saying Shrewsbury correctly? Now, the thing is, I can't remember how I said Shrewsbury. Was it Shrewsbury? How did I say it? I also know, by the way, this is important and will be of interest to Leslie, that the BBC's pronunciation unit says that you can say Shrewsbury, Shrewsbury, either way, both are correct. It's one of those rare examples of a place name about which there is genuine, heartfelt and longstanding disagreement, which I suspect will never be sorted out, not in my lifetime anyway.

Henry has dared to enter the lioness's den and discuss the menopause. Well done, Henry. Tricky ground for a man, he says. So he acknowledges that. But I didn't fully realise how distracting menopause can be for a woman until my wife went through it. I don't think she had a great time, nor did we, he says. I'm assuming there are other people in the household there, Henry. Thank you for that. What it did do was give me a much greater insight into what some of the women in the office of a similar age may also have been going through. As a caring employer, I really want to support my staff, but only if they want it,

and I want to make any adjustments that may be needed, even if it's only making sure that a woman going through the menopause has a fan on their desk to deal with the hot flushes when they come. In the end, it all boils down to trust between employer and employee, and anything you can do to foster that has to be a good thing for everybody involved. Well said, Henry. Now, wolves are on the programme tomorrow.

Ellie Radinger is a woman who's given up her legal career to study wolves. There is something about women and wolves, isn't there? I know that the magical realist writer Angela Carter wrote in some detail about wolves and fantasies surrounding wolves. And anyway, we're heading off a bit of a cul-de-sac. But that's one of the subjects we can get to tomorrow.

I'm going to be interviewing Ellie, who is, as she says, a wolfaholic. She spent many years among the wolves of Yellowstone National Park. And she's going to talk about what they can teach us about being human. Also tomorrow, Abbeyholic returns with our series Bump, Birth and Beyond. And Abbey's going to be talking to three dads and a gran one year on about how they feel about being a grandmother or a dad. In the case of first Andrew and then Ben on how it really feels when the men go back to work after paternity leave. I guess it's a bit of a relief of like, oh, now I get to sit on the train and kind of zone out and have my own time.

But ultimately, you just feel bad of like, oh, I'm leaving. It's going to be a lot harder with just her there and not us two doing it together. And Ben, what was it like for you to leave? Have you had a specific day where you left and you kind of can hear the screams as you shut the door? I think some mornings it was a bit of a relief to leave the house because you go back to work and you're in an established routine, you know the people who are around you.

It's unlikely any of them are going to scream at you. Happens occasionally. That's Ben. You also heard Andrew. I've always suspected that men love that moment where they slam the front door and go back to work after being at home with a very small baby and a quite angry and tired and stressed out woman. So that's

tomorrow on the programme. If you've got any memories of that period in your life when you were first home alone with a newborn, we'd love to hear from you. You can email us via the website bbc.co.uk slash womanshour. Thanks for listening today. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered.

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

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