Woman's Hour - Sister Bliss, DC Comics character, Nubia, the Ockenden Review, Lucy Easthope, Ukrainian MPs, Listener Dorothy

Episode Date: April 2, 2022

Do you have a soundtrack to your life that you return to again and again? Or have music that powers you through? DJ Sister Bliss and Goldsmiths Professor Lauren Stewart, who studies the psychology and neuroscience of music, explore the power of music to affect our mood and well-being. The Ockenden Review was published this week, led by midwife Donna Ockenden, into the maternity care provided to patients by the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust over a 20 year period. We hear from Kayleigh Griffiths, who lost her baby in 2016 who fought for years for the Review and Maria Caulfield, the Minister for Primary Care and Patient Safety.In our series Threads we've been talking to listeners about the clothes they've hung on to. Dorothy tells us about a dress she wore age 14 at a barn dance in Hereford . The Women's Diplomatic Battalion of Ukraine, a small group of women MPs have been criss-crossing Europe to garner international support for their war-torn country. Alona Shkrum, from the Batkivschyna party, Olena Khomenko and Mariia Mezentseva, from the Servant of the People party discuss their fight for their country.Have you heard of Nubia from the DC comic books? She’s the adopted sister of Wonder Woman and DC’s first Black superwoman introduced in the 70s before disappearing from comics for decades. Nubia returned last year in a new book. We hear from cartoonist, Robyn Smith who illustrated the book.Whenever there’s a catastrophic event somewhere in the world Lucy Easthope is likely to get a phone call .S he talks about her new book “When the Dust Settles”.Presenter Anita Rani Producer Claire Fox.Photo Credit: BBC/Freemantle Media Limited/Pete Dadds

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Hello and welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour. This is the show where we offer you some of the best and must-hear interviews from across the week just gone. Coming up on the programme, we speak to one of the UK's foremost disaster planners. We were told we couldn't plan for Brexit and a pandemic at the same time. It was too ridiculous to think of both happening at the same time. And so as disaster planners, I think we started to feel very stymied in our ability to go into it.

Three Ukrainian MPs tell us about their fight for their country and what kind of music powers you through. We talked to one very famous DJ about it. But first, this week we dedicated an entire programme to what's being called the biggest maternity scandal in the NHS's history. The Ockenden Review was published on Wednesday, led by senior midwife Donna Ockenden into the maternity care provided to patients by the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust over a 20-year period. She concluded 201 babies and nine mothers could have survived if the trust had provided better care, learned from mistakes, conducted proper investigations and, crucially, listened to women. One of the women who fought for years to have this independent review is Kayleigh Griffiths.

Having lost her daughter Pippa when she was just 31 hours old in 2016, Kayleigh was convinced something hadn't been handled correctly after her home birth. She wrote to Rhiannon Davis, whose daughter Kate had also died under the care of Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust many years earlier in 2009, and who'd been fighting for answers. Emma spoke to Kayleigh and started by asking how it felt for both her and Rhiannon to have the report published. I think we'd both had a pretty... We'd had a very full week last week of lots and lots of press pre-release.

And I know, you know, there was a lot of other stuff going on in the background. And there was a point where we said we didn't know whether we could do it. And obviously Rhiannon comes from a lot longer distance than I do. So to see her there and actually us both be there in the moment and I think the enormity of the last couple of days hit us and it was just, you know, we were there supporting each other

and the other families and it was just a really emotional moment. Because the story actually of you two, before we even get to what drove you to do this, you know, on behalf of your daughters, is actually also an amazing story of friendship and sisterhood. Yeah, absolutely. Obviously, I'd seen Rhiannon. Rhiannon's been fighting for 13 years, I think, since 2009.

And I'd seen her fight and I, you know, obviously could see her strength. And when I felt that things were going wrong for us, you know, instantly, my first thought was I must get in touch with that woman because you know her strength will help me with my own fight. And if you weren't going through enough, those years ago with her grief, you much more recently and may I say how sorry I am for you and your family's loss because I think it's very important to make sure I do say that, you had to then fight to get this independent review. And this meant going through, as she had already been doing, and you joined with that, going through cuttings, putting together reports, looking at coroner reports,

looking at media reports, looking at how the trust had or hadn't responded to various complaints. I mean, this is a proper operation you took up. Yeah, and I think in the early days it was very much, I mean this is a proper operation you took up yeah and I think I think in the early days it was very much I mean to be honest a lot of people have asked me about the early days and I struggle to to recall them now and I think that possibly it was a mechanism to keep myself busy to to avoid what what was really happening because obviously I had those worries that it wasn't just me that it happened to. And yeah, it was very powerful to work through that with Rhiannon and uncover the 23. And, but of course, with the report and what we see from the findings which looked over a 20

year period the number is much bigger. Donna Ockenden concluded 201 babies and nine mothers could have survived if the trust had provided better care. When you hear that number how does that make you feel? What is your response me it's it's absolutely heartbreaking because you know if they'd have learned the lessons from what people told them you know babies like Kate and Pippa would would be here and they should be here there's no reason why they shouldn't be here. So to be able to give them a voice and actually to make sure that all these babies and all these mothers' families are heard. And I think it will make the difference to pregnant women to be able to find their voice as well. If they have their own concerns, you know, they're more likely to speak out when they feel that there

might be something wrong and actually get their voices heard there'll be those listening who want to know how you were so sure something wasn't right about what had happened with your daughter with Pippa what was that for you so for me it was I wanted to be involved in the serious incident investigation. As an NHS professional in a different trust, I knew what the processes were. And I knew that Sath weren't following those processes, which is what prompted me to make that contact with Rhiannon. And so you were uncomfortable as a member of the NHS, a different trust, with how Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust were investigating or not the death of your daughter. Yeah, they were. They did tell me there was an investigation ongoing, but it was internal. And if I wanted to be involved, I could email any questions, which I just wasn't happy with.

I was one of the only people that had seen Pippa alive and I knew what had happened so I thought it was really important that actually they heard my story and learned from that. And with your story what was the conclusion? Was responsibility taken? What has been said? Responsibility was taken by the trust that they'd failed to provide me with appropriate clinical assessment over the telephone. And they hadn't provided me with guidance that would have prompted me to ask the right questions when I phoned the unit. And these were vital moments, of course, because your daughter had only just recently been born and wasn't displaying at all good health or health at all, was she? No, no, she wasn't. But unfortunately for me, not being a midwife or a doctor, I didn't realise how quickly a baby could deteriorate and give, you know, exhibiting those symptoms. But obviously now I would do things differently. That was Kayleigh Griffiths there.

Maria Caulfield, the Minister for Primary Care and Patient Safety, including Women's Health and Maternity Services, also joined Emma. She started by giving her response to the report. We can't apologise enough for what happened to those families and we urgently need to learn from those mistakes. But from Donna's work, there is a perfect storm of failure, whether it was the failure fundamentally to listen to women who were raising concerns, raising issues,

or whether it's the staff themselves. Many of them didn't feel able or comfortable to raise safety concerns and describe a bullying culture that existed, whether it's the scale of the systemic failure of a target driven approach to keep cesarean sections as low as possible was a significant failure as well. A perfect storm that of course your government has presided over. We have had a conservative government now for more than a decade and the systems that you have in place are the systems that we trust to ensure that those are held accountable, those people in those positions of power. Do you know, and I just couldn't quite understand this myself, do you know what percentage of maternity services are rated outstanding in terms of providing safe care in England? Well, I don't have those figures to hand, but there's over 20... Sorry, let's just pause on it for one moment. There's a reason I asked. One percent. You are in charge of patient safety, particular responsibility for maternity services. If we only had 1% of schools at outstanding in this country,

it would be of cause for concern. Why is it at that figure? So, you know, since I've come into post, you know, I recognise there are significant improvements that are needed in maternity services across the country. And we have put in some measures since Donna's interim report in 2020. And we have put in some measures since Donna's interim report in 2020, and we're already seeing improvements. You know, stillbirth rates are reduced by 25 percent.

Maternal deaths are also reducing. Neonatal deaths are reducing by 36 percent. So we have put in significant factors since Donna's interim report that will not just improve maternity services in Telford and Shrewsbury, but across the country as a whole. But also the funding, we've put in £95 million already to increase the number of midwives by over 1,000. We announced earlier this week... Increasing them doesn't necessarily solve the problem though, does it? Should we get a bit into that? Because staffing was a major issue here. The Royal College of Midwives are warning they can't implement the recommendations from this report, the actions as Donna wants them to be called, due to a staffing shortage of at least 2,000 midwives. Putting more money to get more midwives though doesn't actually work. Looking

at the Conservative government's record of this, where successive health secretaries and prime ministers have been asked about this, it's actually the problem with retaining midwives. The most recent poll from the Royal College of Midwives showed that more than eight out of ten were concerned about staffing levels. Two thirds were not satisfied with the quality of care they are currently able to deliver. And here's the most alarming one. The highest level of dissatisfaction amongst midwives came from midwives who'd only worked for five years or less in the NHS. So pouring money hasn't worked and won't work. You know, I disagree. In a sense, I've worked in the NHS for 25 years myself, and it's almost a vicious circle. If you haven't got enough midwives to start with those that are there are under increasing pressure and retention of those midwives and it's important

not just about the numbers but the skill mix of midwives having experienced midwives you know really does make a difference so in wanting to increase those numbers by over a thousand with that 95 million pounds and the 127 that we've announced this week will make a significant difference to both the recruitment but also the retention and we're already saying seeing as the secretary of state pointed out in his statement yesterday record numbers of both nursing and midwifery students coming registering and starting courses now that obviously takes a little while for them to get trained and qualified. But we fully recognise that there needs to be more midwives on the ground and that's a way to improve safety.

But you're not even filling the amount that has been asked for. You're saying 1,000 and they're saying there's a shortage of at least 2,000. That's 1,000 extra. The number going into training colleges for this year is close to 4,000, but that obviously takes a while to filter through. That's a moot point. On the ground, they're saying there's a shortage of at least 2,000 midwives, at least, and you're offering to put a thousand extra in. You have to be particularly good at maths to know, Minister, that that's not going to work. But it's not just about increasing the number of midwives, it's about creating a culture as well because one of the key factors that Donna indicated in her report and when you

talk to midwives and I talk to lots of midwives, the culture is as important as the numbers. When they feel that they can't speak out if they're concerned about care, when they feel that there's a bullying culture in the system and this was particularly prominent in Telford and Shrewsbury. Five men who ran the trust from 2000 to 2019, the scope of the review, all left of their own accord to take jobs elsewhere in health, four in the NHS. Is it right no one was fired at the very top for the biggest maternity health scandal in the NHS's history? No, I don't think so. And I think, Emma, trying to be as candid with you as possible, we recognise that in a number of areas across the NHS, that improving the leadership and board members of any trust is crucial. Because where we've seen other

investigations and reports, very often the leadership of a trust does not acknowledge there's been a problem, have tried to brush it under the carpet. That's why we've got the messenger review which is particularly looking at leadership in the NHS which will be reporting this. What about this trust though? This is what we're talking about. This report and this trust. Has anyone

has anyone senior lost their job over this? Well I don't know if they've lost their job they haven't lost their job but there is a police investigation don't know if they've lost their job. They haven't lost their job, but there is a police investigation. I recognise that, but you seem very concerned about the NHS and the culture in it. There's got to be culpability. So how has there not been that right at the top of a trust?

We very much acknowledge, and Donna again pointed that out in the report, there was a series of leadership changes over that 20-year period where new CEOs would come in, would say to local MPs like Lucy Allen in Telford or Philip Dunn that, you know, these problems are historic, they're not happening now, and clearly that wasn't the case. And there was significant change, not just of the CEO, but of the leadership team, who then, when the new team came in, kind of dismissed the problems and promised that things were different, and they absolutely weren't. So whose fault's that? Whose fault that there's no ability to hold anyone to account? And it's very striking that no one from the Trust is on the programme this morning. I should also just point that out again. We did ask.

But whose fault is that? The Conservative government's in charge all the way through this. Well, look, we've been in charge for the last 10 years. This is over 20 years. This is 20 years. But I'm talking about in the last 10 years when we've got some of the reports and the feedback, got a statement from the Care Quality Commission. Who can make sure that heads do roll on this sort of thing?

Because you need to have that culture, don't you? Yeah, absolutely. And that's why we're looking at the fit and proper person test for people who sit on trust boards. Because you are absolutely right. There needs to be an assurance that the people running these organisations are fit and proper to oversee the care that's provided at their institution and that if there's problems, that they are swift in dealing with them. Do you think the NHS is a sexist system?

Well, that's an interesting question, Emma, because in my work across women's health and the women's health strategy that we're devising, the failure to listen to women seems to be across the NHS, whether it's young women trying to get diagnosis of endometriosis, whether it's mums who are worried about their pregnancy or their baby. I'm sorry, I have to push you, Minister, for your time and for ours. Is the NHS a sexist system? I don't think it's a sexist system,

but the voice of women is not heard loud enough. And I'm passionate about changing that. Maria Caulfield speaking to Emma there. And you can listen back to our programme on this and hear our full interviews with Kayleigh and Maria, as well as our interview with Donna Ockenden herself, consultant obstetrician, Dr. Jo Mountfield, Vice President of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and Professor Sue Down, a midwife and professor of midwifery studies at the University of Central Lancashire. Now, in our series Threads, we've been talking to you about the clothes you've hung on to that will never end up in the charity shop bag. Listener Dorothy

sent us a photo of a beautiful dress she wore aged 14 and told Emma all about it. It was a full-length dress, maxi dress, cotton, green, a slightly ruched bodice, square neckline and short sleeves, which was slightly puffed. And the skirts, it was cut on the bias, so it skimmed the hips. And yeah, I loved it. And this was a special dress. You can remember exactly when and where you bought it.

How much did it cost? It cost £4.99 and I bought it from a boutique, as we used to call them in those days, in Hereford Town Centre. And I saw it in the window and I had to have it. It wasn't bought, though, for a special occasion, but what you now associate it with was a very memorable night. It was a memorable night. I associate it with that particular night, but it also has other kind of connotations as well.

But that particular night, it was a barn dance. I think it was near Ross-on-Wye. I can't quite remember. And in those days, a friend and I, Angela, we used to go to go to you know kind of do dances all around the county um our father one of our fathers would take us and another father would pick us up at the end of it and that particular night um yeah I had my first gin and orange um yeah by yes, a guy who I can still remember very well. And and yeah, I had my first kiss. I probably did have a few fumblings before that on previous occasions.

But that was the kiss that, you know, kind of blew my mind. I love it. Aged 14, you're having a gin and orange and a first kiss that blew your mind. Yeah, exactly. So tell me, the first kiss, was it good? Because for some it's not. It was good. Yeah, it was great, actually. Okay, we're not getting any more details, are we? We're leaving it at that. I mean, I can still kind of feel the hand on my waist, you know? Oh, okay. And the dress is where in your house now where do you keep it in my wardrobe um it's not the only dress I've kind of kept from my teenage

years but that one yeah it's kind of special and what does it what does it mean to you and could you ever imagine getting rid of it um well I kind of well oh gosh at some point maybe I will because you know I'd like somebody else to wear it I think I maybe I imagined that I'd have a daughter but I actually had a very lovely son instead um so yes sometimes I think I mean I've got several items and I think well maybe I'll you know take them somewhere and somebody else can wear them that would be nice but uh yeah it's got a lot of good memories for me. It's that sort of period in your life when you're on the brink of becoming, I mean, 14 is a little young to be thinking of becoming a woman,

but it is a very exciting time being a teenager. And yeah, I think I've been a quiet child, and this was, you know, I was on the brink of something completely different. I was no longer Dormouse, as my family used to call me. You know, I was going to be somebody else. What a lovely way to reminisce through our clothes. That was Dorothy there speaking to Emma. And Sylvia got in touch to say, 64 years ago when I first met my husband, he was wearing a Donegal tweed overcoat, which I still have.

After he died 13 years ago, I wore this coat around the garden many times. I still have it hanging in my wardrobe and I'm going to be buried in it when my time comes. Now, what's the music that powers you through? For me, if I'm on a run and need a boost for the home stretch, a blast a bit of jungle direct into my eardrums does the trick every time. For Emma, she often reaches for the band Faithless and she spoke to one of the band members, songwriter and DJ Sister Bliss,

as well as Professor Lauren Stewart from Goldsmiths, who studies psychology and neuroscience of music. Sister Bliss began by explaining what it's like when starting to write music. I think it lives and breathes in the studio. There's often a sense of wonder where there was just air and suddenly there are notes hanging in the air. There is a phrase, there is a lyricism, there's some poetry and you get hairs up, you know, the back of your neck. That's when you know you're in the moment of creation. But I guess you know there's there's a culture around any music that you listen to and how you understand that culture is also how you hear it so for me living in the world that I live in

having grown up in the context of of loving electronic music watching how people receive music you know at a rave in a club at a festival when it's performed live or me djing music that i've made it's an immediate response you know when you make a record people have it at home and they listen to it in all sorts of different contexts but when you actually see how the music's affecting them how they're dancing you can see people's faces literally shining that sort of moment of communion so yeah it lives and breathes in the moment of creation but it definitely goes up to a whole another level when you're lucky enough to perform it to thousands and thousands of people in a big field as i've

been lucky enough to do over the years and you keep doing it and another one here just the message that came in totes with you of faithless emma insomnia is a tune i contrast dance tracks with some amazing emotionally stirring classical music from the Welsh composer Sir Carl Jenkins. The Armed Man is awesome. I'm getting some good recommendations here. But it's fascinating how people can take what you've created, Sister Bliss,

and then have it in their life, listen to it in a certain way, and what it makes them feel and do. Lauren, what's going on in our brains when we listen? Well, a great deal, actually, Emma. So it's really, there's no single brain area for when we listen? Well, a great deal, actually, Emma. So it's really, there's no single brain area for music. It's like a symphony of activity. So some areas are dealing with the pitch and the melody. Other areas are dealing with the rhythm and the harmony. Our experience, of course, is a very holistic one. We have no sense that there's

this distribution of activity that all comes together in this experience of the whole piece. But, of course, something really important about listening to music is that actually the brain is a prediction machine and music, listening, is a super stimulus, is a playground for us to seek patterns and to predict where the music's going to move next. And actually, this is hardwired into us to make predictions about what's going to happen in the world. And of course, the music listening is a very sort of safe situation in which to experiment with this.

So we find we get rewarded when we're correct about predictions. But actually, in the context of this safe space, we actually find it rewarding to be surprised as well when the music doesn't quite go where we expected it to. That's interesting. So we develop that as well. I'm also interested in if things change as you change age as well. What do we know about that? Do we have different tastes? Yeah, we do actually. And it's all because actually we're we're real experts as music listeners regardless of whether you can play any music we we basically become connoisseurs of how music works and of course over a lifetime of listening we we get more challenged because we've literally got a bigger more complex um listening biography so things that you might have once listened to when you were 15,

looking back at your playlists, you might think, oh, why did I find that particularly interesting? You know, because you need more challenge and more complexity. Sister Bliss, I've just watched this film. I don't know if you've seen it called Ali and Ava. It's a love story, but it's got music at its core. And it's so striking to actually see two main characters well over the age of 40. I don't quite know how old they are, but they put their headphones on and they are just in a different place. And I think sometimes we still think of music for the young in inverted commas. I haven't actually seen the film, but no, music is for all ages. I mean, I think, as Professor was saying, we're attuned to music.

It's in our bodies, the beat of our heartbeat. You know, when we're in our mother's wombs, nature, birdsong, even the sort of industrialised world we live in. You know, I feel I'm born of that. And techno music, house music, electronic music, it's all part of that, the sounds that are inside of us and are sort of echoing around us every single day. But, of course, music has that massively nostalgic pull as well. It can be so evocative for memory.

We just actually did the most incredible project, which was to make Insomnia, which is the kind of epitome of sleeplessness. It's about a song about not being able to get no sleep that you would generally hear in the middle of a dance floor. And we were approached by a CBD brand to do a collaboration and actually make Insomnia into a completely different music, which was about bringing on sleep.

And I'm thinking, but people have experienced this at such sort of high points in their life. There's no way they're going to be able to fall asleep to it. And how on earth can I dissemble this piece of music? So it still has that nostalgic, nurturing feeling to it, yet it's actually going to calm people right down as opposed to getting a huge surge of adrenaline and excitement as you do when you listen to the original.

What did that teach you about what you can do with mood and music? I think mood has a lot to do with tempo. It's, like I said before, it's echoing the motion of feelings and the momentum you get in your own body, you know, fast to slow and strong sounds and weak sounds. And for this particular project, it was making everything really still. So it was almost like interrupting the momentum and the excitement the tension and release that was from the original part of how I did that was slow the whole thing

down so it's a totally different tempo from the original and apparently it echoes a resting heart rate according to an amazing sleep expert I met whilst working on this project um and it was about um amazing what the professor was talking about, how the predictions. So it was about repeating things over and over again so it became hypnotic. What I love about our original version is there is this hypnotic element to the way things build and build and build

before you get the actual drop in the music. And this way we did away with it. Yes, exactly. But I was going to say, you're like a doctor to me. So what do you prescribe to yourself? We're going back to powering through. Sister Bliss, what powers you through? Is there a particular track?

Well, in terms of powering through, I think Leftfield's Open Up is a big one because it was a real anarchic record. It's exciting. It's dangerous. It's punky. It was a collaboration with John Lydon, which feels like a really unlikely marriage.

But I actually prefer to listen to more mellow music because I listen to banging music all day long. So, you know, give me some Joni Mitchell any day. I love that. I love that. The contrast. Sister Bliss, what a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much.

I will go back to my ritual tomorrow and know that we've had this conversation. It'll feel a little like a dream. Perhaps I'll even think about the sleeping side of this with music as well. Professor Lauren Stewart, just final word from you. Is there a song for you that powers you on or a particular tempo that you're drawn to?

Well, at the moment I'm liking getting out into nature and I'm listening to Spell Songs, which is a lovely album of collaboration involving the Cora, which I particularly am drawn to, and it's an album all about nature and the natural world, so I get out into the marshes and appreciate the natural world. Lovely. Sister Bliss and

Professor Lauren Stewart there. Also, shout out for Kate Bush. If ever you just want to dance like no one's watching, reach for Kate every time. Sorka got in touch to say, music has gotten me through the darkest of times i listen to slipknot and aurora when i'm gearing up for appointments dates interviews and when i'm trying to get work done i totally love faithless they still have given me some of the best memories with my mum throughout my childhood i've had insomnia as my ringtone for eight years. It never gets old. Still to come on the programme, we hear from three Ukrainian MPs who are working to help their country and we discuss disaster planning.

A look ahead to Wednesday's programme, Emma will be taking your calls on the new no-fault divorce law, which will come into force next week in England and Wales. Would not having to apportion blame have made a difference to your divorce? We'd love to hear your experiences of ending your relationship. Get in touch via our website and do leave us your contact details if you'd like to share your story live on the programme. Now they're called the Women's Diplomatic Battalion of Ukraine, a small group of female MPs or deputies as they're known in the Ukrainian parliament who've been crisscrossing Europe to garner international support for their war-torn country. They visited the UK where they met with the Prime Minister and were welcomed into the House of Commons and they were able to join us during their packed schedule.

Alona Shkrum is an MP from the All-Ukrainian Union Fatherland Party and Elena Kamenko and Maria Mezentseva are MPs from the Servants of the People Party. Maria began by explaining what it's like being in Ukraine right now. We do understand that it's not the first, you know, the first month for us. It's been going for more than eight years. We can't say that in the modern reality, when you travel from city to city, from town to town, when the life really differs in, you really differs in Mariupol right now, when we see zero buildings which survived,

when we still have people in the basements who need the relocation, when we see smaller towns next to Kiev, Kharkiv and other cities, when the rockets are reaching out right now to Rivne, Lviv and the far western cities. So saying that there is a security where you are right now, we can't say that. That's why we have to be very cautious about our actions, about our personal security, so we can fulfill our duties further as parliamentarians, as volunteers, as diplomats at the biggest scale. So these are the feelings. They are very mixed, but we are very determined.

And together with this determination, we're moving ahead every morning when we wake up. Thank you for that, Maria. Olena Kamenko, from your perspective, of course, as part of this Women's Diplomatic Battalion of Ukraine, what would or could peace with Russia look like to you? What would you accept? Just to remind our listeners, Zelensky has said, President Zelensky said he would be willing to accept

neutral status for Ukraine, one of Moscow's key demands. Ukraine has its red lines. And of course, we cannot talk about peace without withdrawing troops, Russian troops, from all the territories of Ukraine. And also we need to launch international audit of material losses and lost benefits, inclusive of defense systems. So they should be reimbursed within the five years.

And also we need to demilitarise the territories of Lugansk and Donetsk regions. Of course, the victims of this appalling war must be reimbursed. I mean, their losses must be covered. And of course, I suppose at the moment, we're also very much trying to keep in our minds those who are being affected and what we are hearing about what's happening

to people on the ground. And I'm very sorry to report that there have been reports about sexual violence against women and what's been going on in those particular settings that we have heard about. Of course, there'll be lots of things we have yet to hear about and evidence will be gathered.

What have you heard about that, Olena? We have been hearing a lot about numerous cases of rapes, of war crimes against Ukrainian women by Russian soldiers. And these have been done with utmost cruelty, especially when it comes to the crimes committed by Chechen mercenaries who fight on the Russian side. And Ukrainian authorities have started to collect the evidence from the victims and witnesses for further submission

to respect of Ukrainian authorities. It is to general prosecutor's office and in cases in international criminal courts. Maria, I know you've also been looking at this. Our address to the House of Commons just a week ago was also focusing on that. And I think it really touched the international media, these cases of violence with all three of us and many more women and men in Ukrainian parliament in different platforms are fighting against violence. these victims in terms of psychological help so they can move on with this wounds of war ahead because they have to leave after, after anyways. Many of them cannot be, are still not able to speak publicly. And therefore we have just several cases being registered by the,

by the prosecutor general, who is a woman herself takes takes it as a very serious mission for her. And, you know, sometimes it's called the aftermath of war. For us, it is the reality of war. It's the everyday losses. And we do hope that those women who are, you know, who are alone right now, they can still be secured. It brings us to another small, well, not a small issue, but it's on a smaller scale. When we might be facing the number of cases of the sexual violence, sexual harassment, once the women are crossing the border with their children,

once they're offered a sort of free lift to Poland or to UK even. We are trying to work again with NGOs at the border to prevent those cases going to inform women that they should not pass their passports to anyone or personal data. They have to be very careful once they are there. In terms of being part of, Alona, being part of the Women's Diplomatic Battalion of Ukraine, what does that give you?

Why do you think that's important? What is that feeling you get travelling with women and trying to have these sorts of conversations and bring out perhaps things that aren't coming across in the media? I can tell you honestly that it has not been easy for us to leave Ukraine. You feel somehow a little bit in control here and you want to stay here. And, you know, it's much easier to be here working on the ground than to read about the news every morning being somewhere abroad.

It also takes us about two days to actually leave Ukraine. So I'm in Kiev right now. It will take me almost two days to go, for example, to France, to Paris, where is my next destination. Usually it will take three hours by flight right now it will take two days because you you have to be very careful and you take cannot take the highways and you need to cross the border through poland but it does matter a lot and we see that you know it does change a lot when you can tell well specifically confidential and somehow closed information person to person but then again if you come directly from kiev where we have bombs you know and shellings every night and you tell

what is going on in person of course the understanding is much better on how to you know to fight this war because putin is not just uh making a war on ukraine it's basically a war on the whole international security order and security system, which was created after the Second World War. And it is a war, well, against the values that we share together with the West, against the democracy, against the freedom of speech, against the freedom of choose, where you want to go with your country and with your life. And of course, it makes a huge difference. We've seen it in the UK, especially during those meetings that could not be public meetings, like with the colleagues from the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Economy, Home Office,

that there are a lot of things that can be done on the ground. But it has not been easy to travel, mostly psychologically for us, because here there is a lot of things that needs to be coordinated to help in our constituencies. Indeed, also just worth saying, just in brief response to that, of course, there is growing frustration, there has been frustration with the West's response. You know, you are having these conversations, much of them will be private. But even if I look at the words of President Zelensky in an economist interview that he's just given, he said, there are those in the West who don't mind a long war because it would mean exhausting Russia, even if this means the demise of Ukraine and comes at the cost of Ukrainian lives. He goes

on to talk about others who do not feel that. But Alona, to finish with you, because I know our line was difficult at first or I couldn't hear you or you couldn't hear me. Where are your levels of optimism at the moment, if I may ask that? How do you feel about where this and how this is playing out? Well, I can tell you that we are pretty much done with the normal diplomacy in Ukraine, because when people are dying every day and when people have been shelled and bombed, it's very difficult to still keep the diplomatic smile on. So I actually admire Mr. Zelensky, who has been under tremendous pressure and is in Kiev

every day in his office, risking his life for saying the ugly truth. And the ugly truth is, of course, that there are countries and there are our partners and friends who still would like us to make Russia weaker and weaker and weaker and not give us the no-fly zone and not help us with more military weapons. We know the position of Germany has been completely frustrated. But I see that every visit, every speech to every parliament that Zelensky makes, every bravery of our soldiers, of our women actually in the army, because we have more than 15% of women in the Ukrainian armed forces. I think it's also very important to say that.

I think it all makes us closer to victory and closer for the West and our friends to understand what is really going on and that Putin has to be stopped right here in Ukraine and not allowed to go further to Finland, Poland, the Baltic countries, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, because he will. Alona Shkrumda speaking alongside Elena Kamenko and Maria Mezanseva. Now to comic books. Those who may be familiar with the DC universe may know the character Nubia, who was the first black woman superhero to be included in the books. She's the adopted sister of Wonder Woman and was first introduced in the 1970s

before disappearing from comics for decades. But the character returned last year in a new comic, and she's being featured in a new exhibition, Superheroes, Orphans and Origins, which opened in London this week. I spoke to Robin Smith, who illustrated the book, and began by asking her how she went about creating the new Nubia. It was highly collaborative, I would say. I wasn't given any physical description of her, but I had an idea of what she looked like

previously in the earlier comics. And her being a 16 year old girl I am really close with a cousin of mine who was 16 at the time that I was designing her so she's very heavily based off of my 16 year old cousin. How flattering to your 16 year old cousin that's amazing to have a superhero designed after you. What was important? What characteristics were important? I mean, this is such an opportunity, right? You're creating a new version of Nubia, a black female superhero. That's a lot of pressure, but a lot of pleasure, I'm sure.

Yeah, it initially felt like a lot of pressure, but I feel like everything that I do is to like uplift black women. I really love creating comics that center black women so I was already doing that before I was hired. So in terms of like creating her character and again I like didn't come up with her personality but so much of like her body language and what she chose to wear and like how she interacted with her friends. That kind of was up to me. And I just wanted her to be like, I always say like as regular as possible, because I feel like one thing about like creating black superheroes, especially like black women superheroes, people think that they have to be like this exceptional being when in fact like Nubia is just a regular teenage

girl who has these powers and so I just wanted her to seem like a regular teenage girl. But crucially moves through life as a black woman a young black woman so what what was important to to feature as part of that? I really wanted to get across her softness. I feel like maybe that was the most important part to me. Again, she is a Black woman. She is superpowered. But at the same time, she's a young girl. And I feel like so much of Black girlhood isn't portrayed in a positive light in a lot of media.

I feel like it's more common now. And there's so many people, especially in comics who are making things about black girlhood that I'm really enjoying right now. But yeah, because you've got some real life events in the issues as well, haven't you? Because she,

she lives through the black lives matter protests. Why was it important for that to be included? Because it's like happening now, you know, it's something that has always existed. Black people, black children, like face a lot of like threat from like police, you know, and including that in the book as something that like does happen. It's not fictional. And again, like Nubia was supposed to sort of represent like a real person like her experience is real like she was put in real life it's her experience is what like a lot of um black teens are experiencing they like go to the protest it's their reality

and I know it was really important to Elle and myself to like show as much of what was real and that Nubia, a superpowered being, especially like a black superpowered being, would be at these protests, would like this is her community. And friendship is a big theme and sisterhood. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, she's the sister of Wonder Woman so how does that run through it um so like originally her story is that they're both made of clay it's kind of like a racist story that starts Nubia um where Wonder Woman was made from like light clay and then Nubia was made from dark clay.

Nubia was like stolen by like Ares and made evil and then comes back as a villain. And that's Nubia's story um so instead there is like this the through line of them both being made of clay but it's the same it's clay it's just clay it's just clay it's not evil clay it's not bad it's just exactly um It's just clay. It's not evil clay. It's not bad clay. It's just clay. And we actually sort of changed the lore a little bit where their eyes are actually the same color. And it is the color of that clay that they were made of. It's like a very subtle thing that happens in the book.

And I don't think it's like something extremely noticeable but we wanted that to like run through um and she's like kept in stasis as like a baby and Wonder Woman does discover her so that is why she's 16 and Wonder Woman is an adult but they are twin sisters and it's DC so anything's possible. Robin Smith there. Now whenever there's a catastrophic event somewhere in the world Lucy Easthope is likely to get a phone call about it. She's one of the country's foremost disaster planners and has worked in some way on the response to every single major incident in the UK since 2001, which includes 9-11, the 7-7 attacks, the Grenfell Tower tragedy and the Covid-19 pandemic.

She's put all of those experiences into a book called When the Dust Settles and joined Emma this week. Lucy began by explaining what it's been like in such a male-dominated field. There's a lot of winning over. there's a lot of explaining what disaster planning is, what advice you might need. You're usually looking, as with so much of women's work, you're always looking for allies. So you're looking for people who've perhaps worked with you on the last disaster and are going to say, oh no, she's good at what she does. And I think that will resonate with a lot of women. Your career, you you say has heightened your sense of risk and how fine the line is between normal life and disaster tell us a bit more about that. So I think we've

we've we've lost the sense of how perilous life is and that doesn't need to be a negative we're just we keep being surprised when when life is is full of risk and crisis and disaster and there's this real sense I talk in the book about dis and astro, the alignment, the celestial alignment of the bad stars. And one thing to remember is that potential disasters happen all the time, actual disasters, wars, events happen all the time. And I think one thing that's changed from perhaps generations before us is the way that we consume them is different.

And we're trying to live in what psychologists would call a kind of state of heightened arousal, rather than accepting that this is life's sort of frailty. Yes. And for you, and disaster planning, and also response, what does that mean? What do you do in your job? I've mentioned how many you've had to respond to. So as a disaster planner, and I've been one in my working life for 22 years, the book might suggest I've been one all my life. But in my working life, what we do is we constantly calibrate what risks might be ahead. We make lists of risks. We plan for those events. And then my particular area of work is for the part we call the aftermath so I care particularly for the bereaved and the survivors and a particularly important part of my work is the care of the deceased. And that is you

know you go into great detail about that because it's a very difficult area to talk about but it is essential and you do help with the identification of of bodies and also with helping those who have lost loved ones and how that is communicated and what you are able to tell them. Absolutely. And that's vital work. And, you know, you need to take two things from that. One is that, again, this is happening all the time in major incidents, but also in sudden single deaths, people are confronting some of these issues. But also, I think there's a great comfort in knowing that there are people who go in afterwards. There's a myth at the moment that there isn't that, you know, that everything's a surprise to government. There is some comfort

in knowing that somewhere there are some steady hands, you know, ready to go to the next one. And you also say how important it is to tell those who have lost loved ones the unvarnished truth. Why? There's an idea, I think, that only bad lies are told after disaster. You know, we have a lot of interest in who said what and who was lying. Good lies are told as well. So those are things like somebody was sleeping. You know, that was a very old school funeral director tactic in a train crash was to say, oh, that person didn't feel anything. It was instant and they were sleeping. And then the nature of death investigation and particularly the coronial investigation would highlight that that was a lie.

And then what you do to that bereaved family is you plunge them right back into the first day of grief. But also they then question everything. So we had a very large public inquiry in 2001 into the care of families after transport disasters in the UK, a very important public inquiry with recommendations. And that said, you know, the most important thing is to be honest. But that that is hard. And the book explains, I think it's not easy to say some of these things to families. But you think we must because of faith as well in public institutions and being able to trust those who are meant to be looking after us. It's a consensual relationship.

So a family will say to you, I want to know nothing. And you do two things there. One is you respect that. But two, you also have very, very difficult conversations with them about we can't completely protect you. You know, there is a media, there is a coronial process. there are other things that might mean you have to hear some of these things. We can't completely guarantee that you won't hear these things. And then a family might say, tell me everything. And that's what I, you know, I'm inspired by things like very good

police family liaison officers or very good funeral directors who learn how to have those conversations. You aren't just responding though though. You are planning as well. That is a big part of this. And it's striking to me that you say, with regards to the pandemic, that contrary to popular opinion, it was the most diligently planned for disaster. A lot of people would not feel that that was the case in the way that it unfolded, not least because there's now a COVID-19 public inquiry. Well, for all of our plan for risks, we tend to see public inquiries.

Public inquiries, we would say, are part of the process. I think it does take... There's a lot of anger that prompted the requests for that, especially from the groups who have sprung up from the bereaved families. And I think what you will see is them following a very similar path to all of the disaster families that I work with, which is just utter shock. Sometimes our very existence as disaster planners can be an affront. You know, the idea, it sometimes is a comfort to be taken from the idea that this was unprecedented or a surprise. And we kind of appear on the scene

and say, we knew what was needed, and perhaps sometimes we weren't allowed to deliver it. And that's a huge shock. And that's probably one of the main themes the public inquiry will uncover was how much work was done and then how easy it is to erode that, particularly during times of austerity. So what happened with Covid? Why did we look so shambolic at times? One of the things is a disaster doesn't happen in isolation so where you are at the time of the event is very relevant and we went into a pandemic with a very very depleted health and social care system so the stronger your health and social care the better your pandemic response so a lot of us were very very nervous and we talked a lot about an influenza pandemic, but we still had our eyes on other things that could cause pandemic. And people focused that,

you know, we'd only looked at flu, we looked at corona, we also looked at some very, very, very terrifying scenarios, like in 2014, we planned extensively for Ebola, which would have been a very, very different experience. So we assumed and we hoped that we would be listened to and that was very difficult in 2019. Who wasn't listening to you? Our central government were very difficult to listen to, very difficult to convince that this was a major risk and really we acted too late as a country. One of the things I say in the book quite poignantly is we were told we couldn't plan for Brexit and a pandemic at the same time. It was too ridiculous to think of both happening at the same time. And so as disaster planners, I think we started to feel very stymied in our ability to go into it in our best in our best uh in our best foot forward kind of thing

who told you that or who who who was that message from um for me personally generally it would come out as a sort of slow um erosion of priorities so for example in meetings would just be delayed so by the time we got to january 2020 um it was multiple meetings at department, ministerial department level had been postponed. And I think that's the sort of thing where that will be incredibly painful for the families to sit through. That's a key theme in the book, I think, is the revelations of disaster. That's going back to that point about honesty. I think families, one of the things that is quite a common trick at the moment is to tell families that this was unpredicted unplanned for we're all in it together come along with us on the journey

and only recently actually some of the bereaved families who are fighting for the public inquiry have met with me and their pain is almost reopened all over again at the idea that there were people who had worked very hard to map this out. You know, we went into the pandemic being described as one of the most ready countries in the world. There were reasons for that because we... But when I mentioned chaos, of course, the things that come to mind were the lack of PPE. Yeah. You know, those sorts of details, of course.

But just in case people are wondering which part of this we're talking about, because I remember interviewing health care professionals who didn't have anything to wear. So how could we be the most prepared for and it not be there? I mean, as disaster planners, we were devastated by the loss of the PPE stockpile. So the essential part of the pandemic plan, which had been developed since 2004, was a major logistics contract that would manage the PPE that would mean, for example, we could put families into hospitals to say goodbye. You know, the iPad idea that somebody would say goodbye on an iPad is no consolation. So we did have it, and then we didn't have it.

Yeah, it was run down between 2017 and 2020 is my understanding. But I think that will have to be explored in the public inquiry. But certainly when we went to reach for it as disaster planners, it wasn't there. And that was such a key tenet of our disaster plan that we then rallied. And we did, you know, at local level, we did some incredible fast response. But that was that I think, you know, future times will show that that left us very weak. Lucy Easthope there. And we have had a response from the Cabinet Office, which says the COVID pandemic was unprecedented and challenged health systems around the world.

Throughout the pandemic, we've been guided by scientific and medical experts, and our main priority was to protect the NHS and save lives. As the National Audit Office report on COVID-19 pandemic preparedness recognised, the government benefited from EU exit planning as well as the challenge of balancing multiple priorities. That's all from me for now. Emma will be back with you on Monday at 10am where she'll be hearing about One Listener's black beaded flap address. And remember you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day. If you can't join us live at 10am during the week just subscribe to the daily podcast via the Woman's Hour website,

and it's absolutely free. You're welcome. Have a great weekend. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth.

How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.