Woman's Hour - Sister Bliss, Maternity reports, River women, Karis Kelly

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

Sister Bliss started out DJing on London’s gay club scene, before co-founding Faithless in 1995 and became one of the few women of her generation to help shape UK dance culture. Faithless have sold more than 20 million albums and amassed close to a billion streams. 30 years on from the hit dance anthem Insomnia, she joins Nuala McGovern to discuss their latest album - Champion Sound.Too many recommendations, not enough implementation - these are the findings of the latest report into maternity services in England, from the Health Services Safety Investigations Body. It has pressed pause on its own investigation to make way for a new government rapid review to be led by Baroness Valerie Amos. So why are the findings of multiple reports and reviews not yet leading to change? Nuala finds out with BBC Social Affairs correspondent Michael Buchanan, and maternity campaigner Emily Barley, who lost her own daughter due to maternity failings in 2022.Winner of the Women’s Prize for Playwriting 2022, Karis Kelly’s play Consumed is described as a pitch-black and twisted comedy of dysfunctional family dynamics, generational trauma and national boundaries set in Northern Ireland. Currently well-received on stage at the Edinburgh Festival, Karis explains why she chose to focus her story on the lives of four generations of women from the same family.You might love your local river, but enough to marry it? One woman felt so strongly about protecting the River Avon in Bristol that she took part in a wedding to it...she is part of a group of women bathers and activists who want the watercourse to have the right to be free from pollution. Megan Trump, or Mrs Meg Avon as she is now known, and Charlotte Sawyer are in the Woman's Hour studio.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Kirsty Starkey

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BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Neula McGovern, and you're listening to The Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to the program. We have covered maternity care failings extensively on this program, and also the reports and the reviews into tragedies for families at a time where there should have been great joy. But what change has really come from the numerous investigations? We're going to discuss that in.

just a moment. Also today, we are expecting the arrival of Sister Bliss into the studio shortly, the co-founder of the hugely successful Faithless. We're going to hear all about the road to making their new album, Champion Sound. It is the first since the death of their lead vocalist, Maxi Jazz, in 2022. Sister Bliss calls the record's collaborations a real passing of the baton from Maxi. and it is 30 years since Faithless released insomnia. And I was thinking there must have been some great nights out for Sister Bliss in that time. And I'm going to ask her about hers.

But I was also wondering about yours. I'd love you to share your standout, night out. Where was it? When? With who? And why is it the one that you remember? You can text the programme. The number is 84844 on social media

or at BBC Women's Hour. Or you can email us through our website for a WhatsApp message or voice note, the number is 0-3-700-100-444. Also, Caris Kelly's play Consumed is now on at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Karas will join us to tell us more about why she set it amid a family reunion dinner

in Northern Ireland with only women present. Plus, why one of my guests today, married a river. But let us first look back. Since 2015, there have been at least four major independent investigations centered on specific trusts as well as a number of system reviews

from bodies such as the CQC which is the Care and Quality Commission the Parliamentary Ombudsman and the Health Services Safety Investigations body which is known as the HSIB and now the latest announcement of a government rapid review led by Baroness Amos these are all to do with maternity care

but how many reports and reviews into the failures of maternity services in England will there be before real change comes about? That is the question being raised by campaigners this morning yet another report this time from the HSSI found that too many recommendations are being made and very few actually implemented.

At first I want to bring you Rosie Bennyworth interim CEO of the HSIB who has been explaining the findings on Radio 4's today program. There is a complex national infrastructure and some lack of coordination across how the national organisations are working together. Systems are inconsistent and vary.

There's lots and lots of recommendations that go into the maternity system. Over 700 is the latest I've heard. And many of these recommendations don't need to the change that's needed on the ground. We also know that many of the systems after something has happened can compound the harm and distress for patients and families who've been through these awful incidents. These are the worst events that people might experience in their life. And then we hear afterwards that the investigation processes

often hold patients and families at arm's length. People have to repeat their story time and time again. And very often, patients and families don't feel that they have got the answers at the end of it. That was Rosie Benyworth there. The HSISIB has now paused its own investigations following the announcement from the Health Secretary West Streeting last week that Baroness Valerie Amos will lead a rapid review

into maternity services. That's news that has been met with dismay by some campaigners. Theo Clark is the former Conservative MP. She chair the cross-party birth trauma inquiry in Parliament and she's a campaigner on this issue. The Health Secretary needs to urgently implement the previous recommendations from inquiries like ours, which already set out very clearly a policy roadmap of what to implement. This maternity task force is due to report in three months. And I'm very concerned to hear that the HSIB have actually paused on part of the of the findings of their report in light of this investigation. The health secretary has told us maternity services keeps them up at night,

but there have been no major significant announcements in terms of additional funding or in terms of policy improvements, bar having yet another investigation. And again, the HSISIB is the Health Services Safety Investigations body. Well, I'm joined by two guests now. Social Affairs correspondent at Michael Buchanan. Good morning, Michael. Good to have you with me, who has been investigating maternity services. And also we have Emily Barley, who is maternity from the Maternity Safety Alliance,

who sadly lost her newborn daughter, Beatrice in May 2022 due to failings in care at Barnsley Hospital. Welcome, Emily, and I'm so sorry for your loss. Thank you. Let me begin with you, Emily. You hear about this other maternity report coming out, another review to take place. How are you feeling this morning as you hear some of the voices? angry again and that is a state I think a lot of us whose babies have been killed by the NHS feel it is another investigation another review another report and they're all wrong they're all the wrong processes by the wrong organisations and I think that's the key issue I am absolutely sick of hearing that we already know what needs to happen we just need to get on with doing it we don't it's not true there hasn't been a full, whole system analysis that really looks at everything that's happening

throughout the maternity system to understand what's truly going on. And we also don't have answers about why it keeps happening and who's responsible for it. And that answers we would desperately need to be able to have any hope of fixing anything. So you talk about a whole system. Do you know what that would look like? Yeah, so we're specifically campaigning for a judge-led statutory public inquiry because that's the only way we feel this can be done properly, transparently, with all the voices that need to be heard, being heard, and all the evidence that needs to be interrogated, interrogated.

Instead of these reviews that are by the Department for Health or by HSIB, which is another deeply flawed, highly biased organisation that has, they're not the right people to be doing this. And so a statutory public inquiry takes it away from all of the people and organisations who are already part of the system that needs to be investigated. And I don't have specific responses to how you characterise it there, Emily. but I understand from your point of view what it is you're looking for I want to bring Michael into this we hear what Emily is looking for

and her frustration with some of the reviews that are there what is it that's happening that there seems to be so many investigations taking place one after another mainly up till now what has happened is that there have been deep dives or investigations into local,

specific thrust so you think Markham Bay was the first one which published in 2015 then you had East Kent then you had Shrewsbury and Telford now you've got the biggest of a lot taking place in Nottingham which is due to report next year and then you have as you

said yourself at the outset of the programme you have organisations at the Care Quality Commission and others doing reports and reviews and to Emily's point that it is both through and not through what she says to this extent that she is right that lots of people say

everybody knows what the problems are we just need to implement them well that if you make that argument and that is an argument the NHS will make then the problem you come across is that a lot of these recommendations have simply not been enacted

so if you look at the moment there are about 733 recommendations for improvements in maternity and neonatal care within the NHS in England that have come up in recent years now that is clearly two many. But if you just look at one particular example, let's look at

Morecambe Bay Trust. It had an investigation into its maternity care it published in 2015. There were 44 recommendations that came out of that. 18 of them were for the trust itself to do. By 2019 it had said, the trust said,

we've embedded all these recommendations. And then I attended an inquest that finished in March of this year about the death of another child due to avoidable reasons at the very same trust. And the coroner in that inquest concluded that at least eight of the recommendations that had been made a decade earlier had not been implemented. So the family of the child whose inquest were listened to in 2015, in 2025 had

not been given honesty about what had happened. The complications of the complaints process were really, really evident. The trust had not carried out a proper investigation into the death. They had not learned from them. So if you're going to invest in local investigations like the one that took place in Markham Bay, the NHS surely has a responsibility to ensure that the improvements are embedded. And at the moment, there is not a system for doing that. And then when Emily says there hasn't been a system view, the reason there hasn't been a system view, I think, is because the NHS has never really approached maternity care from the perspective of the patient and from the mother and the family. And what I mean by that is when I go to organisations,

And I say to them, well, why didn't you do that? They will say, well, that's not our responsibility, that's somebody else's responsibility. For example, with the case of Morecam that you're drilling down into, what would their response be if you know why those eight, for example, recommendations were not implemented to the level they should have been? Well, what happened in Morecambe Bay was that the trust was effectively left to ensure that the recommendations that had come out of that review were implemented.

And they conducted reports and reviews and published reports and reviews to say we had done it. But nobody from the wider NHS, well, either nobody had got in to ensure that it had happened or else they had gone in and given them the benefit of the doubt. And that's consistently what you see happening when inspectors and organisations that have got a macro view of the NHS.

When they go into NHS trust, they repeatedly give the NHS trust the benefit of the doubt. But when Emily says there hasn't been a system review, view, if you look at the family of that young child who died in Markham Bay, whose inquest we spoke about, you know, they end up being pulled from pillar to post. So the trust eventually, the trust said it wasn't our fault. They eventually said it was our fault. But then NHS resolution, which is the litigation arm of the NHS,

they then said, well, maybe it may not have been the trust's fault. And so then they start another review and then new people had dragged into the process. and at the centre of this entire process is the family. And when Emily says there hasn't been a system view of it all, the reviews that have taken place at a national level have not put the families at the heart of them, which is fundamentally the problem. I mean, with Baroness Amos's review,

which is expected a rapid review, Emily, I'm wondering how you're feeling about that particular initiative. We were promised directly by West Streeting that families would be at the centre. of this review. And so far our experience is that that is not happening. We spent a lot of time and effort giving feedback to the Department for Health about what we think should happen in this review and it's being completely disregarded. And so what we're seeing is that it's going to be another one of these shallow superficial reviews that doesn't do what we need to need it to do

and is going to potentially be misleading about what's actually happening in maternity. So I'm worried now that this review is going to actually be damaging, actively damaging. And in the meantime, babies continue to die. More than 800 babies every year. More families joining us in the hell that we're living in. And what we're seeing is people seeking simple solutions to really complex, difficult problems. I will read a statement we do have from the Department for Health and Social Care. care. They say too many families have suffered due to failures in maternity care. We're committed to breaking that cycle and providing mothers and babies with the safe, compassionate care that they deserve. That is why we've announced a rapid national investigation led by Baroness Amos, which we're speaking about, to identify where things are going wrong and identify solutions to tackle them. We know change can't wait. We're already taking action to improve maternity care, including training thousands more midwives, rolling out new training to prevent avoidable brain injuries during childbirth and new standards to tackle.

the leading cause of maternal mortality. What about that, Michael? I mean, are a lot of those initiatives being implemented? Well, I think it's important that we set out there has been improvement in maternity care. So, for instance, there are now more midwives than there were the stillbirth levels, the levels of stillbots have decreased.

The NHS had a goal to halve the stillbirth rate that was evident in 2010 by 2025. It's not quite going to get there, but the stillbirth rate in 2023 was 20% lower than it was in 2013. And that's because of a range of initiatives trying to, you know, for instance, trying to get women to not smoke during pregnancy, putting efforts into that. So there have been improvements that have been made. But the problem remains that there are too many families being harmed across the board. And if you look at things that are happening like the inspections that the care quality companies, Commission carry out of all maternity units in England on a regular basis, then half of them

have got the two lowest ratings, and I think it's about two thirds of them have got the two lowest ratings for being safe. And that speaks to the culture, I think, of a lot of these units. And if you look at even East Kent, again, another unit that was investigated and whose problems were made public, it was a job of work for that trust to get the maternity staff in East Kent to read the East Kent Maternity Report because in some cases the staff feel that this is a world in which they don't recognise that it's all these families that are creating problems for the trust and don't the families realise how hard it is on a daily basis to work in the maternity unit and these families are not criticising individual clinicians as the system that they are they understand the pressures these midwives and obstetricians are under but it's when they come across the system that's repeatedly putting its own reputation ahead of giving them the truth as to what happened to them. That's when the problems arise. Just going back to figures as well, I know you mentioned 800 there, Emily and Sands and Tommies.

Those two charities, they do say 800 babies' lives may have been saved with better care. You hear Michael speaking there about those specifics when it comes to some of the staff working within those confines, I suppose, of maternity care. What are your thoughts when you hear some of that? I think one of the huge problems we've got across all of maternity care at every level in the system is that there is no accountability. When a midwife doesn't do her job and a baby dies as a result of that, she should be accountable. And I think there's a conversation and a discussion to be had about what that accountability looks like. I'd be curious for your thoughts on that. I'm sure you've thought about it. I think there are a range of options and I think it does vary as to the case and the specifics,

but there are some midwives who practice so dangerously with deadly consequences that they shouldn't be in that job anymore. They're not suitable. They're not safe. But it's not just about accountability for clinicians. And that applies, by the way, to doctors as well. It's not just midwives who are failing at times. It applies to management, to leaders within NHS trust, within hospitals, but it also applies to the regulators, to the Care Quality Commission, to NHS England, to all these other organisations whose job it is to keep us safe and make sure we get safe quality care and then not doing it. And they should, all of these people and organisations must be accountable. And one of the ways through which they can be made accountable is just by us here. in the truth, learning the truth about what's happening. And that's why one of the big reasons why we want this statutory public inquiring. So what would your message be to Baroness Amos

if she were listening this morning? My message to Baroness Amos would be for her to recognize that this mammoth task that she's being appointed to and has come to with, I believe, all good intentions is not going to work. And I hope that she can see that and stop it because that's what needs to happen. We need to call a halt on this rapid review and do it properly. Michael, what are the chances of a statutory public inquiry like Emily is calling for happening? At the moment, it doesn't appear to be something the health secretary is willing to countenance at all. There are, it should be pointed out there are some families who are willing to work with Baroness Amos

they have concerns about it so there are differences between various families who have suffered due to poor maternity care but there is an acknowledgement I think that something significant has to happen and whether this rapid review is that solution or not

there is an increasing debate as to whether it is or not when Mr Streeting announced that there was a belief let's give this amongst a lot of families let's give this the opportunity to do its work and see where it ends up. But the word he used when he announced it was co-produced. It would be co-produced with families.

And as the weeks and months of grand families, as you can hear, a number of families are increasingly feeling that it's not co-production. And if it doesn't become co-production, a number of them, as you can hear, are walking away from it. Others are still willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. But I think it's going to be very difficult, A, to achieve it in the time frame Mr. Streting wants to do so, which is by the end of December.

But secondly, to get the universal or close to universal buying that is probably needed if it's going to make meaningful change. Our social affairs correspondent Michael Buchanan and Emily Barley from the Returnity Safety Alliance. Thanks so much for speaking to us. I know you would have mentioned Barnsley at the beginning, Emily, as well, where you lost your baby. And I do want to read a statement that we received. It says first and foremost, our greatest sympathies remain with Emily following this sad loss. There was an extensive action plan that has been fully implemented and undergone an assurance review, including improvements in risk assessments, monitoring fetal well-being and training.

Like other maturity units, we are constantly striving to make our services better and safer. All NHS trusts are required to report certain cases to maturity and newborn safety investigations who will provide an independent review and recommendations which we implement. Each case is unique and provide specific and distinct learning points that allow the service to make progressive improvements, some of which is echoed, I think, in the statement from the NHS England in response to the HSIB report. We know and we need to urgently understand and address the systemic issues behind why many women babies and families are experiencing unacceptable care. We're working closely with the government to support the national investigation into maternity

services to ensure families see meaningful improvements. It's a story we shall keep covering and thanks very much to my guests. I see somebody's getting in touch. Kathy, WhatsApp. She says, my memorable night out was Rise at Sheffield. Sister Bliss was playing. The music box TV show were filming. I was caught on camera, dancing on the stage, wearing a satin pajama top, bra showing,

shorts in a feather boa, sewn into my hat. After the camera moved out, I slipped getting off the stage, split my lip. So apart from the music and the occasion, I have a small scar on my upper lip, and YouTube footage of the night, one to show the kids. It's where it all started, said Cathy.

Right. Next, on to Consumed. Caris Kelly's play won the Women's Prize for Playwriting, 2022. It's described as a pitch-black and twisted comedy of dysfunctional family dynamics, generational trauma and national boundaries set in Northern Ireland. And it's all around a kitchen table. It's set amid a family reunion dinner for a 90th birthday.

There are four generations of women under one. roof, the relationships, the resentments, they're all there. There's buried secrets as well that defined that family. It's on stage at the moment in the Traverse Theatre at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. And Karas joins me now. Welcome. How's it going up there? Hi, Nula.

Yeah, it's going amazingly. We've sold out now. So I think there's about two tickets left for a Sunday. So it's been incredible. We've had amazing reviews. five-star reviews and it's really affecting audiences, which is my key, the key thing I wanted to do. And it's called consumed. Why?

It's called consumed for a number of reasons. So it looks at, as you mentioned, kind of transgenerational trauma and how that is expressed through each of the characters on stage. So they're each consumed by something, whether it's an addictive trait or it is a compulsive behaviour. But it's also, as you said, set round a dinner table. And it also explores each of the characters' relationships to food within the context of that very...

I think the line has frozen for a moment from Edinburgh. I'm going to give it a second to see does it come back? Not just yet. We're going to try and reconnect with Carus 8444 if you'd like to get in touch because what I am asking you today is about your best night out. Keep them coming in while I try and reconnect with Caris. I think we do have her. Sorry, Caris, you just stopped mid-flow there.

I'm so sorry, I checked that my internet was okay prior to this and it was fine. So it must be gremlins on the line. Where did you last, what did I last say? Well, we were talking about intergenerational trauma and how this is part of it that is coming out around the kitchen table. And I'm wondering why you're interested in that. And maybe we should describe what transgenerational trauma is. It's the transmission of trauma's effects really from generation to generation,

something that's experienced by a parent or an ancestor could influence the mental health or well-being of their descendants. Why does that interest you? So I myself, I am from Northern Ireland in Ireland. I'm actually a McGovern as well. Oh, there you go. Maybe we're a long-lost cousins. I'm sure.

I'm sure at some stage we're related. And so my family left the north of Ireland during the conflict, and I was raised predominantly in London. My family moved back afterwards, as is the case with a lot of the post-conflict society in Northern Ireland, people have returned. and during the lockdown I was diagnosed with OCD and that kind of set me along this path of thinking

well where did this start because I could see a lot of these traits tracing all the way back through my family members so I wanted to explore that and I think it's a really interesting manifestation of transgenerational trauma my specific OCD is the repetitive worry that something bad is going to be for my family members which is obviously a really clear connection to the troubles in the north, but also within terms of eating disorders and disordered eating

and how that was traced through my family and hoarding behaviours and addiction. And so then I looked even further back and found stories of great suffering of people trying to escape starvation during the Irish famine, which was arguably for starvation as there was grain, that it was being shipped off. So, yeah, that was my interest around transgenerational trauma. I'm curious because around the table, you have these different generations of women

and some that poo-poo are very resistant to the ideas of generational trauma or indeed even eating disorders or some of the other conditions that you speak of. And I'm wondering, did you come up against that? Is there anything autobiographical in this? Oh, absolutely. I think the older generations in Northern Ireland have,

it's actually a term for it, it's a psychological process of shielding, which is to protect the younger generations by not discussing what happened. And actually what that does is create a sort of unreality that everyone's expected to exist in where we're not confronting the repressed trauma of the troubles. And so, yeah, that was absolutely influenced by that.

I mean, there's a character in the play. She says, why are you also desperate for us to be victims, which I absolutely think is a narrative that comes from the north. But I suppose what the play says is that we have to confront these things and we have to discuss. Otherwise, they do get embedded and repressed and passed down and they can't be healed unless they're confronted. There was something I meant to look up this morning and then I didn't, Karras, which was a line in your play, that the Irish were the tallest in Europe before the famine. Did you make that up or is it true?

No, I've been told it multiple times. but I don't know if I don't know if that is a that is our truth or whether it's one of those kind of relayed myths it's funny because we often growing up I'm talking about in the 70s Ireland that we used to always think why are British people taller than us that used to often be a question so I thought that was so funny in the play I want to talk about before you go anywhere else about external validation right so you have been working

you're an overnight sensation that just took over a decade decade to make. And you basically were writing and ready to throw in the towel when the women's prize for playwriting picked you. And I read that you came to a place of acceptance with not needing external validation. But then the prize came along, which of course is a total manifestation of external validation. So talk me through how that process has been. yeah it was it was a difficult process to navigate initially i arrived at a place i did think about throwing in the towel and during lockdown when all the theatres were closed and you know for context i was writing for about 14 years before i won the prize um and you know remember all of those

images of the ballerina retraining in tech i did actually think it's time for me to retrain but i had a kind of quiet little voice saying just just submit consumed just see what happens because it was a very early draft. It was second draft. And what I'd arrived at was that, you know, whether or not I am validated, I know that my writing is good. And that was how I was going, I'd settled it in my mind. And then, yes, submitted it and won and was astonished and still am astonished. And so, yeah, it is one of those things I think, whether or not you are receiving validation, because my writing didn't change. My writing is the same as it has been for 14 years. Yes, I grew in ability in the craft, but it's still at the heart

the same work. So, yeah, and then now receiving, I mean, the key thing for me is we've had amazing reviews, but it's what the audience take from it that matters the most to me. So I can kind of get my validation that I'm affecting

audience members. And we actually had one woman leave and she said that it completely encapsulates the Irish experience and that she's incredibly grateful that it exists despite it being painfully true. So that was my job done. Because some of it

is a playful look and at other times a serious look at what it means to be Irish or British or Northern Irish. And I'm wondering how it is for you because obviously we hear you. You haven't got a Northern Ireland accent, but

you are. Yeah. My family all live there and often when I'm at home in Bangor, people who will stop me in the shop and say, how are you enjoying your visit? And I have to say, oh, no, I live here. And I'm from here. But I think for me, I identify as London Irish, Northern Irish, Irish.

I think I can hold multitudes. My family, I'm from a mixed marriage, which for people who don't know what that means, my mother is Protestant, my father's Catholic. So I've always had to hold dual identities. And I think that that's incredible for being a writer. Because I read somewhere that a person should be a straight, a good writer should be a stranger in every. place that they go. And I sort of feel like that because I'm, you know, I have my London

accent, but I am Northern Irish. And then within not being Northern Irish, I'm both Catholic and Protestant. And then I also have family from the Republic. So yeah, I think, I think you can be, I think the beauty of Northern Ireland is that you can identify as many different things at once. So you're on in Edinburgh at the moment. Have you thought about skipping over the water and going either north or south of the border with consumed. Oh, absolutely. It was always my dream to have it on in Belfast initially before coming to England. But for multiple different reasons, that hasn't happened, but there is a lot of hope that we are going to get it there because that's the audience of its fall. And it's been

wonderful seeing it amongst Edinburgh audiences because it lands really well with Scottish people because they understand so many of the themes but it's really for me I really would love the Northern Irish Irish people and the diaspora to be able to experience it as well so yeah that is the dream getting it to Northern Ireland or the Republic

well I hope your dreams come true and I love the I contain multitudes we actually were talking about a film The Life of Chuck yesterday which has that as its central team So that might be the theme of the week that we contain multitudes. Consumed continues at the Traverse Theatre.

You've got two tickets free maybe on Sunday in Edinburgh until Sunday the 24th of August and then on tour in Leeds, Sheffield, Coventry and Guildford. Enjoy it all, Caras Kelly. Thanks very much for speaking to us. Thank you so much. I was asking you for your best night out. Here's one, Sarah.

Best night, too many to mention. But I'd have to say Ali Pally's faithless gig is up there. One of the last big gigs I went to before having kids. I've no idea where the last 20 years have gone to be honest. Well, that leads me nicely into my next item. And if you are a faithless fan, prick up your ears because we have Sister Bliss in the studio with us. Now for those who don't know your backstory, you're a classically trained musician who started DJing on London's gay scene before co-founding Faithless in 1995 and helping to build a sound that gave real emotional weight to electronic music. Faithless have sold more

than 20 million albums had three number one records and amassed close to a billion streams. I mean, even that number could hurt your head. Can you believe, and blissy, as you're known, that it's been 30 years? No, not really. I'm definitely feeling it today. That's allowed. That's allowed. You can relax for the next little while in the Woman's Hour studio as we have a chat about it all. But I was asking, you know, some of the listeners about their best night out, somebody else just thrown in. I was at a club called Havoc in Manchester. Do you have one night that stands out

for you as something really special remembering where you were, what you were playing? You mean within Faithless? Yeah, it can be either. Yeah, I mean, I would say Glastonbury in around 2000 was a real pivotal

moment for us where we felt like the music was really, really connecting. And John Peel was presented. it for the BBC and said, I didn't really like Faithless, but they're pretty damn good. It was a kind of real moment to convince the doubters that actually there was something of value there. We were playing before Coldplay on the Pyramid stage and I think that was, it kind of urged them to play even better. So it was a pretty incredible night.

I think it was 2002 actually and we've been on the pyramid stage twice now, which is pretty good for any band, isn't it? It's excellent and seems to go as well from strength to strength. And Blissy, as I called you, Sister Bliss, as others will know you, your name. Where did it come from? Well, back in the day, there were very few female DJs, and the female DJs I knew of had a bit of a handle, if you like, Smoking Joe, Princess Julia. They were all on the gay scene, amazing female DJs that I really aspired to be like, whose music selection was impeccable.

And they also came from, you know, what can I say, a very forward-looking scene. and also my real name is quite unpronounceable, especially in the loud environment of a club. So my friends and I sat down to kind of workshops, some DJ names for my first ever gig, which was actually up in Birmingham. I was at college there and subsequently dropped out when I started making records.

So I will go back and finish that degree one day. But as it stands, I am still deferred. And you're a little bit busy, let's be honest. going to want to know what your real name is. Ayala. Yes. Yeah. Beautiful name as well. Well, thank you very much. But let's talk about, there's no time for the degree at the moment

because you've got other stuff going on. Let us get to the present. This summer, the band announced the album, Champion Sound, and it's been rolled out in four parts and then the full release. It's just in a couple of weeks' time, the 5th of September. Why did you decide to do it in this way? Well, the record company said,

look, we want to make a double vinyl. and we'd been writing lots and lots of music. We'd had a bit of hiatus before our last album, All Blessed, because Maxi wasn't well. That was the first album we released without him being part of it. And that came out and suddenly COVID happened. We were in the middle of lockdown. So we didn't have any of the promotional arms like touring, gigs, festivals,

nowhere for the music to live and breathe, except on streaming platforms. But it started to do quite well, and it really encouraged us to carry on. I love making music, and Faithless, I think, is an amazing vehicle to do that and a platform to bring new artists from the table. So we had a lot of music sitting around. Also, in the meantime, I was thinking, well, you know, Faithless might never play live again. I make music for film and TV, something I love doing.

And I wanted to get my show real a bit better. So I'd made this sort of classical ambienty piece of music, which felt like a whole side of an album. So suddenly that's 20 minutes of music, but what about all the songs we've written? So we realised that we could make four sides of an album. It sounds horribly indulgent, but actually... Ambitious was the word I was going to use, not indulgent.

You don't have to listen to them all at once. Each of them has a real contained mood. Some are very dancey, the first side forever free, has Maxi's vocal on it, the only one recorded that isn't on any other record. And it's almost like he's sort of speaking. from the next realm. And that's about freedom. The second side of the album is called phone number and it's about a kind of bleary-eyed love story after the rave. Third side, which is out right now.

I mean, everything's available now. It's Book of Hours, which is, as I just said, this kind of semi-classical, electronic, beautiful, dreamy piece of music. And the Champion Sound side of the album is coming next in the first week of September. Then the whole double album will be complete. And Champion Sound is really a reference to sound system culture in the UK and the way that Faithless came together with this love of reggae, dub, dance hall, house music, rave. A really, I would say, a very unique kind of British musical experience, but of course informed by Jamaican sound systems, which was Maxie's background. And Maxie Jazz, for those I think most will know,

but for those that are not familiar, he was your lead man, your lead vocalist, your frontman. He died sadly in 2022, which of course, this massive loss. You've been together for so many years. I was going back looking at old interviews that you did together. And, you know, it's quite a legacy. But, you know, there's a few things in that that struck me. Life by the horns, freedom. What does that mean to you?

It's really saying life is short. I mean, I think the lyrics are a call to arms, if you like, are saying, listen, we've only got now, and I think it's particularly poignant because Maxie's vocal comes before that on the album. Again, it's a meditation on freedom, but also how music can set you free, dancing together, the sense of communion and togetherness. You can't replicate that. Has that changed at all? Because I would have been somebody very into as well, from the 90s on really clubs and going dancing. And I don't know whether there is such a better night out than that. But you are still very much in the thick of it.

in your 50s. And I'm wondering whether you've seen a difference in clubs, in the crowds, how they react, or is it always the same? I think people have been dancing since the beginning of time. They're lost in music. There's definitely a very different energy at certain clubs where people just come to film themselves. But now there's a wave of people who've seen how we enjoyed ourselves in the 90s and really let go and discovered that sense of collective freedom and possibility. And now they're setting up clubs where you put a sticker over. at the camera on the phone before you can come in and I have to say I'm all for that policy

I totally understand that artists become someone these days because they go viral on the internet and that comes from people taking clips but to stand on a dance floor just filming the DJ it just you're cutting yourself off to all those possibilities and also you know somatically living in your body just thinking of that sematically in the body of what you're doing it's a whole immersive experience for me that's what dance

music did for me. It gave me a community. It gave me a sense of myself. It gave me a sense of connection. I've never lost that. And for better or worse, we've referenced that in Faithless with Maxie's lyrics from songs like God is a DJ and We Come One. They always had another message, which was actually if you take this energy in a room, you could have world peace, which sounds trite, but it's actually extraordinary. If all these people with different lives and different problems from different racist, sexualities, genders are all dancing under one groove. Why can't the world be a better place? Let me move on to part three, which you alluded to.

And in some ways, I feel this is kind of the opposite of insomnia. In some ways, a little bit of meditative and chilled as well. And this I was feeling is like, this is the opposite. This is what I should be listening to, to drift off and dream. and I suppose that somatic thing off the body again. Well, I think we all need bringing down. But again, the idea about this four-sided album champion sound was to be expansive and to kind of let things unfurl

because we live in this super compressed world where, you know, if you don't play a song on Spotify, over two minutes and 35 seconds, it doesn't even count as a stream. And I feel like we've created something, which is slightly the antithesis of that. Of course we've created edits. but I feel let's just take time and slow down a little bit

because it actually makes life far more pleasurable to do that and Book of Ours is a great place to do that and I've road tested it by the pool in Bali on the beach in Ibiza on the tour bus when I cannot sleep because it's so bumpy and horrible so I can testify that it's actually a really good one to drift off to and visualise as well because it's not a it's not a side of the album that has lyrics

really. But there's also a little nugget of self-doubt on the album version. I'm kind of talking about how I never think anything I do is any good. And I think... Is that true? Yeah, it's totally ridiculously self-critical. But is that what makes you good? I mean, that's not for me to say. But I mean, I think if you think you've arrived and it's all amazing, you've probably lost some critical faculty there. I think it's very important. I don't know, just to keep refining things. That's what it feels like to me. The good thing is I work in a team,

I work in partnership and collaboration. So other people say, it's done rather than me. But I've had it for years. I remember when we made We Come One, which is one of my favourite songs to play live now. I could not stand it for about a year after I made it until I kind of had the affirmation from the crowd and people singing the riff back to me

and also how it grew as a kind of Buddhist punk anthem in the live arena and only then could I sort of almost accept that actually it's quite good but that's just my own ridiculous It's so interesting because we had a conversation just with Caris Kelly a few minutes ago about external validation

and about how to not need it but sometimes I suppose what I'm hearing from you is that can lead to greatness yeah I think you're seeing it for what it's worth because the crowd is telling you this is good when you are doubting it.

But there's also a context when you have other people who are total geniuses making music. You think I am nowhere near like that. I have to say, I went to see Radiohead a few years ago and I just came home and cried in the garden because it was so, so good. I think, what's the point? What's the point of even existing?

And that is, that's the artist's conundrum, isn't it? How lovely. Is it valid what I'm doing? Come back and see us again soon. Enjoy the tour. I know it's kind of a mad time. So we really appreciate you coming in. And Champion Sound, well, the fourth part, should we say,

is out on the 5th of September. Sister Bliss, Blissie, Ayala. Thanks so much for spending time with us. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I want to move on to rivers. You might love your local river, but do you love it enough to marry it? Well, one of my next guests felt so strongly

about protecting the River Avon in Bristol. that she took part in a wedding ceremony. She's part of a group of women bathers and activists who are campaigning for the watercource to have the right to be free from pollution. Mrs Meg Avon, as she's now known, is with me. Good morning. Good morning.

We've Charlotte Sawyer as well from, as we're talking about raves, rave on the Avon, the documentary that is out. Welcome. Thanks for having us. Okay, Meg, why marry the river? Well, I guess it's a two-pronged answer. I've got my personal reasons. I'm some political ones.

But personally speaking, I've always loved swimming outdoors. I grew up in Bristol, but always understood the river Avon, which flows through the city, to be a dangerous river and one that you should stay away from. But dangerous, why? It's got very strong tidal currents. It's got steep muddy banks. the harbour is full of boats and rats and yeah it was always seen as a bit of a bad boy which was tempting

and then I've got family in Wales and Scotland and would swim with them you know with every celebration birthdays, Christmas, New Year's every holiday and the river and the sea has always been a place that I go to for some solitude as well as community and in lockdown at the same time

as many other people in my city we discovered this valley on the east of Bristol, where many people were swimming. And it was like in a dream where you pushed through a door into another room in your house you didn't know was there. And it's got steep wooded valleys and a nature reserve alongside and people just laughing and frolicing in the water. It's like heaven. Dreamy. Dreamy.

Would go with Sister Bliss's music that we were just listening to. Well, exactly. So I started swimming there and, you know, I didn't put my head under and I'd never really questioned why. and that's when I met Charlotte and many other campaigners who had started to test the water themselves as citizen scientists. And I had spent a long time as a youth and community worker and really wanted to throw an event to bring all these people together. And I thought, what better way to bring everyone together than a wedding?

Everybody loves a wedding. Everybody does love a wedding. And in our world, we're quite devoid of ceremonies. Rituals. And rituals. It's something that's lost, our sense of indigenity, to this land and connection. So the wedding, you know, it was supposed to be a bit of fun

and to get people talking. I'm a writer, so I love a good story. And we wanted the press there and they came. And I had no idea that it was going to be as emotional as it was that day. Well, I was going to say that because I was watching a little of the documentary and Meg enters the water with a white dress

with I think it was blue aquatic symbols on it, ferns on her head on either side. But I could hear from the officiaries, voice, the emotion that was there, it was cracking. Yes. Yeah, I think it took her by surprise. She's a very old friend of mine, and she's an incredible celebrant, a funeral celebrant.

So there was definitely a funeric aspect to this, because essentially I'm married to a dying river, this river, is in very poor health. So when I said the lines in sickness and in health until death do us part, we don't know how soon that's going to be. Let me throw it over to

Charlotte. We've mentioned a few things that we need to clarify citizen scientists testing the water. Are you an advocate, a friend, a campaigner off the river? How would you describe yourself? I was a swimmer, a kind of fair weather swimmer just in the summer. I can see that part of the river from my house. I'm so lucky and I fell in love with it. But I generally knew not to dip my head under,

but I am ashamed at my lack of curiosity as to why this was, you know, way back when this was all out in the news. And then a mermaid put the call out for a filmmaker. Lindsay Cole, this fantastic woman who teaches kids about citizen science. So we made a short film together. And I was astounded. I was ashamed. I was angry.

But I'd seen along the way just this incredible culture of protest in Bristol, a particular way of doing things. And I thought, I have to follow this story. is so interesting. And I think the Bristol way is to kind of fight the status quo, but do it with sort of

taking matters into your own hands and like adding a lot of whimsy and creativity to it. So my film, it's a feature-length documentary and it's a tapestry. There's about 30 main... It's very beautiful. Oh, thank you.

Yeah, very, very beautiful. It makes you want to go and swim in that river even if you're not going to stick your head underneath. But what are you finding? when you go out as a citizen scientist, you're testing the water. What are you looking for?

What are you trying to do? So there's this incredible group set up in 2021 by Becca Bleas, who she's a swimmer, you know, and she just wanted to know she was curious. And so she gathered people together. She arranged with the local water company for them to test the results. And, you know, there's evidence of bacteria

that indicates feces. You know, so that could be from animals, from farm runoff, it could be from the sewage, it could be from the sewage. You know, we found awful, awful results 20 times the kind of safe bathing limits. And then sometimes it's kind of in the good range, but there's still evidence there. And I think the way that the campaign moved forward is with creativity and expression of love and joy, because we need that, because the results are so horrifying. What is your goal? Who are you targeting? What are you trying to achieve? I think at the moment we're trying to gather this data to paint a picture of the health of the river and how that's changed and changing because of influence.

You know, we really strongly believe that it's this grassroots activism. Many different communities have been rising up to step forward as advocates for their rivers or bodies of water in their local vicinity. Me and Charlotte have been on top. tour this year with her film and my book of poetry and we've connected with so many different wonderful wild swimmers, boaters and citizen scientist groups. And citizen science is really interesting because they're basically taking on the role of what these councils, essentially, or the different landowners. So for example, 97% of our river banks in England and Wales are privately owned. The water flows free, but the banks and the bed, the riverbed are private. But no one's taking ownership for these spaces in terms of responsibility

for the quality. You'll know in July there was a long awaited Cunliff Review into England and Wales as troubled water sector. It was published as a result the regulator of what has been scrapped. And I'm wondering is something like that significant to the work you're doing?

Do you know? I would say we believe so much in grassroots action turning the tide of this. So we do focus on that and we're actually part of the kind of newest, fastest growing movement in the world, the rights of nature movement that is a legal framework that's recognising the right of natural entities to exist in and of themselves, not as resources just for humans. So the river to have rights. Yeah. Because if you think about, you know, women not having rights, children, not having advocates in a court of law, people of colour, you know, it's happened over and over again in our human-centric world.

And I think originally way back when nature did have rights and so many of our religions are based on this reciprocal relationship, this relationship of giving and taking as much in equal quantities as you can with the natural world and with yourself. Is it, looking at your documentary, it seemed to be a lot of women that are involved in this movement. Would I be right about that? Yeah. What is it, do you think, why women are attracted to it? Well, I can't speak for all women, but I think there's many reasons. You know, I think it can help with menopause, perimenopause are women needing to cool down. I think it can help with chronic fatigue.

Personally, I had long COVID, and it really helped clear the brain fog. It helps with inflammation. And also, as a woman, you know, I'm 29. I can't really remember a day where I didn't feel critical of my body and the size and shape that it is and how much space it takes up. But to swim in the river, suddenly you are the perfect size. You're utterly insignificant because you're connected to this whole big blue planet that we live on. And you're also enormously powerful.

And the river gives me energy and status and a voice. I married the river because I wanted to help the river have a voice, but I had no idea the river was going to help me have such a voice. In my last 20 seconds or so, are there days that come, because we've heard about Windermere in the Lake District, polluted with sewage bacteria, you know, low water quality, etc. Are there days that you will not swim in the river?

Yeah, I've gotten really sick, so there are days after a lot of rain. And we do want to, you know, we want to focus on love and joy, but we also want to focus on fear and the danger of mistreating water. That's why we've got this incredible puppet of owner. Let me leave it there. Mrs Meg Avon and Charlotte Sawyer,

thank you both for coming in and talking all about your beloved River Avon with me. Do join us again tomorrow. That's all for today's woman's hour. Join us again next time. Hello, I'm Helen Lewis. And I'm Amanda Nucci. We're the hosts of BBC Radio 4's strong message here.

And over the summer, we are bringing you a series of short episodes called Strong Message Here, Strong Recommend. Amanda, what is a strong recommend? It's something we recommend strongly from the cultural recommendations. It could be a book. It could be a TV show. It could be a play. It could be a... It could be a video game and if I have anything to do with it, it will be a video game. It could be not necessarily something that's just out this week or just out now.

For example, I will be recommending Richard II by a writer called William Shakespeare. Oh, I hear big things ahead for him. I'll be talking about taxonomy. I'll be talking about Eldon Ring. I'll be talking about why it's worth standing just off Oxford Street at 9pm this summer. So that's strong message here, strong recommend. It's a shorter programme with a longer title. And you can get it now on BBC Sounds.