Woman's Hour - Southport attack, Simone Biles profile, Author Anne Hawk

Episode Date: August 1, 2024

The prime minister today will be meeting police leaders to discuss the riots in Southport following the horrific attacks which left three small girls dead - and eight other children and two adults injured, with some believed to be in critical condition. A 17-year-old youth is due to appear in court later today charged with the murders, and 10 counts of attempted murder.The violence of the riots there will have compounded the fear and worry of those in the area, and given the community little time to comprehend what has happened. So how can parents and children cope with such a horrible situation? Anita Rani speaks to one of those offering advice, Professor Rachel Calum - a leaflet compiled by her and other trauma experts is being distributed in Southport - as well as Sarah Mcentee, who is secretary at the Royal British Legion in Southport.Gymnast Simon Biles will compete in the women's individual all-around final this evening. Biles was already the most decorated gymnast in history, entering Paris 2024 with 30 World championship and seven Olympic medals, but on Tuesday she won her eighth Olympic medal, taking the gold in the women’s team gymnastics final. Elite athletes have labelled her the GOAT – which stands for The Greatest of All Time. Many have dubbed Paris 2024 as Biles redemption tour, after she pulled out of several events at the Tokyo Games when the 'twisties'  - a mental block - struck during her vault. To tell us about the woman behind the medals is sports journalist Molly McElwee and director Katie Walsh, who joins us from Paris, where she is filming the documentary: Simon Biles Rising with Biles and her family. And, can a friendship be repaired when they rupture? We hear a portrait of a friendship between two women that began at school and was interrrupted for more than 20 years. Our reporter Jo Morris speaks seperately to Annie and Lizzie about their friendship.When we think of the Windrush Generation, our minds often turn to the experiences of the pioneering young people who left the Caribbean to start a new life in the UK. Less is written about the children that some of them left behind. Anne Hawk has written a novel from the perspective of one of those children, which is partly based on her own experiences. She speak to Anita about her debut novel, The Pages of the Sea, which follows a young girl left in the care of her aunts after her mother leaves their Caribbean island to emigrate.  Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Hanna Ward Studio Manager: Emma Harth

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning, welcome to the programme. Who is your GOAT? LeBron James has described Simone Biles as the GOAT. It's an acronym for Greatest of All Time. We'll be talking about the extraordinary Simone Biles shortly. This morning, I would like to hear from you, however, who in your life and

in your opinion is the greatest of all time and why? It could be someone in your life, a relative, friend, teacher, maybe someone saved your life or broadened your horizon, or someone who is undeniably brilliant, an artist, a poet, a film director, a radio presenter. These are all subjective, I suppose, but let's hear your reasoning too. I asked about three people in the Woman's Hour office this morning and we all agree it's Whitney Houston. So there you go, that's our goat,

according to four of us in the office. But tell me who your goat is this morning. Get in touch in the usual way. The text number 84844. The email, if you want to send me an email, you can go to our website or you can WhatsApp me on 03700 100 444. Also on the programme, debut novelist Anne Hawke, whose book The Pages of the Sea is written from the point of view of a child whose mother has left as part of the Windrush generation.

A perspective rarely heard or written about. She'll join me in the studio. And friendship. Can you build a bridge after drifting apart for 20 years? We'll hear Annie and Liz's story. That text number once again, 84844. But first, this afternoon, the Prime Minister will be meeting police leaders to discuss the riots in Southport following the horrific attacks which left three small girls dead, Bibi King, Elsie Dot Stankoom and Alice Da Silva Aguiar, and eight

other children and two adults injured injured with some believed to be in critical condition. A 17 year old youth is due to appear in court later today charged with the murders and 10 counts of attempted murder. The violence there will have compounded the fear and worry of those in the area and given the community little time to assimilate what has happened. So how can parents and children cope with such a horrific situation? One of those offering advice is Professor Rachel Calum. A leaflet compiled by her and other trauma experts is being distributed in Southport. She is Professor Emerita in Psychology and Mental Health at the University of Manchester, as well as a clinical psychologist. But first, I'm also joined by Sarah McKinty.

She is Secretary at the Royal British Legion in Southport. Sarah, welcome to Woman's Hour. Thank you, Anita. Thank you. How is the situation this morning? Well, you know, we have woken up to a typically sunny Southport day, you know, which we've all been asking for for so long because the summer didn't appear to want to arrive. And then it's arrived in our town, but we're not enjoying it. You know, we are, you know, you wake up and you have that moment at the beginning of the day where you think, oh, the sun's shining. You know, what are we going to do today? And then suddenly, a couple of seconds later, you remember that

the town isn't what it was, you know, last week or a couple of days ago. And we've had a peaceful night. We didn't think we would have a peaceful night. The night before last, you know, I was sitting in my bedroom window next to me just now, watching two police helicopters in the sky, plumes of black smoke rising from the ground and wondering where on earth I was. We didn't have that last night, which meant that we were able to go to sleep peacefully. But, you know, we're not sleeping well. You know, I've got my nine year daughter um sleeping on our bedroom floor at the moment she's not ready to go back into her own room she's her best friend has lost her baby sister um we've got other friends who are still in hospital so you know the to a certain extent

we're speechless the kind of English language doesn't appear to have enough um words for the words that we want to use but you, you know, we are where we are and just now looking for small glimmers of hope in order to be able to move forwards. But I don't know how long that's going to take. So as well as being at the heart of the community as part of the Royal British Legion, you've also been personally affected.

Yeah, we have. And, you know, my daughter was supposed to go to the event. She's a huge Taylor Swift fan. I don't know why we chose not to send her in the end, but we didn't. That fills us with a range of different emotions, but emotions that don't even scratch the surface. And to the friends who are sat now, you know, without their children, who they'll never see again. So, you know, there's a whole range of different emotions that we're feeling um and some of those emotions we almost don't feel that we're allowed

to to have but but we do um but everybody's personally connected you know we went to the vigil on Tuesday night and you know I can hear um people talking and you know we talk about the six degrees of separation but here it's it's one degree of separation. And everybody knows each other, whether or not that's the children or the emergency services. You know, I've been texting a friend who's in the police force. They are absolutely exhausted. So we all know each other because we're not a big town. It's a tight-knit community.

It is a tight-knit community. And you've been running a hub in the centre of town. How useful has that been for the community? Hugely useful. You know, there are lots of wonderful spaces that are open, but people choose different spaces to want to go to. You know, we've got beautiful churches that are open. We've got lots of stunning churches in Southport.

But for some people, they don't want to go into a religious space. And that's absolutely fine. So, you know, our hub is always open anyway, five days a week. But we've extended those hours. It's entirely run by volunteers. I'm a volunteer. My husband's a volunteer. All of our veterans, et cetera, are all volunteers. And they are just sitting there offering people cups of tea and coffee, whether or not people want to come in and talk or not or sit in silence or just have a cup of tea. You know, we are also an ageing community here in Southport because it's where people come to retire. A lot of older people sat on their own. So, you know, sometimes you want

to be on your own. I completely get that. But we're offering a space for people not to be on their own. And then also we're looking now at running a small card making workshop on Friday because there are parents. It's the summer holidays. You know, it was easy for us to forget that it's the summer holidays. And we had activities planned and things that we were going to do, but people don't feel safe. So we are tomorrow running a small card workshop with a local primary school teacher our veterans are as i said um either still serving in the military or or or veterans um themselves so um i think people feel that it's a safe space to come and and do that do people feel safe how what is the feeling because you the whole the whole nation has been shaken by what's happened in south port and then on top of that sarah you had to witness the riots and you said

that you saw the smoke and you saw the police helicopters can you describe the feeling of seeing that post the shock of what had already happened so you know after the vigil we did what a lot of families did we thought we don't want to cook at home. So we went to a fast food restaurant and we were sat in the car park. My husband had got out of the car. My husband has just finished serving in the army. He's been in for 43 years and he'd gone to get the food. And this enormous plume of black smoke just rose into the air with two helicopters circling around it. And he came running back to the car. You know, both my daughter and I were absolutely terrified. And he said, I never expected to see this.

I've seen this in Afghanistan, but I never expected to see this in our town. You know, we got in the car and raced home. And similarly yesterday, you know, there were reports yesterday which turned out to be false, that there was yet more protests. The police helicopter was up again. I was in town manning the hub. And then there was just this exodus of people walking incredibly quickly. I did the same. You know, at one point I broke into a run and thought I just need to get into my car and get home. As it turns out that wasn't going to happen but that's where we are. We're at that point where for a moment we feel okay but there's that continual fear of wondering what's going to happen. Simultaneously are

there going to be further attacks here but then are people going to come back into our town and riot under the name of protesting, which was never anything that we, we didn't want that. We didn't ask for that. It's not what we're about. But then it has been widely reported, and we've seen photographs in the papers this morning, of the community pulling together as early as the next morning. Tell us about that. Absolutely. So, you know, where the riots took place, just half a mile from where I am now, you know, the night before, absolute devastation. Yet by about nine o'clock in the morning, it was like nothing had happened.

So the streets were cleared, you know, local tradesmen rebuilt walls and replaced glass. And it's ongoing still, you know, local tradesmen saying, you know, if you if you need something repaired, please get in touch. We'll do it free of charge. Does anybody need food? I mean, I picked up one story on social media this morning of a lady who just made chicken soup. She couldn't leave the house because she had two children, but she'd made enough chicken soup for about 20 people and would somebody like to come and pick it up and distribute that to the emergency services and somebody did um and and they were fed and and that will continue to happen whether or not it's food whether or not it's people using talent we're a musical town there's talk of a um of a charity single. You know, people are doing.

We always did stuff like that. You know, we're a community that helps each other anyway. I'm going to bring in Sarah here, actually. I'm going to bring in Professor Rachel Cale and Sarah. And, you know, you might actually want to talk to each other because you may have questions that you want to put to Rachel directly. Rachel, what's the best advice? Well, we've put together a short leaflet, which was immediately after the Manchester

Arena bombing, which of course created great terror and unhappiness. And what parents, I think the key thing to say is that parents have an absolutely key role in protecting their children through these next few days and weeks. And the usual advice, of course, is to offer them reassurance. And that's made extra difficult by this continuing fear that's come about through the rioting. So parents have a particularly difficult task on their hands. Obviously, everybody's been through a terribly sad experience,

so they'll be grieving, but they're also frightened. And Sarah was talking about her daughter not sleeping well, and that's such a common reaction. And there's a lot of common reactions that children will show after something like this. Difficulty sleeping, memories coming back, common reactions that children will show after something like this difficult sleeping memories coming back and having bad dreams maybe being irritable or feeling low maybe wanting to avoid things that they previously enjoyed there's no one way that children will feel and and they really

benefit from reassurance from their family and friends. So what should parents be saying to them? They should be listening. That's a really important thing to do. Talking to the child, it's really important not to try and hide it or, yeah, not to hide it away, but to open up opportunities for the child to talk, but not to force them to talk if they don't want to. And quite often children can share their concerns and worries when they're when they're doing something else when they're

helping with washing up or when they're you know playing in the garden or something that may be when you're side by side with your child in the car or out walking they may well talk much more than if you just kind of sit them down and try and have a conversation and and it's really important that children are given accurate information because there's such a lot of misinformation flying around and what I'd say to parents as well is that the leaflet that we've produced they can trust this information because it's been developed by trauma experts and I'd really like to share that with Sarah because it sounds as if what her hub is doing is absolutely spot on the importance of the community in banding together and you know

rebuilding quite literally rebuilding and involving children in that if they want to is so valuable and it helps to reinforce that message that most people in the world are good and kind and want to help each other but that's what the community is like. And we will definitely make that happen as well. We'll connect the two of you. But parents will be finding it very difficult to cope with the emotions themselves. So how much harder will it be for them to be able to talk to the children? And what should parents be doing?

Well, it really helps if parents can kind of get a bit of a handle on their emotions before they talk, you know, as they're talking with their children. And simple things like, you know, breathing exercises, but also talking with friends and family, supportive other adults is really important. Limiting the amount of media exposure that they're getting is useful as well. It can be very tempting and particularly it's actually important when you're seeing plumes of smoke going up to get onto the media and see what on earth is going on but having a kind of running feed of news makes those children, it may make children increasingly fearful and so it may be that parents can turn off the media and watch it or listen themselves a bit later on when they have some quiet time.

But just acknowledging within the family and with friends that everybody's been through an extraordinary, upsetting, unsettling time and a time of great distress. Sarah, your nine-year-old is at the same school. How have you spoken to her? What have you said to her? Gosh, you know, I mean i as i sort of already explained you know we're a military family this is a third generation of military you know we are a very resilient we've always been a very resilient family in a resilient community um and we've always been very open because for us challenges

you know is is kind of almost part of what we we deal with very regularly um i think for us, challenge is, you know, is kind of almost part of what we deal with very regularly. I think for us, it's just been, as Rachel said, it's been listening. I mean, I think one of the things that we found challenging is the communication between children, because the children, they were incredibly connected, even at nine, they're very connected. And we want to encourage that to a certain extent. But, you know, we we have had to, you know, ask our daughter to come off, you know, the classroom chat and things like that. But but I am, you know, I'm allowing her to have conversations with her friends, but also being mindful of that. And I I kind of wondered what what Rachel felt about that, you know, how do we navigate those conversations between children, because they are so much more connected, certainly than I ever was, you know, when I was when I was her age, how do we how do we navigate that? Because that's difficult to manage without

sitting with them at, you know, all the time, which I don't necessarily want to do, because she also needs to know that the value of freedom still, Rachel. Absolutely, yes. And I think, yeah, we are we are into different times now that children are on social media of different sorts as well always knowing what what your child's doing and who they're doing it with and the kinds of conversations they're having is really important and so that you can jump in quickly if there's misinformation during the rounds or if you can hear that children are becoming very upset and so watchfulness is really important I mean I really like the way Sarah's talking about what she's doing with her child that sounds that sounds really really valuable and but this is a time when

families need to be very very close to each other and not restrict not in a restrictive sense um ideally but but really making sure that parents need to be making sure they know who their children are talking to what information they're accessing and providing continuous opportunities to talk about it and make sure that what the children are discussing and what they're hearing is accurate and we'll make sure rachel that your leaflet gets to Sarah. But Sarah, going forward, what's being done now to rebuild hope? Well, it's going to be a slow process, isn't it? I mean, I think like everything, you know, we live in a very fast-paced world

and I think we all want to heal incredibly quickly and just to move on. But I think we now know that that isn't going to happen. So we have clearly have funerals to navigate. We, you know, we have a cleanup to navigate. We have to, you know, the children eventually are going to go back to school. I know our school, which is somewhat at the epicenter of this, is doing absolutely stunning work. We were there yesterday just to speak to teachers. But my sense is that, you know, it is going to take a long time. We're busy at the moment. At some point, we're not going to be busy.

And I suspect that's when we're going to realise the enormity of everything. But I think for us, it will change us. We will get and continue to get together as as community as community leaders to work out um you know what the future will look like for us what what what do we need to change how how I don't know how do we protect ourselves going forwards but it's hard to it's hard to know it's hard to know how things are going to pan out but i think for now we just need to keep offering people spaces and and and take it day by day um minute by minute minute by minute yes please rachel go for it yeah can i just say i think what you're saying is absolutely spot on and acknowledging that this is a long process and that things don't have to be done straight away and that actually a lot of parents

will worry about the long-term effects actually most children get over things however terrible they do learn to adapt but there will be children who will have long-term it will have long-term impacts and it sounds as if the school is really keyed in. And so I want to pick those up further down the line. I want to thank you both for speaking to me this morning. Sarah McEntee, thank you for taking the time. And Rachel Kalem. And if you've been affected by any of the issues on today's programme, you can find support links on the Women's Hour website.

That text number, once again, if you'd like to get in touch with me about anything you hear on the programme today, 84844. Now on Tuesday, Simone Biles won her eighth Olympic gold medal. This in addition to the 30 World Championship medals. She's the most decorated gymnast in history and other elite sports stars have called her the GOAT, which stands for greatest of all time. But who is the woman behind these titles? Ahead of her competition in the women's individual all-round final this evening, I'm joined by sports journalist Molly McElwee and director Katie Walsh, who's joining us from the Olympics in Paris, where she's filming the Netflix documentary Simone Biles

Rising with Simone Biles and her family. Molly and Katie, welcome to Woman's Hour. Katie, I'm going to come straight to you. Were you there on Tuesday when she won gold in the all-round team final? And can you tell us what that was like to witness that happen? Oh, I sure was there. I was right on the side of the floor watching and taking it all in. It was, I mean, I said to a friend yesterday, my cheeks still hurt from smiling so much.

Between smiling and crying, the emotions were all there to see Simone and the entire team come back and achieve something they have been working so hard for, not just for the last four years, but for their entire lives. It was just so special. And then we all had an after party with family and were able to celebrate. You know, she and her teammates were able to celebrate with her parents, her sister, her brothers. It was such a special night all around. And it was awesome to be a part of. Awesome to be a part of. And Katie, you're actually documenting it. You are capturing this moment in history as it happens.

Watch the first episode of your documentary last night. You were at Tokyo. And there you are again, and editing as well as filming at the same time everything's happening at once here it is um it's a busy time so we the first two episodes of Simone Biles Rising premiered on Netflix July 17th and those are available now and currently I'm in Paris filming the second two episodes so it's a unique position because I don't know how this movie ends exactly and you're watching it out as we go it's um you know it's it's unfolding before our eyes and today especially will be another big day as uh we get ready for the women's all-around competition tonight in Paris um Molly let's bring you in I think we should take it all the way back

and uh tell people who Simone Biles is what can Biles is what can you tell us about her I mean Simone Biles how do you sum up uh an athlete like her she she kind of burst onto the scene as a 16 year old onto the world stage but it was at Rio um in 2016 that she had her kind of huge breakthrough at the Olympics she basically won everything there was to win she dominated in a way that um I think no one had ever seen anyone dominate in gymnastics and she's continued to do that since um but beyond that she's also become this kind of icon when it comes to um talking about mental health and sport we saw the everything she overcame in Tokyo and which I'm sure we'll go into more detail on but she she kind of took took the mantle on and and started this conversation around mental health and sport at the Olympics which is such a pressure cooker

a place that um yeah all athletes dreams kind of come to the fore every four years and she she openly spoke about the impact of that and i think the wider impact she's had beyond her sport in that is what she's now kind of almost known for even more and it's why people are so behind her story i think in paris as well remind us what happened remind usind us of the Larry Nazca case and her involvement. Well, yeah, so Simone Biles was one of over 300 women and girls who was affected and is a survivor of sexual abuse, which the former USA teen doctor Larry Nasser was convicted of. So he's serving a 175-year prison sentence for that sexual abuse,

which took place over decades. And Simone Biles was one of a number of Team USA gymnasts who was impacted by that and came out publicly as kind of came out publicly to say i i was abused by larry nasa um which obviously took huge courage for for anyone to do that but for someone with the kind of platform that she has um it took a yeah i can't even imagine the kind of bravery it takes to do that and since then um she's become i mean she's had to be kind of very vocal about all of the issues she has even with her federation with usa gymnastics and the part that they played in in enabling and and and not not um maybe taking

issues as seriously as they should have from the beginning. And so she's spoken about how she felt she was failed by her organization, the organization that was meant to kind of be looking after them as, as gymnasts, because you can't forget that gymnasts start taking their sport seriously from such a young age. She, she's been kind of competing on the world stage since she was 14, 15, 16. So alongside all of that, then she goes to Tokyo and she was expected to win as much as

she won in Rio, but pulled out of events because of her mental health. And she cited her mental health as the kind of the priority that she was putting first at the Olympics over competing. And it just took the world by storm I guess everyone was impacted by her taking that moment to say actually I'm putting myself first and my mental health first because of everything I've been through all the trauma that I've been through actually competing today is not the right thing for me yeah and um yeah so she pulled out of the team competition in Tokyo and um then later pulled out of a number of the other individual events. She still won two medals. And she actually has said that the bronze medal she won in the beam final in Tokyo is kind so special, because that was the very event that she had to pull out of in Tokyo and which kind of sparked this whole storyline, I guess, for her.

Paris has been dubbed her redemption tour, hasn't it? But Katie, let me bring you in on this, because she talked about getting the twisties in Tokyo, didn't she? What are the twisties in Tokyo, didn't she? What, what is, what are the twisties? Yes, the twisties is a, it's sort of like the yips. If you're a golfer or a baseball player, it's a mental block. So for her, it, it was that her brain and her body were not aligned and they were not communicating properly. So what she was thinking, you know, in her mind that she could do, she was not able to physically do. For someone like Simone, who is in such command of her physical abilities and has been over the course of her entire life, it's extremely difficult to go through a period where suddenly you don't have control over your body anymore. It's also extremely dangerous, especially in the sport of

gymnastics, because you are flipping upside down. If you don't know where you are in space, when you're flipping, you could land on your head instead of your feet. And when you're doing the level of difficulty that Simone is doing, especially, you know, that's a great amount of force that you are landing every skill. And if you're coming down on your head and not your feet, it could lead to, you know, more than just a twisted ankle. It could lead to paralysis. It could lead to something far worse. And so, you know, Simone understands her body well enough to know in that moment that she had to put her safety and her health ahead of competition. And as which which is such such conviction such understanding of yourself and such power i mean we've just heard from molly there just how how remarkable she is

you've spent time with her what's she like oh so i mean she has such a she's so fun she's funny she's she's a normal person who does superhero activities and um i think that's what's so fun. She's funny. She's a normal person who does superhero activities. And I think that's what's so special about Simone is she's able to go out on the floor at a competition and dominate and just be a normal human being. You know, she has friends, she has family, she's married, she's, you know, she has a life outside of gymnastics. And I think that's really allowed her to excel on the floor even more so because she has this well-rounded, balanced life outside of it. And we've just heard her extraordinary story about her as an athlete and everything that she's had to deal with. But her life story is quite extraordinary as well. She was adopted by her grandparents, wasn't she? Yes, yes. She was early in her life, like when she was about four or five, she was in the foster care system with her siblings. Her biological mother was unable to care for them due to drug and alcohol abuse. And then she was ultimately adopted by her biological grandfather and

grandmother, who are now her parents and have provided an extremely beautiful, steady life for her and a great childhood for her to be a part of. Her mom is a rock and holds the whole family together. She's really a special person. But Simone did have a lot of uncertainty in those early years. And I do think that shapes who you become and it shapes the person you grow into. And she's had many life challenges along the way, as Molly also mentioned, many of them. And it's, you know, it's only made her into a stronger human being. And I think that's what allowed her in that moment in Tokyo to really tap into what she knew was right and what she knew she had to do at that moment, despite how difficult that choice was. And you're kind of, you've got such intimate access to the family

and who they are and how they interact with each other. You were with the family when she was in Tokyo and she phoned to tell them that she was pulling out. What was their reaction? And I suppose that response really gives you an insight into who she is and why she is who she is, right? Yeah, yeah, I was with the family. It was four in the morning in Houston because it was happening in Tokyo, the event. And, you know, we saw Simone

do her warm-up vault and then do that vault that followed where she didn't complete her twisting. And then we saw her walk off the floor and none of us knew what was going on at home. I was with her family. We were all in their living room. And as she walked off the floor, the phone rang at her parents' house. And it was Simone calling from backstage. And her mom picked up the phone. And, you know, immediately her mom Nellie said, it's okay, honey. You don't need to do this. You need to put yourself first.

And you need to take care of yourself and I think that is so telling of not only who Nellie is but the type of relationship that they have um you know it was such a shock in that moment and everyone is trying to process what's happening and Nellie knew exactly what to say and what the right thing to do was and she was a mom and um no pressure the moment yeah but she threw that okay that I think Simone needed in that moment to do make the very brave decision that she knew she needed to say Katie she's not she's only what 27 28 is she the goat she is the goat she's 27 years old which for gymnastics is old for life is young um but she is she's not just the greatest gymnast with I mean, she has 38 now as of two days ago, Olympic and World's Medals. She is a goat off the field of play as well as on.

And, you know, I think that her legacy will be just as much about the changes that she has made within the sport and the conversation she's done around mental health. Yeah, remarkable young woman. She's 38, could it be 39 this evening? Thank you so much, Molly and Katie for joining us. USA Gymnastics and the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee agreed to pay $318 million in settlement to hundreds of survivors of sexual abuse by former team doctor Larry Nassar in 2021 and issued an apology. And turning our eyes to the Olympics, you can watch Simone Biles in the individual all-round final tonight from 5.15pm UK. 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's faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody.

Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby.

It's a long story, settle in. Available now. Now, a portrait of a friendship between two women that began at school and was interrupted for more than 20 years. Can friendships be repaired when they rupture? Should you even try? Have a listen to the story of Lizzie and Annie, who's sometimes called Anne. They spoke separately to our reporter, Jo Morris.

You'll hear Lizzie first. I met my life partner in my early 50s. And up to that point, friendship was, I mean, obviously friendship still is important. But I know that my life emotionally pivoted around my friends. I think my friends would say that I'm a good friend and I maintain friendships and I worked at them. So therefore, when my friendship with Annie fell apart, that was probably quite a catastrophe, actually, in the sense of now retrospectively realising that I had given up something that was actually really important to me. I don't have many photos, but I have

a collection of photos that my mum put together for my 40th birthday, and very revealingly, so she was kind of like doing a potted history of my life. And that is me and Anne. I think that might have been my 19th or 18th birthday. And why very revealing? The fact that mum put it in the book. We were putting silly hats on, sub-bananarama, black hat from Miss Salfridge, stripy t-shirt. Classic, classic 80s combat yeah and this is annie here isn't it she's got her nice i mean punky short hair blonde a big jacket it was a look and how do you feel now looking at you both there i love this photo young girls on the brink of what's ahead we were either about to go to college or our first year at college and at this point do you think you thought you'd

always be friends you think friends forever don't you when you're that age and you hope so because if you find people that you can connect with you do want them to be forever. Friendship was so hard to find why would you sort of abandon it? How long have you been friends with Annie for? I met Anne in 1978. We met at sixth form of a boys boarding school, 25 girls each year. So there were 50 girls in a school of 600. So it was a very strange experience. Beyond that, it was also a place I wasn't particularly happy being at. At the time, my mum and dad were not having a very easy time together the thinking was that if I went to boarding school it would take me away from this difficult situation if I could have seen you two hanging out at school together what would I have seen probably us in the art department laughing definitely laughing snorting with laughter yeah I mean I think we did a lot of snorting but that's a great feeling it was very establishment school so kind of being a bit

arty being a bit different being a bit left wing you sort of slightly stuck out we were kind of I suppose kindred spirits I probably was wearing big CND badges and that kind of thing in a school where the military was kind of important were you the the cool girls? I think Anne was cool. I'm not quite sure how cool I was. I was nerdy cool. I was definitely nerdy cool. Of all the people in that year, Anne was the sort of person I felt I had most in common with.

I found school very difficult because of various things going on at home. It was really important to find friends who could be supportive to you. There were very few that were sort of really my tribe. Anne is incredibly compassionate and warm. Even in your late teens, people play hot and cold with you. And I think Anne was consistent.

Would she come to your house? Yeah, she came to my house. My mum was incredibly fond of Anne. Anne was someone who was always very kind of chatty with my mum. I suppose I was embarrassed that my parents were opera singers. Again, it was back to all my awkwardness as a teenager. Pathetic, really. This is something she gave me, so...

What is it? It's a card when we got married. That Lizzie gave you? Yes. What does it say? It says, Dearest Annie and Daniel, wishing you all things bright and beautiful and much happiness besides. Much, much love, Lizzie.

And are you Anne or Annie? Annie. And what does Lizzie call you? Probably Anne. Everyone's known me Annie since I've been a grown-up. I've never known her as Elizabeth, although her mother did call her Elizabeth, but she sang her name. Her mother was an opera singer. And you'd hear this beautiful voice coming up the stairs.

I'm going to give it a go. Elizabeth! She was larger than life and an opera singer and a very talented opera singer. Their house was quite sort of lively and busy and they had a parrot and it was all very different to my quiet family home with just a father and siblings. The school had a lot of girls coming in who were sort of a bit mean girlsy I think and she was not like that. Slightly awkward. She was clever. She was quite intense. When you met Lizzie what was your first impression of her? Did you think she was cool?

I don't think I thought she was cool, but she was cool. She was interested in sort of cultural things that were beyond me, but I wanted to know about, so she was a bit ahead of me, really. My friendship with Lizzie became better and closer after school. We were at different universities, but we used to write to each other a lot and I remember going to stay with her and she came down to stay with me and she had sort of a nice group of friends who were always very interesting and cool and clever. What did you imagine the future held for your friendship at that point. I expected that she'd always be a friend.

I certainly didn't expect there to be a rift. I think probably even then there were times, this is something that I've thought about later on, there were times when I could have been kinder to her, more inclusive, and I probably wasn't. What was the point, Lizzie, when things began to change in your friendship? Anne met her husband to be at university and they were very happy and very grounded as a couple and they moved in with each other I think quite soon after leaving university and they became to me very grown up and then they got married and

and had her first child and I think for me that was like so far from where I was in my life I probably deep down found it kind of difficult to be around her because she had a confidence of who she was not just being a mum and a wife but she also was studying teacher training and knew what she wanted to do vocationally whereas I was still kind of trying to work out what I wanted to be and I think that kind of confidence of knowing who she was and being happy in her skin, I kind of pushed that away because it was everything I wasn't. I remember thinking, I don't want to be entertaining single friend. That was the sitcom staple, wasn't it? Not that Anne was asking that of me. Did you tell her how you were feeling? Of course not, because I was

such a mess. I kind of just pushed her away. She never neglected me. It was me who neglected her. I was probably jealous. And what happened? Basically, I ghosted Anne. It's not the word that would be used in the early 90s, but I ghosted her. I kind of stopped returning her phone calls and just tried to cease contact in a most immature way which I'm not proud of I am ashamed she rumbled there was something up because she wrote me a lovely letter she wrote to me to try and understand why I wasn't returning her calls and and also try and understand the rift in our friendship and I can remember being in the corner of my bedroom reading the letter and I remember feeling cornered,

like I didn't have an answer. I didn't even reply to that letter. Sadly, I can't find it, but I know that I didn't throw it away. I put it into a book. So I was ticking along with my career and my home life. Lizzie was part of that,

but not every week, I don't think. And I could have probably been more inclusive and kinder and made more effort. So when you looked at Lizzie, what did you think she was doing with her life? She was a dynamic, so independent woman who didn't have two little babies hanging off her arms and having to think about food all

the time. She was glamorous and making decisions about important things. Could you tell her how you were feeling? We weren't talking in the way that we were talking 10 years before. She was very sweet about my first child. I remember that. She came to visit and she brought me some flowers which was lovely and I was just completely absorbed with this three-day-old. I didn't see her again for a very long time. I'm a bit stubborn as well, so I probably kept trying, too long probably, and a mutual friend of ours said, you know what, she's entitled to sort of make the decision if she doesn't want to see you that's fine you have to let her so I stopped probably my pride was quite hurt why aren't I good enough for you she did let me know she did

send me a card to say she didn't want to see me and she was moving on she sent you a card I can't remember if it was a letter or a card so Lizzie said that you wrote her a letter right right? Yes, I'm sure she's right. She remembers all these things, whereas I forget them. But she didn't mention writing a postcard to you. Well, somehow I knew. Oh, God. Maybe it's a fantasy. I don't think it is.

I can sort of hear it, so I think it was real. Yeah. Her voice saying, and I can't remember what the words are, but basically, you're not part of my life. Did you think that Annie was thinking about you in the years you were out of touch? I thought about her and how she was, but I didn't think she would necessarily be thinking about me. Why?

Because, again, I suppose it's about, like, well, I don't deserve her thinking about me because I behave badly. Did you think that Lizzie would be thinking about you? No. Did you ever think about reaching out to her in that period? No. I thought about her and every now and then I'd sort of Google or whatever, and you could start Googling. And it was all very exciting.

But so I suppose I didn't think about what she'd be thinking it's that fear of going back to that fear of being 16 and people not wanting to be your friend or 10 and you know not being in the gang not being in the gang yeah the longer it, the less easy it became to sort of connect. You said your mum liked Annie. Did you tell her what had happened? I probably just said something like, you know, well, we don't talk anymore or something. When my mum put together an album of photographs for my 40th birthday,

a picture of me and Anne was part of that. Maybe it was my mum saying, what happened to your lovely friend Anne? Were you worried about bumping into Annie again? I was worried about bumping into Anne. I felt really embarrassed for my bad behaviour. Did you ever bump into her? There was one time when I did see her walking down the street.

It must have been about 18, 19 years after she was striding and she looked beautiful and she looked so sophisticated and I just put my head down and turned away. Why didn't you want to speak to her? I didn't want to have an awkward situation. She said she didn't want to be friends with me anymore and she had a busy life. So did you actually pass her in the street? I think yeah we must have walked past each other. So how many years passed Lizzie before you saw each other again? 20 years plus. So what happened? How did you reconnect? A very dear friend and colleague was very seriously ill and it made me really reflect on life and death

and what's important in life and being a good person but also the importance of friendship. I was also now with my husband and I'd made friends with myself. Facebook was there. I thought, I wonder if she's on Facebook. And she was. So I sent a friend request.

So out of the blue, she contacted you. And I don't really know why. And did you think about not replying? Oh, no. It was different to walking past her in the street. This is different. It came from her. So why would I not respond? I was really, really, really happy. We had a correspondence and she invited me for Sunday lunch a couple of weeks later. You must have been nervous on the doorstep. I can remember going up the path thinking in a few seconds I'm

going to see someone I haven't seen for 20 years. I wasn't nervous about it, excited but not nervous. And I just remember the door opening and we both burst into tears and it was just very, very joyous. It was very joyous. We both said you look just the same. Obviously we don't but we feel like we look and are the same. It felt very easy immediately. Did I cry? Did she say? She said you both burst into tears. I'm terrible aren't I? She still had her punkish short Jean Seberg hair. She knows who she is.

To me that's so cool. Since you've reconnected, has your relationship changed? I think it has. I think it's better. We want to be good friends and to look after each other. When my mum was very ill, she came to visit my mum. Lots of friends were really kind and generous and checking in with me but ann was the friend who actually kind of go i'm coming down to take you out for lunch i'm doing it now she along with a couple of my other really good women friends came to my mum's funeral and i kind of feel like she's there annie to people listening who might be going through this right now a friendship interrupted or a friendship breakup what would your advice be well maybe be more honest with yourself about how you're being

so that you can think about things from someone else's point of view it's very easy to get caught up in your own world if a person is living and you cared about them once, I'd say try and repair it. Friendship is good. It's a good, lovely thing. Value it. Value it. Wise words indeed. Annie and Lizzie spoke to Jo Morris. And if you've repaired or would like to repair a friendship, we'd love to hear your story. It's at BBC Woman's Hour on Instagram and X, or you can email via our website. And speaking of hearing from you, is there a topic or an issue you would really like to hear discussed on Woman's Hour

because now is your chance Listener Week is coming up, if you are a new listener this is a week where all the items are chosen by you, we're putting you at the centre of Woman's Hour last year we discussed all sorts of subjects from living funerals communal living all the way through

to big noses, let us know what you would like toals, communal living, all the way through to big noses. Let us know what you would like to hear. You can text in the usual way. It's 84844. We look forward to hearing your ideas. And a few of you have been getting in touch telling me who your goat is, the greatest of all time. Sue texted in to say it's a patty moth who's a volcanologist in Ecuador. She was leading a group when the volcano erupted. She and

another female volcanologist descended into the erupting crater to help rescue badly injured scientists. A real hero. Now when we think of the Windrush generation our minds often turn to the experiences of the pioneering young people who left the Caribbean to start a new life in the UK. Less is written about the children that some of them left behind. Well, my next guest, Anne Hawke, has written a novel from the perspective of one of those children, which is partly based on her own experiences. Her debut novel, The Pages of the Sea, follows Wheeler, a young girl left in the care of her aunts and sisters after her mother leaves the Caribbean island to emigrate. Wheeler is trying to negotiate life without her mother's protection,

finding companionship and understanding with her younger cousin, Danelle, but having to shield herself from her sometimes brutal home life and all the time waiting for her mother to send for her. Anne, welcome to Woman's Hour. Congratulations, debut novel. Thank you, Anita. From the perspective of Wheeler, who's a young child, she's only at primary school. Why did you decide to approach it in that way and look through the story through her eyes?

Right. I mean, the genesis of the story was this idea of exploration of childhood, a type of autonomous childhood that was quite commonplace once for very young children, whereby unsupervised by adults, they spent their time however they wanted to. And in Rila and Donnell's case, they do so in that they spend their time knocking around and falling out a lot. Yeah. So it started there. And from that concept flowed this idea of where do these children live, what kind of society enables that kind of a childhood. And from that, we then went into the home and the fact that Wheeler had been left by her mother, who was away, and she had travelled to England. And your own parents emigrated when you were four. Your mother moved from Grenada to the UK to work as a nurse.

Tell me about that and how much did those experiences inform the novel? They did to a degree because the migration story is there in my own family background. I was a lot younger. I mean, the book doesn't tell you how old Wheeler is, but she's somewhere in the region of seven to ten years old. The reader determines that themselves. So a lot of the story came from the experience I know within my own family, but a degree of it is based on intuition and

imagination, yes. You've captured the community as it was in the 50s and 60s. You've described the book as a novel of manners. You're going to read a bit for us, aren't you, of how people behaved and spoke at this point? Yeah, I mean, there are social rules governing how people dress, home clothes and out-of-school clothes, with high levels of civility in everyday interactions. So Wheeler's old church dress needs replacing, and in this passage she goes with her sister to visit their new seamstress. When they arrived at the seamstress's house,

a woman rocking a baby came and ushered them in. Morning. Morning, they answered. Dat me springer. Wheeler followed Adele into the house. A long sunless corridor pointed them to where they were going. There was a radio playing somewhere. Daylight teetered at the end of the landlocked entrance, as did the leftover smell of a meal. Mornin'. Mornin'. Arriving in the spacious back room, Wheeler and Adele nodded half a dozen times to the women seated there, said, Mornin' several times more. Okay, have you done theinger, said Adele. Okay, have you done the audio book, by the way?

No. Oh, you should have. My goodness. A really talented actress by the name of Saffron Coomber did that. I'm glad we've name checked her, but it was just magical watching you and hearing you read from it. Thank you. She has a tough life and there is danger and brutality in her life, isn't there? She's often quite afraid.

Yes. And the thing about being left behind, I think often there were strains in the wider family. Yeah. And possibly with the best hope and expectation, people left their children with relatives and an extended family. And there's no predicting what could go wrong over the period of time while the child waited to be sent for. What you've done is given us a fresh view on the Windrush generation. But also, this still happens now because often the narrative is of young women who are going forward in excitement, looking for opportunity. We think less about the mothers who had to leave their children behind and the impact on the children.

Yes. It's curious because the impact on the children tends to be lifelong. I had a recent event to launch the book and to my astonishment, expecting questions to do with various themes of the novel, people stood up, people from the African Caribbean community and identified as children left behind or siblings of children left behind. And some of the stories they told were just harrowing of continued and long lasting divisions within those families once the children came to the UK. And the sense of resentment or even anger towards parents who were here and again left with the best of intentions. But those children felt that they'd missed out on the affection and the love and the tension of the families of their parents.

Now, some of the kids, or the now adults who spoke, were children who hadn't been left behind, but who were born in the UK and those left behind felt a great deal of resentment towards them also. So there is a sense of an under-reported aspect of the migration story, which has lost in effect on adults here in the UK. Did that surprise you? It stunned me. I honestly didn't expect it.

I assumed that we knew everything now about Windrush and that people in the Caribbean community had little more to learn from it or the wider community. But this did surprise me. Have you spoken to your own mother about this in your own experience? I haven't had an opportunity. My parents, my mother still lives far away in British Columbia, where I spent a good part of my growing up. So I haven't, and I think it's a conversation we need to have. I know in my own family I didn't feel this, because I had the support and stability of two elder sisters

who were with me throughout and came to the UK with me. So we had a different story, that of finding a parent you hadn't been with for a long time and having to reconnect with them. And was the Windrush scandal and the treatments of some people that came to the UK from the Caribbean at the forefront of your mind when you were writing this? It wasn't at the start, but it very much became an aspect of the writing of the novel, yes. And you've done something remarkable. As someone who's written your whole life, you were telling me before we came on air, you've put this debut novel out there,

the reaction has started to happen, And how are you feeling about it? Calm at the moment. I'm just waiting to be blindsided by yet another aspect of this story that I hadn't considered. And I'm very, very pleased to have facilitated those conversations, including conversations from people outside the community who are saying to me, there's this growing sense of a curiosity. They had no idea. And they were stunned by their lack of knowledge as to where people had come from. Well, like all the best books, Anne, it opens up more questions and makes people more curious. Anne Hawke, thank you so much for coming in to speak to me. I'm going to end with one message that's come in.

We started by talking about Southport this morning. Anne says, my children had to deal with two tragic deaths in the family with six months in the 1980s. There was no help for bereaved children then. I was often told children are resilient. I'm so glad there's so much more help and support. Thank you, Woman's Hour. Just keep talking about it. Do join me tomorrow from 10.

That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. I'm Carlo Gabler from BBC Radio 4 and the History Podcast. This is Escape from the Maze, the disturbing inside story of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history. It's a major aberration. It's no different from an IRA aberration outside. Told by the people who carried it out and the people who tried to stop them.

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