Woman's Hour - Stammering, Sharing intimate images without consent and The art of repairs

Episode Date: March 10, 2021

During lockdown, when we haven't quite had access to the shops we might need, many have turned to 'fixing up' items around the house, and mending our own clothes. With the popularity of shows like The Repair Shop and Salvage Hunters, what stories do our possessions carry, and how can restoration keep them alive? Emma meets Molly Martin, an illustrator, textile repairer, and author of 'The Art of Repair' who runs workshops on how to mend mindfully.More than 70 women in a small English town have had their private, often naked, images stolen and shared online by people living in their community. The indecent images, including some of underage girls, are thought to be taken via hacking or provided by former boyfriends and uploaded anonymously on a website which features 73,000 images of women from across the world. Members of this online forum specifically request and target girls in the places they live in. The victims have reported the abuse to the police who, so far, say they are unable to help due to the current laws. As the town has a tight community, most of the victims know each other and have alerted those they recognise when the images appear. About a dozen of the victims have banded together and setup a group to try and get justice. Emma speaks to one of the women, Ruby, and to Maria Miller MP, who has been campaigning for the better protection against image based sexual abuse.Stammering, also known as stuttering, is a relatively common speech problem in childhood, which can persist into adulthood. Around 1 in 12 young children go through a phase of stammering, and around 2 in 3 will grow out of it. It's estimated that stammering affects around 1 in 100 adults, with women being around 3 to 4 times more less likely to stammer than men. Emma is joined by Felicity Baker, a producer with BBC News, who has been making the documentary I Can’t Say My Name: Stammering in the Spotlight and Mandy Taylor, a former trustee of STAMMA and now a member and volunteer who works to support families affected by stammering.

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning. I'm going to start today's programme with what should be a personal question, but increasingly isn't. Have you ever taken naked photos of yourself or had them taken? I asked because of an extraordinary story we're covering this morning. More than 70 women in a small English town have had their private, often naked, images stolen and shared online by people living in their community. The explicit photos, including some of underage girls,

are thought or provided by former boyfriends and uploaded anonymously on a website which features 73,000 images of women from across the world. The law has not, and seemingly cannot, keep a pace with technology. And before some of the usual tired conclusions are reached for, well, women shouldn't have sent them or shared them in the first place or even taken them, many of these images were stored in their phones that are supposedly private digital albums. The police's hands are largely tied, as you'll hear in our discussion.

So my question to you today is, is it time then for us to accept that if you are game for a naked photo, either you take of yourself or someone else takes, is it a risk? Do you have to accept it may end up online? Or if you aren't comfortable with that concept, do we have to accept that these sorts of images can't be taken on digital devices, if at all. Perhaps you could say it's time to reinvest in a film camera. What are your expectations of privacy around your photos and data? What is your

take on this? And if you have taken naked photos of yourself, you may not wish to talk about that, but you may wish to. Why? Tell us. And what is your view now you hear what's going on legally with this and that when people have taken this to the police, those photos have remained up? All that to come, but your views, very welcome, please, on 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate on social media. We're at BBC Woman's Hour. Or email us through our web programme today.

It pertains to a whole other sort of image which we'll come to shortly and also today stammering into adulthood. Women are around three to four times more likely to stammer than men a new documentary is out I can't say my name, Stammering into the Spotlight so do get

in touch of course if you can relate to that sorry I should say your experiences of that are very important. But if you want to message, but also if you wanted a call, it would be very interesting to hear from you. But I recognise some of the issues around that, which we will get to. And repairs. With more of us trying to make do and mend during lockdown, what have you fixed or mended? We'll have an expert on hand. I did actually fix the television in a great feat that I'll never let anyone in my house forget ever.

But yours, please, on those same numbers, text on 84844. And I did actually fix the television in a great feat that I'll never let anyone in my house forget ever. But yours, please, on those same numbers, text on 84844. But first, let's talk about an image that has stopped us in our tracks. You may have seen it, but if not, allow me to describe. It's of the back of Sister Anne Rose Nguyen Tung kneeling in the dust of a northern Myanmar city before a group of heavily armed police officers, begging them to spare the children and take her life instead. The image of a Catholic nun in a simple white habit, her hands spread, pleading with the forces of the country's new junta as they prepared to crack down on a protest, has gone viral and won her praise in the majority Buddhist country. Myanmar continues to struggle with the chaotic aftermath

of the military's overthrow of the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi on the 1st of February. As the protests have continued, demanding the return of democracy, the force used against demonstrators has increased with reports of tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets and live rounds being used. Nicola Smith is the Asia correspondent for The Telegraph, currently based in Taipei. Nicola, welcome. What more do we know about this nun?

Well, Sister Anne Rose, she's obviously incredibly brave. She's a 45-year-old nun. She's based in Kachin State, which is in northern Myanmar. It's home to one of the country's minorities who have also been oppressed by the military regime. And she also works in a clinic and has been helping injured protesters as they've been facing down the military forces and increasingly facing live fire and tear gas, as you said. So she's seen firsthand how the protesters have suffered at the hands of the security forces.

And she she told us that all she wanted to do was to try to prevent that and to try and protect young people and protesters as best as she could. And did she manage it? Did she manage it, Nicola? Unfortunately, in this case, despite her best efforts, shortly after she was seen kneeling on the ground in front of those police officers, she said she was overcome by tear gas. Again, the authorities cracked down on the protesters that day, and at least two young men were killed by what we believe to be live fire. Sister Anne Rosa is seen shortly after

that image, looking devastated over the body of a young man who's lying on the street where he was gunned down. So, so far, her efforts have been very much appreciated by the Myanmar people. And she really is one of the everyday heroes that we're seeing on the streets of Myanmar. But it hasn't stopped the violence. And really, from what protesters have told us so far, they just don't believe that anyone's going to help them but themselves. And that's why they are kind of putting their lives on the line and taking such a brave stance. Two young women have also been shot protesting that people are talking about. Can you tell us about those in brief?

Yes, so the first protester to be shot was a young 19-year-old woman just a few days before her 20th birthday and that really shocked the nation. Nobody knew what was yet to come. We've now seen more than 60 people confirmed dead but she was at a peaceful protest and she was shot in the head. And it's unclear whether she was deliberately targeted or not, but she certainly wasn't posing a threat to anyone. And the second young woman was also 18 and she was seen in videos and photos before her death. She was seen on the front lines of the protests again peaceful protests but they were met by tear gas and and gunfire and she was also shot in the head and and the it was very a very point the before pictures and then after pictures of this young life that had been snuffed

out and all she was asking for was democracy and so both of these women and also sister ann rosa have really become symbols of resistance um that that um protesters are rallying rounds and and women are really on the forefront and on the front lines of these protests and of course ang sang su chi also being a woman here who's in the headlines and in the focus in all of this. But very interesting to actually hear about the women, if you like, on the ground who've become those symbols. And as you put it, everyday heroes. Nicholas Smith will have to leave it there.

Asia correspondent for The Telegraph, currently based in Taipei. Thank you. As I was saying with regards to images and already lots of you have been getting in touch with us about your view on this but the story that we want to bring to you today is around more than 70 women in a small English town have had their private often naked images stolen and shared online by people living in their community. The explicit photos including some of underage girls are thought to have been taken via hacking or provided by former boyfriends and uploaded anonymously on a website which features 73,000 images of women from across the world. The reason we're not naming this website is because we don't wish to promote it and more importantly, identify the women involved.

Members of this online forum specifically request and target girls in the places that they live, girls and women we should say. The victims have reported the abuse to the police who so far say they are unable to help due to the current laws. As the town has a tight community, most of the victims know each other and have alerted those that they recognise when the images appear. About a dozen of the victims have banded together and set up a group to try and get justice. I spoke to one of these women, Ruby, and to the former Women's Minister, the Conservative MP Maria Miller,

who's been campaigning for better legal protection against image-based sexual abuse for years. I started by asking Ruby about what happened to her. I discovered last summer that some private images of myself, in which I was 17 years old, had been uploaded to a website. And this particular website allowed anonymous users to upload whatever images they wanted of whoever they wanted in a kind of bid to expose or exploit particularly women and young girls in a sexually driven way. And the photos were actually from a private friends only Facebook album that I had 10 years ago. The photos were from a girl's holiday in Malia. They were bikini photos, a few jokey photos. They were probably on Facebook for about four weeks maximum

because we just had a little bit of a pact not to delete anything as a bit of a laugh. And then they went down. But they resurfaced on this kind of creepy website last year. And I was quite shocked to find them there, to be quite honest. How did you find out they were there? So I was contacted by a friend who I'd been to college with. And they said, really sorry to tell you this, but there's this website. And I'm on it.

Underneath my photos are your photos as well. And I recognised you and I thought I'd just let you know. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. And immediately I kind of thought, oh my goodness, went into panic mode. I thought, what photos are these? I can't even think what that might be right now. And then when I went and looked at the link, I saw the photos and thought, how on earth have these made it to this website? And we should say, not to be pr prurient but you're not naked in these photos so the photos themselves there's a couple of them one of them I was sunburned so one of my friends had put after sun into my back so I was kind of lying on the hotel bed so I didn't have a top on but it wasn't explicit and another one we were kind of having a bit of a joke about

how small the hotel towels were so I was kind of showing how it didn't wrap all the way around my bum so you can see my bum but yeah they, they're not overly explicit. I mean, not that that diminishes this. I just wanted to paint an image of what you were looking at and how that made you feel. And regardless, I imagine it made you feel exposed and also concerned about how this had happened. Do you know how it's happened? Well, they must have been taken off Facebook in that four week period by someone I would consider a friend, someone who I know well enough to allow to view a private album. I know the privacy settings on that album were friends only because at the time when I uploaded them, I was like, oh, some of these photos are a bit risque, so I'll keep it to friends only. And it feels very violating and quite personal person I must know and there were

over 800 photos and these are like three photos from within four separate albums so they've they've kind of gone looking for them it feels a little bit which is a bit more sinister perhaps in in the yeah and quite invasive really and so I found out about my photos that way. But I was actually aware of the website itself six months earlier, because one of my close did again by a message on social media. And her photos were really explicit. They were photos taken between her and her current partner. And they were photos they'd never sent to each other, but were only stored on personal kind of storage platforms, and had been hacked. But she reported that to the police, and they kind of pursued it, but put it down as a cyber crime,

despite the fact her personal details and her location were mentioned on the website. Did you report it to the police? Yes. So I reported the police straight away as soon as I found out. When I went to the police station, we're quite a small local community, like a lot of people know each other. So there was a kind of informal conversation with the desk officer and the desk officer said they'd had 30 reports in one day. And I think that just shows you the kind of scale of how quickly this website link was circulating our community in our area. The 30 women to have reported in one day is just a crazy amount so

did you what was the resolution of your case did you get anywhere um not really I think the police didn't support us as well as they could have as victims but then also I don't think the law was supporting them the revenge porn law as it's as, that came in in 2015 was a massive achievement and a brilliant thing to come in. But it wasn't robust enough for them to pursue investigation into our cases. And even at the point of categorising and recording the reports, there was inconsistency. I was given a crime reference number. Some of the other victims weren't even given that. They're given incident logs. Some of them didn't even get a follow up call. And some did. Some got victim support. Some didn't.

And so it's very inconsistent. And there was only one male handling officer assigned to all of these reports, which we felt as a group was actually quite inadequate and not conducive to solving this crime. Are the photos still out there? Some are, some are. It's a real beast of a website. It regenerates its URLs, it regenerates its threads. When we did a little bit more digging ourselves, we found threads from 2015, 2017, same photos, same women. The Revenge Porn Helpline have been really, really amazing amazing and they have directly contacted site owners got some of the images removed from certain threads but then they just

pop up again and I think the dangerous thing about this website is that the threads are categorized by local area so although our area was affected and it came to light for all of us on kind of one day last summer there isn't a thread for almost every corner of the UK. Is your name attached to your image? My name's not attached to my image, but for a lot of the other victims, their names, their places of work, the schools they went to, their family relations, people asking for swaps for ones of their sisters. It's really, really personal stuff. And for us, when the police responded and said this was more of a cybercrime issue and referred it to the cybercrime unit, that's fine, because actually they are probably the ones that can get it taken down if anyone can. But this is a kind of attack that's personalised by local knowledge. And there didn't seem to be anything the police could do about that. Maria Miller, let's bring you in at this point, both as an MP and someone who, as the

former chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, and someone who has done a lot of work in this area. First of all, what's your response to Ruby's story? It simply can't be right that Ruby has to deal with private personal images being published in this very public way, and that they've been stolen and posted online without her consent. But Ruby's absolutely right that the law just hasn't kept pace with technology and she is left with very few options in terms of getting these images removed permanently. What can she do with the law as it stands? Well, there's a patchwork of law at the moment. And Ruby identified that back in 2015, I worked with then Lord Chancellor Chris Grayling to get revenge pornography made a criminal offence.

Up until that point, it wasn't at all, which was disgraceful. What she can do is to try and use the existing laws, but revenge pornography laws wouldn't bite in this case because there's no relationship between her and the people who've posted the images. There may be some opportunities under the Malicious Communications Act and some of the other existing laws that relate to these sorts of image abuse cases. But it's very difficult for the police to actually get a case and then successfully bring it to fruition. And one of the most difficult things, Emma, is that Ruby wouldn't have a right of anonymity, which is one of the things that I want to see change. So that's one of the changes that you want. What else do you want to change? Because, of course, people have been talking about the online harms bill and that they've got authorization to be able to post them, that they make sure that people under the age of 18 can't view them.

But it doesn't actually offer an opportunity for Ruby to take individual redress. So what I'm calling on the government to do is to really take all the existing patchwork of laws around upskirting and revenge pornography and just to make one simple law which says it's a criminal offence to post an intimate image without somebody's consent. So that's the main change I want to see happen, whether we can do that through the online harms bill, whether it has to be a parallel piece of legislation

is yet to be seen. Well, apparently the Prime Minister's a feminist. So do you have faith? It doesn't matter if the Prime Minister is a feminist or not. We need to see the law change because this affects not only women but also men. Of course. But the reason I bring that up, and it's not in a glib way, it was what his spokesperson said on International Women's Day, as well as saying there'll be more women elevated in the cabinet. You've been in the cabinet, Maria Miller.

And there has also been a concern by someone who now holds the post that you used to hold, Caroline Noakes, who is the present chair of the Women and Equalities Committee. She's very concerned that Boris Johnson's government has a very blokey mentality. She said that to us here on Women's Hour, which isn't helped by the predominance of ministers educated in single sex schools. Do you share her concerns? Because it does need to be prioritised right from the top. I share Caroline's concerns that we need to have a government that has got as many female voices in it as men's voices. I think that's important. Being a feminist is about understanding the importance of equal rights for women. And I would absolutely hope and know that our prime minister would want equal rights for women. Actually, that's the law. the online harms bill has a clear criminal offence to stop the posting of these intimate images, which have caused people like Ruby and others so much concern and so much heartache. And at the

moment, it isn't clear that posting these intimate images is unlawful. The Law Commission last week published their consultation into intimate image abuse, something I called for back in 2014. It's good to see the commission's consultation there, and I'd urge everybody listening today to take part in it. But we cannot allow the online harms bill to come into fruition without also addressing these very particular problems that people have got with the criminal law right now. So that's what you'd like to see, and you'd like to see it simplified. Maria Miller, do you actually have faith it will happen? I believe it has to happen because technology is now at a situation

where people like Ruby are seeing their images being stolen and put online and very little recourse to the criminal law to get them removed. Ruby, let me ask you the same question. Do you have faith it will happen, having gone through this process? I would like to have faith it would happen. I think it's an issue that cannot be ignored by the government at this point, especially for women of my generation. I mean, like I said, there were 30 reports in one day in my area.

Because you set up a WhatsApp group, didn't you, around this? Yeah, so essentially there were two reasons for set up a WhatsApp group, didn't you, around this? Yeah, so essentially there were two reasons for setting up the WhatsApp group. The first one was that I was really concerned from the police response and the kind of lack of police resources that they could offer us that victims wouldn't be getting support. So I was really concerned people would feel alone and ashamed and embarrassed, which is quite a lot of the kind of victim blaming narrative. So I wanted that to be established first off to let other victims know they're not alone and they shouldn't be ashamed.

And then the second reason was to try and reduce the amount of notifications the first friend that knew she was on the website was getting because her images were at the top of the thread and they were quite explicit. And she said every time her phone was going off she felt like crying because she just knew it was someone else informing her you know in a positive way not in a horrible way but just to let her know and support her that you know these images are out there. How old are you? 28. And just to say on a personal note how has this affected you? I'm quite a confident person. I always speak out about issues or anything that I don't think is right in society. But actually, on the day that

I did find out, I had to run an errand at the post office and I had to leave. I had to leave the queue because a group of kind of maybe 20, 21 year old lads came in. And I just thought, oh, my God, have they seen the website and it just became really overwhelming and for me that's really out of character and considering I knew about the website before because I'd had this heads up from my friend I didn't expect myself to be on it but I still knew of its existence it still affected me hugely fortunately I've got really supportive family and friends and an employer, but that's not always the case for victims. There's still victims in our WhatsApp group that haven't told their family because they're so embarrassed and they feel like they've done something wrong.

Well, we'll see where we get to. Maria Miller, a final word to you. There'll be some sort of shouting at the radio saying, if the police know about this particular website, to use it as an example, how can it still be up there, even if it is regenerating URLs and doing all of the things that Ruby described? Why can it not just be taken down, Maria? Because at the moment, the law is not clear. We need clearer laws which show that posting intimate images without consent is a criminal offence. Ruby has said that there are, you know, tens of people involved just in her community. If you look at this issue nationwide, there are many thousands of women who will have experienced their images of themselves being posted online. We need to make sure that the police have the training,

the resources to be able to deal with that, to be able to take down images that go up. But most fundamentally, they need to have the laws that are there that clearly show this is a criminal offence. And I want to make sure that people like Ruby, who've been through really distressing circumstances, don't have to have their own identities revealed when a case is brought against a website, that they can have anonymity.

Maria Miller, MP MP and Ruby there. You can find out more on this story on the BBC News website and across our social media channels. And we should say the Law Commission are conducting a review of the existing criminal law as it relates to taking, making and sharing intimate images without consent. The consultation is open until the 27th of May 2021. If you'd like to find out more, we've put a link up on the Woman's Hour website. So many messages coming in on this. Colin says, no, the argument that women shouldn't have naked photos

in case they're misused is akin to the rape myth that she shouldn't dress like that. It's men's weaknesses that leads to this kind of abuse of trust and they should not be tolerated. Hello, Woman's Hour reads this message. I sent photos of myself once to a boyfriend in high school. He then shared them with many of my male schoolmates. It was totally humiliating at the time, but I couldn't get help because I knew of a girl in the past who'd been suspended after

seeking help for having their photos shared. Imagine girls being punished for this kind of crime. I'm glad you're speaking about this issue and you can use this message if you would. Please do not use my name. Helen has provided a name who says I personally haven't sent photos of myself but a lot of my friends have already by the age of 13 and they almost always regretted it. Not to say it is a bad thing but because sharing images can often be a very personal thing in a relationship it's decision made that should be done on trust, intimacy and discussion of boundaries. That's important too. We should remove the stigma that some couples communicate in this way, but also ensure that the safety of both men and women so that necessary precautions are taken.

Film cameras may be more personal, however, at equal risk of being shared. Yes, one of the first messages we got in on this was from somebody, Dennis in Liverpool, saying, film camera is no solution. I've heard of printing technicians taking their own copies. And so it continues. Others saying, I cannot imagine taking a naked photo

and why you would want to. Messages also coming in from our discussion that we'll go to very shortly around stammering. I just wish to correct myself. I made an error, so forgive me for that.

I said that women were more likely to stammer than men. Actually, it's the opposite. Women being around three to four times less likely to stammer than men. Actually, it's the opposite, women being around three to four times less likely to stammer than men. So just wanted to make sure I had corrected that. And lots of you who are getting in touch, I'll come to those messages if I can.

And some of you actually saying you've never contacted a radio programme before. And I always think those are very important to read. So we will get to those messages very shortly. But coming to making do and mending, the war analogies during lockdown have been plentiful. But over the last year, when we haven't quite had access to the usual shops, many have turned to fixing up items around the home, mending their own clothes, mending others. With shows like

The Repair Shop, Salvage Hunters growing in popularity, what stories do our possessions carry and how can restoration keep them alive? Molly Martin, an illustrator, textile repairer and author of The Art of Repair, who also runs workshops on how to mend, is on the line. Molly, tell us a bit about what you've seen with people perhaps repairing and trying to mend during the lockdown. Hi, Emma. Yeah, it's been so fascinating watching everyone kind of contemplate over the lockdown, over things that are normally long forgotten. And, you know, they don't usually have time to repair and mend, or maybe they don't even think about doing that in the first place. But I've been teaching these repair workshops online, and the reach has been incredibly wide, which has been fantastic.

So, yeah, and mostly it's textile repair, but I really encourage, you know, everyone mending all sorts of things, like you said earlier, even tackling your TV. Yes, I mean, I don't want to overstate it. It was a bit of a system reboot that I had to Google in a tech forum. So it wasn't actually with a spanner. So let's not overstate it. But we are getting some amazing messages of what people are trying to do. And actually, I'm quite interested in something you said about mending being almost a political act. Yeah, I do think it's political act in terms of repairing anything in the modern society we live in. For me, it feels like a small act of defiance against consumerist values. Because you can bring something back to life.

And actually, what I'm noticing is people are perhaps having a greater attachment to their objects if they can keep them going. Yeah, I think that that's really important as well to kind of what I try and, you know, explain during my workshops, but also in the book a little bit more is repairing, you know, your pair of jeans is fantastic, but what you get from it, the feeling you get from it, the reconnection that you can gain is, you know, so much more than just mending for the sake of mending.

And the feedback has been fascinating as well, you know, just, you know, to see it as a wider philosophy of how, you know, in the West we're pretty obsessed with perfectionism and symmetry and the kind of, you know, historically that comes from Roman ideals of basically everything being eternal and made of stone and marble so I think that holds up a lot of expectation for our own bodies and ourselves and I think that when we kind of slow down and can repair something ourselves that even if it is just a holy jumper there's something within the broken fibers of you know a moth-eaten jumper that represents a little bit about us.

And it gives us a sense of reconnection and comfort. But also the idea of perhaps, and sticking with clothes, it's often other things as well, of the idea that you could even think to keep this for the next generation. And that was something that people always often used to think about. Do you think perhaps we can get back to that? I'd love, I would love it if we could. And I think that that's part of the reason I wanted to write about the history of mending and repair in my book, The Art of Repair, because I think it's very humbling to look back at times like, you know, the make do and mend movement of World War Two, when everything was rationed from food to clothes.

So we really had to make our clothes last we had to make choices when we bought things and really think about it but today because we're surrounded by you know abundance of clothes and high street fashion we don't have to kind of think about it anymore so I feel like if we can you know I think that's what we've got from the lockdown is a moment of contemplation to sort of reassess what we buy. And, you know, to kind of search for meaning within the things that we do wear and make good choices. I never forget, though, a message that I received on a different radio programme before I was doing this at Five Live from somebody who said, all these people are talking about more time during the lockdown. I've never had fewer hours, you know, whether it's homeschooling, the type of work, this person

was a paramedic, you know, so there are people who've had completely the opposite experience of this last year. And I'm very aware of that as well. But just to ask you, have you seen any trends between what women mend and what men mend? Are there differences? Are women different menders, fixers, repairers? I think that, well, I think most of the, it's a funny one because I think that like- The massive smile has come across your face as I've asked you this. Go on, why? I think it's just because I like that you brought that up because I really encourage men and women to both mend I think that historically repair and anything to do with sewing or craft is often seen as a female act but actually

men have historically also been menders you know fishermen used to mend their sails and their socks when they went to sea and same with soldiers and I think that it's nice to kind of give that as an example and actually more you know more variety have been coming to the workshops. And, you know, the men that I have spoken to before, you know, they bring their jeans and their jackets where they, you know, where wallets have kind of made holes in the back pockets of their trousers. Or, you know, I often mend the holy jumps of my boyfriend's, you know, clothes and I'm teaching him to mend. But, you know, I was going to say teaching him to mend. But, you know. I was going to say, you might need to get him to one of the classes.

Well, it's very good to hear from you. And also, I know you talk about how mindful it can be and how people using their hands can calm their minds. And I think that's something that everybody could do with at this time. Molly Martin, thank you for joining us. Your conversation and your expertise has prompted many of you to get in touch. Just to read a couple. Sophie says, this maybe doesn't count as a repair as such,

but I replaced a broken ceiling light fitting. Normally I would have called an electrician, but didn't want to risk someone in my home during COVID. I was quite delighted to find it worked okay. I fixed my windscreen sprinkler pump, Emma, by using YouTube and my coffee machine was leaking due to a loose seal. It had to be reattached only. Both repairs were zero pounds in cost, just my time and a massive confidence boost. That's definitely

a theme here. Isabella, thank you for that. Another person here saying, I'm trying to keep my soda stream out of landfill, but the company refusing to send me the part, preferring to offer a new machine. Well, there's new rules coming around that, that you have to provide parts. So that's a big boost for people who do like to try and repair the things they've spent quite a lot of money on and want to keep for a bit longer or certainly for the rest of their days if they can. Your message is also coming in about our next discussion. Stammering, also known as stuttering, a relatively common speech problem in childhood which can persist into adulthood. Around one in 12 young children go through a phase of stammering and around two in three will grow out of it. through a phase of stammering and around two in

three will grow out of it. It's estimated that stammering affects around one in 100 adults, with women being around three to four times less likely to stammer than men. Felicity Baker is a producer here with BBC News and has been making the documentary I Can't Say My Name, Stammering in the Spotlight. And Mandy Taylor is also joining us, a former trustee of Stammer and now a member and volunteer who works to support families affected by stammering. Welcome to you both. I'll start with you, Felicity, if I can, because each stammer, every stammer, it's unique to the person who's speech affected.

Absolutely. I think that's a very important point to make, is that everyone's experience of stammering is very individual. For me, my speech was a lot worse when I was younger. I say worse, I should say audible. My stammer was much more noticeable when I was younger. As I've grown older, it improved to the point where I was able to avoid words and situations in order to appear fluent in conversation. And what I mean by that is I'm thinking ahead as to every conversation I have. I know the sounds that I find quite hard to say I know the the letters that are tough so I tend to avoid them I've just I just leave them out of my vocabulary and as as a result not many people well

in fact no one really knew about my stammer apart from you know very very few close people but certainly no one at work knew about it it's not something I've ever spoken about but it is it it is something that it affects your life every day and I say I think every person who's who's stand with agrees with that from small choices for me if I if I go into a bar I order drinks that are easier for me to say not necessarily what I want same with if you're going out to restaurant absolutely so you you instinctively put put yourself in a situation where you're just going to be able to say words that that that are easier and that's been my yourself in a situation where you're just going to be able to say words that are easier. And that's been my experience.

Is that exhausting that you're mentally always working around what's difficult to say? It can be very tiring because so much of it is under the surface as well. And I use the analogy of a swan because people, it looks so calm and people would never know. But under the surface, there's so much paddling, kind of mad paddling going on in order to maintain the image. And I don't want to ignore the fact that you're talking here now on the radio. Is this something that you would be nervous about? I'm incredibly nervous doing this.

For me personally, speaking on live radio is the hardest thing I can do. Having a microphone in front of me, having to rely on my speech, it's very challenging. But, you know, it's also fantastic. I can't believe I'm doing it. I'm so happy you are. And thank you for doing it and also sharing how you're feeling about it. You know, a lot of people are nervous, but I'm very aware that there's a specific reason you would be. And I wanted to ask about that. Mandy, good morning to bring you into this. How has it affected you and how does it affect you um i was probably uh very very different because i could not have hidden my

stammer really at all um i started stammering uh probably it probably ramped up to its um most severe probably uh from about the age of eight um and it never even entered my head to try to hide it or to try to change words because my stammer manifested itself in such a way that um i didn't have the option every word that I would have used I would have hammered um so for me it was it was more choosing who I spoke to very carefully and over the years I guess you kind of as you get older you care less about what people think you get more you get more selfish assured but for me the real the best therapy per se I think I ever had was meeting other people that summer who just have that shared experience but like obviously Felicity says there as well how we how we all react to the shared experiences is totally different something that um I might find challenging, somebody else might find really easy.

And it affected your whole life, really, hasn't it, in terms of the trajectory of your life and what you chose to do, whether it was... Tell us about that point when you're thinking about university and what job to do and how to take yourself forward. Yeah, I think the thoughts of going to university was probably terrifying. The thought that you had to ring up to do lots of the organisation of that. For me, I thought I chose the easy option by going into the world and just getting a job because the thoughts of having to go to uni and you know and

meet all these new people and having to introduce yourself and go through that in a in an alien environment was just overwhelming and I did um that was probably even harder but um but it stood me in good stead because um I became I think very very resilient with my stammer being um very much at that time as well very audible I would have had times when I really struggled to get words out so my neck would get very tense and I would jerk and it was probably really quite strange and people would you know be thinking what is going on there so I think for me it was having to deal with the reactions of people whereas if a person hides it it's it's interiorized that their fear and their anxiety is internal whereas mine was

hurt embarrassment and having to deal with people laughing or giggling or imitating you and that happens right to this very day where you go into a shop and you speak to somebody and they have a little laugh. It's like, can you not remember your own name? Nobody forgets their name, you know. But it's because they don't know how to react because stammering is not one of those things that's talked about regularly.

So whenever people meet somebody who is very overt stammering and they maybe have that tension and they're really struggling, they don't know how to react. And that's why we wanted to have this discussion. And I know why you wanted to look at this and make this programme Felicity. A message that's just come in that I specifically wanted to read to you, Felicity. As a regular listener, this is the first time I've contacted Woman's Hour. I've started throughout my school years, five to 18. I can honestly say it made my life unbearable. My own first name starts with one of the hard sounds I find almost impossible, especially under classroom pressure. My speech was the elephant in the room dominating my school life. You can relate to that, can't you, Felicity? Oh, absolutely. I can relate to everything about that. And your name for me used to be my surname that gave me particular trouble. Now it's both names. They're both very difficult sounds.

I think it's something about being put on the spot, being put pressure for me if i can't change the words i can't change the words of my name and therefore they become very hard words for me to say so i will i will go out of my way to avoid saying my name and i'm i'm very clever about it people won't realize it but i will i will always try and find a way to get someone else to say my name i will try and avoid it if i can and um and i can. And I completely agree about school as well. Just little things like the register, having to say your name at the register. Those things would give me sleepless nights when I was younger. And a few questions saying, what causes a stammer?

Is it neurological? It is. We know now for sure that stammering is a neurological condition. The brains of people who stammer are not the same as the brains of people who speak fluently. I'd love to see there be more research into it. I'd love to know exactly what causes stammering, but it's not caused by nervousness, and people who stammer are not nervous people.

That's a key part, I know, to do with the stigma that I know you wanted to also talk about and make people aware of. And another thing I know is it's very important not to interrupt when people are talking with stammers. Felicity Baker, thank you very much for talking to us today. I'm sorry it was a nerve wracking experience, but I hope you feel it was worth it. The documentary, I Can't Say My Name, Stammering in the Spotlight. That's the name of that. You need to know.

Mandy Taylor, thank you so much to you for coming on Women's Hour this morning. That's all for today's Women's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. Hello, Greg Jenner here. Series three of Radio 4's top comedy history podcast, You're Dead to Me, is now in full swing. That's when you find yourself in the pocket of big Asclepius. We like to learn and laugh about the past by pairing up a top historian with a top comedian. That is hangry at a new level, isn't it? So far in this series, we've met the Irish pirate queen, Gráinne Ó Máli, explored the strange world of ancient Greek and Roman medicine,

and discovered the dramatic family life of the Borgias. All I know about the Borgias is from Assassin's Creed 2. So make sure you've subscribed to You're Dead to Me on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know.

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