Woman's Hour - Sugababes, Kate Summerscale & Kamila Shamsie, The History of Abortion

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

The Sugababes started their music career together in 1998 but, after Siobhán left the band in 2001, it wasn't until 2019 that Mutya, Keisha and Siobhán came back together as the Sugababes. All three members join Nuala McGovern to celebrate the release of their brand new single, Jungle, just as they get ready for their biggest ever UK and Ireland tour – which kicks off in Leeds next month. To mark the 30th anniversary of The Women’s Prize, Woman’s Hour is hearing from writers who have been longlisted in fiction and non-fiction this year, along with previous winners. Today Nuala talks to 2025 longlisted non-fiction author Kate Summerscale about her book The Peepshow: The Murders at 10 Rillington Place, and to Kamila Shamsie, whose novel Home Fire won the 2018 Women’s Prize for Fiction. Both books examine crime and punishment, and what happens when politicians and the media become involved in criminal justice.A new book Abortion – A History, gives the long view of ending pregnancy. From ancient Greece to Roe v Wade, Mary Fissell charts changing practices of and attitudes towards abortion. Mary, who is Professor in the History of Medicine at John Hopkins University in the US, joins Nuala in the Woman’s Hour studio to explain why she wrote the book and what she has learned. Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Laura Northedge

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petruzzella, 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 it will 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 this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. It is indeed hello and welcome. Well the original Sugar Babes, Keisha, Mutia and Siobhan are back with a bang and they're opposite me in the Woman's Hour studio this morning. We will chat to them in just a moment. Also today the authors Kamala Shamsi and Kate Summerscale in conversation about crime and punishment as we continue our series

with authors connected to the Women's Prize for fiction and nonfiction. And we want to help you decide whether you need to make additional national insurance contributions to boost your state pension. That is coming up with lots of We want to help you decide whether you need to make additional national insurance contributions to boost your state pension. That is coming up with lots of information. Staying with money? This afternoon, the Work and Pension Secretary Liz Kendall will set out how the government intends to reform the health benefits system in a move aimed at cutting the growing welfare

bill. The government says its mission is to make principal changes to a broken benefit system to help ill and disabled people move into work, not just cuts. It also says it will provide incapacity benefit claimants with tailored skills and job support while reducing cliff edge risks

that people could lose benefits if a job does not work out. Well, you will have seen the fierce backlash, including strong opposition within labour ranks, over concern for the potential impact on vulnerable claimants. We're going to be covering this story this week. So I'd like to hear your thoughts today, your concerns, how you see these proposed changes. You can text the programme. That number is 84844 on social media or at BBC Woman's Hour or you can email us through our website for a WhatsApp message or a

voice note the number is 03700 100444. Wherever you stand on the issue I'd like to hear your thoughts. Plus through a new book we delve into abortion's long political history from ancient Rome to colonial plantations through to the modern day. But let us begin with my guests in Studio 3, UK pop legends. Mutia Buena, Keisha Buchanan and Siobhán Donaghy, all known together as the Sugar Babes. Hello. Siobhán, Keisha, Mutia, welcome.

Thank you. So great to have legends in the studio. I just have to run through some things. So for those that haven't been paying attention, six number one singles nominated for six Brit Awards, winning for Best British Dance Act in 2003, started their music career together in 1998. I know. Then Siobhán left in 2001 but 2019 pivotal moment again because the three of you came back together as the

Sugar Babes. You have a new single, brand new, Jungle. You're getting ready to go on your biggest ever UK and Ireland tour, starting in Leeds next month? Yes. How are you feeling Siobhán? I mean it's crazy that it's our first ever arena tour. It is, that is crazy. I know it surprises even us but it means everything's on a bigger scale. I feel like we've done so many shows over the past three years with festivals and I feel like it's just, we're ready. We're ready to take that step.

So it's exciting. Well, you know, Woman's Hour has been to Glastonbury over the past couple of years, and apparently it was very hard to get in to see you. Yes. Mutia. We've done it twice. Well, the first time around was in 2022. We shut that field down, and then we did it again last year and we did it again.

So I mean it's always nice to you know see things like that because I always personally feel like there's no one out there when we perform. So when we do go out and we see everyone's there it's beautiful. And those EF people. Those trying to get in as well. Keisha, it was mentioned in a recent NME interview that as a group you take issue with the word reunion. Why do you think that's not the right term? Well, first of all, we definitely celebrate like all the nostalgia. We're huge fans of nostalgia and everyone come back together. But also as well, sometimes that means that you're just doing one

thing and then that's it. It could be just a celebration of your legacy, which is obviously amazing. And we've done that, but we also are back and we're releasing new music and we want to, you know, be among our, regarded as among our peers. I don't really think that it kind of suits us in terms of where we're at now and what we're doing. So, yeah. A lot will remember the revolving door of Sugar Babes for a number of years, then there was a completely different line up of performers.

Some might wonder, what is a Sugar Babe Siobhan? What is a Sugar Babe? Good question. I mean the thing is, it is a complex past. But I think that for a lot of people they move jobs, different things happen in your life. Since 1998 quite a few. The journey is what it is and we actually got together when we were 12 and 13 so I think the idea that we would have everything would have just been hunky-dory until now you know that's just

not how life goes but I so I would say that we don't regret our journey actually I'm glad it's led us here. Let's talk about that though so what age were you when you started your career? We were 12. All of us were 12 and 13. I mean it's so old. And our babies. I know when I hear about someone working starting to work at that age now I'm like your brain hasn't fully formed. But it was something that we wanted to do. Like our parents were so supportive and not a lot of people know this, but we actually, we all sort of grew up together basically. Mutu and I went to school together and singing in the studio was like our after school hobby. And so it was sort of like very, very organic. And then things just started to move, you

know, for us, people would come into the studio, hear us sing, and then all of a sudden there was a label deal in front of us, you know? So I think for us, it was always about keeping it as organic as possible. But the more famous you become, the more success you have, it becomes something else to other people. So for us, coming back together is about bringing it back to sort of the essence of what we were,

which is just friends that grew up together who liked music. And that's it, not about the rest of the stuff. Of which there was so many, I mean, people, you were teenagers, as he says, not even teenagers, actually, when you started, even pre-teens, really. Unlike many other teenagers or pre-teens, you fell out with one another. But for you you fallouts were tabloid fodder whether it was allegations or feuds or bullying for example. But people might be wondering how do you leave all that behind, that

intense scrutiny which must be very difficult to go through at a young age in the public eye and come back and say you know what we're going on tour together. I think we just rise above it. I think that a lot of what people have read isn't actually kind of what went down. And life is more kind of nuanced and there's more context to it than what people would ever have known or heard. And only we know our past and our true story and you know we bring it back to the music and what we love and it's been important for us to make it about that because the legacy is so incredible and we're really proud of the

new music and you know it's women it's funny we're talking about this on this show but you know it's women in particular in this industry that kind of you know it becomes more about the gossip and what they look like and blah blah blah you know we want it to be about the music and our art. So I was picking out some of the lyrics there the hustle and the grind what about that Mutie what does this single mean? It's all about us I'm joking no the hustle and the grind I think I mean lyrically it's it is kind of what we what we do you what we do. It's like the nine to five of everyone's life, no matter what you do. You hustle your grind.

Exactly. And you need to kind of maybe let that animal out, whether it be on the dance floor or whatever you do, to let your hair down. And I think we felt it was quite a universal message. Absolutely. was quite a universal message. Yeah, absolutely. And with this though, you've released this single on your own label. And I'm just wondering Muti, as you, what does that mean? Well, it's, I mean- Everybody wants to jump in on that question,

so let's start with you and I'll move on to you then, Keisha. I mean, not our own label, but we are independent. Yes. But it is, it feels a lot, lot it feels really it's nice to be able to kind of do things your own way these days. I mean when you're signed up to a record label sometimes you're kind of tied down to lots of people telling you what to do and what you can release but this time around it's very much us giving you know giving the orders to people. How does that feel? Amazing.

Yeah, when we decided to get back together as a group, it was actually like over 10 years ago. And we decided even at that point that we were gonna, you know, self invest into ourselves. We're gonna take our time. And also we were gonna sort of like rewrite the history, so to speak, and just kind of take it back to like, what we love, which is music, as Siobhan said earlier. I think that it's so nice to be able to have your schedule

out your own diary around, you know, your life, you know. Work-life balance, same. Work-life balance is so, and fun is important. And, you know, even though we're on the road and we do have quite a busy schedule, it's definitely tailor-made and it's based upon what we've said yes to. And yeah, we definitely carve out time to have fun as well.

How do you do that Siobhan? How do you and what do you do for fun when you've got this again, punishing schedule? Sometimes it's like, you know, like if we're in Australia, we'll do like a coastal walk. Yeah. And like, even if we've done... Do you still hang out with each other when you're off stage I mean I love our nights out in Ireland she've on mostly plans well she wants plans all the plans all the night or what I'm known as mama she won yeah yeah when we go on when we do that I love when we go to Ireland

because then you get well really when we go to Ireland when will you do the I Love When We Go to Ireland? Because then you get... Well really when we go to Ireland, that's my cousin Kieran Donahey, that sort out. He has all the new cups for an after party, etc. Yeah, you know, balance between a bit of a night out. I mean, obviously we're vocalists, so you're not having too many nights out. No, no karaoke. Oh, we don't mind a bit of karaoke. Oh yeah. You can see us in your local karaoke spot, absolutely. We've no airs and graces. You know, then it's a coastal walk, you can see it's in your local karaoke spot. Absolutely. We've no airs and graces. You know, then it's a coastal walk, you know, a bit of wild swimming or whatever. You know, why not?

And balance it all out. But I am thinking, I mean, you're veterans at this stage at a young age because you started so young and I wonder, Keisha, how you look at that little girl, for example, starting off on that journey. That becomes so famous. And I don't know how you would advise her now or what have you learnt about fame? Oh, goodness me. Well, I don't think that you can really prep anyone to, you know, to be prepared,

other than the fact that I think it's just super important that you sort of, balance is key, but also it's just really hard. I often think about that, what would I tell myself when I was younger? And I don't know how you prepare a 13, 14, 15, 16, I don't know, and I've got nieces that are that age, and I don't know how I would say, be careful of this and make sure you read this properly and make sure you gauge like it's too much. So I would just say that the best decision that I've made really within the last 10 years

is to actually not read anything. So I don't read any articles. So even if it's good, everyone around me, they don't share things with me. I obviously get updated with them if there's something amazing or we've got five stars, but I'll be told that and I won't necessarily read it. And that's really helped me just with my mental health. Because I think if you're told you're amazing all the time, the one comment, the one time you're not told you're amazing,

that's kind of hard. And then if you're battered all the time, The one comment, the one time you're not told you're amazing, that's kind of hard. And then if you're battered all the time, that's not good either. So I think you put your best foot forward. It's never gonna be perfect, but as long as you know you've done your best, that's good enough. And that's it.

And those who are around you, if you surround yourself with the right people, they will always give you healthy criticism and help you to grow in those areas. But for me, it just doesn't work if I'm sitting there like reading comments and it's done wonders for me. It's so interesting because I've had lots of young, very young artists in here as well that were kind of grappling with that and walking the line. Mutti, anything else you'd

like to add about how you see fame or look at it now or looking forwards or looking back? I think now I enjoy it so much more. Do you? Yeah I do. Well that's lovely. I do. I kind of wish I did enjoy it as much as I do now but to be honest I feel like being grown and you know we've all got our own families and stuff. I feel like it's like our time. I say it's my time all the time but it is our time. We've got our tribe, our people around us that are really good for us and I think that that's harder when you're a teenager, you're still finding yourself and it's not necessarily you that changes but it's the people around you and you don't have a lot of control over that. Whereas now that's kind of set in our lives, we've got good people around us and that makes a difference. What do you like about fame Mutti? What do I like about fame? I guess for me it's being able to visit so many countries. Yeah. Not really mainly about what comes with it but going to countries I've never ever thought

I'd go to and being able to just sing, I think. So back doing what you love. I'm interested as well, Siobhán, because, you know, Keisha brings up their social media, the comments. There wasn't that, although there was the tabloids when you were first setting out. Do you think what it means to be famous now is something different to what it used to be? I guess that it's less concentrated on one, any one person, because there's just so much of everything. And in a way that kind of takes the pressure off. I always just think, well, that seems really like intense and maybe important to me, but not. I try and tell myself that

like no one else cares. So like, you know, we move on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With your success, of course, and there was Girls Aloud, the Saturdays little mix. Do you think people will ever tire off the girl group structure or it's here to stay? I didn't even mention the Spice Girls. No, there is room for more. We love a girl band. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah, there is so much space. So you're starting on the tour UK and Ireland. I am really surprised the fact that it's this arena tour, Siobhán, as you mentioned, which it hasn't been before. How do you prepare for that?

Who wants to go? Well, we did the O2 like maybe two years ago. Yeah. And we that was, I feel like a good introduction of what we how we'll go into this arena tour we'll know what to do we were just even discussing about how long we'll need to do a quick change if there's any quick change things like that. Nothing quick about it. But I do think like we definitely are much more prepared in terms of um how we schedule out, you know, our rehearsal before we just thought you just rehearse back to back to back now I actually know

it's like two days on two days off kind of thing and also preparing our voices you know way more better than we ever have before so do you have to get physically fit like do you have to like start eating really healthy and exercise? Oh God, we try to. If you want to. Yeah. I started like a fitness journey in January, but I think, I think, yeah, I just think you just want to feel your best,

but also it's just about comfortability. You know, might do trainers for half the show, you know, it's about feeling comfortable. And also just the things just to feel very like organized. I think we're big on organization as long as that's happening. You do need stamina for it though. I'm sure. Sure.

Yeah. It is quite a physical show. Yeah. Yeah. I'm also just something in the back of my mind before I let you go. What would be your karaoke song if you ended up in Dublin in some karaoke spot on your nights out? I would do Creep. Oh good one. Because I once did karaoke and I did Jolene.

Hmm. And I was like this is gonna go down a storm and it didn't. My husband gets on the mic with his friend and they're like shouting in the mic, I'm a creep. Oh my god it was like a I'm a creep. I'm a little. I'm a little. I think it's too high. Oh my God, it was like a mosh pit. It went wild in there, so I was like, right, I'm stealing that. That is now my karaoke song. Yeah.

Destiny's Child did a song called So Good, and it's like a super affirmation, like positive and doing so well now, and you didn't think I wasn't doing well. That's always a good one, because everyone pretty much knows that. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I always do it every Christmas, fast cars.

It's the Tracy Chapman. Oh yeah it's a nice one as well. Absolutely. I'm just laughing if you were doing a Sugar Babe song and somebody walked by a booth they'd be like what's going on? I'd love to see that. We would do that as well wouldn't we? No shame. So good to have you in. Thank you all for coming in studio. Have a wonderful time on the tour. Have an absolute blast. Best of luck with the single jungle as well. And of course we have been speaking to Siobhán Donaghy, Kiesha Buchanan and Mutia Buena. Thanks so much for coming to Women's Hour. Now we are going to move on 84844 if you'd like to get in touch on anything you're hearing today.

But I want to talk about a new book it's called abortion a history and it aims to give the long view of something that has always happened ending a pregnancy from ancient Greece to Roe v Wade Mary Fissell charts the changing practices of and attitudes towards abortion Mary is a professor in the history of medicine at Johns Hopkins University in the US and is a professor in the history of medicine at Johns Hopkins University in the US and is with me in studio. A quick change from the sugar babes in and Mary out. Good to meet you. Thank you so much for having me.

So why take this long view of abortion through the ages? I think we see some interesting continuities as well as changes. When you take this really long view, we can see, for example, as you mentioned, people have always ended pregnancies, as far back in human history as we can see. We also see that prohibition never works. It makes things miserable, but it never really ends. So prohibition when it is stopped. Can you tell us your own views on abortion and how Can you tell us your own views on abortion and how you would say it has informed your research in this area? Certainly. I feel that ending a pregnancy is something that should be decided between the person and their health care provider, period. Everyone will take their own views. I respect that. But it's a decision that's best left to those people. So that is your view. How has it informed your research?

Well, I began thinking about the book in the spring of 2022 when it was becoming apparent that Roe v. Wade was probably going to fall. And Roe v. Wade is the law that gave a constitutional right to an abortion in the United States. Exactly, 1973. And I think many of us in women's history were concerned for a while. I like to joke that for a long time I thought I'd be spending my declining years driving women across state lines to get the care they needed, but actually I'm a not very good driver. I'm a much better writer. And so this is my work in that area. So being in a moment where things were changing so rapidly, I actually felt that the anchor of seeing this really long picture would be helpful so that people understood that we were in this particular moment, but it would not last because they never do. So my book actually ends up in an

optimistic note because when you see the big picture you realize that these moments of intense repression burn out and they don't last. Abortion, you've made mention of it there as well, that it is a very contentious issue, obviously very strong feelings on both sides and knowing as you've laid out you have a very clear personal position and a view on abortion, that some may feel that it makes it difficult, if not impossible, to be truly impartial on the history you select and present in your book. How do you think your views affected what you wrote? Well, I think the strongest way that they affected me was that for me abortion is health

care and I wanted to normalize that and to do that I told stories of individual women because I felt that we needed to see the context. We needed to understand where they were and how they reached the decisions that they reached. I wanted to humanize it so that in some senses it's an issue of hearts more than minds and stories, narrative does that. It reaches how people feel. And as a historian I have to be true to the sources that I see in front of me. Can't make stuff up, can't cover stuff up. And there's some tough moments in the book as well when, say, a woman is coerced into ending a pregnancy she might not have wanted

to end, but you were true to those moments. You tell a complicated story as best you can. There was a lot that I was not aware of that I read. It goes through the chapters, for example, the botanist, the housewife, and so we meet these people. Let me go back to the Greeks and the Romans. Can you give us a brief explanation of how they saw it? Absolutely. So in ancient Greece, ending a pregnancy was not stigmatized in any way. When you look in the Hippocratic Corpus, this body of writings about ancient Greek medicine, there are many recipes for plant products that would restore a missing menstrual cycle or potentially end a pregnancy.

There's also a mention of the life-threatening moment of incomplete miscarriage when a woman could die unless the uterus is cleaned out properly. So all of those circumstances that we still know today, I mean, it's still a crisis today in incomplete miscarriage, that was all in these texts. And that did surprise me a little bit to see how much they knew and how openly they discussed it. Religion often comes into discussions of abortion. How did the advent of Christianity change things, as you found? That's a very rich question. It tied up sex and abortion in new ways that hadn't been tangled up in that way before. I think Christianity began to see abortion as a sign or a signal,

a marker for people having sex when they shouldn't have been, outside of marriage, say. And abortion became this indicator and became extra bad for that reason. In early Christianity, there's a lot of different points of view about the famous question of when life begins. It's not uniform at all. And so that wasn't the key. The key was really making sure that Christians were sexually virtuous and abortion was an indicator maybe they weren't. Right. Abortion and in addition pregnancy, of course. Medieval nuns, this is perhaps surprising, they were fonts of knowledge on plants, medicines that could create an abortion. That surprised even me. I didn't know all of that. I think the most surprising to me was the

sixth century Irish holy woman, Brigid of Kildare. This was new. I spoke to my mother about this last night. Continue. I love that. So, she has a convent. Well, to call it a convent is overly formal, a holy place. And one of the young women who is going to join her loses her head and has sex with a young man, gets pregnant, is horrified, repents, and Bridget puts her hands on the woman's belly and the pregnancy vanishes as if it never had been. I think that's a really interesting

moment because it shows us that Christianity did not yet have one single perspective. I think it's also a miracle because it was instantaneous. Irish women who would have heard this story read aloud would probably have known about plant products that could end a pregnancy. But in that case it's a couple of days of cramps and bleeding and this happening all at once. It was a miracle. So that was amazing to me. I had never heard that story. St. Brigid is a patron saint of Ireland along with St. Patrick yesterday. I'd say call him kill., it's more put in the Catholic sphere as I

have seen it. And of course, that story might seem very much at odds with the Catholic Church's teaching on abortion. Yes, and that only solidifies over centuries. The other thing I would say about medieval nuns is of course, both nuns and monks are providing healthcare to their neighbourhoods, not merely to the people in the monastery or the convent. So it's not surprising that they would know about remedies to deal with health crises where they are. And I know you put the term of abortion under the, what would I say, the category of health care, which some people have an issue with, to be aware of

other people's positions when it comes to this contentious issue. Let me turn to Eliza Wilson, who actually you start the book, In a Churchyard in South London, looking for her. Tell us a little bit about Eliza. Well, Eliza Wilson was the first abortion case that I researched and I came across her in Victorian newspapers 1848 because I was looking for something else. That's so often the way for historians. And her story was there in such detail. So she was 32, a little old to be unmarried at that point, spinster you might say, and she'd been having an affair with Richard Orpin, a married

coachman and things went terribly wrong. She had what we now would think of as an abortion that went septic. She died of a massive infection. And then the midwife who provided that care went on trial for murder. And amazing amounts of column inches in the newspaper about her story. Like, unbelievable. And part of me feels for her because this is something she never would have wanted to have been made public. And there it was in the newspapers, all over the newspapers. And she died a very unhappy death. But what struck me about her story was how very ordinary she was before this terrible thing happened. She was a dressmaker. You know, many London working women were dressmakers, needle trades.

She and her family had come from up north near the Lake District. Again, many London families were immigrants. And so the way I read her, she was reaching for a little scrap of happiness, you know, in her life, and then it went terribly, terribly wrong. But her very typicality moved me and made me want to bear witness to her as to so many other women who just had the misfortune to have an infection before it could be treated. And what does she tell you about Victorian attitudes to the women who provided abortions as it was in this case?

Well, it tells me actually how acceptable it was, which may surprise you. Spencer Linfield is the name of her midwife, and Linfield had been running what is basically Well, it tells me actually how acceptable it was, which may surprise you. Spencer Linfield is the name of her midwife. And Linfield had been running what is basically reproductive clinic for decades in Wellworth in South London. She was the poor law midwife, so she's paid by the parish to deliver poor women. She was the midwife for a charity that loaned out child bed linens to poor women. So that tells me she's very respected and known in her neighborhood.

People knew what services she was providing. Women could deliver at her house, they could end a pregnancy at her house. And were it not for this very unfortunate moment, we would never know about her. She didn't advertise her services in the newspaper as far as I can tell. Word of mouth was plenty and I think there's others like her that we don't know about who were providing this really crucial service. And that's going all the way back. There is also stories of course of colonial plantations really interesting as well. But just in my last minute Mary, are you expecting others to

disagree with your interpretation of historical record? Oh, that's how historians work. Absolutely. Absolutely. If I don't have people disagreeing with me, I've not done my job. So I welcome that. I also, of course, like it when people agree with me, when I've persuaded them. But historians, yes, I'm perfectly happy to have someone disagree with me. Mary Fissel, if you want to agree or disagree with her, her author, she's the author of a new book, it's called Abortion, a History. Manny, thanks for coming into us here on Women's Hour. Thank you so much. Now, there are warnings in the papers today that tens of thousands of mothers could be wasting their money if they pay to fill

in the gaps in their national insurance record to increase their state pension. You might have seen this that people have until April to fill in any gaps going back to the 2006-2007 tax year but if they miss the deadline they'll only be able to claim back to 2018. State pension eligibility in the UK is earned by paying into national insurance or by collecting national insurance credits. But after changes to the child benefit that was back in 2013, when the high income child benefit charge was introduced, many couples decided it would no longer be worth their while to claim, therefore missing out on those automatic credits. The former

Pensions Minister, Steve Webb, has now warned that mothers who are making up the gaps paying in could potentially be given the credits anyway by the government. So maybe wasting money if they put more money in? Joining me to explain it, I know it's complicated, we do have, I'm glad to say, Felicity Hannah Fliss, presenter of Moneybox Live on Radio 4. Good to have you, Fliss. Okay, so I've done a little bit of an outline there. But who is affected by this issue? And maybe we could kind of dial back a little bit as well on what people have heard. Yeah, we have to dial back a bit because it does get quite complicated. But we'll go through this

step by step. So as you said, this affects families who have been caught out by what's known as the high income child benefit charge. That can of course affect either parent. It's very often though it's mothers who miss out on work or take part-time jobs while the children are little and so perhaps don't earn enough to pay national insurance. So women are typically the most affected group. So it used to be universal. What do Bridgerton actor Adjoa Ando, nature presenter Rae-Win Grant and TikTok sensation Mama Siebs all have in common? They're all guests on Dear Daughters Stars from the BBC World Service. I'm Namulanta Kombo and for the new series of Dear Daughter, I'm welcoming an all-star

line- lineup to share stories of parenting in the spotlight. Listen now by searching for Dear Daughter wherever you get your BBC podcasts. As you said, that changed in 2013. And then if one parent was considered a high earner, so previously if they earned over 50,000 pounds a year and that went up to £60,000 last year, then the amount of child benefit you'd get would taper down and stop. And that meant those higher earning households lost the payment and that was pretty controversial. But it also had this other impact on the caring parents' state pension.

So if you're not working because you're caring for a young family, you should get national insurance credits automatically if you claim child benefit and if your child is under the age of 12 and they count towards your state pension so you don't end up with any gaps. And remember, you typically need 35 years of national insurance contributions to qualify for that full state pension. Now what the former pensions minister, Sir Steve Webb, is concerned about is parents who earn enough to pay national insurance and whose partners earned too much rather to qualify for child benefit will have those gaps. They might decide to fill those gaps and it's not cheap. You can voluntarily pay for a year of contributions

and it costs, depending on the year, between 800 and just over 900 quid so it's not cheap normally you can only backfill six years and yes at the moment we have this extended deadline you can you can fill in years all the way back to 2006 2007 so if you're in your 40s your 50s your 60s and you have the cash to spare which of course not everybody does that can really boost your retirement income. So anyone listening to this, if they've missed out on child benefits since 2013, when it changed, and they suspect they've got gaps in their state pension, they could be affected.

So I started having a look at this list before we came to air. So they need to go to the government website to check. The first thing people want to know, I want to see, do I have gaps, do I not? Yeah, exactly, exactly. So it's really, really important to check. The first thing people want to know, I want to see do I have gaps, do I not? Yeah exactly, exactly. So it's really, really important to check the gaps. If there have been years where you didn't work or you didn't earn enough to pay national insurance and you have children under 12, you would have, you should have been entitled to a credit and if you didn't claim that then the most important thing to do now is understand your situation. So you can go to gov.uk and check your national insurance record. I promise you this is actually quite simple. You put in your details and you can

see how much state pension you're on track to get. You can see your state pension age and we know from recent news stories just how important it is to understand exactly what age your state pension will qualify for it. And you can check for any missing national insurance contributions. They'll be referred to as incomplete years. And it will also tell you if you can make voluntary contributions. Now, I should say it's not straightforward. It's not see a gap, fill a gap. Okay. If you've got missing years, but you're still quite young, you're able to work, you might decide you don't need to fill them because you're likely to work a full 35 years in total before your retirement age and so what you don't want to do is pay for an extra year and then not actually get any extra

state pension. I mean what would the difference be at the end of the state pension? I know everybody's will be different but it's a significant amount it seems to be from the news stories. Yeah I mean it can be really significant, I can't put a number on it because obviously it depends on well yeah how much people but also how long you live but if you can top up your state pension and then you live to a ripe old age we could be talking about tens of thousands of pounds you know in additional income in your older age so it's really really important to give this some careful thought. But they have these dates. So when do people have to do it by?

So yes, this is what really matters. You've got until April the 5th this year to go back about 20 years. Until April 5th this year, you can fill years that go all the way back to 2006 to 2007, whereas normally you can only fill the last six years. So every April, there is a new deadline for six years previously. Oh, goodness me, it sounds complicated. I have one message that came in, Flis, let me read this. Just topped up my missing years of national insurance. Dead easy, a no-brainer in my humble opinion. However, with the government starting to call old age pensioners a benefit, how long before it gets means tested? Well, that's one I can't answer. But with this question, so say you check and you have some gaps, how would you know whether the state will fill those gaps or not? This is the really, really tricky bit. And isn't it frustrating? It's already quite a

confusing issue. Now we've got this extra complexity. So first things first, it is really, really great news that the government confirmed in Parliament last week. It is going to create this new National Insurance Credit for anyone who didn't claim child benefit. And that's really excellent because no parent, no guardian, no caregiver should be poorer in their old age because they did the absolutely necessary work of bringing up the next generation. So that's really good news. But as Sir Steve Webb has pointed out, it does make it really complicated. If you're somebody who is considering filling a gap from over six years ago, you can only do so right now. You can only do so in the next couple of weeks while there's this extended deadline. And

we just don't know if that means you'd be wasting hundreds, maybe thousands of pounds if you pay now and then next year, you find out you'd be given the right to claim it for free. So we don't know how far back these new credits might go when they're introduced next year. And we don't know if every affected parent would be entitled to them. So we don't know the detail yet. And that is making it pretty tricky for parents. And do we have any idea when that detail might be known? Well, we're being told that it's going to come in, the extra credits are going to come in next year, so 2026, spring 2026.

And that does suggest, surely, that we will get the details before then. Maybe it'll, maybe something will be said in the spring statement, maybe something will come out in the, in the budget in autumn. I don't know, I've got no insights, but we will no doubt hear before spring next year, but there's no indication at the moment that we'll hear in the next two weeks, which is when people really need to kind of get their act together and apply. Can I just say though, if you are worried about this deadline, this April 5th deadline... I think lots of people will be after what you've just said, go ahead Felicity. They'll be worried about whether or not they

should be paying for these, what they should be doing. I've said the deadline is April 5th, but the good news is that they're being a bit flexible with that, but the helpline is really swamped, the website is really swamped. So if you go to the Future Pensions Center, which manages those national insurance top-ups, If you go there and you request a callback and you do that before April the 5th then you'll be able to make payments after that deadline so you will get a little bit of extra time, a little bit of extra give so that you can chat to somebody on the helpline, you know, once they get to your case you can chat to them and understand a little bit more about whether you are somebody who could benefit from making this payment. But if it's just in the last six years, don't

panic, there's no urgent deadline for you. You can wait and see what the government does offer by this time next year. Felicity Hanna, presenter of Moneybox Live on Radio 4. Thank you so much. The Future Pension Centre is the place she mentioned if you'd like to follow up on that aspect. Let me turn to the Women's Prize. It was founded 30 years ago to award the best fiction written by women in English. Over the past few weeks, Woman's Hour has been talking to writers who have been long listed in fiction

and nonfiction this year, along with previous winners. Today, we'll discuss two books that examine crime and punishment and what happens when politicians in the media become involved in criminal justice. Kamala Shamsi's novel Home Fire won the 2018 Women's Prize for Fiction. Kate Summerscale has been long listed this year in the non-fiction category for her book The Peep Show, The Murders at 10 Rillington Place. I began by asking Kate what happened at that address and just to prepare you, some of the details you're about to hear are disturbing.

In March 1953 the police made a terrible discovery at this tiny terraced house in Notting Hill. The bodies of six women had been concealed in the house, buried in the garden under the floorboards, behind a kitchen wall. And it emerged that these women had, most of them, had been gassed and raped before they were strangled to death. And a manhunt was launched for the tenant of the ground floor flat, a man called Christie, who became really the most notorious serial killer

of the decade, and his crimes hung over the 50s haunted it. And not only because of the horror of what he had done, this middle aged apparently respectable man, but also because it unlocked the possibility that another man had been hanged in error three years earlier for a double murder that took place in the same house. And what was it then that was an impetus for you to think, I want to write a book on this? I think that the trigger in a way was the fact that I read about the murders of women by men who were strangers to them in London in 2020, 2021, including Sarah Everard. And I sort of started wondering, perhaps for the first time, what compelled certain men to kill women because

they were women, not because they had a personal grudge or dispute or loathing of them. And this seemed a very representative case, the first sort of huge case in the post-war period of a man who did this. And I was also interested in my own interest in why so many of us, particularly women, want to know about these stories, listen to podcasts, watch Netflix documentaries and I saw that echoed in the way that this crime was received in the 1950s too, the fascination, the desperation of people, particularly women, to set eyes on Christie to read about his crimes. So I thought this story could also be a way of exploring that. It's so interesting. So kind of what piqued perhaps people's interest back in the day also piqued your interest in this modern day setting. I mean, some say that you spearheaded the revival of interest in true crime. Would you go along with that characterization?

No, I don't think so. I mean, maybe some of my books have been part of that revival of interest and a sort of different way of approaching true crime. But yeah, I think people have always been interested in it. But we are going through a phase now of quite intense interest, especially in the form of podcasts and documentaries. And then looking at recent history as you did. But let me bring you in, Kamala, because your novel Home Fire has been described as a loose, contemporary reworking of Antigone. So we're going thousands of years back to a Greek tragedy and bringing that to modern time, to Muslim communities in London.

Tell us a little bit about what your thought trajectory was. Well, I was smiling as Kate was talking, because, of course, we go back to old stories because of now. We don't go back to them because of then. And in my case, I mean, the prompt was given to me by someone else. There's a theatre director, Jatinder Verma, who ran the Tara Arts Company in South London. And he said, I'd love you to write a play for me. Why don't you adapt a Greek classic, something like Antigone?

And I had studied Antigone at university and had absolutely no memory of it. But I did that terrible thing. I literally went to Wikipedia to look for plot summary. And this was right at that moment when we had started to first hear about British men. The girls and women came later, but this was young boys and men

going to Syria to join ISIS. And Theresa May, who was then the Home Secretary, said, I will strip them of their citizenship. And as I was reading the plot summary of Antigone, I just thought, but this is now, this is those stories. And that, you know, when in Antigone, it's sort of this person has been a traitor and cannot be buried because, you know, you don't even have that right to the land. And one of the things we don't think about is citizenship gives us the right of burial. If you are British, you can be buried in Britain.

And so when you strip someone of citizenship, you are also stripping them and, in fact, their families of that right of burial. And that's what intrigued me about it. And London is one of the characters in both of them. I think your book, Kamala, like Kate's actually, but I've also lived in Britain as a Muslim who is, you know, I don't wear hijab. I'm not recognized as Muslim in certain ways. And also I didn't move to Britain until I was in my 30s. My sense of identity is not bound up

with other British people recognizing me as British. I only became British at the age of 40. But I was interested in people who were living in London, who had all kinds of overlap with me, and yet distinctions. They had always been British, but they were looked at as the enemy within, or they were looked at as not quite British. I am very lucky.

I set it in Preston Road, which is a neighborhood I chose because I have a wonderful friend, Geraldine who lives there who knows everyone and so I could say to her well I have this kind of family and she would introduce me I mean we literally walked down the street knocking on doors and I would go in and have conversations with people all of whom then ended up you know in one way or the other in my book except in the version of the boy who goes to join ISIS there was no such boy anywhere on Preston Road. And were people willing to open up to you to be generous with their stories and experience?

People were very willing and partly I think it was because I was with someone from the neighborhood and it's always that way. You know, I'm Pakistani, I know how this works. And I think also people are generous if you approach them in a spirit of genuine curiosity. And I'm sure, you know, Kate must know this from the work she does. I know a lot of it is archival. But there is something about the spirit of entering with questions rather than an insistence that I know the answers and you're going to provide me with the information I need to get those answers. I'd actually be interested in how that works in terms of of the books you do. I mean do you go thinking this is sort of the idea I have about what happened

and let me look through the documents till I find or are you surprised? I mean I love the book by the way, I spend the weekend reading it. Oh thank you that's very kind. Yeah no I love the book, I spend the week in reading it. Oh thank you, that's very kind. Yeah, no I would, I could never embark on a project if I thought I knew what I was going to find. It's always the curiosity about it, the mystery of the thing, the sense of being on some kind of adventure, which as you say is often archival and I'm sort of trying to find out what happened. I'm baffled and I'm trying to piece it together. So that's entirely the journey and it's one I sort of try to recreate in the way I write the book as well, that it's still kind of open to interpretation and maybe guide the reader to what I feel like I found out, but also leave gaps that can be filled.

In terms of the thing you said about going back to old stories, it does feel that if you're looking at what's happening right in front of you in your own moment, like the women being killed in London recently, it's incredibly hard to trace the connections between that and the society we live in because you can't, it's too close up, it's too immediate and raw. And if you go back, it feels as if you can get more of a purchase. It's easier to trace those echoes and reverberations and connections between the social world and the private world. I'm also thinking, looking back, and this goes for both your books, but I'll start with

you, Kate, and then come to you coming up. Why do you think did the government show such an interest in this case of 10 Rillington Place? The public, first of all, showed such an interest in it, and therefore the journalists, and there was an absolutely thriving and ruthless tabloid press at the time. The government had a particular stake in it because of the fact that there had been this previous double murder in the house for which a young man had been hanged. And this young man had at the time

accused his downstairs neighbor, Christ Christie, of the crimes, although he also made a very full confession to them. So it was extremely confusing. But the government was very keen that the possibility of this case being a miscarriage of justice not be given much air time. And as a result, they got the attorney general

to appear as the prosecutor in the Christie case to close down questions about the Evans case. Because it not only suggested the courts had committed a grave mistake, but also cast extra pressure, extra scrutiny on the whole practice of capital punishment because there was no reversing this mistake because the man in question had died. And it was a period when capital punishment was already very contentious. There were many MPs lobbying to have the death penalty suspended.

Let me turn to your book, Kamala, and it is fiction, but there is also a central character, which is a British Muslim politician, Karamat, who has become Home Secretary. And I'm wondering why you needed to add him to this story, where you created him from and his role. In Antigone, the tyrant is the uncle of Antigone and her siblings. And so really the idea was to have that sense that Antigone has, that this is both a familial story and a story of the state. Of course, the curious thing was then looking around, I did think, is it realistic? This was in, I should say 2015, I think I started to think of it. I said, is it realistic to have a home secretary from a British Muslim background? And at that point, there were three politicians,

Saeeda Versi, Sajid Javed and Saadiq Khan, who were all from British Muslim backgrounds. And I thought, oh, look, one is an exception, two is a coincidence, three. Now that's a trend. I mean, it was strange because, you know, at the center of the story, there is a citizenship stripping thing going on with the young man who goes to join ISIS. This was before Sajid Javed became Home Secretary and it was before Shamima Begum and a lot of people say, oh you know it's our imitating life but the reason I thought of it was because Theresa May had already said we will strip them of their citizenship. So it's not that I invented something, I was just paying attention to a particular piece of news

before other people were and part the reason I was doing that was I had just become a British citizen and it's not an easy road, it wasn't then and it's harder now for a lot of people to get that citizenship. I was luckier than most but it was still quite fraught for me and when I got the passport I thought now I'm a British citizen that road is over is you know finished and I'm secure in it and and to realize that no actually at the discretion of the Home Secretary that citizenship could be taken away as it couldn't for someone who is British born and has no other nation to claim so that there is two tiers of citizenship it was quite

chilling. Kate, I want to come back to you when it comes to media as well, particularly because you do look at the experience in your book of a reporter called Harry Proctor. Harry Proctor was determined to get the scoop on his story. And so via his brother who lived in the North, he made a payment to get Christie's so-called confession. He got Christie to write as his life story and explanation of the murders while he was in Brixton prison, and in return

they paid for all his legal counsel, his defence, the psychiatrists who assessed him and claimed he was mad. That was secret at the time and just an extraordinary level of collusion between the press and the criminals. And Harry Proctor was such an intriguing character because he was driven partly by a desire to seek justice for Tim Evans, the man who had been hanged, Harry thought in error. This was exacerbated by the fact Harry Proctor had interviewed Christie himself at the time of the Evans murders, and he had failed to suspect that he might be involved. So there was also a sort of personal atonement at work here, but he's also an extremely ambitious tabloid journalist who just wanted to outwit his rivals and make them see the jealousy at this huge scoop that

he got for his paper. Kate Summerscale there who has been long listed for the women's prize for the Peep Show, the murders at 10 Rillington Place. We were also hearing from Kamala Shamsi, who won the prize in 2018 for her book, Home Fire. That is it for today, but I do want to let you know, tomorrow I will be speaking to June Sarpong, who has co-written the book, Calling Una Marson, the extraordinary life of a forgotten icon about the poet, playwright, feminist, and activist who made history as the first black female broadcaster at the BBC and also how she blazed a trail for generations

of women in broadcasting and beyond. Also one message, I'm listening to your programme about state pensions and mothers. I went to my pension forecast on the government website 10-15 years ago, I had to top up and now it's 66, I receive £850 a month. Well worth it. I'll speak to you tomorrow. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. It's a parent's nightmare. They said, oh it's a boy. And I was holding my hands out ready to cuddle him and they took him away.

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They're all guests on Dear Daughter's Stars from the BBC World Service. I'm Namulanta Kombo, and for the new series of Dear Daughter, I'm welcoming an all-star lineup to share stories of parenting in the spotlight. Listen now by searching for Dear Daughter wherever you get your BBC podcasts.