Woman's Hour - Sukhdev Reel on her son Ricky, Aimee Lou Wood, Anita Bhagwandas, Sober dating

Episode Date: February 17, 2023

Ricky Reel’s body was discovered in the River Thames 25 years ago, a week after he had gone missing following a racist attack when he was on a night out with friends. His case was never solved, the police initially believed he had run away from an arranged marriage and later that his death was an accident. The case is now being re-examined by the Met Police’s major inquiries specialist casework team, due in part to Sukhdev Reel’s relentless campaigning on behalf of her son. She tells Anita why she has never given up on getting justice for her son.Actor Aimee Lou Wood is best known for her role in Netflix’s Sex Education. Her character - also called Aimee - was at the heart of some of the most iconic storylines that came out of the first three seasons of the show. But now she’s taking to the stage as Sally Bowles in Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club in London’s West End. She joins Anita in the studio to talk about performing in the show and her recent BAFTA Rising Star Award nomination.Anita Bhagwandas is an award-winning beauty journalist who describes the beauty industry as one she adores but a place that has ‘never loved [her] back’.Her new book Ugly: Giving Us Back Our Beauty Standards unearths why the word has such power and how we can reclaim it for ourselves. A blend of manifesto and memoir, the book explores how racial, class, and social prejudices shape what society deems ‘beautiful’. She joins Anita to discuss life as a beauty journalist, overcoming self-hatred, and the beauty standards set by Disney princesses.With movements like Dry January growing in popularity, many women want to question their relationship with alcohol, while also maintaining the possibility of moderation. Anita is joined by the journalist Roisin Kelly who shares what she learned while sober dating, and Ruby Warrington, the author who inspired the sober curious movement, who discusses the art of mindful drinking.

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Welcome to the programme. We have made it to Friday and today I'd like you all to think about yourselves. How do you feel about what you see in the mirror? Your face, your body, your hair. Do you feel beautiful? This morning, I'd like you all to share with me what it is you don't like and crucially, what you've done or what you do do to make yourself feel better about it. I'll be speaking to beauty journalist Anita Bhagwandas about her new book, Ugly, where she explores our beauty

standards, where they come from, and what we can all do to change the very skewed lens we judge something as subjective as beauty through. In the meantime, we've all been made to feel a certain way about the way we look by these standards. So this morning, I want to know how you feel and what you do about it. I want you to tell me honestly, and you can remain anonymous, of course. Do you dye your hair grey? Never leave the house without your fake eyelashes and a contoured face have you had plastic surgery nose job boob job butt lift have you lightened your skin or wished that you could has anyone ever commented on the way you look do you despair when you notice another wrinkle or just zap it away with an injection or maybe you look at each line lovingly completely comfortable in your own skin. The dream. And was that always the case?

Or did it come with age and maturity? Get in touch. Tell me how you feel about the way you look. The text number is 84844. You can contact me via email through the website. Or you can WhatsApp me or leave a voice note. It's 03700 100 444. Also within the hour, we'll be talking booze and our relationship with it. I'm

going to be chatting to Roisin Kelly about how sober dating changed the type of men she's attracted to. Imagine that, sober dating. Leave that one hanging there. And some music. What good is sitting alone in your room? come hear the music play. Life is a cabaret. Cabaret there from the musical of the same name. And the new Sally Bowles in the West End production is actor Amy Lou Wood, loved as her character Amy in Sex Education. And she'll be here to tell me all about her new role.

But I would love to hear from you, of course. Anything you hear on the programme. Please get in touch. Our text number, once again, 84844. But first, the police have this week said they will re-examine the case into the death of the 20-year-old student, Ricky Reel, whose body was found in the River Thames 25 years ago. Lakvin Daril, or Ricky as he was known to his friends and family, went on a night out on the 14th of October 1997 with three Asian friends in Kingston and was never seen alive again. That evening, the friends say they were attacked by two white youths shouting racist abuse. The friends all ran off in different directions, but when they regrouped a bit later, Ricky

never returned. Ricky was reported missing at Uxbridge Police Station at the time, but the family say the case was never taken seriously, despite the racist abuse angle. The family say there was an assumption made that Ricky had run away from home. Even when Ricky's body was discovered in the Thames, seven days after he was reported missing, the police continued to make assumptions about him, his family and the case. While Ricky's mum, Sukhdev Real, has never given up the fight to find out what happened to her son and has been campaigning relentlessly since he went missing. And she joins me now. Very good morning, Sukhdev.

Good morning. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Thank you. You say you instinctively knew that something was wrong when he didn't come home at 1am, like you promised. Yeah, Ricky was very particular about his time. And if he said one o'clock, he would have returned home at 10 to one. So I knew at one o'clock that there was something wrong.

And I started ringing him on his mobile, which was switched off. And just my body was telling me my body was sending me signals that's the bond we had and that there was something wrong so I continued ringing him sitting on the stairs all throughout the night thinking maybe they went the boys went in a car maybe they had a car accident and then eight o'clock in the morning where my local police station officer after giving me quite a lot of abuse in the police station because I asked them to come and take a statement or I could go there. So you went to the police station? No the police officer came around but as I said they would come around they didn't and when I phoned them again the second time

the police officer started shouting at me saying I have wasted their resources because the police officer did come to my house. And when he didn't, so eventually they sent one and who told me that they gave him the wrong address. So he did come, but he turned around and said after he spoke to Ricky's friends and became aware of the racist attack. And it was the police officer who told me that Ricky and his friends were subjected to a racial attack, decided that he didn't want to take a statement and walked away. So this was within the first 24 hours? Yeah, the next morning, yeah, on the 15th of October. So what was said to you and your family when you tried to report him missing? We went, my husband and my brother went to the Kingston police station because, you know, that's where the incident occurred

with the friends who were racially attacked. This was after the police officer came home. Yeah, yeah. And the Kingston police, instead of taking a statement, said, well, maybe your son doesn't want to be found. Maybe he's got a girlfriend your family doesn't approve of. And, or he may be gay. And then the police officer winked at my husband

and said, well, you know, you Asians always arrange your children's marriages. He has run away, tried to escape that arranged marriage. So from then on, within the first 24 hours, we knew that we will not get any support from the police.

And if we have to find Ricky, we have to do it ourselves. So for the seven days, we just printed our leaflets, relocated CCTV. So you started gathering your own evidence? All the evidence, everything that was presented at the coroner's court.

So you spoke to the police, you eventually went to the police station, but they didn't investigate it immediately? They didn't even take a statement. Nothing at all. So we just came out empty-handed. Because I think, you know, my thought was that if you are in trouble, if your child's missing, the first point of contact should be the police but they abused us by saying because of my color because of what they think Asian people do so we just left there and we started our own

investigation you know we are not used to carrying out the investigation I've never done it before what did you do printed our leaf our leaflets, spent all morning, all night in Kingston handing out leaflets, jumping into late night buses with the posters if they have seen, climbing into paladin bins, going to different shops, locating CCTVs, watching CCTVs,

you name it, we done it. And actually people were really, really angry in Kingston saying, why are you doing the job of a police officer? You should be sitting at home and the police should be doing that. But we did not see one single police officer in Kingston during the first week. And what was the emotion for you at the time when that was happening? I was very, very afraid because my instinct was telling me that something bad had happened to Ricky. Because it's common sense, really.

If four friends go out together, three of them, after an attack, return safely, the missing person, the fourth person, is in danger. And I was angry with the police because why were they not looking for my son? Was it the colour that played a big part? There are other cases where missing people are white and the police roll out red carpet within 24 hours. Why wasn't this done to my son? What happened after seven days? After seven days, Ricky's body was found in the river.

I was out of the home looking for Ricky and I was told out of my house that they discovered Ricky's body at the bottom of the river but the two police officers rushed to my home and told my children in my absence being the youngest one was only 11 year old that they discovered their brother's body out you know from the river 11 year old went into a shock and my daughter had an asthma attack right in front of the police officers so you were you were gathering the evidence, trying to find it. In the meantime, the police had found your son's body, Ricky's body,

and they went home and it was only your two children at home. Yes, my children were at home. And they told them. Yes, my daughter had an asthma attack and she waved her arms right in front of the police officer's faces, saying if they could get an inhaler from a bedroom upstairs. But the two police officers stayed in my house laughing and joking. They never paid any attention to my daughter, who later told me,

I had to climb the stairs like a dog to get my inhaler. So why did they do that? Why did they do that to an Asian family? And I always said that the race played a big part in Ricky's death and the police investigation. You made a complaint at the time. And what did you find out? Well, we made a complaint through our solicitors and a report came back after 18 months. It heavily criticizes the police handling of the case. And the officer who was in charge of the investigation before any um proceedings can be started took an early retirement and then he punished me by um uh revealing by taking by meeting a

press reporter and taking photographs taken of ricky at the post-mortem yes and showing it to the reporter wanted him wanted the reporter to print that in the newspaper. But you found out that your family had been investigated. Yeah. And then later on, we found out we thought enough mud has been thrown at us. We have gone through enough heartache only to find out in 2014 that we were subjected to undercover police inquiry, undercover police surveillance. Yes. And they've been following me from 1997. Why?

Well, one thing. First of all, they told us that they didn't have the resources. Within 24 hours, they told us that they don't have the resources to investigate Ricky's death. And then later on, we found out that they were plugging the resources away from the investigation into spying. The spying took place because I refused to give up. I continued to speak about the mistakes made by the police. And I think they probably got too frightened and started spying on me.

To them, spying was more important than my son's death. Now, in 1999, an open verdict was recorded at Ricky's inquest. This means that the case was never closed. Yes. But now, how will a re-examining of Ricky's case be different? What are your hopes now? Well, we haven't met a senior officer over the last 25 years. It's about time that we had a meeting, which we did with the new police commissioner. We looked at what he was saying, that he is very hot on dealing with racist cases and also the new technology. So we asked that we need to meet with him and address our concerns. So we met with him on the 11th of January this year and expressed our concerns that we want a new investigation.

The previous investigation was all watched up. What did they say at the time? He listened to us and I think now there is going to be a fresh investigation using the new technology. But what did they say at the time of the first inquest about Ricky's death? During the meeting? No, in 1999. Oh, yes. In 1999, the jury recorded an open verdict, even though the police officer in charge of it

went in front of the witness box and faced the jury and said, in her opinion, Ricky's death was just an accident. She tried to influence the jury to return a verdict of accidental death, but the jury returned an open verdict. So the police have a duty to investigate this case because it's still open and it's up to them. The onus is up to them to investigate. And if they said in the first investigation that Ricky's death was just an accident, they need to prove it. Well, like you said, you met with the police commissioner, Mark Rowley, in January to discuss Ricky's case.

And in a statement they sent to us, they said, the major inquiry specialist casework team has re-examined the case and is now looking more closely at certain lines of inquiry from the original investigation. These lines of inquiry are being followed up with fresh eyes and the benefits of modern technology, as you mentioned, so we can explore every possible avenue in the hope of providing answers to Ricky's family. How hopeful are you, Sukhdev, that the police will finally find out what happened to Ricky? Well, I have been on this path many times. Prom promises are made only to be broken. So I'm just watching the new commissioner to see what he does, because actions speak louder than words. How do you feel about the police as an institution? Can you trust that they're going to come good now?

I do not trust the police. I do not at all trust the police because of the damage they have done to me, the damage they have done to my son's case, and the damage they have done to my young children. And today, I'm still suffering, and the kids are suffering because of that. Yes, I do not trust them at all. And I did tell that to the police commissioner. And if they think, and if they want me to trust them, they need to show that they are dealing with this case properly, in a properly reasonable manner. And what did he say when you said that to him? Well, he said he's read my book and the team has read my book as well, which is called Ricky Real, Silence is Not an Option. So they said they know what I'm asking and what I have been through.

And so I don't know whether they have a site of the PCA report as well, which is locked for the last 25 years. And my solicitors have been asking for the report for the last year. And we wrote to the Surrey Police. They said it's with the Met Police. Met Police said it's Surrey Police, Met. And then they said it's with the IPOC. It's not with them.

And now they are saying it's with the Home Office. So we are asking the Home Office to release the report to the public so that the public can judge it and that the promises that police made after the Stephen Lawrence inquiry were never kept. And the same killings are happening again. And the treatment of the police officers to Asian families,

well, to the whole society, to the whole people, continue. They haven't learned any lessons from them. There's the Nikila Billy case is all over the news and every day there's a different angle on this, this very sad case. I just wondered what feelings in you this might have brought up and how you feel about what her family might be going through right now. First of all, my sympathy to the family. And I'm here if they ever want to contact me and talk about it.

Sometimes talking helps. When I heard about the case, I had to quickly sit down on the chair because it all brought it back. She's missing. She's, you know, police assume she's in the river and which is very similar to Ricky's case. And, you know, I just sort of feel proper investigation needs to be done. But I was glad to see that the new missing persons guidelines that were written after Ricky's case are applied to her case, which means that before the old guidelines were, if a person is over the age of 18, they would have to wait for 24 hours before any action can be taken. So Ricky's case has meant that the vulnerability clause has been handed, was added to the missing persons guidelines, which they are using in Nicola's case.

And we don't know if she went into the river. We don't know any of the details yet. I feel like we need to talk about Ricky. What kind of boy was he? Ricky was such a beautiful boy and very caring, loving. And people are coming to me, people down the road saying, did you know, you know, he used to go for a run every morning. The people used to say, I used to climb out, you know, this woman worked at nights and used to come home early in the morning. And she said, Ricky used to carry my heavy bags of shopping. And other people are saying he was helping us with this. And even his

employer said that when he died, he obviously looked in his bag and he said he was doing far more than I would have expected or anybody would expect of his age. School teachers wrote brilliant reports saying at the time other children used to go and play in the playground. He used to sit inside and help other students who needed more, you know, help. So this was the kind. And in the holidays, he had a car

and he used to take his sisters out to libraries and shopping. And I remember I became ill one day and he took me to the hospital because my husband was out and he sat with me in the hospital. And I said to him, Ricky, go home because you got your exams the next day. And he had tears in his eyes and he said to me, no, mom, I'm not going to leave you on your own. I can always take my exams sometime later, but I won't be able to get a mum like you if anything happens to you. That was the son any mother would be proud of. How are you doing? How are you coping?

Well, I have no life of my own. When I put Ricky in his coffin, I put myself in his coffin as well. So I'm just existing only to keep my promise, which I made to Ricky, that as long as I have life, I will get justice for him. And I keep on fighting. My life is spent out trolling the roads, streets, talking to anyone that cares to listen, talking to the press, giving talks to, you know, meetings and all that. That's how I have spent my life over the last 25 years and I continue to do so. And you say you have no life. I have no life. I've lost a lot of family life as well. My other children have suffered as a result of that. Yeah.

But it's that promise you made to Ricky that's kept you going. That's a promise. Then the energy that you have that I've felt from you today for 25 years. Ricky is giving me the energy. I sort of feel he's behind me saying, Mum, go on, I'm here for you. So that's the energy I'm getting. And the reason I'm on the roads is because of the botched investigation.

Had the police carried out the proper investigation, I wouldn't be on the roads is because of the post-investigation. Had the police carried out a proper investigation, I wouldn't be on the roads. I would be sitting at home spending time with my family, as every mother does. Is there a glimmer of hope for you? Well, there's always hope. If I eradicate the word hope out of my life, I wouldn't be able to get out of bed in the mornings.

Sukta Avril, thank you so much for coming in to speak to me this morning. And you can listen to a Radio 4 documentary, What Happened to Ricky Real, which is available now on BBC Sounds. 84844 is the number to text if you'd like to get in touch with us about anything you're hearing on the programme this morning. And we will be talking about beauty standards and how we look at ourselves in the mirror lots of you getting in touch about this Christine says when women look in the mirror they normally see their mother looking back not me it's my dad and Eleanor in West Wales said I

started going gray at the age of 32 I gave up wearing makeup and dyeing my hair in my early 40s I'm now in my mid-60s and women often ask me how I managed to have such youthful looking skin and comment on my glossy grey hair. Liberate yourself and also, Eleanor, get back in touch and tell us how you have that glowing looking skin. We all want that information. Oh, I've got a vision of beauty in front of me. On to my next very talented guest. There's a brand new Sally at the Kit Kat Club. Amy Lou Wood is playing Sally Bowles in Cabaret in London's West End. Now, you may know her from Netflix's Sex Education.

She won a BAFTA for her performance. Quite rightly, it's the character also called Amy, who's been at the heart of some of the most iconic storylines in the first three seasons of the show. But now she's a triple threat, acting, singing and dancing in Cabaret. The show is set in the Kit Kat Club in Berlin in the 1920s. As they're drawing to a close, the world is about to change and anything goes.

Welcome, Amy. Hi, thank you for having me. It's wonderful that you are here. Congratulations. I saw you the other night. You were incredible. Thank you. How did that feel being on that stage?

Do you know what? It is so overwhelming in the best way. I have wanted to play this part since I was 10. So getting to do it is kind of, it's almost, I'm really trying to like stay in my body and stay present because it's so, can feel so dreamlike and surreal, which I think is kind of okay because Cabaret is quite like that. It felt like stepping into a dream, coming to watch it,

just the experience of entering the Kit Kat Club and what they've done to the theatre. I mean, it's all very dreamlike. So you've always wanted to be in cabaret. What's it like being back on stage? It's, oh my, I love being on stage and I love the catharsis and just being like, having the audience there and it just being so immediate.

But I have to really kind of remember what it's like being on stage because there's you can't, you know, on a film set or on a TV set, you know, you can kind of your perfectionism can be accommodated a bit more. Whereas when you're doing a play, you kind of have to just go with the isness of it. And it's going to be what it is. Every night is going to be what it is every night is going to be different and it's going to be so I'm adjusting back to that mind frame because um yeah I can start to get quite self-critical and I need to just kind of let it be let it be let it be so how do you stop get that critical voice getting into your head what do you do I've been I listened to a lot of

do you know eckhart tolle yes listen to a lot of his kind of just positive messages yeah and his very just a lot of that stuff is ego it's not it's not the real us speaking it's not the deep eye as he calls it it's just the ego stuff and it's our ego attachments to things like my ego is attached to being the perfect sally bowls that's my ego whereas the deep eye of me is just going isn't amazing that i'm getting to play this part every night that i've wanted to play forever and i should be leaning into that one more than the ego attachment i love where this interview's gone this is brilliant i'm like let me make notes let me make notes um i was sitting next to your mom and michelle visage i know and so apparently your mom said that you you didn't let her come for the first couple well do you know what i didn't even want her to come for the third because i because

how did she sneak in then so it's previews which i always like just using previews as like totally matt because it's basically like a rehearsal that's open to the public so I really like by the time you saw it I'd only actually run it that was the that was the fourth ever time I'd run the thing so I like having those preview weeks as just kind of if someone does come I don't want to know because I like being fully immersed in the show because I'm still figuring it out so like my castmates when they found out that my mum and sister were in already, they were like, why? Oh, so no one does it?

No one does it. But my mum was so, like she was so desperate to see it. So I kind of, yeah, but I was, I would say that in the future, I would still be more like, no. And if you come, do not tell me. She was incredibly proud.

I know, bless her. Because, you know, she said, you've always done this since you were a little girl little girl and your little you tried to rope your little sister into doing things with you she had no interest but you were the one who wanted to be on stage yeah I was so shy like really shy so at home I would kind of write plays I would get my sister to star in them she would do that reluctantly but I was just very shy as soon as I would leave the house all of that stuff would I would find it so impossible to express myself in that way in front of other people so it was always just basically in front of my mum and then I got

over that shyness well thank goodness you did otherwise we we wouldn't, you know, have you as this incredible BAFTA award winning talent. You dance in cabaret. You sing. Girl, you can sing. Thanks. That voice is incredible. Thank you. So, in fact, your spoken voice as well. It's so clear.

Oh, thank you. You're very powerful on that stage. Thank you. How are you finding, how are you finding the dancing? How are you finding, oh, by the way, I want to dress in frilly knickers forever now after watching that aren't they great yeah the costumes are amazing costumes what's it like kind of being dressed like that having to dance on stage in your body as someone who is so shy yes it's it was the dancing I found incredibly emotional when I started um going in for the choreography stuff with Julia the amazing choreographer, I was on the verge of tears when I walked in. I said, look, I feel so vulnerable right now because expressing myself through my body, I've always found challenging because of my relationship my body i have had eating disorders and i find myself feeling very

like my body became my my enemy basically for so long that using it as a as a as a means of self-expression i always found quite a baffling concept because i was always just felt like a floating head basically like a brain and my brain wasn't really in my body which now it's getting more and more in my body but now it's getting more and more in my body but i think also being at drama school and being told you know there were good movers in inverted commas and bad movers and i was one of the bad movers and i was told over and over again at rada by the way yes that i wasn't you know using my body in a in a you know an effective way or whatever so i've got this kind of

self-consciousness around that but then Julia really helped me with that for the first I think three sessions we just moved she would put music on and she would move and then yeah the choreographer and then I would move and there were no rules there were no steps it was just about me moving my body with no self-consciousness. It's so interesting. We are going to be talking to Anita Bhagwandas about her book Ugly and we are asking our audience how they feel about what they see in the mirror and where these standards come from that are imposed on us. I'm just interested to know more about how you felt about your body and where that led you at such a young age with your eating disorder yeah i think that there was always a real um kind of where where i grew up there was such a everyone spoke about looks and bodies so much stockport yeah like people really thought that it was acceptable to comment on, I think,

I think gender norms where I'm from a very, very apparent and things are very, so the men are the men and the women are the women, right? In a very archaic way. And the men kind of found it totally acceptable to comment on women's bodies all the time,lessly who's got you know it was really really gross and you know it was such such a part of like just the culture of

where i'm from is that like the men can comment on you know who's been going to the gym and who looks the best and who's this and who's that and what do the girls do and they kind of you know except that they would kind of i mean i think it pained them on the inside but they would never show that pain they would never I would never hear women you know saying do not talk about my body do not make those comments it would either be laughed off or so I kind of grew up thinking that it was that that was okay and it made me incredibly um you know self-conscious because I thought anytime I leave the house my body's going to be commented on or it might be or my looks or my face or anything because I live in this place where people just do that and it was

weird so did you always want to get out and go and do some, and act obviously, but get out, you know, where you grew up? I think a huge part of why I was so desperate to get to London, or I don't, you know, even, I think even if I'd have gone to Manchester, the actual city, it would have been different. But like, I just wanted to get out of that kind of, that way of thinking. It really didn didn't I found it so stressful so I when I got to London and all of a sudden I could go to the

shops in my pajamas and nobody would comment I know it's high fashion it's high fashion in East London yeah socks and sandals as well yeah do what you want um and then you find yourself in the most iconic TV show for a generation that has storylines that explore sexuality and empower and so still makes me feel a bit teary when I think about it is when she goes to the bus stop she's assaulted on the bus and she goes back to the bus stop and all her best friends are there and they sit on the back of the bus with her and in your own life too you have a group of best friends that you call and you call yourselves the moon coven yes yeah why are these friendships so important I just think that platonic love is so underrated we there's so much focus on romantic love and I just think that platonic love can be the most expansive like when I am with my friends I just feel totally beyond like I'm just beyond like it's just like anything's possible

when I'm with them and there's all the self-limiting stories that we kind of tell to ourselves day in day out all these limiting things that we tell ourselves they just kind of dissipate and I'm just there and I feel like I could I'm I feel like I'm just everything when I'm with them and I think it's so important to have people who just people who inspire you and people who you know I find my friends so I love certain things about them I really aspire to be I just think that they are so beautiful as people and radiant and just I just adore them and I think that yeah it's really platonic love is so transformative it can be even more transformative than romantic you know yeah and that's why it's really important to have valentine's day I think the day before

valentine's very good we talked about someone was talking of inspiring people you worked with Bill Nighy in the film that he's been nominated for an Oscar for yes and you've been nominated rising star BAFTA hello yeah exciting amazing how was that experience it was honestly so I didn't think it would be as incredible as it was I kind of went in with the self-protective thing of oh you're going to be really scared in your scenes with Bill because he's such a um you know a legend and you've loved him forever and you're not going to be able to act with him and I went in with all these fearful thoughts and then as soon as I met him and he was just the kindest loveliest most generous man and then the story was just so beautiful and our director created the most

respectful just it was so focused the environment on set in like the most respectful, just... It was so focused, the environment on set, in the most beautiful way that I just was so immersed in the story that it ended up being the most just truly magical time of my life. Was life imitating art, that you were just hanging out with Bill Nighy in real life and acting with him, where you're inspiring this man to live his fullest, basically change his life and live to his fullest.

Yeah, and he was inspiring me in real life to live my life to the fullest. So it was very, yeah, it really started to bleed out into my everyday life. Like Margaret, my character is so in the here and now and so in her body and so not stuck up in her head that I really started to feel like her and it was lovely um living you're talking about living your life to the fullest you

are a young girl from Stockport not that people from the north don't go on to achieve amazing things can I just say sometimes we say these things it's like yeah the north isn't you know we've got indoor toilets now as well amazing um but your um your uh dad was a car is car dealer mum worked for child line you know normal routes went to rada yeah how does it feel now that you are where you are you only graduated in 2017 yes yeah now to be to be where you are yeah how do you talked about being in the moment are you in the moment are you pinching yourself or i try very hard to be and i think I'm getting better at it. I try and soak in the moments and just let them be

and just let them, you know, move me. But I am such an emotional person that sometimes I kind of find it too overwhelming, and I can definitely protect myself by kind of disassociating from it all. How do you do that? It feels like you've got some good techniques to deal with all this stuff. I mean, I try. I read so much and I just, you know, I go to therapy and I just really, really try. But I think I'm starting to go, wow, this is actually really cool. Like I'm having moments now where I'm going, this is really cool. And i'm not so much in the fear of it all and the overwhelmedness of it all i'm starting to

actually feel the joy of it good you must and you must continue and it's been an absolute pleasure thank talking to you thank you you are brilliant at everything you do i cannot wait to see what you do next but we will all be cheering you on on Sunday. Thank you. At the BAFTAs. What are you going to wear? I've got a very short. Yes. Very short dress. Yeah, get the legs out.

But with very thick tights on. Beautiful. And then this big cape thing. It sounds, that sounds odd how I've described it, but it's good. No, I'm all for tights back on the red carpet. Yeah, I love tights. Me too. Love a good pair of tights.

We'll bring that discussion into Women's Hour very soon. Amy, you're adorable. Thank you so much. Best of luck with the rest of the run. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Lots of you getting in touch about how you feel about the way you look.

I am happy, says Jennifer, with my face and always have been. I'm age 71. Growing old is a privilege denied to many. I'm very lucky to be always happy with myself. And here, what a great topic for discussion today, says somebody. I'm constantly amazed that my self-perception is widely different to that of other people's. How I look in photos astounds me because that is not the person I see in the mirror, especially when other people take photos of me. I also feel sad when I look back at old photos of myself and realize that I spent so much time worrying about my appearance and actually there was nothing wrong. I look fine. And if I could turn back the clock, I would enjoy the wrinkle free skin and lack of's written about beauty for some of the biggest outlets,

including Stylist, Harper's Bazaar and The Guardian. Even her university dissertation was on the topic of beauty, but it was ugliness that Anita turned her attention to in her book, Ugly, giving us back our beauty standards. And she's in the studio with me now to discuss things, all things ugly, all things beautiful. Anita, welcome to Woman's Hour. Happy publication day, by the Beautiful. Anita, welcome to Woman's Hour. Happy publication day,

by the way. Thank you so much. The title of the book is Ugly, and it's also the reason you decided to write this book. Tell me why. It is, yes. Ugly is a fascinating concept. And as a beauty journalist, I wanted to unpick where our beauty standards came from, who created them, and why they've endured for such a long time. And for me personally, I grew up feeling really ugly and I had a very strong sense, even from the age of about four, that I wasn't the beauty standard. And so I just wanted to investigate and unpick why I felt like that and why so many people felt like they were ugly from such a young age.

So tell me about four-year-old you then. What did you feel? What happened when you got that sense? felt like that and why so many people felt like felt they were ugly from such a young age so tell me about four-year-old you then what did you feel what happened when you've got that sense so when I was four um I went to a princess party and everyone had fancy dress outfits and there was a rail of them and there was a lady sort of giving them to people and I queued up and I got to the front of the queue and she turned and said to me, you're too big for it. And I had to wear something else instead. And I was the only person wearing this butterfly outfit. And I felt really shamed.

And it was the first, it was almost like a little grey cloud sort of was put above my head. And it just tainted everything. Because from that moment, I knew that I was seen as undesirable in some way. Or, you know, there was something wrong with me. I'd been othered from that young age and then over the years that just seemed to happen and happen and happen and it created a perception of myself that I was ugly and that there was something wrong with me and how did you these ideas of ugly or beautiful develop as you got older well I think they they developed in so many ways. It's everything from the cartoons I watched as a child,

all the Disney princesses were always white or invariably blonde and etc. And then it was the teen magazines I read when I was younger. And over time, I just picked up the sense of what was beautiful and what was ugly. And I was told that pretty much all around me, even as I started to wear makeup and was trying to buy it, I just couldn't get anything for my skin tone in South Wales where I'm from and everything was just saying that you are ugly you are not the beauty standard you're not enough so what drew you to a career in beauty well this is it this is it's very interesting I sort of really unpicked this as I was writing the book,

but I became so obsessed with beauty products and almost the way that they could potentially give me access to being beautiful finally after feeling ugly my entire life. And that is why I've always been obsessed with beauty and beauty products from a very young age and beauty trends. And that is what has led me to this place. And it's probably a very different story to a lot of people who end up in beauty. But yeah, it's because I felt so ugly and I felt like I wanted to try and change that somehow.

Yeah. And thank God you are there because if you weren't, you wouldn't have written this book. And I have to say, at least three of my friends messaged me to say, have you got this book? Have you read it?

Why wasn't this around when we were kids? So let's figure it all out then because you do do a lot of research. Where does our beauty standard come from? What do a lot of research where does our beauty standard come from what is the beauty standard and where does it come from so the beauty standard I mean it does change a little bit over time but it has been pretty similar to how it was in sort of the ancient greek periods which is really fascinating and the beauty standard is to be slim but maybe not too slim it is to be usually white or light-skinned at least it is to often have blue eyes it's you know often blonde hair there is a definite beauty standard

and even though it's a little bit wider now than it has been previously there is still a standard and it changes with every generation the ancient ancient Greeks. Was it ancient Greek men? It was. Yes, it was. Yes. You're on Woman's Hour. It's a safe space. Just call it out for what it is.

Yeah. It was ancient Greek men. And actually, interestingly, when they were sort of creating these statues, lots of sculptors and painters of the time, they would sort of cherry pick the different attributes from different women and put them together to create the ideal idealized woman and actually it is it is sort of a fake idea like an ideal almost like someone creating something on like a computer now and

in the way that cosmetic surgery sort of cherry picks features from people now so it's it's really terrifying that it's been happening for such a long time yeah ancient greek men came up with an idealized version and so why is it why has it managed to sustain until now so i think that is partially due to um colonization and um i do talk about that in the book and it has had a really big impact um it affects so many different things across our beauty standards. Everything from body size, I think is a big one that I sort of explore in the book. And there was a definite point in history where when Britain and Europe were colonising, that they needed to distinguish between what, you know, the different kinds of beauty basically, and sort of transpired that what they had decided, and you see this in lots of the paintings and sort of transpired that what they had decided

and you see this in lots of the paintings at the time is that the ideal beauty for a woman would be to be very pale would be very slim and and white and so then to distinguish between the colonized nations who were seen as gluttonous, didn't have any self-control, etc. There was a very distinct, almost differentiation between thin and fat. And that's when it became a real shift in what we saw as beautiful. So I want to talk about colourism because you talk about this in the book. And I think it's one of those subjects that comes up, but often I'm not sure people it really um understand um what what it means because sometimes people will say well isn't it just the same as getting a tan but it's very different isn't it yeah colorism is

a really um it's such a complex issue and it it does affect lots of different um lots of different ethnicities and cultures um and I think there is a sort of sense that it is an internal problem so it's like you know it might be like an Indian problem etc or you know but it does have its roots in colonization and it like there does need to be some accountability for that so it is very prevalent and we see it in advertising, etc., as well, because when even though we are having more inclusivity than ever, ever before in our advertising and our sort of campaigns, etc., it is very much still the case that if there is a person of color in an advert or, you know, a beauty campaign, etc., that they will be light skinned because they have more of a proximity to whiteness and what is seen as the beauty standard um uh you talk about how actually when when um racial features are celebrated it's not on women of color i thought that little bit in the book was i mean there's so much in this it's so dense you've done so much research and it's so well researched um and i just want to read out because you've quoted her i'm going to quote

this quote it's tina fey from her memoir bossy pants she says now every girl is expected to have caucasian blue eyes full spanish lips a classic button nose hairless asian skin with a californian tan a jamaican dancehall ass long swedish legs small japanese feet the abs of a lesbian gym owner the hips of a nine-year-old boy the the arms of Michelle Obama and doll tits. Yeah, absolutely. And it goes back to that sort of ancient Greek way of just deciding that this is what is beautiful and there being no leeway. And we're never allowed to be ourselves. I think that's the thing I really uncovered was that we're just not allowed to be

and own our own appearance and own our own beauty. And then there was a fascinating bit where you talk about how now AI algorithms also have a bias towards a certain aesthetic. Yeah, they do. Absolutely. There's lots of different studies and stats around that. They favour that sort of very Instagram look, which is fair skin. It's a very small nose. It's it's you know very almost like cartoonish eyes if you look at lots of the filters on social media that's what they replicate and that is what

the algorithms favor as well so it is the the bias is now becoming inherent in our tech as well and we don't even see it or notice it so what do we do about it how i mean it's been going on for so long we are where we are you know we talk about it a lot on this program we talked about pretty privilege we talk about colorism we talk so in your book you give people little uh questions and lessons to to work on what what how can we change the system as it is it's well it's a really it's a really tough one because it is it's how do you overhaul centuries worth of conditioning and beauty standards that are so woven into our society that it's so hard to even spot them i i think a really big part of it is becoming educated about the different factors that do influence our beauty standards so like colonization and slavery and and and class as well plays a really big part in

our beauty standards which i think is really fascinating me too actually so a lot of the stuff that we you've talked about in the book that we aspire to is to do with wealth yes yeah absolutely particularly even getting a tan that definitely very much comes from aspiring to be somebody who could afford to go on holiday and we we sort of almost forget that and and we aren't necessarily told that so it is very interesting and I definitely think the thing that you can do is to really just and this is on a very personal level I think that's really important because it's great to create wider change, but I think we need to help ourselves as well. And the thing I sort of think is really helpful and has really helped me personally too,

is to just take notice when you're applying any beauty products, whether that's skincare or whether that's your makeup, and just listen to the messages you're telling yourself. Because so often, even, you you know particularly with makeup actually I think we put it on and it's always to conceal things and hide things and correct things when we don't need any of that and the real joy of beauty products is the sort of the pleasure of them and the sort of sensorial aspects and the self-expression that you can get from beauty so makeup in particular is a really brilliant way

to express what is on the inside, but on the outside, it's your canvas. And I think we've come to a place where we're so busy trying to correct and conceal everything that we don't do that. So next time you're contouring your nose to make it smaller, think about what you're doing.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I can tell you an anecdote, Anita, but I went to LA years ago to interview a um plastic surgeon and i asked him so what would you what would you change in my face and he said i'd change your indian nose yes and i said because he was indian what you who's going to change your indian nose and he said there's not a doctor good enough wow wow right um has writing this book made you feel about differently about your own um job and your own career in beauty um it's definitely made me

question things but I've always sort of questioned things in beauty anyway and I've always I guess held it to account so it's not it's yeah it's it's definitely an evolution of how I write and I use beauty as a lens to look at wider issues so it's yeah it's it's been very interesting it is a really interesting listen and it's it's so there's so much more that we could have talked about particularly wellness you'll have to come back and we'll do a whole sub the whole wellness industry to be discussed but for now Anita Bagundas thank you so much for coming in and talking to me good luck with the book Thank you so much Anita It's called Ugly

it's out now Lots of you getting in touch about this subject and about how you feel about how you look the current speaker has reminded me of the first time

I felt ugly other I was about five or six when I was a little girl wanted like all the other girls to play Cinderella in the school panto however I was chosen along with a boy in the class

to play the ugly sister I was made to wear a homemade fat suit pillows and a gray wig with lots of clown-like makeup since then i've never felt attractive and i believe it had massively detrimental effect on my self-esteem as well as my mental health i'm 41 now and i still feel upset about it that's um that message has made me feel upset i just want to tell you you are beautiful we are all beautiful aren't we roshin welcome definitely um we're going to talk about drinking with roshin now uh women's I just want to tell you, you are beautiful. We are all beautiful, aren't we, Roisin? Welcome.

We're going to talk about drinking with Roisin now. Women's relationship to alcohol and the habits we can form without realising, such as automatically pouring a glass of wine to relax after work. Does it sound like you? Many of us might want to question our relationship with booze while also maintaining the possibility of moderation. Dry January is growing in popularity. Perhaps you did it. I did. Maybe you carried on into February. Perhaps you did it. I did.

Maybe you carried on into February. How did it go? I am joined now by journalist Roisin Kelly, who she decided to take a break from drinking before Christmas. She's here to explain what she learned, especially while sober dating cannot wait. And I'm also joined on the line by Ruby Warrington, the author who inspired the Sober Curious movement, who can tell us more about mindful drinking. Roisin, I'm going to come to you first why did you decide to stop drinking for a while well i was going to a lot of events for work um before christmas and socially and i realized i was sort of drinking every single night um and then i was also doing a lot of fitness stuff so i was also getting up super early going to see my personal trainer and then I realized I can't really do both of those things in the way that I was doing them it takes its toll

so I made a rule for myself to not drink at work events anymore and by doing that I started to assess my relationship with alcohol and started to just see the difference and that I didn't need to always pick up a glass I was doing it out of habit. What was the reaction to your work colleagues when you stopped drinking? Not much really I mean a lot of these sort of events you don't necessarily know the person sitting next to you that well some people would say oh you're not drinking oh you don't want any wine but to be honest yeah not there was definitely more of a reaction from from men while dating. let's get straight to it sober dating um how's that experience going and uh how is it different to whilst dating whilst drinking it i'll be honest it was terrifying at first um i just realized that you know you plan a date with someone and the first thing they say or you say is should we go for a drink yeah that's what you do

um and obviously you know you don't show up drunk but you know you might have a little glass of wine at home beforehand while you're getting ready um or as the evening goes on you relax and open up more and probably become a bit more fun because you're having a few drinks um so you, going on dates without, without the crutch of alcohol was really scary. Um, yeah, it definitely, I was probably more closed off at first. How do you get people to come on the date with you if most of them want to go for a drink? Well, this was the thing. Um, so I wrote this in my piece.

I, some people I said, well, I'm not drinking. So can we do something else? Um, some people, some men were very receptive to that and would come up with a different idea. Some would not reply. And some would say it was a shame because I had seemed fun beforehand. Oh, I see. No alcohol, no fun. And what are you finding that you're attracted to now that's different to before? So before, I probably always went for the loud soul of the party lad type guy

and now I find that actually I find it a bit of a turn off if someone's personality is being hung over or you know always talking about how drunk they get. So more active ambitious sort of men I found. I haven't you know you know I haven't got a relationship from the sober dating so far um but it's definitely definitely changed what I go for for the better I think how long have you not been drinking um since just after Christmas you've got time yet don't worry how many dates have you been on since just after Christmas this is good well done well done I mean I mean there's so many questions so many questions about a lot of us that grew up in the 90s, where basically you went out, had a few drinks, had a snog and then get married. To be discussed. I'm going to bring Ruby in.

Ruby, you inspired the Sober Curious movement. Why did you come up with the idea? Tell us what Sober Curious is all about. Well, Sober Curious is a term that that I used or that I came up with to describe what was my then sort of evolving relationship with alcohol and to describe the approach that I was using to addressing my drinking. You just touched on it. Yeah, I grew up in the 90s. The ladettes were my utter feminist role models. It was feminist to be able to drink as much as men. And so even I weaned myself on pints of Stella and prided myself on being able to drink four much as men. And so I weaned myself on pints of Stella and prided myself on being able to drink four or five pints and not seem that drunk.

Well done you, three was my limit. Even the word though, La Dette, derivative. You know, it was the- Oh absolutely, looking back now, it's just what a mishmash of messages we were getting then. But yes, of course, in my twentiess and 30s, I became what I would call an enthusiastic social drinker. But I never experienced any of the really life-shattering,

devastating consequences that we associate with alcoholism or problem drinking. So I never thought that AA or recovery groups were the right place for me. I did actually attend a couple of AA meetings, but just didn't really see myself and my drinking reflected in what I was hearing there. But at the same time, I had a lot of questions that were at the time very private and subconscious. Am I drinking too much? How much is too much? What would it be like if I didn't drink? What would everyone else think if I didn't drink? And I decided to actually give myself permission to answer those questions. And that questioning became what I termed sober curious. It felt that we'd had for a very long time, a very binary approach to drinking. You

were either a problem drinker or a normal drinker. And if you fell into the problem drinker category, unlucky, that was it. Life sentence, abstinence forever. And you're going to be pretty much a social outcast. And that's obviously a petrifying thought for anybody who's social life, like so many of us revolves around drinking. So I wanted to come up with a term that would be that would allow for a bit more experimentation. How did it change your social life? Well, I realized quite quickly that I don't particularly like parties. That I'm, you know, I'm a much more of a one-to-one. I like meeting people for a coffee, going for a walk. I like in-depth conversations, you know. I get quite overwhelmed in big social groups. And so I did used to go to lots of parties sober. I've been clubbing sober and actually had

a really, really fun time, but it had a lot of novelty value rather than it being something I really enjoyed. So now my socializing is much more one-to-one, small groups, intimate dinners, where I feel really comfortable without alcohol. Does that correlate with getting slightly older as well and maybe wanting something different? Yeah, I think so. I mean, it was around my middle 30s that I really started to question it. And I think there are a few things at play there. Number one, your body just processes alcohol differently as you get older. I think particularly for women as well,

once perimenopause kicks in, if you're already feeling increased anxiety, sort of hormones a bit all over the place, then alcohol can just really wreak havoc with that life stage. I know. Yeah, so I just, so yeah, it was something, I guess I was ready to calm down a little bit.

Yeah, I'm going through, I'm doing the experiment. I'm trying to sustain my drinking levels so yeah it was something I was I guess I was ready ready to calm down a little bit yeah um I'm going through I'm doing the experiment I'm trying to sustain my drinking levels that were pre you know mid 40s but it's just not happening so I'm just gonna have to reassess has reassessing your drinking Roisin made you think differently about drinking um absolutely I realized how much I was doing it out of habit and you know like know, like we were just saying, it's not always as black and white as you have a drink problem, or you're addicted to alcohol, and you're not. A lot of women, you know, I'm nearly 30, a lot of us are doing it out of habit. And it's made me just stop and think, do I really need to have an alcoholic drink right now? So if I meet

up with friends, usually I first get a soda water or a Diet Coke. And then I think, do I actually want alcohol today or I'll have one drink and, you know, just enjoy it a bit slower. Yeah. Very quickly, Ruby, what advice would you give to any women who want to be more mindful about their drinking? It's Friday. Maybe the pressure's on. Maybe they're already thinking, is it wine o'clock yet? I think the term mindful drinking is a little bit of an oxymoron. I think most of us drink to turn our minds off and get out of our minds that that's part of the big appeal of alcohol but in terms of becoming more conscious about your drinking what Rasheen just described was the being sober curious allow yourself to ask those questions do I really want this drink or am I doing it out of social pressure am I doing it because I'm anxious if I am anxious why am I anxious in this

situation is it the people is it the? And just sort of really questioning each drink that you pick up rather than just doing it on autopilot. So it's really about developing consciousness. Good advice. Roisin, Ruby, thank you very much. And the last words to 83-year-old Anne who says, I just use the same cream every single day. Forget the day cream and the night cream. Perhaps the purple hair distracts. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hello, I'm John York and I want to tell you about Opening Lines, a new series from BBC Radio 4 in which I'll be looking at books, plays, poems and stories of all kinds that have made a mark and asking what makes them work?

I mean, his stuff is jaw-droppingly shocking. I'll be asking lots of questions. What's at the heart of the story? How does it achieve its effect? What makes it special? History is usually written by winners, but he wants to give a voice to people who are not usually heard. I'll be hearing from people who know and love these works. Writers.

We do have an orgasm evoked on the page. Dramatists. Biographers. It's worn better as a book about England than it has as a book about sex, I think. And directors too. In the end, I'll be asking, what makes this work worth reading now?

Join me to find out in opening lines from BBC Radio 4 and available 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.