Woman's Hour - Supreme Court hears case on definition of a woman, Barbara Taylor Bradford's life

Episode Date: November 26, 2024

Judges at the Supreme Court are today considering how women are defined in law in a landmark case brought by Scottish campaigners. It will address what “sex” means legally, and will set out exactly how the law is meant to treat trans people. BBC Scotland Policital Correspondent, Phil Sim, joins Nuala McGovern to explain more.Song writing partnership Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear are making history by becoming the youngest and first female songwriting duo to compose for a Disney feature film in the highly anticipated Moana 2. The Grammy Award-winning pair join Nuala live in the studio to discuss what the songs mean to them, and their career so far.The film Mediha tells the story of a teenage Yazidi girl who was captured by the Islamic State group in the 2014 genocide against the Yazidi people and kept for four years as a sex slave. To help her process her trauma, she has filmed her life and her journey to try and find her missing family members. Mediha herself joins Nuala alongside the director and producer of the film, Hasan Oswald.Following the death of bestselling novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford, Nuala talks to her publisher, Lynne Drew, and to television presenter and author Fern Britton who was a fan and a friend of Barbara’s. They’ll discuss Barbara’s extraordinary rise from typist to multi-millionaire author and the enduring appeal of her work, including her 1979 smash hit A Woman of Substance.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Lottie Garton

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 Nuala McGovern and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Just to say that for rights reasons, the music in the original radio broadcast has been removed for this podcast. Hello and welcome. We'll go to the Supreme Court in a moment as it gets ready to hear a case on the definition of a woman. Also today, figures out show that the number of single UK women having fertility treatment has trebled over a decade.

So the number of women without a partner who had in vitro fertilisation or donor insemination treatment in 2022 was a 243% increase from that figure back in 2012. This is all according to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the HFEA. I would love to hear from you if you made the decision to go it alone in this way.

And whether that was recently or a long time ago, I'd like to know your motivation and also how has it been for you? What reaction do you get from people? The number is 84844 on social media. We're at BBC Women's Hour or you can email us through our website. For a WhatsApp message or a voice note, that number is 03700 100 444. Also this hour, we hear from a young Yazidi woman who documented her life through her camera after escaping the Islamic State group. She has a powerful story coming up.

And we have Barlow and Bear, who are the youngest, first all-women songwriting duo to score a Disney film. The film Moana 2, and Emily and Abigail are in our studio. Also, we remember a woman who also started her career very young, Barbara Taylor Bradford. She sold her first magazine story at just the age of 10. The beloved author died on Sunday at the age of 91 after a prolific career. We're going to hear from her publisher, Lynne Drew, and her friend and fan, Fern Britton. But let me begin, because today judges at the Supreme Court are considering how women are defined in law in a landmark case brought by Scottish campaigners. It will address what sex actually means in law.

The BBC Scotland political correspondent Phil Simm joins us from the Supreme Court where the case is due to begin in about 25 minutes time, I believe, Phil. Welcome. What exactly is the Supreme Court looking at today? Well, at the most basic level, they are trying to address the question of what does sex actually mean in law? And that's one of those things that, you know, on the surface sounds like it should be, you know, maybe not a difficult question, but actually it's one of these ones that's really tripped up a lot of politicians over the years. And in recent times, there's been quite a lot of litigation about it in Scotland too, which has led us to this point at the Supreme Court which, you know, a ruling from this case ultimately could have UK-wise implications. It all started with

this piece of legislation the Scottish Government passed back in 2018 which is relatively niche, it's not something frankly that was talked about every day in Scotland even, it was about gender balancing public boards, so making sure more women basically got seats on public sector boards to try to get 50-50 gender balance. And the contention was that the Scottish Government included in that quota trans women, so people who had obtained a gender recognition certificate which attested that they were female. And there was a group called For Women Scotland who complained about this. They took the Scottish government to court and there have been a whole series of court cases since then. Basically this group argues that sex is biological, it's a fact, it's something that's set at birth with chromosomes whereas the Scottish government has

argued that obtaining a gender recognition certificate according to, you know, the UK-led wide law, the Gender Recognition Act, that says that that certificate changes your sex for all purposes. So it's ended up here in the Supreme Court to decide what all of that means for the Equality Act, which is that, again, it's a GB-wide piece of legislation. It's the big one which underpins all kinds of protections against discrimination for groups including women, including trans people, including the same-sex attracted people. And the question is, how does the Gender Recognition Act affect the Equality Act?

And what they rule on that could, as I say, potentially have UK-wide implications way beyond this question of how you gender balance boards in Scotland. And we can hear, of course, lots of people milling around behind you, a lot of people waiting to hear what might happen today. What are they saying

could be the implications of this decision? I believe there are five judges that will be deciding. Yeah, and as you say, it is pretty busy at the court. There's representatives of all kinds of groups here. There have been the Four Women Scotland, the campaigning group that have come. They were sort of outside with placards this morning, having a bit of a rally. Then there were people queuing up to come into the court with the trans pride flag painted on their faces. There's definitely sort of both sides represented here.

Yeah, and it is an issue, obviously, it's a motive for both sides because they kind of see this as a question of their very identity. And ultimately, the way that this has an impact, you know, the arguments from each side would be that for trans people, you know, if the ruling goes against them and it's ruled that in law they would not have the protections under the Equality Act of being a woman, they wouldn't have sex-based

protections, they would only have protections as gender reassignment is the category. They say they would be losing some of their protections against discrimination that they have under their reassigned gender. So, for example, if a trans person was to try to bring an equal pay claim, for example, as a woman, you know, how would the law look on that under the Equality Act? Women's groups say that the ruling, you know, could have an impact on a very large group. They say literally half the population, because they say that this could affect the running of single-sex services and spaces, you know, so things like support groups for victims of sexual abuse, those can only legally justify excluding men due to the Equality Act's protections.

So campaigners say that if that is somehow undermined by the court's ruling, if they say you don't have the ability to have a blanket ban, then they say that everything from hospital wards to refuges and sports events, everything might be, basically would have to change policy or potentially find themselves open to legal challenges based on the court's ruling.

There's also been interventions in this case from lesbian groups. They, as I say, also have protection under the Equality Act under sexual orientation. They say it could affect their ability to have exclusive clubs. So, yeah, there really is... I think there's so much strong feeling about this whole issue because on both sides, people do feel like it's really questioning clubs. So, yeah, there really is, I think there's so much strong feeling about this whole issue, because on both sides, people do feel like it's really questioning and indeed having an impact on their very identity. So the Supreme Court, we expect it to take a couple of days. Do we have a

timeline? Yeah, there'll be a couple of days of arguments here. So I think we're going to hear from four women in Scotland today. We'll then hear a response from the Scottish Government tomorrow. And I think their argument has been the same throughout. They're just defending the law as they see it, as it stands, the current interpretation. So I think really Four Women Scotland are challenging the way that the law is currently interpreted more than they're challenging the Scottish Government at this point.

It's more just the Scottish Government are the ones representing it. But yeah, the judges will go away and think about it, I imagine it'll be weeks, probably months, before we actually get a ruling back from the court. And a ruling on how the law should be interpreted? Yes, the ruling will be, basically, the ruling will say specifically, does a gender recognition certificate amount to a change of sex for the purposes of the Equality Act.

So it's not, as I say, not just a question of public boards in Scotland anymore, it's very much a sort of GB-wide issue about how this sort of foundational equalities law is interpreted. And, Phil, you are BBC Scotland's political correspondent. How do you see the potential political fallout from ruling by the Supreme Court? I mean, it's a question which has been a very difficult one for politicians in recent years. I think we've seen politicians kind of move almost where they stand on it all

because in Scotland, certainly, we had the Scottish government, when it was led by Nicola Sturgeon, they were very keen to sort of lead the charge almost. They were bringing forward reforms to the gender recognition process known as self-identification, which would have made it much easier for people to change their legally recognised sex in order to get that gender recognition certificate, which is at the heart of this whole case. I think since Nicola Sturgeon left office, those reforms have been kind of blocked by the UK government.

Her successors in government have been way less sort of willing to push ahead with this. Currently, the First Minister of Scotland, John Swinney, has kind of pushed the idea of conversion therapy bans. He's pushed all that onto the UK government, saying we need a UK-wide approach to this. And equally at Westminster, I think. The question is what happens to the Equality Act at the end of this? Because there are some groups that are arguing

that the ruling in this case would make a case for the Equality Act itself being reopened, being amended. So the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is the national equalities regulator, it's intervening in this case and they have called for the Equality Act to be amended because they say, yeah, this is what the law says, this is what it does, and they think the MPs meant to set the law up like this, but they say it's had unintended consequences, and that it's a wholly unsatisfactory situation.

But there are a lot of groups that oppose reopening the Equality Act. People like Amnesty International, another intervener in this case, they say that could see the rights of protected groups being watered down. The minute you reopen a foundational piece of legislation like that, all kinds of changes could potentially be made. They say it's the thin end of the wedge, which could see other groups losing their rights. And it'll come down to really what the UK government wants to do.

During the election, the Conservatives had a manifesto pledge to reopen the Equality Act. They wanted to rewrite parts of the law. That was one of Kemi Badenoch's policies, actually, when she was Women's Minister. But it's something that Keir Starmer did not match that pledge in the election, in fact Labour's manifesto actually said they want to simplify

and reform the gender recognition process, they said they want to remove indignities so we would need to see the willingness of the UK government given Labour's big majority in Parliament as to what they actually want to do but it could be that the ruling in this case could not just affect the interpretation of the law as it stands,

it could create this campaign to actually change the law itself in Parliament. If the Equality Act were to be reopened, I imagine a timeline with something of that magnitude would, well, be extensive. Yes, I mean, it just sort of drifts off into the rest of the term of Parliament. It depends on the willingness of the UK government. You know, because Labour have that big majority, if they want something to happen, they can do it.

But it does depend on the appetite that they have for doing something, which would ultimately be a very controversial move. As I say, there are very strong feelings on every side of this debate and because groups like Amnesty are saying there are all kinds of other protected characteristics that could eventually come under the microscope if you start reopening the Act for amendment. So we've seen, I think here at Starmer's Government, when it comes to things like the assisted dying debate that's coming up, there's a question about how much stomach they will have

for these really controversial debates in terms of legislation. So given that they do have that complete control, and literally I'm looking out the window of the Supreme Court at the Palace of Westminster. The Houses of Parliament are literally across the road from here. So this is all happening right under the nose of the politicians. It would be a question of how much appetite that the Labour government

actually has for reform in this area, and as I say, it's something which was a big favour of the Conservatives previously, rather than being a Labour policy. Phil Sim, BBC Scotland political correspondent, gearing up as the Supreme Court does to take a look at

that landmark case brought by Scottish campaigners. Thank you for your explanations talking about the GRA, the Gender Recognition Act and the Equality Act and also interpretations. We will continue following it. Some of your messages coming in about going it alone.

I was talking about how the numbers have trebled since 2012 when it comes to single women using IVF and also donor insemination to have a child by themselves. I had a baby alone by IVF in my 40s. She's now a teenager and it has been by far the best thing I've ever done in my life. The toughest part has not been sole parenting,

but her sadness about not having a dad or siblings. Another, I'm 47 and female. I don't have any kids through choice. I find it fascinating to hear about the rise in women having children alone. And during the previous episode, they highlighted the absence of a father being a factor in violent offending.

What a conundrum. That's without wondering how you'll parent alone and work pay for things or get a break or whatever, what to do when you're ill or what if you have multiple pregnancy? What if the child has extra needs? The list goes on and on. I'd admire anyone that chooses to take that responsibility on a loan.

That was Jo in West Yorkshire. Keep them coming, 84844, if you'd like to get in touch on anything you're hearing. Now, Disney. No secret that the soundtracks can be magical, not just for the children, but for the adults too. The song, Let It Go, I mean, I hadn't even watched the film

and that song had already entered my brain. It was from Frozen, of course. It reached number 11 in the official charts in 2013. A couple of years ago, we don't talk about Bruno from the film Encanto was number one. I have a little niece that used to sing it on repeat. And that one, we Don't Talk About Bruno,

was the first time ever a Disney song topped the UK charts. It was there for five weeks. Well, on Friday, Moana, or Moana, as they pronounce it in the film too, the sequel to the 2016 Disney film is set to hit our theatre screens just as expected. The soundtrack is highly anticipated. And behind that soundtrack, well, we have Abigail Barlow.

We have Emily Bear, the Grammy Award winning songwriting partnership. Barlow and Bear, they're 26 and 23 years old. And they are making history, not just by becoming the youngest, but also the first ever female songwriting duo to compose for a Disney feature film. You might know them from TikTok. In 2021, they were writing the unofficial Bridgerton musical, received a Grammy for Best Musical

Theatre Album, and I'm delighted to say that they are here in the Woman's Hour studio with me. Good morning, good morning. Good morning. Hi. How's London treating you so far? Lovely. We love London. I want to stay here forever. Well, you're definitely going to stay for the next little bit because Moana is opening.

How did you meet? Abigail, I should say, for our listeners so they can get used to your voice. Yes. We met just by happenstance. A mutual friend introduced us and said we might make good music together. And we just sort of hung out as friends first. She came over to my house and we watched The Bachelorette and I made French macarons. And we just connected over being young women in the music industry and not going to college and not having many friends. I mean, it's hard out there for a young woman.

What do you remember about that? I mean, were you saying, oh, there's the woman I could win a Grammy with? No. Oh, my God. We just really bonded on like a personal level, which I think set us up really for success when we wrote together for the first time because there was like a really nice comfort and mutual respect in the room that sometimes is harder to get when you're working with much older people

or a bunch of guys or people that are more established because you're so afraid to like stand up for your ideas and not be pushy or overbearing and not disrespectful. But the first time we wrote together, we were like, oh, okay, there's something here. There's something there. That must be so exciting to realize that you've got that creative compatibility.

Okay, how did it come about? Who got the call about Disney and that you were being asked to write the score from one or two? Well, it was funny because people take general meetings all the time. It's just like a way of life in the industry and nothing really comes from them. Except we took a general with this guy, Tom, who ended up hiring us. So what's a general meeting? What, it's like the company says, come in, let's have a chat?

Yeah, like either your agent or the company will just set up like a let's get to know each other sort of thing. You just talk about everything and anything. But nothing like specific in mind. And at the end of our general, he said, you know what, I think I might have a project in mind for the two of you. Stay tuned.

And when was that? That was four years ago. Four years ago. And then about a year later, we got an email that said they're making a Moana sequel and would we want to talk to the creative team? And of course we said, what? Obviously. And we sat down with them just on Zoom and made a case for ourselves telling Moana's story this time around. What was the case? Well, you know, as young women

who are just trying to find our place in the world, we definitely related to Moana's emotional journey in the second film. She's a little older, a little wiser, but this time everything's different and, you know, her emotional stakes are a lot higher. She's got everything she ever wanted from the first film and now she's been asked to give it all up.

I mean, I think it's really special to write for a peer, because I was literally Moana's age when we got the job. And musical theater is all about putting yourself in the shoes of someone else and honoring their perspective on the world. And, you know, it's shockingly rare that we get to see women telling women's stories, especially in the Disney universe. So no one knows a girl's mind better than a girl. Because I'm doing the maths here. So you were 19 and 22 when this first was... I was 20. I just turned 20.

Yeah, I was 23. Yeah, I mean, very young. I mean, it feels wonderful. We love the music and we've lived with it for so long. We've been working on this album for two and a half years and and it's finally going to get to see the light of day and sort of take on a life of its own yeah so it's exciting to hear it kind of like fly off from the nest um but it's surreal i mean we grew up on disney movies we love the movies they're part of our childhood and the fact

that we're able to help continue on the legacy is a pretty crazy thing to say. I went down a rabbit hole off your TikTok accounts yesterday, which I really enjoyed, I have to say. But, you know, I was watching you, Emily, conduct, you know, this wonderful orchestra with music that you have scored. And I'm wondering what that feels like. Bring me inside your head when you're doing that. Well, I swear to God, on a scoring stage,

hearing an orchestra play my music is the happiest place on earth for me. I'm happy as a clam. It's like peak Emily Bear. And there's nothing quite like standing in front of them. It's terrifying because you're looking at the face of like 60 to 80 incredible musicians. And, you know, they've spent their entire life dedicated to music. And standing there and knowing that like what your arms are doing and what you're trying to convey emotionally is controlling the sound. It's crazy.

They're big emotions. Just even a little clip that we heard. You know what I mean? There's a swell, you know. I loved watching people in the cinema as well when I went to see it, you know, and how they were being gripped, you know, being brought along on a wave, excuse the pun, but of these various emotions that there was,

but so connected to the music. So, you know, I'm just thinking you have this place, this literally on a pedestal as you're conducting, but also bringing people through all those emotions. Yeah, especially on a scoring stage, like you usually have a click. So everything's locked. So the players hear a metronome in their ears. So it's locked to picture and nothing gets off. But the conductor is there for emotion.

You know, you're really rallying all of those players to feel it with you. And it's a very special thing. What a job. Let's talk a little bit more about TikTok though, Abigail. I really enjoyed your videos as well. And for you and for Emily, it really was a game changer, I think. Definitely. Tell us a little bit of that journey. You know, I've been growing my social media following since I was 16 years old, still living with my parents in Alabama. So I've always been a child of the Internet. And, you know, I think getting to just express myself and grow something organically was really like formative for my inner artist. And when I met Emily, I just kind of, I suggested that we do what I used to do online, which was

to sing and write songs in front of strangers. And, you know, we found a little pocket of the internet who loved watching that process. So it was definitely a game changer. Yeah, I'd say so too. A shockingly big pocket. What about the unofficial Bridgerton musical? For people that are not familiar with it, how would you describe it? I'd say it is an album that we created, a concept album that was sort of imagining a hypothetical Bridgerton stage musical. After watching the TV series, we sort of just got inspired to write music.

It was born out of the worst part of COVID when all creatives were like really suffering. And we just started writing and it was so fun and we were feeling so creatively fulfilled. And we found community online, which I had never really experienced before, because I really only started social media, truly, because I saw how Abigail was using it and I was inspired. And no, no, no. Seriously. What was I saying? We're talking about like Bridget in the musical, like basically the difference that it made by having TikTok and by, I suppose, exploiting that part of the Internet. It forces people to listen, you know, because a lot of times you don't really get taken seriously as a young girl trying to make your way in the industry, even with everything that we've done. And so the TikTok experience was crazy because it just forced open the door and said, hey, we know what we're doing and people like it. And at the time, I suppose the pandemic,

which you mentioned, you have a captive audience, perhaps in some ways. So when I'm watching it, you're a duo and I'm sure that must be amazing support. What are the creative differences? What do you argue over? Be honest. Honestly, we don't argue very much. Our Venn diagrams are kind of perfectly placed, you know? We're so different. Our backgrounds in music are so different. We see music.

What are your backgrounds in music? Do you want to tell yours? Okay, this is going to be, I'm going to try my best to make it succinct. I started really young in the industry uh I was in the Ellen show six times when I was starting I think at five to eight years old and every time I was in the show I'd write a different piece of music and that kind of started like a whole performing career on Ellen DeGeneres yeah yeah um and so I started performing everywhere but I studied at Juilliard where I did classical piano, jazz piano and composition.

And then I met this guy, Quincy Jones, when I was like eight, nine. This guy, Quincy Jones. No big deal. You know, he was, I read, a mentor to you in many ways. He sadly died, of course, earlier this month. We heard about, you know, again, what an amazing musician he was and also a force really within the industry. What was the impact of his mentorship on you? I've been thinking about it a lot since he left us.

And I think the biggest, I mean, he was many things to me. He was like a musical grandfather. But I met him at a really wonderful place in his life where he didn't need anything. You know, he didn't need to do anything. He just lifted up young musicians because he cared so much about the spread of knowledge. And I feel like so many people at that level, at that level of success, they lose their love for the craft along the way. And his hunger for music and his love for the craft was the most important thing in his life. And I think it was probably the most inspiring environment to be in as a young musician because, you know, he realized how powerful it is and it's all he ever wanted to

learn and do. And your background, Abigail? Yeah, I grew up in the theater, in musical theater, and I thought I was going to go to school for it. And then I did a scholarship program and met a songwriter in the U.S. of A. And fell in love with songwriting, wanted to, you know, make pop music and be an artist. So I started growing my social media following, started posting on what was musically, it was TikTok before it was TikTok. And then, you know, moved out to LA, graduated high school early and just kind of started songwriting and building a portfolio of music. So. And then this beautiful marriage of minds came together. Moana 2 is, two of the songs from Moana 2 are for consideration for the Academy Awards, which must be amazing. One question for both of you before I let you go.

There was kind of this whole conversation, Dwayne the Rock Johnson weighing in on the UK premiere of Moana 2, whether people should sing along in the theatre or not. I say you should. I mean, I know that some... That's Abigail? I think it's a case-by-case basis, you know? But with Moana 2, that you have a dog in the fight? Yeah, I mean, nobody really knows the music yet. So if you're going to go a second time and sing along, we'd love that. I agree. I agree.

I think it depends on the movie. For Wicked, I understand. For Moana, do whatever you want. Enjoy. It's all about joy. Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear. Off Barlow and Bear thank you so much and wanted to

as I mentioned in cinemas on Friday but if you can't wait until then the soundtrack is out now and then you can go and sing your heart out when you get to the theatre.

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. I next want to turn to Madiha Al-Khamed, who was just nine years old when the Islamic State group invaded her Yazidi

community in Sinjar province. The Yazidi people are an ethnic group who live in parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. They've been persecuted by others for generations. And during the genocide that took place in 2014, IS murdered thousands of men and kidnapped thousands more women and children. Medeha was one of them. For four years, she was kept enslaved and raped.

She was sold to no less than four men. And when she was 13 years old she was released alongside two of her younger brothers. Her mother, father and baby brother did not come home so she decided to look for them. Now Madiha has told her own story

of the search for the rest of her family through video footage often filmed herself. The resulting film, also called Madiha, has won multiple awards at film festivals across the world. It is an emotional and at times beautiful watch.

I had the pleasure a little earlier of speaking to Mediha alongside producer and director of the film. That's Hassan Oswald. And I started by asking Mediha what it was like for her when she first got a camera. When Hassan gave me a camera, so I was like shy to use. You were shy? Yeah. Yeah. So shy. So shy. Yeah.

But after that, like couple weeks, so i didn't try um i take a video for myself it was maybe in a movie i did so you weren't shy anymore you became more confident with the camera yes yes but i was baby too i was 14 years old, like I was too young. Yeah. Because I once don't have a therapy, don't have a friends, plus friends, that's why I make a movie. And then that's why I film myself. One of the part I just want to make something for my people, like to make justice and to show people

what happened for my people. For example, genocide happened and then a lot of stuff. You talk about genocide when it comes to the Yazidi people. But how you tell the story, it's very beautiful. You film your brothers, for example. Thank you so much. We see your brothers. We meet your family.

We see the countryside. We see the butterflies. What were you thinking of when you were, had the camera, like what went through your mind when you're thinking, yes, I want to film this or no, I don't want to film that? So, yeah, it's movie has a lot of stuff, like a lot of sad stuff. For example, my mother's wedding. It's beautiful, but it's sad at the

same time. Because when I saw a movie, I remember my mother, she was so young when she got married. And then the butterfly too, it's so beautiful. You know, the butterfly is free.

Freedom. I mean, yeah, freedom. I mean, yeah, it's beautiful. freedom i'm so so like sorry because uh i was not free in my country and then it's true i was free in my like in from isis like uh you're freed from isis i know but you went through something terrible before that yeah yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. The camera makes me feel nice and better. And then because it was my best friend. Yeah. The camera was your best friend? Yes.

I always say she was my best friend, that camera, because it was making me so happy um like i i don't know why because i when i go to somebody somewhere like a lonely and then i i was take the osmo with me and then film like myself like um it was friend like yeah yeah like a friend i, I love also that you call the camera her, like it's another girl, another young girl. I love that. Girl power. Girl power, exactly, with your camera. Hassan, let me ask you a little bit as well. You were going to make a documentary, but then you have Medea in the middle of this, and she tells us how the camera makes her feel. But what was the process from your perspective? I, yeah, when I headed over to Iraq, I was definitely going to make a story, I guess,

through a more classic documentary lens. In the back of my mind, you know, I'm not from the region. I'm not Yazidi. And I had always, as a filmmaker, I'd been interested in the power balance between filmmaker and participant because forever it's been heavily on the side of filmmaker or director. And I had been interested in ways to rebalance that. And I thought, you know, this is a good opportunity since I'm an outsider to hand over the lens, hand over the camera. Where did you meet Medea? So I met Medea in the IDP camp her and her

brothers were living in, in northern Iraq. So that's for internally displaced people and just came across them and had a connection? Yeah, so we actually came across her brother first through an NGO that one of our producers was working for. We came across Gazwan and he, you know, if you see the movie, he carries... He's a spirited kid. He carries that same sort of al-Hamad spark. It's Medeha's family name. Curiosity. Curiosity, charisma, despite what they had been

through. And so, you know, they did show initial interest in the cameras and what we were doing over there because, of course, they're kids. And so I just, you know, I said, let's, I have a background as an English teacher. So I said, let's teach them the basics and let's see where it goes. And we couldn't, you know, I thought maybe it would be some creative transitions or vignettes or, you know, additional material online. But when we got that first batch back, it was, you know, we were so blown away, not just by how good they were with cinematography, but they sort of already intuitively had a grasp of storytelling.

Yes. Maybe tell our listeners a little bit about that, like what you see from Medeha. see it, unfortunately, from women and girls who have returned from ISIS captivity. From day one, not only, again, was she interested in the cameras, but she was able to reflect on what had happened to her in an astonishingly clear way, just speaking with her without the cameras rolling from the beginning. And that, you know, we hear her now talk about what the camera was doing for her. Of course, we had given it, we had hoped she would regain some semblance of agency through filming and telling her, speaking to the camera. But we never could have imagined sort of how far she would come. But that strength and that ability for her to reflect on what happened to her, that was there from the beginning. And it just continued.

You know, she continued to gain strength with that, her storytelling abilities and gaining her voice. And now it's, you know, of course, the movie's wrapped, but it's really just beginning as far as, you know, she takes her message to the world. I found it very affecting watching it. What has the reaction been that you've had, Hassan, to the film? It's been at several festivals. Yes, so the reaction's been incredibly positive, especially on the festival circuit. We've won 14, actually 15 now, grand juries,

close to 30 awards overall. But most importantly, it's reaching a really wide audience, a wide and diverse audience. So we've screened, you know, as far as New Zealand and then, of course, all around the U.S. where Mediha comes to those festivals and all around Europe. And I was just in Berlin and it's, you know, we screened for a sold-out theater of 700 and numerous Yezidis were in the crowd, which was very important because, yes, we want this film to reach as many people as possible, but when you make a film about a community you don't belong to,

you better get it right. So that weight of the community's response was very heavy on my shoulders and their response has been overwhelmingly positive. And you have Medea to help you with that, of course. Medea, I understand that you go to every screening that you can in the States. What is that like, a big smile on your face? So when I go to every film festival and then I see my movie. I watch my movie with people.

So it's sad, but at the same time, it makes me strong when I see a movie. Makes you strong? Yeah. It makes me strong. And then because I see like young Madiha, baby Madiha, and now I am like a little bit older. And then I say, oh my God, she was like strong and like this. Yeah, I was baby. I'm wondering, Madiha, what do people say to you about the film,

particularly at the festivals when they know it's you? Great question. A lot of people say, use Johan. And then they ask about my brother. They ask about my community. Because some people, their first time see see film about genocide yes the genocide because a lot of people don't know like my country a lot of people don't know which happened for my people like they they asked like a lot of question about my

people and especially like my mother when Hassan go to uh Camp Paul in Syria a lot of people ask this question a lot of people wanting to understand what happened to your family and about the place yeah and then my my people too people message you on Instagram as well i hear a lot of people message me on instagram um before uh when i was making a movie and the people told me like my community my friends uh cousins like they was told me movies doesn't gonna help you and a movie doesn't like uh do anything um that a movie wouldn't change anything yeah yeah and then uh they told me your girl you can't do movie like this stuff you're a girl and then you can't do movies yes um so i was don't care like I was continue because I was baby. And then I was don't understand anything.

Yeah. I was understand, but I was make me don't understand to them. Like, make me. You didn't want to listen to that. Yes. Yeah. Because I always had girl power. I love the girl power.

Yeah, me too and then yeah I was continuing and I was don't listen to them and now they told me how did you make a movie are you traveling are you like going to fancy fancy

like hotel exactly for all these screenings but i suppose it is it's such a different life you have now compared to you were with isis horrendous then you come back to your village and now you have moved again through so many difficult difficult times how do you feel though that that people are seeing your film and knowing about your people and knowing about your life um it feels great uh i love when people see like my people's story especially about genocide because genocide is still going, like, 10 years, it's all, like, yeah, it's going. And then I want

to, like, more people know about genocide, and more people, like, know about my, like, people, like, Yezidi, because we're a small community. Like we're not... I understand. Not that well known perhaps before ISIS. How are you now? How are your brothers? Well, thank you so much. I just go to school in New York now.

What's that like? It's great school. New York now. What's that like? It's great school. I love it. Yeah, I just like go to take subway like a normal girl in New York. And then life is difficult, but we have to keep going. Will you make some film maybe in New York?

I think so. I'm going to make one movie or a book for my life because new chapter and a new book. A new chapter and a new book. I have to throw that back to Hassan. I mean, how fortuitous

that you bumped into this extraordinary young woman, Medeha. Where does it go from here? For us, you know, this is, as we sort of now make the theatrical rounds around the world, it's pretty much our whole bandwidth. Where it goes from here for her, you know, she's building quite a foundation

and we're so proud of her. The future can be exciting, Medea. I'm so excited for my future. Before, I always wanted to be an actor. But now, I'm not anymore. So now I want to be a lawyer. That was Medea Al Al-Khamed and Hassan Aswal

thanks so much to them and the film Medeha is showing at selected picture house cinemas over the next few weeks Lots of you getting in touch here's hi Radio 4 Women's Hour I'm a female nurse in the RAF

I've just successfully done IVF as a single woman this was the third attempt but worth persevering and the money that was spent. I'm now blessed with twins and a family of my own. And we will be enjoying our first Christmas together as a team of three. It is amazing and I'm so grateful I had the option to do this. From Lara and Aria and Beau.

Lesley in Edinburgh. I had my twins in 2011 by donor insemination. I wanted to be a mother and I hadn't found a suitable partner to do this with. My family and friends were very supportive, but I would say even today, people on the whole just don't get it. I feel we're in this couple-based world of a family and we aren't the norm.

Oddly, if I just got pregnant naturally and was a single mother that way, I think people would get that more. It's been hard, but amazing. Thanks, Leslie, for your message. 84844. Right, here's a few pieces of advice. Don't cry at the first hint of criticism. Fish and chips are always a good idea. Don't fritter away time on social media. They are some of the maxims that the author, Barbara Taylor Bradford, advocated. So many have paid

tribute to her attitude, her life and her work. She was a best-selling novelist whose death was announced yesterday. Her publisher confirmed that she passed away quietly at home on Sunday, surrounded by loved ones. Hers is quite the story.

Barbara was from Leeds. She sold her first magazine story. I was reading this morning at the age of 10 and then at 15 she started her career in a typing pool for a newspaper. She was working on Fleet Street as a reporter by 20 and published her first novel, A Woman of Substance, in 1979. Now that book alone sold over 30 million copies. It was adapted into a hit TV series and she went on to write 39 other novels, all bestsellers. People from the Chancellor Rachel Reeves to author

Sheila O'Flanagan have been paying tribute to her. She's been called the Grand Dame of blockbusters by the papers and author of Substance was another headline. The actor Jenny Seagrove who played the main character Emma Hart in the TV adaptation of A Woman of Substance, which I started watching last night

actually, has said that Barbara championed women before it was fashionable and that success never diluted her warmth and humour or her ability to relate to everyone she met, whether a cleaner or a princess. Quite the legacy. Barbara spoke to Woman's Hour on several occasions,

most recently in 2021. Here's a little of her telling Emma Barnett why she thinks her books appeal to both men and women. I don't write romances. There are romantic things in the books, but I'm really writing about women warriors who go out in the world to conquer the world in a way. And the men who I get emails from now, not letters, say, we love Emma Hart, we love your books. I have a lot of male readers. And perhaps it's because, oh, a lot of them say you know how to write about men.

You know men can cry, and you have men that cry, and you show the emotional side of a man man and not a lot of other women writers know how to write about men but at my my books have gone away from that in the sense in people's minds they don't think of them as being romantic anymore because they're not so you've got a bit of erotic charge in there haven't you the relationships, the relationships, you have to have that. We're human beings. Everybody has a sex life, I hope. So that's in my books too. But it's really about accomplishment of women having a dream and fulfilling it and women achieving things. I have great satisfaction when I start a new book and I finish a few chapters and I'm happy. And I think women feel that in any job

they do. I hope they do, because we spend most of our time working. Barbara Taylor Bradford there who died at the age of 91, speaking to Emma Barnett on Woman's Hour in 2021. Well, to remember her and her extraordinary achievements, I'm joined today by Lynne Drew, Barbara's publisher, and by television presenter and author Fern Britton, who is a fan and a friend of Barbara's. Lynne, just hearing her voice there, what's coming to your mind? Oh, it's such a wonderful thing to hear.

And she really could sum up better than any of us the real essence of her novels. And she's so right. People do write off women's books as romances. I know we've talked about this on Women's Hour. And, you know, it's been a recurring theme for the past few years. But she was saying it right from the start. Back in 1979, she said most books about money and power are focused on men. So she wanted to write about a strong woman and a strong story, something full of landscape, power, reversals of fortune, betrayals, sex, money.

But most of all, as she said, a woman striving to succeed and succeeding against the odds. Fern, you're nodding your head with some of the comments from Lynn there. How did you get to meet and know Barbara? And welcome. Well, it was, thank you very much. It was via her books and coming into this morning to do interviews about her latest books.

And so that's how I met her. And the very first time, it was very exciting because I remember very well when A Woman of Southlands was first published. And of course, I was in my early to mid 20s and absolutely gobbled it up. It was fantastic. And it wasn't weakened, willowy heroines, you know, having the attack of the vapors and having their hearts broken. No, that was not Emma Hart. No, it wasn't. And so then to meet her, say, 25 years later was incredible.

And she walked into the studio immaculate. Imagine our late queen walking into the studio. It was that, but with much more glamour, hair perfectly lacquered in place, wonderful makeup dripping in jewels, a beautiful designer handbag with an Hermes scarf tied around the handle, drifting. And so already she looked like a woman of substance. And she sat down and although I was a bit scared because she was not imperious, but commanding. And then she balanced that with incredible warmth humor and kindness she was absolutely incredible so that very first time I met her I was thrilled and then subsequently

you know she would come in and out I remember once saying to her at the beginning of the interview I'm very cross with you Barbara and she said why and I said because you've written another blooming book that I can't put down it was the truth and the last time i saw her was when uh her book was published that was the oh gosh it was the prequel to a woman of substance lynn help me you know yes a man of honor where she went back yeah she went back to talk about her character shane o'neill who was lovely known as Blackie because he had jet black hair. But then, of course, that became a problem as a and quite rightly as a title for the book. So it was a man of honour. And I talked to her about that. And she had only recently lost a husband at that stage.

So it was still rather tender. And yet she still had the power. She was wonderful. They had a wonderful long marriage, which seemed to be also a backbone to her life and to her career. Lynne, her story is often featured, as we mentioned, this sort of entrepreneurship. She even mentions the word warrior as well. Why was she so fascinated by that, do you think? I think it's such a good question. And I'm not even sure she knew really the answer. She was driven from such a young age, you know, excuse me, she was brought up by her parents with great ambition to achieve good things, great things. And she knew she wanted to go into journalism. She left school early against her mother's wishes, found herself a job in the typing

pool, slipped stories to the sub-editors, became a reporter, became a women's editor, moved to Fleet Street. Phenomenal success for a girl from Armley. But even then, when she married Bob and went to live in America, she knew she really wanted to write novels. And that was what came back to her in her 40s. So behind all of that success was this extraordinary drive to succeed. And I think she understood that and she pours it into the entrepreneurs you see in her novels. And that's why time and again, you find they come back to, there might be a woman with a career, there might be a relationship, but they're really pacey, enthralling page turners, because they're always set in a big international world

where success matters. But actually, it's also the understanding of human nature. She gets that to a T, whether that's her journalism training or her instinct. She knows what human nature always is. And she she pours that in there. And I guess she puts a lot of herself into it, I feel as well. You know, Leeds also coming up as a recurring character. Fern, you wanted to jump in? Yes, I just wanted to say I agree with Lynne. But also, it wasn't just her background with her parents and this desire to write. It was living and breathing in a newsroom, as you know and I know. Being in a newsroom, which know and I know uh being in a newsroom which is heavily testosterone driven

and you are absolutely thrown into the world of power brokers and winners and losers and murky films and sex lives and mistresses and passion and tragedy in real life all of that is in a newsroom and so and of course the world stories as well that you get in and out. So for her, I think that was also a rich scene that prodded her imagination even further. Going back to A Woman of Substance, which there was a 1985 TV adaptation, the highest ever viewing figures for Channel 4. I started watching it last night. I think it was on Amazon. And I started getting engrossed yet again and thinking about what it must have been to create those characters

and have that adaptation. She must have been incredibly proud of that. I think she was. I mean, she worked so hard to create that novel and she had tried to write a few different kinds of novels. And it was when she really asked herself,

what do I want to write, that her imagination and her instincts took her right back to Yorkshire. And you can, I think, see the influence of the Brontes, of her love of Dickens, of her understanding of social background and the poverty of the mills and the difficult lives of many small villages in those moors.

Did you see a correlation firm between emma hart and barbara taylor bradford oh i i'm sure so and you know later when uh in a biography that was written about it was suggested that her mum uh was the daughter of uh somebody who worked in a large house and the Marquess. Yeah. Which is part of the story for those who haven't read it or watched it. Exactly. So if her mother was the product of that, I wonder how early on Barbara sort of knew that that sort of thing was going on,

whether she knew the truth about what was happening or not. Lynne would know better than I, I think. Did you think she knew before that came out, Lynne? Not consciously at all, but whether she knew subliminally is so interesting. She was blown away by this revelation that she was possibly the granddaughter of a marquis, but she moved on from it incredibly fast. She was really only interested in its impact on her mother and how miserable that must have made elements of her mother's childhood.

But I think it's fascinating because it would mean that she was descended from a sort of clan of politicians and even a short-lived prime minister. That was made perfect sense to me. I mean, that sounds like a novel too, doesn't it? What was she like for, and you talk about, you know, her entering a room and having that presence. What was she like to hang out with? She was very easy, very, very, very interested

in everybody else around the table and would share some of her stories too. I wish I had heard her stories of Peter O'Toole, who was then a young photographer on the Yorkshire Evening Times, Evening News, and was, you know, chatting her up voraciously. And Keith Waterhouse, who was the reporter there at the time, warning her of him. So she had an allure for a lot of people, men and women.

And I think that's the interesting thing. She was a woman's woman whilst adoring men, which is why she could write men so well you know there was no power struggle with a man not at all for her and that she the way she wrote she was so very so very good about sitting down so organized she had no truck with writer's block she would write as a business no interruptions no fractured days trusting her editor lynn um which i'm learning to do because lynn's now my editor too i'm so grateful there's a hell of a lot i've got to learn from barbara that's for sure 5 a.m starts fern is that it yeah 5 a.m starts is the secret of

her success yes absolutely and finishing at what time, she'd write till lunchtime, take the dog out for a walk and then research in the afternoons. I want to thank Fern Britton, Lynn Drew, giving us a few ideas on success and remembering the author, Barbara Taylor Bradford, who died sadly at the age of 91.

I want to let you know, tomorrow I'm speaking to music legend, Joan Armatrading. Can't wait for that. And also Baroness Lola Young. She has a book at the moment called Eight Weeks. A fascinating memoir. We'll also hear from her. And this is from Julia.

Interesting that Barbara believed fish and chips are always a good idea. Maybe the medical authorities could be wrong about deep fried food. I do hope so. See you tomorrow. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hello, this is Marian Keyes.

And this is Tara Flynn. We host a podcast you might like for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds called Now You're Asking. Each week we take real listeners' questions about life, love, lingerie, cats,

dogs, dentists, pockets, or the lack of. Anything really. And apply our worldly wisdom in a way which we hope will help. But also hopefully entertain. Join us, why don't you?

Search up Now You're Asking on BBC Sounds. Thanking you. We'll be right back. 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.