Woman's Hour - Tareena Shakil, Nabihah Iqbal & Libby Heaney, Death Doulas

Episode Date: January 28, 2022

Tareena Shakil is the first British woman to be found guilty of joining so-called Islamic State. She was jailed for travelling to Syria with her baby son to join ISIS. That was in 2014 when she was 24. She didn't last long in Syria and fled. A trial in the UK followed and it came to light that she lied to police when they questioned her and some of her social media posts encouraged others to do the same as her. She tells her story to Anita Rani, and describes her hopes for the future.Libby Heaney and Nabihah Iqbal are combining music production and AI for their piece Cascade. It's an exploration of the River Thames and includes field recordings of the Thames, AI generated sounds and visuals. One Big Bag is a film installation about a young death doula. That's a carer who supports someone who's dying and their families. Its creator is artist Every Ocean Hughes. She joins Hermione Elliott who's a doula herself, and Dr Helen Frisby.

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. Good morning. We're going to discuss something that isn't often talked about and yet is inevitable for every single one of us. Nope, not tax, the other one. Death. Or rather, the rituals around death. How do we or don't we cope with it? The reason I've brought up such a cheery subject on a Friday morning is because just as at the beginning of life you might have a birth doula to help women through the

process of giving birth, you also have death doulas who provide the same support at the end of life and they're usually women. Women who help the person dying and their families navigate the time before and after death. A death doula, something you might consider? Now we've all had to confront death in the last couple of years, whether it's listening to the daily death tolls and stories of death on the news every day, or sadly losing a loved one and not being able to be there with them and fulfill their last wishes or perform the customs you would have in ordinary times. And it's been utterly heartbreaking. So this morning, I would like to hear from you on this subject. Maybe you're going through this right now. Have you had a terminal diagnosis

and are having to think about the end of your life, really confront it and stare it down? Are you having to deal with the loss of a loved one? Maybe you belong to a culture where death is very much part of life. What are your rituals? Open casket, washing of the body, a period of mourning. It's sometimes said that British culture is removed from the reality of death. Well, not today.

We're going to discuss it. And most importantly, I want to hear your stories and experiences. So do get in touch with me. You can text me on 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. So do check with your network provider for the exact costs. And you can also contact us via social media. It's at BBC Woman's Hour.

And of course, you can send me an email through our website. Then later, I'll also be joined by musician Nabiha Iqbal and visual artist Libby Heaney about a new work they'll be performing at the Southbank Centre called Cascade. It's a rethinking of the history and significance of the River Thames. So do get in touch about anything you hear on the show today. That text number again, 84844. But first, the electronic ankle has gone. The prison sentence has been spent. Tarina Shaquille, the first British woman to be found guilty of joining so-called Islamic State, is free to build a new life. Conditions on her release have gone and now she is free to tell her story. Tarina was jailed in 2016 for travelling to Syria with her son, who was a one-year-old baby at the time, to join ISIS. She was 24 when she went. She didn't last long in Syria before she fled.

As soon as she touched down in Heathrow, she was detained. Well, I spoke to Tarina earlier this morning. So, Tarina, my first question is, why does a mixed race girl from Burton-on-Trent, who likes to watch TOWIE and listen to the Spice Girls, decide to go to Syria and join a terrorist organisation? You know, the life that I was living before I decided to run away, it was, you know, a life that was really unhappy. There was a lot of domestic violence. I was in a situation where I just felt like there was nowhere else to go. I mean, it hadn't just happened overnight. It was years of this domestic violence. And then even from before, I'd always lived a life of unhappiness. And then I had started talking to people online who were in Syria fighting, who had basically said things like, you need to come and live over here because if you die in a country that's not ruled by Sharia,

you're going to go to hell, and loads of things to that effect. So I guess it's teamed with being so unhappy here in search of happiness with comments like, if you die in England, you're going to go to hell. But plenty of women sadly are in abusive relationships and suffer domestic violence, but they definitely don't decide to join a terrorist organisation. So I want to just get into your head a bit more, Tareena. I want you to try and explain to me exactly what was being said online

and how they convinced you or radicalised you. How did they get into your head to convince you to get on a plane and not just you, to take your one-year-old son to a war zone? Yeah, well, with regards to being a victim of domestic violence, I get that a lot of women go through it and they don't decide to make that decision. It comes down to the fact about being vulnerable and in a place where, you know, your self-esteem isn't very high. You don't feel like you've got a lot to live for. And when people do come along and tell you, right, well, if you die in England, you're going to go to hell. Well, I'm not so happy with my life here anyway.

So it doesn't make it seem like running away is such a big thing. So, you know, I was in a very vulnerable place. And the things that people would say to me online and refer to certain verses in the Koran, they were all linked to Hidra. Hidra is migration for the purpose of Islam and they were things to the effect of the people who didn't go forward are not equal for them in their next life.

It's a painful punishment and Hadith and verses in the Quran that do actually exist because I did go and look it up. They were all surrounding Hidra. You need to come and live here. If you stay there, you're going to go to hell. And you're going to take, you're going to, not only are you going to take yourself to hell, you're going to lead your child

to hell as well. And you'll have nobody to blame but yourself. So they are the kind of things that were being said online, things that made you feel like you had to be there. And did you know what was going on in Syria? Did you know that who ISIS were and that they were responsible for beheading and killing and torturing not just Westerners, but Muslims as well? Yes. I knew who ISIS were. And I had seen a lot of things on the news before I had travelled out there. So what made you buy into that ideology? Well, I went for Hidra for the purpose of Islamic migration, not to be involved in any violent act. And I never was involved in any violent act. And I never was involved in any violent act. I do understand that, you know, seeing,

being aware of what they're capable of should deter you. But, and I accept that, I really do. But when I would speak to the people that were my constant links there, and I would mention these things to them, you know, there'd always be a way for them to like play it down. For example, oh, you know, there'd always be a way for them to, like, play it down. For example, oh, the media, they just hate Islam.

It's not really like that. And, you know, your attention's kind of diverted from it because the end goal is to get you to go and live there, obviously. So, you know, unfortunately, I was not deterred by them things due to all the conversations that were going on with people online. And what did you think was waiting for you at the other end what kind of life were you going to live? I hadn't really thought about it in detail I just wanted to be there I had thought maybe that I could just carry on with a normal life and I know that sounds really crazy considering

that it is a war-torn country but when I think back now the only life I was expecting to live was a normal life not one to be fighting one where I really don't know I would I was just so concerned about running away there and just just to be there that I didn't think about a lot of things that should have been thought about. And you said that you were talking to people online and it was on Facebook. So over what period of time were you communicating with people from ISIS? So it will have been for about six or seven weeks. It was at the near about the end of July and I flew out, I think, October 20th. So it's just over three months, just under three months, something like that. And how was it when you left? How did you make that decision?

And what did you do? So I booked a ticket to Turkey because I was informed that that's obviously where you go to travel on to Syria and even when I had booked my ticket it was not a hundred percent that I would run away to Syria I always said let me see how far I get if if something happens if I don't know I'll get stopped if if some I don't know, I'll get stopped. I don't know if I lost my passport, whatever. If something happens, I will go back. And so I just flew out to Turkey, yes, with the idea of running away to Syria, but it was never really 100%. I just thought I'd carry on going.

For example, what I mean by that is once you get to Turkey, you have to fly to different parts, southern Turkey, in order to be able to cross over into Syria. And I just said to myself, I'll just see how far I get at each time. You know, maybe something would happen. It had been planned, hadn't it? Because you had a contact who was going to get you into Syria. But when you came back from Syria, and I'm jumping ahead a bit, and you were arrested as you got off your flight at Heathrow, you lied to the police about going out there,

hadn't you? Yes, I did lie about how I got out there. Why did you do that? Because, you know, just a few hours before they had taken my child off me and I just wanted him back. I didn't know, you know, I've never been in trouble with the police before I've never been involved with social services before I thought that if I said I had taken him there willingly that I would never get him back and I did I wasn't even aware that there's a court system that has to be followed you know I thought I'll just go home the next day and they'll let him come back to me I remember in the beginning I would ring up social services every day and they were like look you do understand that there's a court case it's not we can't just give your child back to you I was scared and I wanted my child back and I didn't know what else to do I thought if I came out and said look I took him there that they would never

give him me back I'm going to come back to trying to understand a bit more, Tarina, about that decision to actually leave your country, the country that you've grown up in, and the culture that you've grown up in to convince you that this is not the life you want and that what you should be doing is living over there according to their ideologies and values? Well, as I have said, it was multiple hadiths. Their reasoning and my reasoning for me to go and live there was that of hijrah, Islamic migration. So all of the things that were being said to me to make me feel like i don't want to live here anymore was to do with the afterlife

was to do with if you stay there you're going to go to hell if you stay there you are dragging your child to hell so what would you say to yourself now then because they convinced you then what would you say to yourself i have a lot of knowledge now that i didn't have before you know i've been i've worked with imams in prison i've i know a lot more now so what i would have said was yes there are them verses of quran are there but they were revealed at a certain time for a certain period. Yes, the rules still do apply now. But as it was explained to me, it's not a case of you just open a book and take a verse and apply it to your life now in all instances. You know, there's explanations for why that verse was revealed.

It's many times taken out of context. So what I would say to myself was that I should have researched and I should have asked. I shouldn't have just, you know, I wasn't asking people. I wasn't even speaking to my family. So what I would say to myself was that I should have researched and I should have asked. I shouldn't have just, you know, I wasn't asking people. I wasn't even speaking to my family. The only people I would speak to, like pretty much every day, all day, was these people in Syria. I was really isolated from everybody. Do you think you were radicalized? Do you think you were groomed?

Groomed 100 with regards to radicalized and what i understand that that word means um i went for the purpose of islamic migration that i thought that i was told that is obligatory you have to do that you know i've, in terms of killing or wanted to kill anybody or ever wanted to be involved in that side of things, ever. So I would definitely say I was groomed online, 100%. What happened when you got there? When I was in Syria, I just literally went from house to house and lived with, like, 50 women. So when I first got into Syria it's one house we stayed there for

about a week and a half then moved on to another house in Raqqa and literally just lived in the house. Doing what? Eating, sleeping, talking with other women. And at what point did you realize I don't want to be here I've made a mistake so when I got to Syria I made friends with a girl from Qatar just because she could speak English we went on to Raqqa together and after about three days she started to talk about escaping and I was supposed to escape and leave with her but she didn't have a plan so it was really early on I mean what did I arrive there on the 25th of October she escaped on around the 6th of November I was supposed to leave with her so we're talking about two weeks if that. Why did you want to escape what happened

where you decided I need to get out of here? I think the main thing was, and as I know this sounds a bit silly, I remember being there on the first night and being on the bus that took us to the first house in Jerobolus. And I remember seeing the black flag in real life. And I remember realising at that moment, this is real now. Yeah, the black flag ofis is what you're talking about yeah the black flag the royale total heed the one yeah the one that they use and i remember thinking oh my god that like i'm actually here this is real like it was no longer online anymore almost as if the kind of adventure as it were was over and i i remember thinking at that second like oh my god it's real like what have you done but I wouldn't say that I decided I wanted to run away then it was it's not a life

that I'm used to it's not a life that I would want it's not life is just so different and I realized what I had done you know because through speaking with family members and how upset they were and with my ex-partner as well he was when I ran away he was in his own country in Yemen and he was supposed to come back and he didn't and he he wouldn't tell me when he was coming back so the day before I flew out to Turkey I sent him one last message to say look when are you coming back and he was just like I'm not coming back and saying a lot of other things had he have said I'm coming back and told me when he was coming back I would never have gone on to Syria I would have gone to Turkey for the week and come back however he came

back to England I think the day I crossed the border into Syria. And when I was in Syria, my family was sending me messages like, oh, your ex-husband's come home. And I realized then as well, like, oh, my God, what have I done? I've taken my child away from his father. So it was a mixture of things that made me not want to be there. Yeah, Tarina, I'm listening to you and I want to understand because you've spoken very public about this publicly and you've made a documentary because you want people to understand and also you've said that you want to try and help de-radicalise

other young people who might be in a similar situation to what you were in. But having an argument with your partner, being upset that he's gone to another country and crossing the border into a war zone to join a terrorist organisation, that is an extreme thing to do. And you say that you got there and you saw the flag flying and it became very real. But you changed your Facebook profile to have the ISIS flag flying. Yeah, but that's online. That was done when I was in England.

I said when I got to Syria and I seen it in its entirety, it became real. It was shocking. It was heart-stopping. It was like, I'm actually here. It's a realisation. And there's some very disturbing photographs. There's one of you with an AK-47

and there's one of your son standing next to an AK-47, which is really shocking. Did you ever use the gun? No, never. So why have photographs taken with guns if you were desperate to come home? Because that was the environment that we were living in at the time. I was in a house full of women. Everybody is taking pictures with this gun.

There's a lot of pressure on you to conform anyway. Like, it's easy to ask these questions now, but it's me who really lived in that. It's me who really lived in this it's me who really lived in this threat in the house with all these women so tell me tell me you're right I am asking you the questions I want you to tell me explain it to me um that I'm about to you know the woman who runs the house she's not a nice woman there was a lot of attention on me anyway because of the media because of you know I was in the media every other day and they were aware of that so my phone was we were not allowed our phones on

us anyway but the odd time where we were allowed to go to internet my phone was always watched more than the other girls she would always sit next to me for longer than she sat next to the other girls there was a lot of pressure on me out there. So I really understand that them pictures are disturbing. And believe me, I hate them myself. I really do. I don't, I never like to see them pictures. But then pictures are taken at a time when it's an issue of conformity. I was living around a lot of threat. I was living around everybody doing that. Eyes are on me anyway. So I just did what everybody else was doing. You know, it's easy for me to sit here in the safety of England.

I'm safe now. I'm at home. I can say I shouldn't have taken them pictures, and I shouldn't have taken them pictures. Well, had them pictures taken of me, should I say. But when you're there and the threat is very real and you've seen other women be taken away by a group of men just because she's not listening, then you conform. Because it's not online anymore. It's real life.

I'm there. I'm living there. I have to conform. So how did you escape? That's a really, really long story. The briefest answer that I can give you, because it's taken me an hour to tell that story before. When I was in Durabilis, I met a lady from Trinidad who, she didn't want to be there for her own reasons, whatever, but she had kind of confided in me about that and I ended up meeting up with her again in Raqqa so towards the end of my stay in the house the woman who was in charge of the house through whatever reasons of her own not being allowed to marry who

she wanted she had you know she had started to not really do her job properly withdraw into her bedroom go through depression as you like. And she would stay in her room and not come out and she would just be on the Internet there. And she had sent me once or twice to buy codes for her from the Internet shop. And when I went to Internet one day, we crossed through the park and I seen the child of the woman from Trinidad and I was like oh my god where's your mom and her mom was there so I started speaking to her mom and I said look do you still want to run away and she's like yeah she wasn't in the house with us because she was married she had her own place and I was like look I need to get out of here I don't

know what to do and she's like come with me now but I didn't have nothing with me I couldn't go at that moment I explained that to her and I said I need to go back to the house she sent me like a handful of times before to get internet I'm sure she's gonna send me again and she showed me where she lived and she's like the next time she sends you just I'll be waiting for you here if I'm not here this is where I live and then I went back to the house and it probably took a day or two for her to say to me again can you go and buy me a code for the internet at which point I went and I never went back to the Makkah I never went back to the house I went with the lady from Trinidad stayed at her flat for about two days and then... And your son was with you the whole time? Yes, he was, yes.

And then you managed to cross the border into Turkey and get a flight back to the UK and you were arrested at Heathrow on the plane? Yeah, I was in a detention centre for six weeks before. I didn't get on a flight straight away. Some experts have said, Serena, that your escape doesn't add up. Does it not? According to some experts. That's my escape. And as true as God is, and as true as I am sitting here today, I've got nothing to add to it. And I've got nothing to take away from it. I've never heard that before. It's how

I escaped. What else would there be? So what happened then when you arrived at Heathrow? What happened on the plane? Several officers came onto the plane, escorted me off and took my child off me and arrested me and took me to the police station. And were you expecting that to happen? I wasn't expecting them to take my child off me. I was expecting to be arrested. You thought your parents would be there to come and see you

and maybe you were going to give your child over to your mum, didn't you? My parents were there waiting to take my child and the whole way through, you know, when people asked me why I lied, the whole way through, my parents were led to believe from authorities that they would be able to take my child. It was never mentioned that he was going to be taken and put into care so when they said to me hand your child over I was like oh yeah my mom she's here they were like no hand your child over now we as a family had always thought that that would be avoided that he would go to my mom direct that didn't happen you know, none of us had the correct information. And I guess, again, going back to your question that you asked me earlier,

that's also a big factor as to why I lied, because it was just the shock of it. Oh, my child's with strangers now, because he was placed in temporary foster care. And as a mother, I understand I took him somewhere terrible. I really do understand that, and I live with that every day but as a mother you know my child had never left my side he probably stayed one night away from me and to suddenly not know where your child is and I would you know I would ask about him and I would just be told we'll give you an update when we've got one it was I ended up lying because I thought oh my god I'm never gonna hear from him I'm never gonna have him again so yeah hands down I think no matter

whatever else happens to me in life that will forever be the worst thing that has ever happened to me and I really really would not wish that upon anybody so what about the impact on your mum because her little girl went with her grandson yeah and again that's something that i'm quite hard on myself about that and i hadn't realized until i came home and you know you have these conversations as a family when things start to settle down when you know the adrenaline's calmed down and things are getting back to normal. And I've had so many conversations with them. And my mum...

Sorry. And my mum, she... It really, really hit her so hard when I was over there. And I didn't realise until I came home, you know, we've shared, like, she's told me little things, like how she used to look at the moon and she would wonder if I was looking at the moon as well because obviously there's only one moon and and you know like I feel really bad for doing that to her and I live with that every day and

you know I never take our relationship for granted and you know there will be times when I'll just randomly say to her mum I'm so sorry for running away and she's like don't worry it's fine and like it could be on a birthday it could be just a random day and I'm like do you forgive me just randomly it's this happened years ago but I still even say it now I'm'm like, mom, do you forgive me? And she's like, I forgive you like the second that you came back, like you're always forgiven. So I really do know the trauma that I put her through. And she got really ill when I was away in Syria.

And that was caused by stress, obviously, by my actions. So, yeah, that's not something that I'm happy with and that's something that will always hurt me regardless of how many times she says I've forgiven you it will always be a heavy burden that will stay with me and why have you decided to speak about your experience publicly because if I can stop just one person if I could stop just one person from making that mistake from ruining their life from ending up with a life sentence from ending up dead then that that is what I would love to do and I would love to speak out about it particularly because you know it is an issue of grooming it really is and I would love to do and I would love to speak out about it particularly because

you know it is an issue of grooming it really is and I don't think people particularly like to talk about that I don't think people fully understand that it's an a lot of times it is an issue of grooming and I think a lot of awareness needs to be raised I think it's something that needs to be talked about particularly when we're in a situation where there are women from so many different countries in camps in I think it's Syria and Iraq that are wanting to come home and people are scared about that. So what do you think about that let's talk about Shamima Beg, because she is trying her best to come back from the Syrian refugee camp where she is. If you hadn't have escaped,

that could have been you, Serena, sitting in that camp. And I think about that a lot. And, you know, I say to my friends and my family, I say, you know, thank God I had escaped when I did, because I don't think I would be able to bear a life of uncertainty. Well, do you think she should be allowed back? I can't say a straight up yes, because I don't know what people's intentions are for when they come back here. But what I will say is, if they genuinely are like I made a mistake I want to come home

I want to do my prison time if there is prison time to be served I want to turn my back on it I want to work with you know mentors and everything that they that is offered to me and I genuinely I'm sorry for what I've done then I would say yes I can't say no because I've been in a very similar situation it's not the same but it's a similar situation so if I sat here and said no don't let them come home that that's really hypocritical of me you know so you say that you've changed you've gone through a de-radicalization program and you want people to think better of you you're working you've got a cleaning job which is why the answer that I gave you was if people genuinely want to make that change

they are sorry about what they've done and they just want to come back home put the past behind them I would say yeah so I you know I can't put myself out there and fiercely advocate and fight for people to come home when I don't know what their intentions are upon return or anything I don't have all the information that one should have so whenever anything like this happens Tarina when there is a case like yours in the news and the it's all over the press there is always a backlash towards the Muslim community yeah I want your thoughts on that I've read quite a few times in the newspaper

come across it on social media where ordinary Muslim girls on the way to uni, college, whatever public transport have been attacked had ISIS shouted at them hijabs pulled off and

I always feel partly responsible for that because obviously my actions were supportive of this group and I did run away to go and live in land controlled by them. So I always feel really sad and responsible because, yeah, like I said, it's not, again, that's something else that doesn't sit easy with me, innocent Muslims being targeted. You say you've changed, but there will be people listening to this who might not believe you. You say it's about trust. They might not trust what you're saying. So what would you like to say?

How do you convince people that you have served your time, you made a mistake, and you are now trying to live the best life you can and rebuild the relationship with your family and with your son, who you have daily access to, but you don't have custody over at the moment. Right, so I won't go into my child. But I have done nothing but, since coming home, dedicated myself to building a life for myself you know I have I work like 50 hours plus in a week because I want to because I am committed to making a life for myself for making my child proud of me I have chosen to come out and speak about this no nobody has forced me to nobody has told me to because I want to help people you know i could have carried on living my day-to-day life and not put myself back out there and there were people that friends and family that were like why would you want to put yourself out there why would you want to bring it all back up

again it's just something i want to help and and that is what i want to do in a situation where someone is potentially being groomed someone is thinking of doing something even when it comes to people coming back if they don't know how to authorities don't know you know I'm an example aren't I I'm the only example that they have and I've done all this off of my own freeback I'm committed to my life here I'm committed to wanting to help to raise awareness to wanting to help in whichever way that I can. So I would say that them actions are actions of somebody who is here to stay, who has been rehabilitated. You know, I did my prison time and anything that I have completed that the government puts forward, for example, HII interventions, extremism risk guidance.

What's HII, sorry? Healthy Identity Intervention. They're programmes that are put forward for people with extremist convictions. And it's kind of like counselling, but a bit more, really. You know, none of these things are mandatory. You can say no. I've done about six of them with several different people. And I have, like I said, they're not compulsory.

I've done that because I wanted to, I don't want to say change, because it was, I wanted to be rehabilitated. I wanted to get any help that I needed. I wanted to raise my own awareness. I wanted to show them, look, I'm sorry for what I've done. So anything that I've decided to do, it's never been forced upon me. I do it because I want to do it sounds like you want to show willing that you are changed that you are different that you are here because you want to make a life for yourself and just get on with it absolutely and you know even my escape whether people want to say

that it doesn't add up or whatever like I said I haven't heard that before but you know even if they do want to say that it doesn't add up, it doesn't take away the fact that I brought myself back. Nobody brought me back kicking and screaming. The police didn't catch me lurking in Syria and bring me back. I came back and I brought myself back because I realised I had made a mistake. That was me speaking with Tarina Shaquil, the first British woman to be convicted of joining so-called Islamic State earlier this morning. And we got a statement from the Home Office

in connection with Shamima Begum, who I spoke to Tarina about. And they said, our priority is to ensure the safety and security of the UK. Those who remain in the conflict zone include some of the most dangerous who choose to stay to fight

or otherwise support Daesh. Many of these individuals represent a serious and credible threat to our national security and their direct threat they pose would be significantly higher should they return to the UK. 84844 is the number to text. You're listening to Woman's Hour on a Friday morning. And now, this weekend, musician Nabiya Iqbal and visual artist Libby Heaney are combining music production and AI for their piece Cascade, an artistic exploration

and cross-genre collaboration as part of the Purcell Sessions, a year-long performance series taking place at London's Southbank Centre. The female-led project explores the symbolism and history connected to the River Thames through field recordings, AI-generated sounds and visuals and Nabiha and Libby join me now in the studio. Welcome. Thank you.

You're going to have to describe this to us. What will people experience should they come along on a Sunday night to see this? Libby? So, well, we're creating an immersive experience that's based around the Thames. Nabiha will be performing spoken word and using AI generated sounds and more traditional composition to create a soundscape and then we've we've got this huge screen that will have these sort of very liquid AI generated visuals projected onto it and basically that's like images that an AI has learned to produce of the Thames and connected stories it's kind of dreaming up or hallucinating these images and I play through them. They create like a landscape and I play through them

like a computer game, if that makes sense. Well, I'm going to ask what AI-generated sounds and AI-generated visuals are. What is the AI? Like, how are they generated? What do you mean when you say that? Yeah, so I'm using some computer code. It's quite complex.

But if you imagine like how Alexa has learned to understand people's requests, it can understand voices. What I've been working with is this type of machine learning, this type of artificial learning that can understand different sounds that we made of the Thames. I think there's some of Nabiha's voice in there, some bird sounds that we recorded on our walks and so on. And it's learned how to understand all of these and to produce its own sounds. And the same with images, lots of photographs of the Thames, and then it learns all the data in those

and then produces its own interpretations. And Nabiha, you're producing the music to surround this, and your own voice, you're talking. So how do your experiences inform this performance? Well, since we decided right at the start that the focus of the whole project would be water, and more specifically the Thames, just because me and Libby are based on one side of it,

at Somerset House, that's where our studios are, and obviously we'll be performing at Southbank. So the Thames acts because me and Libby are based on one side of it at Somerset House that's where our studios are and obviously we'll be performing at Southbank so the Thames acts as a focal point and for me as a Londoner born and bred I was just quite excited about doing something that was so London-centric through my artistic work because I haven't really done that before and then as I started doing the research for it and sort of discovering all of these unknown stories or kind of like lost histories surrounding the river, it's been really informative for me. And I always feel like I know a lot about London because I love the city and I'm a history geek. But this was all new information for me. And I really hope that for those attending the show as well, it's going to be new for them.

Like what? What did you discover that surprised you? So the structure of the piece that we'll be performing has different themes and I've chosen just different strands of things that are associated with the Thames. One would be, one's an object and we look at Cleopatra's needle on the river and then one is the one's an object and we look at Cleopatra's needle on the river and then one is the stranger's home which I'd never heard about before but it was this building that was built on the West India docks near Limehouse to house all the destitute sailors most of them were from the

Indian subcontinent but not just there just all over Asia and Africa who'd turn up to London were on ships that they'd been working on and then they'd be abandoned by the captains there couldn't get employment for a ship to go to take them back to where they came from and they had no support network around them here and often they wouldn't even be paid their wages by the ship's captains so it ended up being a massive problem in London where you'd have these people, they called them lascars, just starving and freezing to death on the streets. So that home was set up as a place for them

to just get temporary lodgings. And there's a lot of stories around that. And I'd never heard about this place before. Or the fact that the history of people from the Indian subcontinent in London goes back to 1550. That was new for me too. And we also explored mudlarks, which is a term given to the poorest of the poor living in Victorian London. Many of them were children who'd try and make a living by scavenging on the banks of the River Thames.

And probably the craziest thing would be about the elephant on the ice I don't want to give too much away but um the Thames used to freeze over because the winters were much colder and um they they had like I guess it would be like the equivalent of winter wonderland now yes back then and the last one was in 1814 and to demonstrate how thick and strong the ice was they were they paraded an elephant across the river. As you do. Yep, under Blackfriars Bridge. And then I just was intrigued about this

and I tried to find out more, as much information as I could about the elephant. I love all the facts you've just given us there, Nabiya. I think we should hear a clip from the performance. So that's just an instrumental we're hearing there. How did the two of you come to collaborate on this? We're both residents of Somerset House Studio and our spaces are right next to each other. So even though we have super different sort of artistic practices, Nabiya would always pop in and offer me a biscuit

and you would see like all my computer code on the screen. Because your background is science, isn it Libby? Yeah so I was actually a quantum physicist for around eight years before I went back to art school yeah which is kind of unusual I guess that's why I work now I combine like my sort of scientific technical training and the arts, that's why I'm working with kind of artificial intelligence as a medium, I suppose. And you're both women in typically male fields. So how do you cope kind of working in that male-dominated environment? How important is it that you're two women collaborating on this as well? I think it's really important because a lot of the things that you hear about,

you know, cutting edge collaborations, whether it's created the code for that and you know created the machine learning program for it to produce that and then everything sonically I've done myself and so I don't know in terms of coping we don't even really think about it we're just doing our thing and it's really nice that it's being picked up by different audiences and hopefully it just feels like it's the beginning really yeah hopefully yeah it's really cool working with Nabiha because like obviously I'm a visual artist and I work with technology and Nabiha's a musician and obviously we're coming from very different perspectives but kind of our position in the sense of what matters to us in the world and the themes we like to explore are very similar so we can both sort of

throw our our best um magic I suppose at what we're coming at but from really different angles and I really enjoy that it sounds like it's going to be magic just remind people when and where they can come and see this they can come and we're doing two performances so this weekend Saturday 29th and Sunday the 30th of January in the Purcell room in South Bank. We're on stage at 8pm and you can buy tickets online. But I know the website's been a bit glitchy, but there are tickets available. So if you want to come, just come down and there's tickets on the door. Livia Nabiha, thank you very much. Lots of you getting in touch with various things that we're talking about this morning. Off the back of the Tarina Shaquille email interview,

one listener got in touch to say, just felt I had to write in. The lady who went to Syria doesn't seem to be sorry or taking personal responsibilities for her actions. Someone else says, it sounds like the experiences people have when drawn to cults or scams. And someone else says,

why did she find the words of those overseas more attractive than the advice and support that she would have received here in the UK um 84844 is the number to text and lots of you getting in touch to talk about death someone here says gabby says thank you for encouraging conversation around death i'm terrified of what losing my parents will be like and often i wish i could talk in depth to someone about what to expect and how to prepare well that's what we're going to be talking about right now. One Big Bang is a film installation providing a portrait of a young death doula

and it opens today in London. A death doula is essentially a carer who supports a dying individual and their family. The film's being created by artist Every Ocean Hughes. It made us want to explore what a death doula really does when we watched it. So Every Ocean Hughes is with us and so is Hermione Elliott who's the founder and director of Living Well Dying Well it's an end of life she's an end of life doula who's been

key in developing the role as a profession here in the UK and Dr Helen Frisby is a visiting research fellow at the Centre of Death and Society at the University of Bath. And I'm delighted to say all three of them join me now. Such a huge reaction on our coming in. Lots of people want to talk about this and are very happy that we're confronting the issue of death. Hermione, I'm going to come to you first. What is a death doula? Oh, well, yes, it's great that you're highlighting this. Thank you so much. I think a bit of context is important because I think we find ourselves in an odd position in society of having handed death over to professionals pre and post death. And we've moved away from seeing it as a natural and normal event that we'll all encounter. So we are really living in a society where we're ill-informed as citizens and not confident at all about what to expect, as you've just mentioned, when we anticipate death and dying, either as the person who's dying or as a family member who's caring for that person or a friend caring.

So birth and death, I believe, are the most profound life transitions. And we need to give them our deepest and most respectful attention. And it's not always possible in a clinical setting so as doulas we we have the privilege of of really being in relationship with people at this extraordinary time in a way that many of our clinical colleagues don't have because they come in, they go out, they come in, their contact with people who are dying and their carers is quite time limited. And we have the privilege of being with people for longer periods of time and engaging as an informed companion and I'm a former midwife and you know it's interesting I've seen the same level of awe at birth as I do in people at death and we just don't know about that as

citizens we've kind of been robbed of that experience. Avery, I'm going to bring you in here because, you know, what fascinated you about the role of death doulas that led you to research and then film this extraordinary project that you've created? Well, thank you. Happy to be here with you all. You know, it's a combination of personal experience and my investments in my artistic practice so um when I was young a few of my um closest friends died in different accidents so

as a young person you know that really impacts you very much um and then about five years ago I had the opportunity to care for my beloved grandmother Enid while she died. And it was then the first time that I was present with it rather than being, you know, just losing somebody. And then in terms of my artistic practice, I've done quite a few projects where I've been thinking about queer culture, legacy, inheritance. And that led me to reading about the AIDS hospices and the communities of care that responded to the AIDS crisis through mutual aid. So then these strings kind of came together for me at the same time that I was like living with this spiritual question about how can I be of service? And it came to me that I could combine this

question with my artistic practice and turn towards death rather than away from it. And your film is equally fascinating and hard hitting to watch because it's a one woman show, I guess, and she's a death doula putting together her corpse kit but you what fascinated me is how you talk about inequalities in the death industry and including institutional racism and the history that you talk about within that as well yes that was a really important um part to include in the film you know I didn't want this project to just be about quote unquote the good death it's very, it's as much about like policy, the institutions and the industry around death and the way that we're also encountering death in the news. Of course, most people first respond to it in the most intimate sense you think

of your personal experience with loss, but I really need to complicate that and bring in all of these other issues. So by addressing like the institutional racism and the issue of like queer bodies in these practices, you know, it was very much about self determination, and diminishing fear, you know, I want the film to be an encounter where people can open up different potentials for dying and living. Yeah, it certainly really, really does make you think. I'm going to bring Helen in on this because, Helen, it's mostly the number of death doulas is growing in the UK

and has been doing over the last 10 years, but it's mostly women that are taking up this role. Does that surprise you? Should we be surprised by that? Well, as a historian of death and dying and funerals no it doesn't surprise me at all actually um so give us a bit of historical context then what what used to happen okay well i mean sort of historically and in many many cultures in all parts of the world as well you know women traditionally have acted as bearers of the traditions around death and dying, the things that you do to help the living come to terms with what's happened and to let the soul go on to where it needs to be.

And in particular, and as Hermione said, women have actually been associated with both the extremes of life, you know, as midwives as layers out of the dead um layers out of the dead what was that what does that mean well uh this this was a woman who and this this practice went on actually quite well into the 20th century when some things happened to change that that they would come to the house after the death to tend to the body so um there would be somebody who lived locally in the community they would come they would do what needed to be done they would prepare and wash and lay out the body they would dress it get it ready for viewing and it would it would always be somebody who was sort of part of the community and who was known to come and do this and when i go out and do talks about this

sort of thing to history groups and people often come back to me and say they actually remember this going on in their own lifetime. So it's more recent than you might think. So I'm going to come back to you, Hermione, because, you know, here we are talking about how it used to happen. The role of a death doula, I just want to understand, is it kind of going back to a traditional way of doing things? And exactly what is it that you do? Like, how do you engage with the family? And at what point are you brought in? Just to share a bit more of the detail, if you would. Yes, I think it is going back to, but perhaps a new manifestation of a role that is somehow deeply embedded in the human psyche, I think. But the way that we work is that we're not there to replace medical professionals, but we're there really to do as ordinary citizens that we train

to be able to offer something back to people in their community. And so our role is very much about forming relationships, walking alongside an individual or their family group or their friendship group to be responsive to whatever the need is in that moment. And we work with people from all backgrounds and all walks of life. So we really do need to be very responsive, flexible.

We facilitate. And what kinds of needs, Hermione? And where do you fit in, in terms of someone might be in hospital or are they at home? Exactly what do you mean? Yes, well, the transfer from hospital to home can be quite complex. And to have a doula present and available for the family to receive that person home is tremendously reassuring. So we coach the family members to be able to access services or resources that they might need. We spend a lot of time listening, talking.

What would you like your death to be? How can we support you prepare for that event? How can we wrap up your life? How can we conclude your life? The reaction we've had to the fact that we're talking about this is huge. I just want to bring in this message that someone said, my husband died of a brain tumour at 62 in 2019. The most important ritual for us was his funeral celebration of life. There was a gospel choir, many photos and speeches. It was a joyous day after so much misery. And it was the almost perfect party he would have loved.

And as for doulas, yes, yes, yes. We were lucky enough that he spent the last 10 days of his life in a hospice. But dying is difficult and for most of us is unfamiliar. Everee, we are running out of time, but very quickly, you describe in your film that washing the dead body of a loved one is the most loving thing you can do. Why? To love and care for them even after they've stopped breathing is such an honor. And to stay with them while they transition, to not turn away from that moment. And I also think it can really help with grief.

Like you understand through the hands and you know that your love for this person continues, even if your time alive together has not. Helen, you said that the development and the role of doulas, it's basically, it's end of life care and it's coming full circle. Why do you say that? What do you mean by that? Well, I think that, I think that as we've sort of already alluded to, historically, the dead and the dying were cared for at home then a couple of things happened in in the sort of around the mid-20th century and one was some developments in in the undertaking business where the chapel of rest embalming technology meant that the

the dead were moved out of that mainly sort of female sphere of the home into the mainly male domain of the undertaker. Yes. And another thing is, again, we've already touched upon, was the medicalisation of death. There is so much to talk about and so many messages coming in, but sadly, we only have an hour, woman's hour. I must say that One Big Bang is at Studio Voltaire in London, and it's starting today until April.

Everee, Hermione and Helen, thank you very much for joining us. And just to end with one of your texts, thank you for talking about death and dying. Sanitising language, usually like passing or pass, does great damage. Death is a real part of life and needs to be spoken about truthfully. Enjoy the rest of your day. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. My name's Jonathan Myerson, and I wrote and directed

Nuremberg, the new scripted podcast from BBC Radio 4. My father was a lawyer, and he worked with several of the British prosecutors who'd been at Nuremberg. So I grew up taking this huge trial for granted, the trial of the major Nazi war criminals. With 6 million murdered and 10 million enslaved, how could these men not have faced justice? But it wasn't until I started researching that I discovered it very nearly didn't happen. In the end, verdicts were delivered and sentences were carried out.

But was it justice or was it vengeance? Subscribe to Nuremberg on BBC Sounds and you can make up your own mind. 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.