Woman's Hour - Tell-all celebrity memoirs, child poverty, and 'de-banking'

Episode Date: October 26, 2023

Britney Spears has been in the news again after spilling personal stories in a memoir. Are women being pressured to overshare in order to sell books? And are men also expected to publicise their personal lives? Nina Stibbe, whose newest memoir is Went to London, Took the Dog, and Caroline Sanderson, Associate Editor of The Bookseller, joined Emma Barnett to discuss.Mary Turner Thomson found writing a memoir cathartic after discovering that her husband, William Allen Jordan, was not a spy as she had been told. He was actually a bigamist and a conman. Her story is now a documentary series, The Other Mrs Jordan: Catching the Ultimate Conman, which is available on ITVX. She and her daughter Eilidh told Emma about the day they discovered William's real identity.A report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Heriot Watt university says the number of children in the UK living in destitution has nearly trebled since 2017. Why are families struggling, and what could be done to help? Abby Jitendra, Principal Policy Adviser at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and Sophia Worringer, Deputy Policy Director at the Centre for Social Justice, joined Emma. We also heard from Kimberley in Fife who contributed to the report.Dame Alison Rose, the former chief executive of NatWest, has been found to have breached data protection laws after she publicly discussed the closure of Nigel Farage’s account with NatWest subsidiary bank Coutts. In the UK, banks closed more than 343,000 accounts in the last financial year. Gina Miller, the woman who spearheaded the anti-Brexit campaign before the 2016 referendum, was 'de-banked' and has called for an investigation into the practice.Presenter: Emma Barnett Producer: Hannah Sander

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to the programme. Shortly, we're going to be talking about, well, talking. Specifically, sharing what we do and don't share of our lives publicly and whether women sharing so much in memoirs is liberating or something they may come to regret and feel further abused by. This is in light of Britney Spears' shocking memoir being the latest in a long line of celebrity memoir where women in

particular aren't just sharing, they're really sharing. And a lot of it could be cathartic, of course. Perhaps you can relate. Maybe you've written or said or spoken or shared something on social media and you feel a lot better or maybe you've shared too much and you've come to look at it in a different way in years to come perhaps this is something that we're in now and we'll look at differently in I don't know a decade or two as we sometimes are now I notice there's a trend for looking back to the 90s in particular and what was and wasn't okay so tell us how you share, where you draw those boundaries, what it's done for you. Also on today's programme, I'll be talking to a woman

who's writing, saved her sanity and finances after her husband was jailed for bigamy and fraud. Also, a report has been published this week claiming that the number of children living in destitution in this country has nearly trebled since 2017. We're going to hear from one of the people behind that report and a woman called Kimberley about her situation. And one of the former most senior women in banking and finance, Dame Alison Rose, the former NatWest chief executive, is found to have broken data law for telling a BBC journalist about the closure of

Nigel Farage's account. So that has been ruled by the data watchdog. Of course, that happened early this year and she resigned. But we're going to reflect on her role and how other women have been affected by debanking. But I also need to share this today. A duke in Spain, and we spotted this in the world pages of some of the newspapers today, a duke in Spain has been told his baby daughter has too many names.

A Spanish newspaper reports that the Spanish civil registry won't accept any more than five simple names. So some of his daughter name will have to be shortened. Let me read you the name of his baby girl that has reportedly been rejected. His daughter is called, and forgive my attempt at Spanish pronunciation, Sofia Fernanda Dolores Cayetana Teresa Anjela de la Cruz Miquela de Santismo Sacramento de Perpetuo Socorro de la Santismo Trinidad y de Todos los Santos. Mormon ten names. The late matriarch of this sometimes controversial family, by the way, was called Maria del Rosario Cayetano Paloma Alfonso Victoria Eugenia,

Fernanda Teresa Francisca de Paula Lourdes, Antonia Josefa Fausta Rita Castro Dorotea Santa Esperanza, Fitz James Stewart, Ida Silva Falco, Iguotebe. Right. Now I've got that off my chest. I think I successfully just about managed and I'm probably mangled most of those names, but at least 12 names in that last one, more than 10 in the previous. How many names do you have? Good listeners of Woman's Hour, what names have you had to live with

that perhaps you've despised your whole life? Maybe you've changed your name. Maybe you recently got married and you don't know what to do about your name. And maybe, a bit like me, you've been responsible for naming someone recently a child. What have you called them and why? You can

text me here, as always, 84844, the number you need, on social media, at BBC Women's Hour and you can email through the website or send a voice note, WhatsApp, however you want to do it, 03700 100 444. And if you've got a name to rival that, you're definitely going to send me a voice note.

I'll tell you that right now. But first, sharing and sharing all. Do women do it more? Britney Spears has been in the news again this week. Her new memoir, The Woman in Me, has some pretty shocking and personally upsetting revelations, including that she had a secret abortion after she and her pop star boyfriend Justin Timberlake agreed not to have their baby.

In her recent book, Worthy, the actor Jada Pinkett Smith, has told the world that she knew her marriage to the actor Will Smith was over before he realised. I could go on. Are these demands the same for male celebrities and public figures as for women? Prince Harry, of course, may come to mind in his book. Might we also look back on

these books in 20 years with some of the same different feelings, perhaps horror, with which we now look at pop culture or certain bits of pop culture from the 90s. Nina Stibbe is on the line whose newest memoir, Went to London, Took the Dog, is out next week and the associate editor of the bookseller, Caroline Sanderson.

Nina, I'll come to you first. Good morning. Good morning. It's good to have you. We are quite intrigued by your views of all of this. And should I say, we did check how to say your name before I came on, but you've happily only got two names for me to say. Yes, I'm just, I have got got a middle name but I never use it actually I don't know why well there you go we'll take it how have you felt because you do share a lot but

you don't share everything how have you felt about sharing I have shared in this current book uh that my new book I've shared a lot about myself um I made a big change age 60 last year and I moved away and I went and lodged in a house in London after living in Cornwall for 20 years. And I started writing a diary. And for six months, it was just an authentic diary. I was just writing a diary for me to look back, make sense, etc. And then six months in, my publisher suggested that we publish it and I got a book deal so I looked back at it at the six months I'd already got and I thought okay I'm going to take all my

friends vaginas out because we're all in HRT or not we're in menopause so there's lots of detail about my friend Rachel sneezing on a zebra crossing and weeing herself right anyway when I thought okay I'll take all that out but when I took all that out there was nothing much left because actually that's life when you're 60 um for for me anyway um so I carried on with their blessing I have to say um but it is very, but it's not revealing about the breakup of my marriage, because I don't think that's my story to tell. That's private. But I did talk a lot about women's health. I didn't set out to write a menopause diary, and it isn't a menopause diary. So you've taken some of them out and you've put it back in, or you've gone and asked permission?

I've left it in, yeah. Have you had to ask permission of said owners of said people's vaginas, said women's vaginas? Absolutely. Right. Good to check. Once, you know, once I was writing the diary for publication, it felt a little bit different. I remember being on a mini break with my mum. She won't mind me saying this, by the way, and this is in the book. My mum got some intimate stabbing pains.

And I immediately, instead of saying, mum, how are you? Poor you, sit down. I got my phone out and made a note of it for the diary. And she said, Nina, don't put my vagina in your book. And I said, mum, do you want to be the only person whose vagina isn't in this book? And she said, is everybody else's in? I said, yes, everybody's.

Maybe there's a couple of people with hemorrhoids as well. So you're in great company. But people were happy with it. Did you feel pressure, though, from your publisher to put all the stories back in? No, not at all. And we talked about it at length because it was, I mean, she didn't want me to be writing just a menopause diary, understandably, because lots of other things were happening. So we thought about it you know long and hard but interestingly Emma this weekend just gone I had quite a big review for the book in the times and that review bemoaned the fact that I clammed up and I didn't dish the dirt on my marriage and I thought oh well that really interesting, because this is a woman reviewer.

I've written, there's an awful lot of intimate stuff in there about myself, about my mental and physical health, and everybody else's, and lots of fun as well. But she felt sort of cheated. I mean, that's interesting when we're talking about what you've decided to share and what you've not decided to share, because you drew, as you say, you drew a boundary. Is it because your marriage is not wholly yours to write about? Yes. And I've got two grown up children who would hate to see, you know, our marriage written about in any kind of salacious way. And also, you know, we've had a perfectly civilised breakup. And, you know, I don't see it as a failure. I don't think, oh, my marriage failed. I think my marriage ended. And, you know, there's more to life than being somebody's ex-wife.

Caroline, it's a good time to bring you in at this point from the book side of things, because it has to be said, and obviously you still don't know what's been left out. But some of these books that are making the headlines at the moment don't seem to have anything left out. There will be, but there are very few boundaries. How does that come about? I think it's just such an interesting question, isn't it? I mean, I adore Nina's book. I've read it. And I think the thing about Nina's book is that it's not the tell-all sort of memoir in that sense.

Because it's got so much humour in it, it has an amazing authenticity. And I think that's a quality that's key to a lot of the best memoirs. So when we're talking about memoirs that, so to speak, tell all, you know, telling all is one thing, and certainly you hit headlines, as we've seen with Britney Spears' book.

But does that translate into sales? That's the key question, because, of course, if a book's got juicy revelations in it, then that's great. And we all love that. I mean, I'd be wrong to say that we didn't. But is it enough on its own? I'm not sure. Have we seen books that haven't worked? I mean, because you're talking about it from the selling industry side of things and how well they do and how well they reach people. Have we seen people really bear all and they don't do well? Yeah, I think there are probably numerous examples of that because, you know, in a sense, it's, well, who really cares? And if you've read all the headlines in the papers before you actually get to the book, and the book's effectively being gutted by the media coverage, and there's nothing of substance left, then you sort of think, well, you feel a bit cheated by a book like that. But if the headlines are a prelude to a really authentic, thoughtful account of somebody's life or a book, let's say,

that makes you laugh, because I think that that is common to a lot of the most successful celebrity memoirs, funnily enough. I mean, you've got books by Peter Kay riding high in the charts at the moment, Miriam Margulies, you know, those are kind of authentic books, but also really funny. So I think a canny reader really wants more than just the juice, as we might call it. I know that there are many types of memoir. And as you're describing, you could be doing it with humour. You could be doing it with a lot of pain. There's different ways of different lenses and skins through which to do this. But for those who really are and you tell me, I don't know,

do you think it is more women who have to or are tempted to really share every detail? Because even though Nina, I'll come back to you in a moment, Nina, but was talking there about not sharing about her marriage. You know, she feels very happy writing, for instance, about, you know, not only her own vagina, but maybe her mum's vagina. You know, there's a comfort there and that women have led the way in breaking a lot of social taboos. But I wonder what you make of that, whether it is more of a female than male author. Well, I think that's true about women breaking lots of the taboos.

And I think a few years ago I would have said, yes, absolutely. It is possibly a more female phenomenon. But then I do think that's I do think that's changing. And maybe that's because there's been more focus on male mental health, for example. But, you know, recent books by, let's say, Rob Delaney, the American comedian, Heart That Works about the death of his son, Matthew Perry from Friends, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing. That sold very well. I mean, you know, a celebrity story for sure,

but a kind of warts and all accounts of his, you know, what the toll it can be to be a celebrity. Nina, to come back to you, do you ever worry, and I'm asking you this not just as an author, but, you know, as a member of our society, do you ever wonder or worry about the toll of, not you, but of women generally and men, as we're hearing, sharing so much that maybe we will look back on it differently? Yeah, I do up to a point if I think about it.

But I agree with Caroline I think a few years ago it was really up to very brave women who may have gone on to regret it later to start the conversation about things like consent for instance and in order to explain the problem with consent they had to tell quite revealing stories about themselves, painful stories. And I remember about 10 years ago, there were a lot of very young women writing about, you know, dreadful times in their lives when they were being exploited. But, you know, it's a shame we had to hear them via that process. But we did. And it did start a conversation. And it has been incredibly useful for other women. Yes. But there are also those moments, you know, you've had a good experience, but others have written about the fact they haven't wanted to include something in the book and the publisher really wants it.

And that's what's going to, you know, there are those creative tensions, aren't there? Yeah, I understand that. I mean, I was thinking this morning about a memoir, in fact, diaries a few years ago the the edwina curry um and you know you wonder how many books would they have shifted had she not had that explosive revelation about her affair with john major and i think then i thought well if i'd had an affair with tony blair last year would my publisher have really tried to wrestle that out of me? Yes, they would have. And, Emma, the other thing is my first book that was published 10 years ago was letters.

It was exclusively letters that I'd written in the 80s that probably wouldn't have been published had I not been living in a street with lots of celebrities and Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller and people like that. So I've benefited hugely from publishers being interested in this whole area. Yes. And which audience that gets. Caroline, just a thought to you. There will be some who think, you know, there's definitely public figures and celebrities who don't need the money, but still write these books and they put absolutely everything into them. Why do you think that is? Well, I like to think it's something about doing a book that's unique in terms of you might talk about now we have social media, it's possible to share yourself, you know, 24 hours a day and story in potentially a thoughtful way, an edited way, a way that, let's say, is more considered than just putting something out on social media.

And I think that's still a great draw. You know, traditional as the book form is you know that's that has something special about it well it's um it's certainly not going out of fashion it seems uh thank you very much for talking to us and so openly nina stibbe uh she have two names at the moment because i'm getting many messages about names and the number of them caroline i didn't ask how many names you've got oh just just the three middle name do you like your middle name? Elizabeth. Okay, all right. Just, you know, checking. Sometimes people never reveal

because they're like, I don't usually say that. Caroline Elizabeth Sanderson, thank you very much, Associate Editor at the Bookseller. Nina Stibbe, the newest memoir of hers, Went to London, Took the Dog, is out next week.

Thank you for talking to us about that process. Some name messages. Well, she'll never, talking about the baby girl who's been born in Spain, we were hearing about, she'll never fit that on any government form reads this message. Another one here. My dad had just two names, Wilfred Harrison. When I asked him as a child why he didn't have a middle name, he replied, couldn't afford one love.

Thus, I grew up believing he had to pay for more than two names. My son in law's both had have four middle names, both from wealthier families. Perhaps my dad was right all along, says Jules, who's listening in Maidstone. Good morning to you. My father went to register my birth, forgot my chosen name, spluttered Cheryl. Should have been Siobhan. My mother was furious. It seemed that the story at the

time was about the daughter of Lana Turner. My goodness. There's some great stories, I'm sure, along those lines. I'm one of five boys. We all have four names as Catholics. Confirmation names, and we love it. I just wish we had a weird name thrown in. Mine are David, Philip, Mark, John, and confirmation name Peter. Always been jealous of my brother's name, i.e. Bruno.

Oh, and I'm adopted. I am adopted, excuse me, and I was born Ewan. So there's a lot in there. Many, many names. Keep them coming. Please, your messages and how you relate to that. But having been talking about writing and what it can do for you, my next guest found sharing all and writing cathartic, but also a financial lifesaver. And what a story she has to tell. Mary Turner Thompson had been married to an American man

called William Allen Jordan for four years. He was often away for work, but she knew he was a CIA agent working in counterterrorism. Until one day, she found out he wasn't. He was actually a bigamist and a con man, and they had two children together, but Mary discovered that her husband also had at least seven other children with his first wife and their nanny. Her story and the stories of his other victims are the subject of a new three-part series out on ITV this week called The Other Mrs Jordan Catching the Ultimate Conman. Mary and her daughter Aileen are joining me now. Good morning to you both. Hello, Mary, to you first.

Hello. Good morning. Thank you for being here. In terms of how you met William, shall we start there? Because we'll get to some of how you began to share your story and all of that but what was the initial meeting and how did it happen? Sure well I was a single mother with a one-year-old daughter so my two children with him have an old sister and my friends I had everything I had a good job I had my car my home everything was

sorted my friends just said why don't you try this newfangled thing called online dating? You know, what could possibly go wrong? So it all started with that. So yes, I found him online. And you were told this story about his job and who he was. Yeah, I mean, it was it wasn't a, you know, sort of second date, he turns around and goes, hey, baby, I'm a spy. It was it very slow, insipid kind of drip feed of information. So when I did find out, you know, when he did sit down and tell me what he did for a living, and he wasn't a spy per se, he was an IT guy who just happened to work for the intelligence services. So he wasn't as glamorous as it sounds. Yes. I mean, the whole thing, though, is pretty dramatic.

And Aileyiley just to bring you in good morning uh you were very young when when this happened what do you remember of him and him as a father uh well he was your typical dad we didn't see him very often he was actually away a lot but the memories I do have with him were all good you know they were all very typical family vibes. So I think that's why it was such a surprise, you know. Mary, tell us about that moment because there was a dramatic phone call, which led to your understanding that he wasn't who he says he was,

and he was a bigamist. Yeah, it was. I mean, life itself was very dramatic at the time because he had us convinced that there were shady people coming to try and kidnap the kids and rip bits off them and send them to the post to us if we didn't come up with money. So, you know, the last previous two years had been pretty frantic and pretty terrifying. And but yes, I got a phone call one morning and, you know, the kids were seven, four and and one and they're just this woman said you know

are you Mary Turner Thompson and I said yes and she said are you also Mrs Jordan and I said yes and she said I'm the other Mrs Jordan and proceeded to tell me about you know that she had five children by him her nanny had two children by him that she knew of various other children I mean when we now know of 14 children that he has, and that will be the tip of an iceberg. There's more likely to be about 40. I know of 21 victims that he has, you know, and he targets single mothers

and actively tries to impregnate them to rent them off for money. So it's quite a... It's not just that he had two wives. He actually had two wives and five fiancés in 2006. You've had quite a bit of time to process this now. But if I can take you back to that moment when that was said to you, even though it had been a dramatic run up to that point, how did you feel? This is the thing that surprises most people.

Because I had been living in such terror and I had lost pretty much everything, apart from the three things that mattered to me the most, which is the kids, the three children. I'd lost everything, and he'd left me £56,000 in debt as well. So actually when I found out that there weren't these shadowy people coming after me, actually what I felt was relief. It was just all him. We were no longer in danger. So people expect me to say, oh, I was devastated by the fact

that he was sleeping with someone else or anything else. It was actually the opposite actually it was like getting get out of jail free card did any of it make sense once you heard that as well yeah it was like it was honestly like the world it was like coming out the matrix you know it's that my whole life was so bizarre by that stage but it was it was six years of brainwashing. And it needed something really very, very dramatic to snap me out of it because I was just so ingrained in the reality that he'd sort of sucked me into.

So the phone call itself was the sort of dramatic snap that I needed to wake me up, basically. Ailee, what do you remember of what you were told and how was this relayed to you? I actually remember exactly when she told me. She came into our room, because I shared a room with my sister, and she came in and she sat us down and she explained. The one thing that my mum has been so good about,

I feel, this whole process of going through this, is she always told us the truth um I know that sounds difficult and it can seem harsh but we were always always on the same page with what was going on so she sat down and she told us everything um you know without the gory details and child friendly yeah yes how old are you this conversation you remember I was four I was four years old sorry so carry on um but she sat down and she told us and she said you know your dad's not gonna be around anymore he's gone we're bad people go who do bad things they're not bad people but I remember my favorite

film at the time was Cat in the Hat and there's a scene in Cat in the Hat where the daughter says like I wish I had a different mother so I said that to her which wasn't the best at the time but I mean it was hard but we it brought us closer in a sense definitely yeah I mean we are such a close family it's like my children are all pre-disastered you know so it's like you know they're just grown up kind of knowing that but you know traumatic things happen but they can get through them and them. And we've just talked all the time. You know, we've shared our emotions. We sat and we cried. I mean, Ailey particularly sat on my lap and cried for days on end.

And I cried with her. And we gradually healed together. So, you know, it gave them all a chance to kind of really process how they felt about it as they were growing up rather than finding out about it when they were 21 or something. You know, which, so it's, yeah. I know that you have written a lot about this growing up rather than finding out about it when they were 21 or something. You know, which, so it's, yeah. I know that you have written a lot about this and there's now this programme going out on ITV

and there's been other programmes before. And I've understood that you are very happy with this one and the presentation of this and it really takes in the detail and gives space and time to the other women's stories as well as your own. But we were just talking about sharing all and writing and I mentioned that you know it was also a bit of a financial uh helpline for you having been left in debt but you you also found it cathartic is that right oh yes totally I mean I I honestly writing it down was just the the best thing I could have done and I did it within six

months of it happening and as a result instead of it being rattling around my head it's like having a massive knotted ball of spaghetti in your head about the whole thing and when you write it down it's like pulling that sort of individual strings out one at a time and then suddenly you've got a bit more head space to kind of process everything else and by the time you finish writing the book you actually feel like your head is now free of of all that confusion and that trauma and it gives you it gives you the space to actually really see the the whole picture and how everything happened and understand it so yeah I thoroughly recommend writing as anything because you talked about sharing a child version child-friendly version with with your children but Ailey obviously the books really

go there you know they they say what happened and how do you feel about that and that being out in the world forever well I've read the books I think they're great I'm sure they are but there's that there's that there's that other element of yeah when you're you know asking from your perspective because I don't always get to talk to the children of those who write and share. It's just really interesting to ask you about that. Yeah, it's very, in a sense, it's very personal. You know, when people read a book and they sort of know your whole childhood and story. It's odd, but it's also very familiar for me, I think, because, you know, growing up with that.

But the one thing that I was always taught since I was young is it's never something to be ashamed about it's never something to be embarrassed about or feel like oh we have this like dark past like not at all so in a sense I feel really proud that you know my mum could share that and and help all these other women through her story so I feel like that's something I've never ever really felt ashamed about. Was that in your mind as well when you were thinking where to draw the lines, Mary? Sorry, you were about to say something else, but I was just interested. No, absolutely.

I mean, from the very beginning, people actually asked me when I first wrote it because I was, I think, the first bigamist's wife ever to come out and write a story about being a bigamist's wife. And, you know, there's been quite a few since. So I sort of feel like I kind of trailed blazed for people to be able to talk. But people asked me whether I was going to use my own name when I wrote the book. And I was kind of astonished by that, because it's like, why wouldn't I? I have nothing. I did nothing wrong. You know, it's not the victims of crime that should feel ashamed. It's the perpetrators. You know, nobody should ever, ever, ever feel embarrassed or ashamed about having been a victim of a crime.

And there is an awful lot put on women, particularly, you know, when they've been victimized on something that they should be embarrassed. You know, I get a lot of trolls whenever I do anything saying, oh, well, you know, she's, you know, she's just too stupid. And that's why she got caught and stuff. And I know I'm not. So, you know, I'd much rather me stand up and say, yes, it happened to me. And, you know, I know I'm not stupid. And I know, you know, it wasn't my fault. And, you know, try and educate people about psychopaths and how they function. And then allow that allows other people then to say, actually, me too.

It happened to me as well. And I get letters every day. You know, every single day I get sort of two or three letters from people all over the world who have read my book saying thank you so much because I now realize I have nothing to be embarrassed about. Well, you never know who's listening. I think the power of radio, which is why I love it so much, is you never know who's listening. And somebody may have a story that they do feel, oh, nobody wants to hear from me or maybe I shouldn't say this. And they're in the place that you are. And you can make them feel like, even if it's not the same sort of thing, that their voice should be heard in some way. But it's

fascinating to be able to talk to you both. Thank you for coming on the programme together this morning. We don't always get mothers and daughters so it's nice to have you together. I just wanted to say, yeah, well I was going to say the other Mrs Jordan is out on Thursday on ITVX. Today. Excuse me, today. Today is Thursday.

You know what? I'm happy we've got to Thursday, let me tell you. And I'm also happy I got to the end of that first script because reading those names out was a bit of a moment live on the radio. I was impressed. I could tell we'd be friends. Thank you very much for that. It's lovely to have you on.

Mary Turner Thompson there. As I say, the programme's called It's Out Today. Not just Thursday, this Thursday. The other Mrs Jordan on ITVX. And Ailey, thank you so much to you. Lovely to have you and your voice and experience on the programme. Talking of names, because I've just gone back to it quickly. Hello,

my middle name is Zip. My dad copied either David Bowie or Frank Zapper, who apparently named one of their kids Zap. I definitely wasn't Zoe, but I never found the Zap link after researching lots. I had three sons and after my first, I was waiting to see if I would have a daughter. And I had a second son, so I passed the name onto him. He is Ivo Zip. Another one.

Right, you're really testing me here. Good morning, EB at WH. I'm liking this. Some acronyms make it a bit shorter, this text. My name is Veronica Maria Ludmilla Clara Monica and Elizabeth Catherine Natasha Hicks. Married name Dyer. Right. My my Czech parents chose my English names, then changed their minds, reverted to family names, but were not allowed administratively. Sorry. So one, two, three, four were added and my baptismal name is Natasha.

I am known as Veronica Hicks to mostly call V. It can't get shorter than that. There's some numbers in there as well. I was incredibly confused, but there's a lot of names. Thank you very much for that. It's nearly at the level of the first name I read out this morning.

Tell me about yours. Who have you named and why? What are you called? And how many names are in your life? And what are you known by? You know, one letter after all of that. Certainly catchy. Now, I mentioned a new report out this week. It's from Harriet Watt University and the anti-poverty charity, the Joseph Roundtree Foundation. And it makes for very difficult reading indeed. It claims that the number of children living in destitution, a very choice word there, in this country has nearly trebled since 2017. The report says this means children

are not having their basic needs met, such as the ability to stay warm, dry and clean. And some of the fastest rises in rates of poverty are among single parents who are mainly women and their children. Abhi Jachendra, Principal Policy Advisor at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, joins me now. And also Sophia Warringer, Deputy Policy Director at the Centre for Social Justice. Shortly, we're also going to hear, I must mention, from Kimberley, from Fife, who has contributed to this report. But Abhi, if I could come to you first, just tell us a bit about where these numbers come from.

So, as you said, we found with Harriet Watt the kind of scale of destitution, which means the most extreme form of poverty. It means not being able to afford the barest essentials, like not being able to afford food, shelter, toiletries, clothing. That that has now hit nearly 3.8 million people, with a million of those being children. And that is staggering. It's a staggering number. It's shocking. And it really deserves political attention and political solutions, because we need to find a way out of this. The numbers are going the wrong way. And in terms of the key findings, you talked about children there, of women and children as well. Can you tell us a bit about that? So what we know is that lone parents make up around a tenth of people in destitution. And we

know that people, women with caring responsibilities overwhelmingly, have more mouths to feed on less income. And this is a crisis that's been going for a long time. Overall, not just for women, but obviously, we know that mothers, you know, feel it particularly acutely, because there are more mouths to feed. This is because we have a threadbare social security system. We also have seen, I mean, we all know, an energy cost crisis, a food prices crisis, an inflationary crisis, and a now a housing cost and mortgage crisis which has pushed people's finances to the absolute brink and that's what's leading to to what we're seeing this this very extreme form of poverty getting deeper and worse and are many of those that you have counted

or put together with these numbers because there are large numbers how have you reached those numbers just to say so it's a methodology methodology that researchers have been using for over five years now. So it's a mixture of a very extensive research on over 40 quantitative data sets and a very large survey of over 3,000 people who are actually in destitution alongside. So it's a mixture of those two? It's a mixture, exactly. Okay, so the reason I ask as well, because just to get the sense of the breadth, is a great number we read now are in work in poverty and what proportion of those you were talking to were in that situation? So it's a minority but it's significant, so it's around again a tenth of people in destitution are in work

but what we know is that two-thirds of people in destitution have a long term health condition or are disabled. So for many, or, as I said, lots of people with sort of caring responsibilities. So if you're not in work, it's usually because, you know, you absolutely cannot find, you know, suitable work because you, you know, you couldn't find work that fits around your caring responsibilities or your disabilities. And, and if you are in work, you know, imagine, you know, working part-time or full-time and not even being able to make enough to make ends meet. So clearly there is something really broken here

that we need political action and policy to fix. Let me bring in Sophia. Good morning. Good morning. From the Centre for Social Justice. We heard about the some of the detail. What is your response, first of all, to this in terms of what you're seeing and hearing? I think in any conversation about poverty, it's important that we don't just focus on welfare levels, but also take that wider view and ask the question of why people are struggling

so much in the first place. And as has been said, a lot of that is about the root causes of poverty, which need to be brought into this conversation. And that is often about family breakdown. It's about spiralling and cycles of addiction. It's about people actually not being in work. And work, as we know, is the best route out of poverty. And so we need to be looking at ways to get people into work and not just be being caught in a cycle of talking about benefit generosity because you you think if you break the others you won't need the generosity if you talk things at the root cause then we're going to be getting ahead of the problem and i think that it's also a conversation about fairness, right? So at the end of the day, the benefit tax bill, which is

going to be 119 billion by 2027, it's hugely exploded after COVID, is paid for by the taxpayer. So it's about balancing what's fair with the taxpayer, balancing with what's fair with those who are struggling. Absolutely, we need to support those who are struggling, but we don't want those quick kind of crisis knee-jerk responses to things that are actually fairly temporary. The inflation re-rise is one of the main reasons why people are struggling so much. And that's things that are linked to energy costs and housing costs. We actually need to be raising the level for everyone tackling at the root cause rather than just going in and raising the benefit costs.

The Centre for Social Justice was set up by someone who has a lot of knowledge, of course, of this area, Ian Duncan Smith, who is associated with the benefit regime in this country, if we could put it like that, because of things he's said, but also things he's disagreed with. You know, he's felt very strongly about that. And I suppose, you know, just couching what you're saying in that context, I know, he's felt very strongly about that. And I suppose, you know, just put couching what you're saying in that context, I think, is that important for people to know in terms of what you're saying about reliance on benefits? Definitely, I think, as part of that legacy to understand what actually has been achieved by the benefit system that was brought in by

Serian, we've got 101.7 million fewer people who are in absolute poverty since 2010, including four million more people who are in work. And that's been hugely thanks to benefit changes. He criticised the benefit system as well. I mean, he thought the rollout of universal credit didn't work. And he, you know, there was there were things in design and things in reality. And absolutely. And he was very principled in that and resigned when the cuts he felt went too far. But it was about giving people a hand up, not just a hand out and, is this wider context of post-pandemic and what's going on with the actual cost of things? Yeah, I mean, first of all, I mean, Ian Duncan Smith was one of the most vociferous supporters of a robust benefits bill. And actually, as you say, he resigned when the cuts cut down universal credit to what we think is a threadbare amount. So actually, if anything, we're very much on the side of Sir Ian on that. But absolutely,

what we have is actually a very long running problem with lots of money being taken out of our social safety net to the point where it doesn't catch people when it falls. And we also, of course, we need support to help people into employment. We also don't have sufficient support to help people employment, particularly if they're disabled. The disability employment gap is very high. And if you're disabled, it's very hard to find the right support. And then, as you say, sort of overlaying on top of that an energy cost crisis that has sort of hit people at the worst moment. You know, this isn't about knee-jerk reactions. This is about really looking at the system and making sure that we're tackling financial insecurity at the household level,

which we're just not. We're expecting people to bear enormous cost and not giving them enough support. Let me come back to both of you in a moment. I want to welcome Kimberley to Woman's Hour, who's from Fife, who contributed to the report. Good morning, Kimberley. Morning.

Thank you for being here. Can you tell us a bit about your situation and how you're getting by day to day? Well, I'm not a single parent, but both me and my husband have disabilities. So neither of us work, but my husband is studying. We have two children and one on the way very soon, but my disabilities have actually prevented people giving me work. And when I lost jobs and studies, I've actually gained a degree and stuff, but when that finished never really got suitable employment causing my disabilities but then some of my

disabilities one being epilepsy got worse so it prevented me going back into work especially around the time I had my children and so obviously a lot of our income was based on benefits and stuff in the system and there was there has been times where we've managed and stuff but obviously in the last few years it's been more difficult and when the money you get in the food costs and stuff is what that covers your food and your belt but the some of the other essentials the toiletries children's clothes your own clothes and stuff that's where it falls and and you're having to make i imagine in this situation some decisions especially with the rising costs of food and what to buy and how to cope? Yeah my decisions are based on the food and the bills being paid and then anything if anything

that's left goes to the stuff my children need. So if my children need and I need then my children get. Yes. If they need clothes and I need clothes then I'll benefit from what I've got and they'll benefit from the stuff they need. The same with toiletries and stuff. They'll come first. Their stuff comes first because they need that. They grow out quicker. They're the ones that get seen and you're the one that gets you don't get judged as much as on your personal look as you do on how you're sending your children out so they come first do you feel i know that being in scotland there's um there's also you get child get the child payment there's also some some slightly different things depending on where people live but do you feel at the moment with what you're seeing it costs to do the weekly shop,

to get toiletries, to keep up with clothes for the children, do you think what is available is in line with those costs? I think having the new child payment brings up you on benefits like for your children, your children benefit more and the other money, other benefits that covers the cost of basically just your normal day life. If we didn't have that new Scottish benefit then the children would lack just as much as myself. It definitely helps and covers the children, but there's still that aspect where you manage to cover the children, but you're not always managing to cover yourself.

But that's what's most important to me as a mum and my husband as a dad, is that they're covered first. And I think that that payment, which I know other areas don't get, has definitely been the biggest benefit. But there are still ways in which the other things don't cover. Kimberly, thank you very much for talking to us and giving us a small window into your day-to-day life. Still with me, Abbey Jitendra from the Joseph Rowndree Foundation,

Sophie Warringer from the Think Tank, the Centre for Social Justice. Just very briefly, if we can, Abbey, what do you want to say after hearing that? Because the word destitution is a choice, is a decision by your foundation in this report. I mean, we use the word destitution because it is the most extreme form of poverty. It's what we would consider to be, you know, something that no one in our country should have to do, not being able to afford, you know, the barest essentials. And that is what we know people are living through. I mean, Kimberley was talking about having epilepsy

and having to, you know, find work that's suitable and having to make what we would consider to be really difficult, even impossible decisions. She contributed to your report, which was how we were able to hear her story this morning. Exactly. And in Scotland, that payment is available to supplement, you know, the incomes of parents and help their children. That doesn't exist in England. And we know that London,

the North East, the North West, these areas have the highest levels of destitution in the country. And they're in England. So what we need is politicians to be looking and making sure that our social security system is catching people when they fall. That needs to start with universal credit and ensuring that it covers at least the basic essentials. I will read a statement from the government. We did invite a minister on, but no one was available. But what would you like to say, Sophia? I think, yeah, absolutely. Our welfare system has and rightly we have a proud record of being compassionate to those who are most struggling and that needs to continue. And this question of benefit generosity will always be a one that is actually inherently political and it's about choices that politicians have to make and it shouldn't be kind of outsourced to an arbitrary line.

But I do think in all of that, this question of fairness is important. But most of all, this question of root causes of why are people struggling so much why is work not paying when it should be why are people having such struggles maybe because of debt because of addiction because of family breakdown and that wider picture is super important when we're talking about benefits. The Department for Work and Pensions has sent us a statement there are 1.7 million fewer people in absolute poverty than in 2010, including 400,000 fewer children. But we know some families are struggling, which is why we are providing support worth of around £3,300 per household, including raising benefits by over 10% this year and helping people with essentials through the Household Support Fund.

One of our priorities is driving down inflation to help everyone's money go further. We're also investing £3.5 billion to help thousands into jobs and removing barriers to work for parents with the biggest ever expansion of free childcare, saving eligible families of up to £6,500 a year. Thank you there to Sophia Warringer from the Centre for Social Justice and Abhi Jachendra from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Now, she was one of the most successful women in banking and finance, and now she's been accused of breaking data law. Dame Alison Rose, the former chief executive of NatWest, resigned in July over the scandal that she shared details of the closure of Nigel Farage's account with one of the bank's subsidiaries, Coote, with a BBC journalist. She claimed that the former UKIP leader's account had been closed

because he had not met the wealth threshold. An internal report showed subsequently that the bank had decided to shut the account partly because his publicly stated views were at odds with our position as an inclusive organisation. The Information Commissioner has now ruled that Dame Alison breached data protection laws. But it's a much wider issue than this. In the United Kingdom, banks closed more than 343,000 accounts in the last financial year. That practice is known, if you don't know, as debanking. Clients are given no notice or recourse after they're flagged as potential risks. Another person who's been affected is gina miller a woman who

spearheaded the anti-brexit campaign before the referendum in 2016 if i could shorten it to that but there's other political goals she's had as well um but just on this subject i know gina good morning that you've called from an investigation into debanking this is after monzo closed your political party's account gina good morning morning. Hello, good morning, Emma. We've talked many times about politics, but we've not talked about this. Just to start with today's news about the former chief executive of NatWest being found to have broken the data law, data code. What do you make of that?

I think that there are two issues here. One is the data protection. And for breaking that, that there are two issues here. One is a data protection and for breaking that, that is a serious offence and that's led to her resignation and then going from it. So, you know, as a financial services institution that I run myself is you cannot share details of clients with anyone. I mean, that is a number one rule. But the issue on the debanking side is much wider and this is a very serious problem because what you have is two elements of this. One is individuals who step up to sort of exercise their civic duty, be it a councillor, somebody standing to be an MP, somebody working in the civil service, any sort of public service,

you are deemed as a politically exposed person. And that means that you can be denied for no reason. They never tell you why, but you can be denied access to a bank account and actually other financial services products. The other bit to accept on that, to be aware of on this, is that it's not just individuals as well. So if I were, so I'm standing at the moment to be an MP in Epsom and Ewell for the True and Fair Party, and if I were to be elected, my family, my husband and my children could also be deemed as PEPs and be debacked. So what does that say about our democracy in our country, that if you step up, you then are punished by banks? But it's not just banks. We've also been denied access to other financial services products such as insurances. We had a lot of young people this summer wanting to do work experience or internship.

We couldn't get access to any insurance products for them. So anything that says you're a politically exposed person, the banks are being overzealous and other institutions, I believe, are being overzealous in the way they're applying money laundering checks. You know, prior to 2017, there were two levels of investigations. There was a much more stringent overseas money laundering checks that happened.

And then there was a lower bar for domestic checks. And once that changed, I think the banks have just reacted in a way that's totally unfair. And I think these are really important distinctions that you've obviously learned through personal experience and what happens to individuals who step up and have these roles and what can happen to them. But there is also, and there are also many stories in the personal finance pages, for instance, in the newspapers quite regularly of individuals who haven't stepped up, private individuals who have been debunked. They're not then told why. And this is also, there's been some evidence around how it affects women and ethnic minorities. So I wanted to come on to that. So this is the other issue is that the way the banks, it's about risk, the way the banks are looking at risk and scoring people is unfair. And there is evidence. I mean, I've experienced it personally, I know a lot of women who have, and I've been campaigning for a lot more transparency on this.

But women on average, are a 10 point lower on their credit score than men. And then that affects everything. That affects your access to loans, business loans, overdrafts, which women get much lower overdraft facilities than men. So the way that the banks are actually looking at female customers has a detriment to women when they are trying to access financial services products. And the financial services industry has got to strive for equity and it has got to treat women equally because it affects every part of our lives. It's something like 10.7 million women are locked out of accessing mainstream financial products. So I've been talking about this since the financial services crisis, as well as other issues about the way the industry talks.

But women are being terribly treated by the banking system and the financial services system. I know that you mentioned Monzo there. I just wanted to say a statement from Monzo saying, like lots of banks, we do not accept any political parties as Monzo business customers in the same way as we don't accept trusts, clubs, a range of other organisations. In this case, the account wasn't originally categorised as a political party. After this was identified and corrected, the customer was given notice the account would be closed. We recognise this experience will have been frustrating for the customer. We're sorry for that. Reads that message. You have a wry smile on your face as I can see you on the video there.

Yes, because, yeah, I do have a wry smile. Quickly, because I want to come on to something else if I may. Go on. I was going to say, it's an app. So you apply it and you put in all the details. So they obviously, somebody didn't notice because we didn't change anything. Well, it's certainly, as you say, there's been something you've been talking about. And that wider point for a while, and then you had this experience.

Nigel Farage has had this experience. You talk about women in particular being affected in that way. And there we have it, one of the most senior women in banking and finance having to resign. And I wonder, this is obviously in the summer after this came to light, and now we have today this development, which is why we're talking today, Gina Miller, about the breaking of the data law. But I wonder for you, do you think there could be a silver lining to all of this, that there would be more accountability, that the government have also made some announcements on this, that the sort of felling of a woman

who was very senior in this world has led or could lead to more transparency, or are you not in a hopeful place? I'm not in a hopeful place because I think all throughout the industry, we need more women at all levels, and that would actually create more equity in the industry because it's still very much a male dominated industry. And the government's announcement that they're going to ask and the FCA, they're going to ask banks to give people more notice.

What does it matter if it's two months, three months or six months if you're going to have to be denied a bank account? I mean, you can't operate in a modern world without a bank account. So, you know, it doesn't really matter how long the notice period is. But there is a bias against women in financial services, in savings products, in loan products, in credit cards, in scoring. The entire industry has to do something. It's not just about transparency and trust and having more women. There has to be more. Sorry, it's not just about transparency and trust. It has to be about equity and more women at all levels in financial services. You find yourself in not the same place, but on the same page as Nigel Farage, not somewhere you and him have been many times before, it would be safe to say.

And as a way, there's been a bit of a campaign and I don't know, you tell me, but sort of a crusade going on here to try and help those who don't have both of your platforms and your ability to have publicity. I think if you have a platform, you have to use it on behalf of others. And people are being debunked. I know myself that small businesses as a business owner, I know that I've been denied because of a woman. I was actually told on one occasion, if only you had a man on your board, you would actually be able to carry on your loan. I mean, it's that blatant to be told that that somehow the sustainability of my business or my risk I've seen as a risk because I didn't have a man on my board or in my senior management at one of my previous businesses, which is ludicrous. And that's the sort of thing that we have to talk about. It's being denied financial services products across the board, bank accounts, financial services, credit cards, loans. Women should be on parity with men.

And you think we're far from that. And a woman at the top of NatWest or Royal Bank of Scotland didn't help. One person's not going to help. It has to be across the industry you know it be it in footsie 100 companies financial services banking there are not enough women on boards at the top level of financial institutions in the uk gina miller thank you very much for coming on and and just to say you know there'll be some people who do have an experience of this if you want to get in touch with women's hour if you've had some of the experiences gene has talked about specifically as a woman perhaps if you're also an ethnic minority, there may have been something,

another experience. And I think the other thing, having read about this, is the dystopian element sometimes of not being told why. In one case, Gina, now she's being talked to directly. Obviously, Gina, you had that experience

of someone saying something to you. But a lot of the time, if it is just an app or a different way of communicating with your bank, sometimes you can't get hold of someone. You then aren't told the information and people have talked about the effect

that that has had on them. So do get in touch with Women's Hour. Thank you for that. Thank you, Gina Miller. There's many messages that have come in throughout the programme. We've been talking about names throughout. I've enjoyed the names discussion reads this message.

I've lived in Spain. I've had a lot of issues because I don't have two surnames. It's all started with a series of Spanish names. Most lot of issues because I don't have two surnames. This all started with a series of Spanish names. Most official documents and online forms require at least two surnames.

So on my health card and tax documents, my officials entered my second surname as XXX. Several of my non-Spanish colleagues had the same with a laughing emoji here. This is brilliant.

Janet says, Good morning to you. My great uncle was called George Aubrey. When he enlisted in the Navy in 1900. They asked if he had any other names and he told them he was just plain George. He was then named plain George Aubrey on all of his official Navy records. And he even had P.G. Aubrey engraved on his World War Two medals.

That's amazing. That is just amazing. Plain George Aubrey. Oh, I love it. I love it. Absolutely love it. Thank you very much indeed for that, Janet. Thank you to all of you for being with me today and all of this week. And I hope you have a good weekend when you get there. Stay with us on Woman's Hour. We'll be back tomorrow at 10. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank

you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. Hi, I'm Christy Young and this is Young Again, my podcast for BBC Radio 4, where I get the chance to meet some of the world's most noteworthy and intriguing people and ask them the question, if you knew then what you know now, what would you tell yourself? I don't regret anything in my life. You don't? No. No way. Oh, if we could only turn back. For me, well, I'd probably tell my younger self to slow down, not to be so judgmental, that all that worrying was wasted energy

and that a perm is always a bad idea. This might be the best therapy I've had all year, by the way. OK. I'm not charged. Join me for some frank and, I I hope fascinating exchanges. Subscribe to Young Again on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven and for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's 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.