Woman's Hour - The Real Derry Girls

Episode Date: December 24, 2019

2019 has been another eventful year in Northern Ireland's second city, Londonderry. There was the shocking murder of the young journalist Lyra McKee, shot by dissident republicans and as a border city it's been at the heart of the Brexit debate. The Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont is still deadlocked over power-sharing. On a lighter note, it has also basked in the success of the second series of the hit Channel 4 TV comedy series, Derry Girls - the raucous misadventures of a group of teenagers growing up in the 90s. So what do 'real' Derry girls, from both communities, make of the past year in their city? Kathleen Carragher spoke to four Derry women who are contemporaries of TV’s Derry Girls - they were teenagers in the 90’s The actress and writer Joanna Scanlan is known for Thick of It, Getting On, No Offence Puppy Love and most recently The Accident. Her latest role is as Mother Superior in the BBC’s new adaptation of Dracula. She joins Jenni to discuss. Christmas is upon us and whilst many of us hope to celebrate and be merry, for some it is still a time of work and support for those in ill-health. Jenni speaks to Molly Case, a clinical nurse specialist for inherited cardiac conditions at St George’s in London, and author, Christie Watson who was a nurse for 20 years until quite recently. What are the highs and lows for both patients and staff spending Christmas Day in hospital?Mamma Mia, Dancing Queen, The Winner Takes It All – ABBA are one of the most iconic bands of all time. 'ABBA: Super Troupers The Exhibition' explores their incredible career through music, lyrics, costumes and personal photos, many of which have not been previously displayed in the UK. Jane visited the exhibition and discussed their legacy for women with assistant curator, Syd Moore. Presenter: Jenni Murray Producer: Kirsty StarkeyInterviewed Guest: Joanna Scanlan Reporter: Kathleen Carragher Interviewed Guest: Christie Watson Interviewed Guest: Molly Case Interviewed Guest: Syd Moore

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 and welcome to the Woman's Hour podcast for Christmas Eve, the 24th of December 2019. I'm Jenny Murray. Good morning. Tomorrow, more than a million people will go to work on Christmas Day and a significant number of them will be nurses. What's it like to spend the day in hospital? 2019 has been an eventful year

in Northern Ireland's second city, London Derry. We talked to four women about life in their city, their contemporaries of the fictional Derry girls who were teenagers in the 90s. And Super Troopers. We've a tour around the ABBA exhibition with their history, their costumes and, of course, a tune or two.

Now, if you're a fan of television drama, and I certainly am, you can't have missed Joanna Scanlon. She was the inept civil servant in The Thick of It, the ward sister in Getting On, the detective inspector in No Offence, the dog trainer in Puppy Love and most recently a grieving mother in The Accident.

And now she's to play the mother superior in the dramatisation of the very scary and rather bloody story of Dracula which comes to BBC One on New Year's Day. Stand by for a short but chilling bit. Mother Superior on no account invited creature ill. That is not a temptation with which I was struggling. What is happening? What is this?

We are under attack from the forces of darkness. Why would the forces of darkness wish to attack a convent? Perhaps they are sensitive to criticism. Tolly Wells is Sister Agatha and Joanna's mother superior and no further details, of course, about what's threatening them. We will give nothing away. It's scary, Joanna, but it's funny at times. I mean, that is a great line, perhaps.

They're sensitive to criticism. And Dracula is sometimes horrid, but also rather sexy. How would you describe it? Good morning, Jenny. Yes, it's a cocktail, isn't it? Yes, it has. Well, Stephen Moffat and Mark G gators have pulled it off i would say um in terms of this is a genuinely scary winter stay in by the fire pull your duvet very high up

against your neck and enjoy that sort of proper ride of fear into our greatest, you know, our greatest sort of morbid side. However, the wit that they've done it with is genius. And there are moments of, you know, proper, proper laughs. And some of those are almost the kind of laughs that you dare not actually do out loud, because it's you not sure if you should laugh or not it's very clever how familiar were you with the bram stoker original not at all i have never read the bram stoker and i think that's probably when you come from a generation they've been saturated by versions of dracula you don't really know who dracula is but the nearest i got to it was my um beloved uncle took me to uh to see in 1979 the Herzog version uh Nosferatu starring Klaus Kinski and that was a much different vibe of Dracula than

the sort of Hammer versions that I'd known before and that absolutely fascinated me um and stayed with me forever and so my version was always that Klaus Kinski sort of perfection. And we're not going to give anything away because they've said to us, please don't give anything away, haven't they? Let's move on to something else. You've starred in some of the most successful television series. And I wondered how significant was the detective inspector in No Offence? She's very sure of herself, including her size and her sexuality. Yeah, I mean, Viv Dearing is the most wonderful creation.

It was a joy to play her. And it's almost like you put a stand-up character in the middle of a police office because all her dialogue was fast, rapid, witty, put-downs and very sharp things. And because, I don't know, when you've got to... As an actor, I find I've got to work physically. Even if it's very sharp dialogue, I've still got to kind of play it through the body.

So it ended up being I had to kind of play it through the body. So it ended up being, I had to kind of swing my hips and move my shoulders. I couldn't remember my lines unless I did that. You know, it was because it's a fast turnover TV. So it ended up being something that she costumed very, very flagrantly. And she was always going to play that. And she believed she was sexy she is sexy

and had had a history of men that actually had been rather disastrous and and as many women who experience those problems with men she's still going to assert above and beyond it she was never ever going to be a victim what impact do you reckon the role had on the way women are seen on screen it was very very different do you think so i mean on the way women are seen on screen? It was very, very different. Do you think so? I mean, that's something I wasn't aware of. I go about my life.

I guess I had to go deep into my own experience. And my grandmother was very sexy and very, very pretty. And she came from St. Helens. And so I guess I got to know her probably in her 50s and 60s and 70s. She never gave up for one moment her sexuality. And she was she was always big and bosomy and strong. And I think the reality is we the reality of life. We all know people who are many kinds of overweight, if you like. But that doesn't stop them them living full and huge lives. And the fact that that's not depicted on screen has just never got in my way.

I just don't buy into it. And I'm trying to look for real examples, both in my own experience and even on the bus. Now, Getting On, set in a geriatric ward was written I think by you Vicky Pepperdine and Jo Brand. How accurate was its portrayal of such a ward and was it Jo's experience that really gave you the bottom for that? Jo had had a long time as a psychiatric nurse and when we were trying to find something that would be a suitable arena for three women to play in, we suggested a ward, a general medical ward. And we started some research and Vicky and I went into a few different hospitals over the different series.

And we'd go in, almost take a snapshot of one place, just observe as carefully and in as much detail as possible what was going on, take that away and then turn that into something that was accurate. A lot, funnily enough, a lot of the lines came from things we heard people actually say, particularly some of Pippa's lines. We also had friends who were doctors, nurses, and, you know, plundered them for everything that they could give us. And the intention was always to be very, very accurate, rather than just find something and then make it funny. Peter Capaldi was a huge part of that. He set it in a way that was naturalistic and was realistic. And he made it look as if it, he put a sort of dullness, if you like, on the screen. And that reflected something that we feel often walking into a hospital, or at least you used to. I think hospitals try these days to put

many more colours around. But when I used to go into hospitals as a child suddenly it was as if you were upon the whole scene descended a veil of greyness and so we looked for different ways to express reality of the experience of being in one of those wards and then of course the black humour comes out. Now I know you studied history at Queen's College Cambridge in 1980 among the first women to go there. Yes one of 39. What was it like to be one of very few women? It was actually awful I confess. It was really tough and I had gone from a girls' boarding school in North Wales without a year out, so no gap year or anything, very green. And I had this, but I'd read a lot of feminism, 70s feminism. And so I had huge aspirations about what it was like

to be a pioneer as a woman. And I arrived and none of those were made possible. My college had had, the previous year they'd had, at the end of the summer, they'd had something that they called the stag night, which was a sort of, well, a stag night of sorts. And it had got into the papers because it had been picketed by Newnham girls.

And so this sense of like us and them, girls and boys, was very strong. And I found it very, very hard. And I won't go into the details of very bad behaviour that went on, but it did. And I was not equipped. It took me a long, long, long time, possibly 10 years to even begin to recover. Is that why you came to acting fairly late, to professional acting? I think it's part of it yes I was again very naive I'd always wanted to act I'd done loads and loads through school and

that was always my intention and I did obviously in the end quite a lot at university but then when I left nothing happened I just got a lot of rejections and couldn't work out how to do it, if you like. And that partly was because I was still suffering depression in those years, which was to do with, I mean, it's probably an exaggeration, but I won't say, yeah, it feels to me like I arrived at university and I was running full pelt and I hit a brick wall and that wall took a lot of dismantling you know as I say about 10 years and then it was 10 years later I decided yeah I'm going to now do what I think I was put on the earth to do.

For which we are all extremely grateful. Joanna Scanlon, thank you very much for being with us and I'll just mention the three episodes of Dracula will be broadcast on the 1st, the 2nd and the 3rd of January and they are scary. Thank you. Now 2019 has been another eventful year in Northern Ireland's

second city, Londonderry. There was the shocking murder of the young journalist Lyra McKee who was shot by dissident Republicans, and as a border city, it's been at the heart of the Brexit debate. The Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont is still deadlocked over power sharing. On a lighter note, it has also basked in the success of the second series of the hit Channel 4 comedy series Derry Girls, the raucous misadventures of a group of teenagers growing up in the 90s. So what do real Derry girls from both communities make of the past year in their city? Well, Kathleen Carraher spoke to four Derry women who are contemporaries of television's Derry Girls. They were teenagers in the 90s. I'm Jean Anne.

I'm a Derry girl from around the corner. And I lived in London for 12 years and Dublin for four years before that. And I've been back in Derry with my family for a year now. And I'm Erin. I grew up in Derry as well and moved to England. Lived in London and Yorkshire. So just returned last year, just here over a year now again with our wee girl and husband back from England now.

My name's Niamh, I grew up in Derry. I left for university in Dublin when I was 19 and then I lived in various cities all through my 20s. I was Dublin, then I was London, then I was Belfast, then I went back to Dublin and I eventually moved back here in 2012. My name is Rachel and I'm a Derry girl all my life too, but I moved to Liverpool there for university. I stayed there for about seven years and then as soon as I got pregnant with my wee boy, I came back to be close to my mummy. So did you say that Derry girls like to be close to their mummies? Was that the case for all of you?

Oh absolutely. As soon as I got pregnant, it was like I have to come home. My mommies were 13, so we had all the cousins, first cousins, every Christmas parties and every weekend. And now I live two doors away from my sister and her three wains, so we really are, we're all on the same street. It's kind of embarrassing now to say, but proper Derry style. And it's not just the family it's the access to nature, beaches are on your doorstep, there's amazing schools like I think some of the schools here

are some of the best you know across the UK and Ireland and just a really good quality of life and the sense of humour as well. I think that you know there's just a very strong sense of identity in dairy as well you know and it probably comes from the recent past and the times that people have been through that they've really pulled together and so you really do feel that kind of sense of community and everybody knows everybody and like I know that you say that about other places but like in Derry it really really feels like you're connected. Derry was once known for its shirt factories and it was in the shirt factories that the women worked and it was the women who earned the wages

because there was no work for men. That's led to a very strong tradition of independent women in Derry. Is that still the case? That's definitely the case. It's something my mummy tells me all the time. You know, my granny was the one that went out and worked. She went out and she sorted her family out.

And the boys were babied and the girls were told to get on and get done with it. And glamorous with it. Yeah. I just think of my own granny here and her kind of hard work in the shirt factories over the years and raising not only sometimes her own kids, but, you know, extended family often came and stayed as well. And there was, you know, there was that hard work and there was the grit, but there was also just an amazing sense of humour,

an amazing sense of fun. My brother, Macy, she was ultra glamorous as well. She was a shirt factory woman, raised seven children, made all her own clothes and just kept her children out of trouble during the troubles as well. Like there was that sense of real protectiveness um they were like the original tiger mothers maybe you've talked a lot there about the community spirit and how people get

on and everybody knows everybody else but it is a city that has an image of division people don't even agree on the name Derry Londonerry. I think we've got a sense of humour behind it now too. I think, yes, when it's official, you have to go Derry, Londonderry. But I think when day-to-day life people work in and people interact with one another, it never, ever comes up. I don't think, unless it's a bit of a jab and a joke. There's a nice compromise now as well where people call it legendary. Which has kind of been taken on as a kind of legendary food brand

for Derry to kind of promote the city's food offering and legendary sounds like a good way to keep everybody happy. Just wanted to ask you then what you think the TV series The Derry Girls has done for Derry I mean it's so refreshing to see our city depicted

in such a positive light obviously under the shadow of a very turbulent time in our history, the 90s. But what I love about it is the fact that these young girls and the wee English fella, they have like a joy in life. And, you know, they're only interested in getting up to take that concert and, you know, going out and having fun. And that's what we were like, you know, we had those teenage problems you know there were terrible things going on around us but you know we were worried about the weekend and what we were going to wear and you know who we were going to meet and things like that so in day-to-day life it was an

inconvenience more than anything and it was as Derry girls depicts it was a source of black humor like I remember we lived quite centrally in Derry coming out on our doorstep there'd often be a soldier pointing his gun out to the street and my daddy one time came out and just said, oh, some people get a garden gnome and we get a British soldier. And the next morning there was a garden gnome on our doorstep. But that just, I think that's really summed up in Derry Girls as well. Yeah, life went on. But at the same time, it was dark times.

And, you know, as I said, in adulthood, you realise that that was a normal, very happy childhood in abnormal circumstances. In the series, Sister Michael plays quite a role and obviously the religion is quite a backdrop. So where's religion in Derry today? For instance, would you all go to church? No, unfortunately not. I think the last time I went to church

was with my granny whenever I was about 13 so no, I don't think it plays as much of a big part in Derry. I, thank God, didn't have any nuns in my school I went to an integrated school but they were always still scary whenever you see them from other schools. So definitely not anymore. Derry kind of reflects modern society in Ireland and the UK.

For some people, faith is still very, very strong and very much part of their weekly routine. And for others, kind of looking in other directions for fulfilment and things like that. The one thing I will say about maths, it was good for the talent spotting. On a Sunday morning as well, like that used to be. Your makeup on.

You had your makeup perfect at all, just in case you saw who you might want to see. There was always a bit of crack about who was there and who wasn't there, definitely. Would you have friends then from both communities? Is that very common? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, there was lots of cross community work that went on, you know, around the time that I was growing up as a teenager in Derry. And I was always very much encouraged to take those opportunities, which I think was great, you know, just in terms of

giving you that more open mind when you went out into the world. You know, I think, you know, the more that we can learn, there is that real embracing of diversity, I think, generally. And I think the more that we can focus on that and kind of teach our children that it's more than just Protestants and Catholics that live in the world as well. Yet this year, Derry made headlines for the wrong reasons with the murder of Lara McKee by dissident Republicans. What do you make of that? What I felt so bad about in terms of Lyra was that she'd moved here and she had found a person that she loved from Derry

and they were going to settle down here and she really loved it here and I just feel almost a sense of shame that that happened to her on the streets of our city and she was a creative person who came here and those are the type of people we want to attract to Derry and it's overwhelmingly sad that she was murdered here.

And the outpouring afterwards of grief and anger just showed that that is not what Derry's about, that's not what we want for this city, for our future, for our children. There was such a campaign of not in our name after that happened that this does not represent us and it was just absolutely awful. Do you remember what the priest said at her funeral, Father McGill?

Yes, that he told the politicians that they needed to really get their heads together and sort things out and get talking again. I remember that day, the goosebumps of hearing that and thinking right, this is actually going to be a kind of watershed moment. Things are going to change like in a year's time or in 10 years time

when my child is learning history at school she'll learn that things improved again from that point but nothing's happened nothing's happened at all unfortunately since then i kind of feel like the ground is a little bit shaky now because of the lack of government at stormont and the lack of people representing us but the people that we voted for can't get their work done it's definitely kind of destabilized us a little bit and it kind of feels like the ground is shaking beneath our feet and it would just be wonderful to see them back in there because I think that that does filter down into society.

If we can see it on the TV, our politicians are sharing and sharing power and kind of collaborating, then that does filter down, you know, through society. And I think that people are crying out for a strong voice, especially, you know, at this crucial time that we're in with Brexit and uncertainty all over, really. So you've mentioned Brexit there. Do you follow the debate closely? Yeah, without a doubt. Whatever happens will have an impact on where we live. For me, it might be a weekly trip. You know, for other people, they're living and working

on two different sides of the border. And it seems a shame that, you know, that that should be anything other than seamless, really. Life could become a lot more awkward. I don't think living in this area, we see a border, you know, we very much move between two areas.

This year there's been lots of social change now and in fact Westminster has been the body that has legislated for both same-sex marriage and abortion. Two big, big issues in Northern Ireland. What do you make of those? Obviously, I'm disappointed it wasn't done here through our own people, but I'm happy. You know, it's done.

It's one of the biggest things that has been held over us and now it's done. Nobody can change it. These are the kind of social issues that we are concerned with. Most people in Derry and Northern Ireland are concerned with these social issues. You know, these are the things that affect our loved ones and our friends.

It's not just orange and green that we're all worried about all the time. It's not just the religious divide. It's these social issues, something like filling in a pothole or fixing the road or, you know, being allowed to marry the person you love. These are the kinds of things that we all care about as human beings. I think in general, a lot more than sectarianism, certainly. Yet a lot of people here still, particularly with abortion, are opposed to it, aren't they?

It's an interesting one because you look at the south of Ireland where you would have assumed it was a very traditional church-led society. They've actually been very progressive, obviously on abortion and gay marriage. And Northern Ireland has maybe some catching up to do, but it is a real sort of flashpoint

for some people. They're very passionate anti-abortion. That's maybe as well where you see the influence of religion in the church more than in other areas. So another big topic this year has been climate change

and obviously we've had Extinction Rebellion and we've had Greta Thunberg. We're all making small things that we weren't before because of Greta and because of the, you know, everybody's trying their little bit and it's little, but it's great.

In my family, it's recycling. It's, you know, not buying new, going to secondhand shops, even Meatless Monday, you know, using, you know, vegetable lasagna rather, you know. I am trying to eat less meat, trying to recycle, although my husband and I regularly fall out about what's supposed to go in the recycling bin. You know, we're sometimes we're not too sure and we're looking it up on the internet and trying to figure it out. To me, the climate change issue feels like something that's right now much bigger than any one of us. That's where the government has to come in and help with the infrastructure of the trains.

Yeah, if we had like a high speed train to Belfast or something you know and you could with amazing internet and you know you could just zoom up and down really easily but you know I always, I go to Belfast a lot and I do usually drive. It's just more practical. It's tough. You might as well drive and sing your hard drives on the way up.

Listen to women's hour. Talking about singing, next year 2020, it's a big anniversary. 50 years of Dana singing yeah all kinds of everything i heard a lot about dana because she was the school girl that came back in in my mom's time having won the eurovision song contest so yeah we heard a lot about her growing up and i think you know for a generation of dairy girls she was a really successful figure a really positive figure. My mother would have been in school shows with her. She remembers that just the excitement of this 18-year-old coming from a really difficult part of the world and bringing home the Eurovision.

But one of the things that people noticed about Dana was her accent and her accent was different. The Derry accent gets a lot of comment, doesn't it? Well, I think as we've seen from Nadine Coyle on I'm a celebrity, people still struggle to get to grips with it. She does have a broad accent, but why shouldn't she? She's from Derry. She's completely comprehensible to anyone.

What are your favourite Derry phrases and the famous Derry humour? Wise up, I'd say is a good one. Anyone that's getting notions about themselves, you just say, wise up. Take your oil. Oh, take your oil. Take your oil. What does that mean? It's kind of like, you've made your wise up. Take your oil. Oh, take your oil. Take your oil.

What does that mean? It's kind of like, you've made your bed, so lie in it. Lie in it, aye. You know, and I think it comes from taking cod liver oil or having to take your medicine. We don't suffer fools, glad to hear that. No, we don't suffer fools at all. I'd say anybody that has a problem with Nadine's accent needs to wise up and catch themselves on it.

Oh, there you go. Snowdrops and dacotines, butterflies and bees. There you go. Gina and Erin, Niamh and Rachel, and on Friday you can hear four teenage real Derry girls. Still to come in today's programme, Super Troopers, the ABBA exhibition, a tour around the band's history, and of course there will be a tune or two. Now most of us look forward to the day off work on Christmas Day and getting together with family and friends around a table,

heaving with culinary delights, but more than a million people will be working tomorrow, more than ever before according to the TUC, and they'll include chefs, waiters, bar staff, police, but the greatest number, some 300,000 will be nurses and care workers. What's it like to spend your Christmas day in hospital? Well Molly Case is a clinical nurse specialist for inherited cardiac conditions at St George's Hospital in South London and the author of How to Treat People, A Nurse at Work. And Christy Watson

was a paediatric nurse for 20 years and has written The Language of Kindness, A Nurse's Story. Christy, what are your favourite memories of working at Christmas? I've got lots actually. I think Christmas can be a very, very sad place in hospitals but actually it's also a place where you really focus on the things that matter the most and there was a particular year where I was looking after a baby boy who was an ex-premature baby he was very very sick he had chronic lung disease and he was on maximum support maximum life support maximum amount of drugs and his his blood results were were quite possibly incompatible with life we really didn't have much hope that he would survive at all.

And then he turned the corner on Christmas Day. Everyone kept talking about it being a Christmas miracle of sorts. And obviously we were very stressed out, working Christmas Day, really, really busy, had families at home that we'd left to come to work. But actually it was such an enormous privilege to see his family and be able to look after him and the look on his mum's face when he turned a corner and we knew that he might survive was really what it's all about and it made everything worthwhile. Molly what's your special memory? One of my favourite memories and one that I'll never forget is from a little while ago I was

working as a care worker looking after people with Alzheimer's in a residential care home before I decided to become a nurse. And for some reason, I'd put money on horse racing, which is not like me at all as a kind of 20 year vegetarian and big fan of horses. And I won nearly 200 quid on it and felt terribly guilty. So I spent the money instead on a brand new CD player. This was about 10 years ago and loads of old musical CDs for the residents in the care home. And I will never forget myself and little Elsie, who was nearly 100 years old, kind of pirouetting in the living room listening to Perry Como's Christmas album.

And that was on Christmas Day, and that was just a memory that is heaven. Christy, as a nurse in paediatric intensive care, how do you manage to support parents who are under so much pressure when you're under pressure yourselves? It's very difficult sometimes, a lot of the time, but it's all about sacrifice, I think. I think sacrifice is the right word and that that's what people are doing when they're working Christmas day that's what they're doing when they're giving so much of themselves to be able to walk in very very difficult shoes and to be

able to be with someone at their most profound and difficult moments of their lives and to support them in a number of ways it might be with expertise, it might be with your skill as a nurse that you've built up over a number of years. But I think the thing that matters most to parents and families is listening, kindness and the small actions that you do that make a huge difference to them during their most darkest hours. What difficult moments have you had at Christmas? I think when I used to work on a high dependency unit for heart surgery it was a very kind of fast flowing unit and people were often acutely unwell but then got better very quickly once they were fixed from their surgery but we had a gentleman who stayed with us for a long time and he was a Jehovah's Witness and therefore it was his decision that he didn't want a blood transfusion prior to his

surgery so it was our job to make sure that we could try and increase his blood level in a in a different way so that he was safe enough to have surgery um and Christmas Eve kind of the few nights before he was meant to have his surgery I remember going up to the paediatric wards where I didn't work I'm an adult nurse um to collect tiny baby bottles in order to draw his blood in the smallest quantities we could. And the paediatric wards were this incredible place with Santa's grotto and penguins and these children that looked so sick but were all laughing. And then I would come down back to this gentleman who was very poorly, take his blood in these tiny, tiny little kind of tiny baby bottles and test his blood and see if his blood level was

safe enough to have his operation and in the end we never were able to get his blood level to a level that was safe enough to operate for fear of losing too much and he passed away without having his heart operation but what I always remember from that Christmas kind of period was that he died with absolute choice absolute dignity and we spent the kind of his last hours talking about what his faith meant to him and even though I'm an atheist it really taught me a lot about living and dying. Christy what was it like for family and friends when you had to say sorry I'm working on Christmas day it's interesting Molly you're talking about faith because I think that and whatever you believe nursing is a kind of faith in itself it's a faith and a tolerance and respect for every single human being regardless and there is something

that people respect about that so that families and friends of nurses I think I mean certainly my experience a very understanding of the fact that you are going to work it's part of your job it's part of something bigger about humanity and I mean it's a sacrifice for them as well but I do think that my children particularly have been used to not having mum

at home sometimes on Christmas and that must be very tough but they also understand that Christmas is so much more than just being with the people you love sometimes and even having things like presents and when you work in a place like paediatric intensive care it really shows you what's important in life. The other thing is obviously the NHS is completely reflective of our society and some people don't celebrate Christmas and that goes for staff, patients, it's a very very diverse culture

within the organisation, but it's a very special day whether people are at work or at home. I mean, some of your colleagues will be working in, I still call it casualty, I'm afraid. No, that's fine. I know I'm supposed to call it accident and emergency. It's emergency department now. It's moved on again. What's it like for them? Because Christmas must be such a busy time. I think the casualty is now, because it's so incredibly chock-a-block,

and obviously they talk about the winter crises that are coming and things like that, I think the greatest problem for staff is bed capacity and the stresses of that. It's not at all about patients coming in with various respiratory illnesses or broken hips or things like that. It's not the nature of what the patient's coming in with. Or alcohol poisoning. Yeah, exactly, yeah. It's to do with the resources and not having a bed necessarily

to pass them through to on the wards. That's the greatest stress is being understaffed and under-resourced at Christmas time. I think that's the greatest stress is being understaffed and under-resourced at Christmas time. I think that's the greatest stress for our colleagues. I think the emergency department at this time of year, they definitely see a peak in sometimes rather unfortunate accidents. I know one of my colleagues had a woman who put too much brandy on her Christmas pudding and then set her hair alight, for example. Never too much brandy. That was a bad case.

But there are peaks in sort of alcohol and substance misuse. There are issues with spikes in domestic violence and hate crime. And there's a lot of suffering that goes on at Christmas as well. And I think sometimes you see that in hospitals perhaps more than anywhere else. It's a sad time for many people. Well, Christy Watson, Molly Case, thank you both very much indeed for being with us this morning. Thank you. And I hope you will be with your families tomorrow.

Thank you. Thank you both. Now, it is no secret that I have long been the number one fan of Mamma Mia, both the stage and the film version. I've seen it in the theatre eight times, and whenever I'm a bit fed up, I watch the film on the film version. I've seen it in the theatre eight times and whenever I'm a bit fed up, I watch the film on the telly. ABBA is without doubt

one of the most successful bands of all time and there's now an exhibition at the O2 Centre in London with costumes, lyrics and photos, many of which have never been shown in the UK. Jane, don't know why they didn't send me, but they sent Jane, went there with the assistant curator, Sid Moore. Now, I obviously am a child of ABBA time, so I'm excited to be here.

Take us back to the dark days of 1974, which actually is where the exhibition starts, and the Eurovision Song Contest that year was in Brighton. And what did we get get what did we see? So Jane if you can imagine a country divided political discord election coming after election then you have a you know quite a dark and dreary landscape like literally with power cuts as well the three-day week and into this on saturday the 6th of april 1974 we see this burst of joyous celebration and color and these beautiful young people bursting onto the stage in the dome in the brighton dome that's right i do remember i was 10 and everyone was talking about nothing else for weeks afterwards we are looking now at the costumes they wore in brighton on that

fateful night in 1974 now can you describe first of all let's look at what the girls were wearing that night um and frida is in kind of it's rather a nice peasant skirt in brown colours. Yes, so it's brown and orange, which were obviously very 70s colours at the time as well. But if you look at the costumes, you can see that they've got chains on and they've got badges on and spangles as well and epaulets as well, metallic epaulets at the top. And Frida actually went to a friend of hers

called Inga Svenneke. She had a boutique in Stockholm and she decided that, well, the whole band had decided they didn't want to look the same as the other contestants at Eurovision. They wanted to look different. They wanted to be memorable.

Of course, they had really different colours in all of them as well. Agnetha's costume is blue. Agnetha's costume is blue. And she did have quite a bit of an influence in women's make-up. With blue eye shadow. With the blue eye shadow, you know, which is still fashionable with some women today.

Frida preferred... She was a bit more sophisticated with her palette and she preferred Madame Roches and Yves Saint Laurent, but Agnetha liked lip gloss and she liked pink and she liked blue eyeshadow. But of course, you know, she was blonde, so the blue looked fantastic on her. It's a gorgeous blue. It's a sort of metallic, how would you describe that blue? Metallic blue. Velvet shirt? Electric blue. Okay. Yeah, velvet shirt as well blue. Electric blue, okay.

Yeah, velvet shirt as well. Silk shortish trousers. Which is tapered at the bottom as well. And, you know, look at Benny's outfit as well. So he's wearing these sort of cut-off pedal pushers with silver and burgundy. And, again, they've got lots and lots of badges. And it's kind of like that slight military edge to it with the epaulets and of course we remember as well when the conductor came in at the dome he was dressed up as Napoleon. That's right I do remember. Yeah the public loved that they kind of like began to get on their side as soon

as he walked in and over here we have Bjorn's outfit as well which is a kind of silvery grey. I think in this one you can see the military influence as well, and he had his star guitar on as well, which we've got. It's worth saying, of course, the women's outfits were at this point certainly not remotely revealing. That's true. They were sexy, but not revealing. I think, you know, you've got to remember

this was skin tight as well. Yeah. So, you know, you've got to remember this was skin tight as well. Yeah, okay. So, you know, although they weren't revealing as in showing flesh, they were sexy, they were skin tight. They were definitely showing off the curves. Definitely. And that was for the boys as well, though.

Yeah, the boys showed off their curves. Yeah. Magnificently. Look at me now. Will I ever learn I don't know how what about in gender terms

I think actually this was something that was discussed at the time the girls yeah there was the blonde one

yeah the brunette yeah and they didn't write the songs no they didn't but I mean they had a lot of

input into the songs and certainly if you think about I think one of the magical elements of input into the songs. And certainly if you think about, I think one of the magical elements of Abra is the way the girls harmonise with Frida as a mezzo-soprano and Agnetha as a soprano. And they, you know, the band was extremely democratic. Was it? We know that, do we?

Really, really democratic. They all took decisions together and the girls would not sing anything they didn't want to sing. We know that, do we? Really, really democratic. They all took decisions together. And the girls would not sing anything they didn't want to sing. They wouldn't wear anything they didn't want to wear. They were very, very strong women. And, you know, again, to me, growing up, they seemed to represent kind of friendship and sisterhood as well. And I think even today, when you're, I don't know,

whether you're at a party and ABBA comes on the girls will look at each other before they go out and that kind of recognition it's like yeah hey let's get on the dance floor You know, some of the lyrics and the way they presented them, they were very much, you know, they were mothers and they were wives and they were friends and they had this fantastic teamwork that was going on on stage. If one of them didn't feel completely up to the performance, the other one would come out.

Yeah, if you think about some of their lyrics, things like, lay all your love on me. I mean, it's quite physical. Kisses of fire, burning, burning. I'm at the point of no return. Exactly. Absolutely no returning.

They're quite sexual as well. And I feel that they are women who speak about female dreams and desire, who are desired as well. There is the song about parenthood, Slipping Through My Fingers, which I still find that very hard to listen to. Slipping through my fingers all the time I try to capture every minute

The feeling in it There was a degree to which they celebrated the domestic and the family, wasn't there? Which I think people may have forgotten about. Yeah, I mean, it was really important to them that they spent time with their families, which is why they developed all the videos, so that they didn't have to go on tour very much. They had summer homes on a Swedish island where we've got some footage, really beautiful footage of the girls without make-up on, everyone's very relaxed, playing guitar

with the kids sort of crawling over them in their 70s outfits. And that was important to them. Also, it was really different to the way rock stars were being presented at that time. I mean, you know, certainly in this room, which is about ABBA, the album ABBA. It was released the same year as artists like T-Rex, Hawkwind, Rush, Yes, Kiss were releasing albums. And, you know, I think ABBA, the idea of watching Mark Boland do the washing up. It wouldn't have happened, would it?

Or doing his garden. Or like spreading some pate and give it to a kid. Yeah, it wouldn't happen. No, it just really wouldn't. But, you know, it was important to them that they maintained. They had kids, all of them at this point. So they wanted to spend time with the children. And when they were interviewed, people would say, you know, so what do you do in your spare time?

And they weren't throwing TVs out of hotel rooms. They were, they say, you know, so what do you do in your spare time? And they weren't throwing TVs out of hotel rooms. They say, you know, they were interested in cooking. They were interested in reading, listening to music, dancing, exercising. When they went on tour in 79, apparently, according to Carl Magnus Palm, their biographer, after one of the gigs, someone had arranged a post-gig party with strippers so they went down and uh obviously the person who had organized that hadn't done their research properly so abba went down and sort of went very nice and then retreated back and had parties in their own room the relief because if they'd embraced the notion of a party with strippers

i think a lot of our listeners would have been quite disappointed, to be honest. Like a super trooper, lights are gonna find me, shining like the sun. Smiling, having fun. Feeling like a number one Like a super true The assistant curator Sid Moore was talking with Jane. Now, Rachel tweeted, listening to the brilliant and witty Joanna Scanlon, struck by her reflective honesty on the difficulty of being a pioneer. The Waters Company said,

Joanna Scanlon being honest and thoughtful, lovely. And then Viv Rose said, much as I agree wholeheartedly with your article on nurses, it would be so nice to hear some appreciation for those prison officers who have to work also. I'm a retired officer who worked many Christmases and New Years and our dedication is not always recognised by those we serve. The prison service is invariably overlooked when the public services are lauded. Perhaps your programme could rectify this in a small statement. And then Irene Lockwood said, I'm just uploading the shopping on Christmas Eve morning and I've so enjoyed listening to the two nurses talking about working on Christmas Day.

Their commitment, compassion and indeed sacrifice was soul enhancing. At times I feel frustrated that Women's Hour only extols the success of female judges, financiers or heads of corporate companies. But here are two women representing their profession so admirably. Of course I'm biased. I'm a retired nurse who has some wonderful, heartwarming memories of Christmas past. And then Vicky said, although I understand that there are more nurses working Christmas Day than any other industry, I feel that by focusing on nursing, you're not acknowledging the many other workers who are not recognised and don't have the same rewards from their jobs. The many in the hospital sector, cleaners, social workers on call, the staff in the local spa shop who for some reason

think they have to open Christmas Day. They get no or little job satisfaction and most likely no extra money for working tomorrow. And Kerry tweeted, 10 seconds of slipping through my fingers and I'm a blubbering mess with mascara running down my cheeks. And Kerry, I know exactly what you mean. Now do join me, if you can, two minutes past ten for Christmas Day on Woman's Hour. We'll be talking about Christmas traditions, why some of us love them and some of us, frankly, don't. And we'll examine the history of the turkey, the cranberry sauce and the plum pudding. Are they really traditional to this culture or have they come from somewhere else? Then on Boxing Day we'll be talking about winners in 2019 and I'll begin talking with the amazing Edna O'Brien. Just one other point, if you're still looking for ideas on how to achieve a more eco-friendly

Christmas, there's an article on the Woman's Hour website. Nine tips for a greener Christmas. There's also a video on Instagram and Twitter at BBC Woman's Hour. Now enjoy your Christmas Eve tonight and I hope I'll see you tomorrow. Bye bye. Hello, I'm Greg Jenner, host of You're Dead to Me, the funny history podcast for people who

don't like history. And if you enjoyed Series 1, boy do I have a special festive treat for you. yes me and santa's elves have been bashing away in the workshop and we've loaded his sleigh with a brand new episode all about well you can probably guess so join me the hilarious russell kane and our clever historian dr fern bridell as we crack cracker gags and get to grips with how the victorians did christmas you can find it now and all the other episodes under your tree or on BBC Sound. 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.