Woman's Hour - The Silent Twins, Beryl Cook, whistleblower Helen Evans, Kate Winslet and mothers and sons at Christmas.

Episode Date: December 10, 2022

Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrance star in the brand new film, ‘The Silent Twins’, which tells the story of June and Jennifer Gibbons, twin girls who only spoke to each other, and no one else. We hear the actors speaking about what it meant to them to play these remarkable twins. Also the former investigative journalist, Marjorie Wallace, who campaigned for the twins and wrote a book with them.Hear from the daughter-in-law of the late artist Beryl Cook, alongside art critic Rachel Campbell-Johnston, as a new exhibition of Beryl’s work opens in New York. Emma Barnett talks to them about Beryl painting women enjoying themselves in pubs and clubs, as well as why her artwork means so much to people.Anita Rani speaks to the Oxfam GB whistleblower Helen Evans, who features in a new documentary about female whistleblowers. She discusses not only the impact the decision had on her at the time, but the consequences to her life going forwards, and what happened afterwards. Academy award-winning actor Kate Winslet joins Emma Barnett to speak about her newest project on Channel 4, ‘I am…Ruth’. In it, she acts alongside her real-life daughter in a story that tackles the mental health issues caused by smartphones and social media. Plus, hear why she thinks women in their 40s are going into the best time of life. How do you decide which side of the family to spend Christmas with? Krupa Padhy speaks to one mother who feels like she’ll lose her sons once their wives or girlfriends take control of the festive season, as well as a relationship psychiatrist on how to avoid these kinds of tensions.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Lottie Garton

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Hello and welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour, the show where we gather the best bits of the week just gone and put them all together just for you. On the programme this afternoon, the chilling yet fascinating tale of twins who became known as the Silent Twins. They left Rawmore. Jennifer slumped on June's shoulder and said, at last we're free. And then she went into a coma. At eight o'clock that night,

their psychiatrist in Wales rang and said she's dead. And I wasn't surprised. There was no known cause of death. It was acute myocarditis, 50 possible causes, none established. That's the investigative journalist Marjorie Wallace, who we'll hear from, as well as the actors Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrence, who play the twins in a brand new film telling their extraordinary story. And who are you spending the holidays with this year? Your parents or your in-laws will get to the bottom of how those sorts of decisions are made. Plus, the one and only Kate Winslet has been talking to Woman's Hour. I think women come into their 40s, certainly mid-40s, thinking, oh, well, you know, this is the beginning of the

decline. And, you know, I've just decided, no, we become more women, more powerful, more sexy. We grow into ourselves more. I think it's amazing you know let's go girls let's just be in our power why not life's too flipping short you know amen to that sister you'll hear from kate talking about why she thinks children shouldn't have smartphones acting with her daughter and having arthritis in her big toe so pop the kettle on wrap up in a blanket or something warm let's get started first a remarkable film was released yesterday called The Silent Twins, starring Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrence. It tells the story of June and Jennifer Gibbons, who grew up in Wales in the 1970s. For years, they would only speak to each other and no one else, earning them the name

The Silent Twins. After bouts of drug use and petty crime, they were institutionalised indefinitely at the age of 19 at Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital, where they remained for 11 years before being moved to a less restrictive clinic. However, Jennifer died during transit and the cause of her death has never been fully determined. Emma spoke to Letitia and Tamara, who are also the co-producer and executive producer of her death has never been fully determined. Emma spoke to Letitia and Tamara who are also the co-producer and executive producer of the film about why they wanted to be involved in telling this story. I think it's not very often that you get such multi-layered multi-faceted characters come through in a script piece like this that platforms something in our

modern and recent history gives us a chance to kind of subvert the more common depiction of someone uh to change people's minds about uh a pair of twins who've been misinterpreted in our society i thought um yeah what a special project to be a part of what do you think was misinterpreted about them because you know the people around them, some of them, certainly were trying to understand them. For sure. I think there was a misdiagnosis. I think it was easier to pigeonhole them as mysterious and sinister

than to kind of understand the complexity of twinship and the comprehensive layers of ostracization that they felt not only within the broader society, but also within their families and within their relationship. I think they had many layers to contend with. And obviously weren't able to express that the way that they wanted to and so turned to stories instead to kind of broaden their means of coping and of living and having experiences.

But yeah, I think unfortunately people didn't understand them and so weren't able to give them the help that maybe they would have needed. Leticia, good morning to you. Welcome to the programme. There was also the complexity of them having experienced bullying and also bigotry and racism. Yes. Unfortunately, that was something that really affected the twins, the marginalization of who they were amongst their peers. And that caused them to try to seek a way to be protective of themselves. And that caused them to just be silent. In a documentary that we watched with June, he said that everybody would just keep asking him,

you know, what are you saying? Because they had a speech impediment, so they were picked on at school. And she said, if you can't hear us now, you can't hear us never. So they just used silence to protect themselves. And even with their own families, we should say, with their family,

because they had their own secret language and way of communicating, didn't they? Yes, it was something that they decided to build and to build this pact between each other to protect themselves, really. And unfortunately, their family also experienced this silence, this way of communication that proved to be quite tricky to understand. And unfortunately, it continued for many years. What do you think you've learned about them having been so close to this story, these two young women that we didn't know before? Because some may remember this story. In fact, in a moment, I'll be talking to the investigative journalist who first wrote about their story.

What was it for you that you've taken away from this? Yes, for me, what I love about the way Marjorie Wallace has really compiled all of the twins' diary entries into this beautiful book, I love the fact that we discover the intricate, rich inner world of the twins in the media back then you could assume that they were tricky to understand very silent and nothing much was happening there with their personalities but in the book you discover the ways in which they're so vibrant really funny beautifully beautifully creative and imaginative and their desire to be authors and just how beautiful they really are. So that's something that I took away from this experience.

Prolific writers. And there's diary entries, there's poetry, there's short stories that's formed a bigger understanding of them and their relationship, as it were. Tamara, for you, do you feel that you can understand also how intense that relationship was, or try to certainly, because it wasn't also like they were always best friends and getting along themselves. In some ways, what your portrayal, and I've been able to see the film in advance,

shows that they had a complex relationship that that was sometimes they were very unhappy with each other yeah exactly I think that was something that was of um great fascination to me then the nature of twinship and the depth of that bond that many of us even many other twins won't be able to understand because only a fraction and percentage of twins are even identical. And what it means to share a DNA, to share a womb, to share space and to fight for individuality and identity amidst that, I think it's not to be underestimated how it must feel to have a doppelganger to which you are always compared

and I think the obsession and codependency of their relationship resulted in extreme violence as well as extreme love between them. Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrence there speaking to Emma. Now the film The Silent Twins is based on a bestselling book by the investigative journalist Marjorie Wallace, who first wrote about the twins in The Sunday Times in 1982, drawing national interest to the story. She remains to this day a friend of June Gibbons, and Emma spoke to her about how she first came to meet June and Jennifer. I was at The Sunday Times and the Insight team, but I got a reputation for writing about people who are marginalised and troubled and a colleague of mine a war reporter, I was always jealous of the

war reporters, they'd never send me out to war zones, I had four children anyway A separate story in itself Here's a really strange story for you Marjorie, just up your street and he had a friend in Haverford West, an educational psychologist called Tim Thomas,

who said that he was treating these 18-year-old then identical twins and that somebody needed to come because they had gone on this spree of vandalism and they were on remand in Parkwood Church Remand Centre and there was talk of them going to Broadmoor and he said we need a champion, we need someone to fight for them. So slightly reluctantly I have to say while he went off to the war zones I took a train to Haverford West, all rather bleak, I thought this story can't be true that they've never spoken to their family, they've never spoken to any adult or teacher all their lives. But I was introduced to their family, their parents, Aubrey and Gloria Gibbons, delightful people, just bewildered and not quite knowing what had happened to them.

I was taken up to the bedroom in which they had been and the police had left bin bags full of scattered papers. And I started to open them. And in there, I found there were short stories. There were essays, there were poems, there were drawings. And when they had left school with apparently no education at all, because they'd never spoken, they had turned their bedroom to a sort of crucible of self-education and creativity. They'd got themselves writing courses, even a course called The Art of Conversation. They weren't speaking to anyone. And they bought themselves

a typewriter and they'd started this. They'd read D.H. Lawrence, Emmett Bronte, all the famous classics, Jane Austen, this incredible self-education. And I sort of thought to myself, I've been quite a lonely teenager wanting to have a voice and writing poems that nobody read. And I took them home with me and I put them together. Then I went to visit them on remand. And this was most extraordinary. It wasn't the most sparkling interview to start with, I can tell you, Emma. I sat with her father.

They came in. They were like sort of effigies, stone effigies. They came in, but they had perfectly practised synchrony, mirror image movements. Sat down, eyes downcast, lips sealed. Went on like this for nearly an hour. Finally, I said, look, I've been reading your writings and June looked up and she flickered and she said, did you like them?

And I said, yes, you're very skilled. And then the next time I came, she'd smuggled up her arm a little prison exercise book in which they'd written, I'll just show you. Oh, wow, you brought them in. Yeah. My goodness. A dense tapestry of words, which looks like encode, but they're perfectly formed, perfect grammar, beautiful writing. And from then on, the twins smuggled over their diaries to me. And I started to decipher them night after night after night. These were two girls,

they were trapped, they were two girls. They were trapped. They were lost. They were like twin stars in sort of the orbit that they created about them. And there they were, unable to escape from each other's orbit. And because of that, they were being taken to Broadmoor. Which they went to for 11 years. And without limit of time. And you went and you visited them. I fought for them in the Sunday Times. I campaigned for them that they should never have this sentence. I fought as hard as I could. Actually, Broadmoor, they did. They rang me up and

they said, look, we, the psychiatrists, we can't, they won't talk to any of us. We're wasting our time. And they gave me extraordinary access. And I was allowed to give them writing courses by them, typewriters I could visit any time I liked. And they talked to me a great deal. And we decided to write this book, The Silent Twins, which I wrote with their sort of input. Yes. Because they gave me everything. And using the materials that we've also spoken about. Yes.

But they had a bit of a, was it a pact around what was going to happen? They were sort of trapped in this relationship. Is that right? Yes, they were trapped. I mean, it seemed to be a pact that they made about the age of three. And then as it went on, it became a power base.

And actually, a lot of people found them very eerie because they never replied to anything. There was something strange and powerful. In a way, I described it like, you know how nursery games, children play nursery games. They started off, I think, as almost a dare, a nursery game. And then it became a game that became more sinister and it trapped them. And Jennifer, I think, was more... With one of them feeling they had to be free of the other? Well, Jennifer was a slightly more troubled one. And they became afraid that if one of them were to escape, the other one would go into free fall, would be lost forever. So they formed this power base against, to keep themselves together and against the rest of the world.

But they actually loved the rest of the world. But they actually loved the rest of the world. That was so sad. They loved their family. They just simply could not escape the fact that they had put themselves in this pact of never speaking to adults. And what happened to June after Jennifer died? Oh, what a story. I mean, can I just quickly tell you how Jennifer died? I go on my visit to Broadmoor. We used to laugh a lot. They had a great sense of humour. That's what I adored about them. Never a pun escaped them, never a joke escaped them. And suddenly in the middle of this, Jennifer says to me, Marjorie, Marjorie, Marjorie, I'm going to die. And I said, of course you're not. You're 29. You're not.

Well, they were going to leave to a less secure unit, as you heard. And then I suddenly looked at June and she nodded and they had the sign of the pact. We've decided. And I knew, it was the most chilling moment in my journalistic life. I knew that something would happen. And ten days later, they didn't know which side they were going. They left Broadmoor.

Jennifer slumped on June's shoulder and said, at last we're free. Don't forget the TV set I gave you. And then she went into a coma. At eight o'clock that night, their psychiatrist in Wales rang and said she's dead. And I wasn't surprised. But I went down to see June after that, four days later,

and it was an extraordinary sort of afternoon in my life because there was June suspended in grief because she was writing beautiful things to her, the loss of her sister, but she was also liberated because what she believed was that Jennifer sacrificed her life to truly liberate June. And they had been quarrelling about who would sacrifice her life for whom. And I knew that from all their diaries. I knew this was, this is a denouement of their tragic pact.

And there was no known cause of death. It was acute myocarditis, 50 possible causes, none established. What an absolutely extraordinary story. The journalist and author Marjorie Wallace there speaking to Emma about the time she's spent with the so-called Silent Twins, June and Jennifer Gibbons. The film The Silent Twins is in cinemas now. Now, many of you might be familiar with the work of the artist Beryl Cook, who died in 2008. She was a British artist who depicted ordinary life from the mid-1970s onwards, becoming famous for her larger-than-life characters in pubs and clubs,

with lots of jiggling bosoms, raucous dancing and generally very real images of real people. Her paintings, which once sold for £10, can now fetch as much as £100,000, and an exhibition of Beryl Cook's work has recently opened at a gallery in New York. To talk about her work, Emma spoke to Beryl's daughter-in-law, Teresa Cook, and the art critic, Rachel Campbell Johnston. She began by asking Teresa what her mother-in-law would have made of her having this moment in New York. She was totally indifferent to being a personality and she just wanted her art to be known. So if it went far, that was great by her. And if it didn't, she just loved to paint. She was

a natural painter and she just loved to paint. And if people loved her paintings, that made her happy. Rachel, it wasn't the easiest start in some ways for her, was it? I don't think she meant to be a famous artist in any way. She started, I believe, or as she told me once in an interview, just out of pleasure to fill in the quiet winter hours when the boarding house wasn't quite as busy. And it was a hobby and it took off and became something phenomenally successful. And it surprised her as much as anyone else, I think. Why do you think it became successful? What was it about her drawings? I think they are so distinctive you can hardly miss them you know I think they're about as

discreet as a sort of drunken hen party along a seaside esplanade and there are these women they cavort about they have rambunctious abandon they're hitching up their shiny party frocks they're flashing their frilly knickers they're wobbling their bosoms you can almost hear them bawling knees up mother brown this is a really infectious enthusiasm that she had for life you know it bursts out of her paintings like a sort of stripper bursting out of a cake. And we love that. It ties in with a very English sensibility, I think, which you could date it back to Hogarth or to Rowlandson's sort of political caricatures, or maybe the saucy seaside postcard of someone like Donald McGill, which also, you know, Donald McGill was never rated as an artist, but is incredibly popular and recognised everywhere.

And actually, he was rated by George Orwell rather oddly. That's interesting. The word bawdy comes to mind from what you've just said, that sort of seaside tradition and what it is in this country and how some depict. You say, Theresa, to come back to you, this is your mother-in-law that we're talking about. Did you have a good relationship with your mother-in-law? Absolutely. She was very easygoing. We lived in the same house for years. That's a very good relationship. Yeah, that's right. She wasn't the typical mother-in-law, I've got to say. We got on very well indeed.

Did she show you when she was working on things or where did she like to work? Well, we lived in the basement and she had her studio on the second floor. And the only time she ever used to appear in the basement was when she was stuck. So I knew that she was stuck and then we'd have a little chat and go back. And it was great fun seeing what she was doing. It really was. Do you have a favourite? I do, yes, yes.

It's a painting she gave me, well, maybe 50 years ago, maybe more. Right. And it was one of her early ones of two dancers. And two women or a man and a woman? A man and a woman dancing.

It was one of her more naive paintings and I've always absolutely loved that. People have tried to buy it, but I've never wanted to part with it. Does it have a pride of place somewhere in your home? It does, yes. When she did start to have more success, how did that affect her in any way, Teresa? It didn't affect her at all, except she could pay the mortgage off on the house. Yes.

And she could have better holidays but as for like fame going to her head or anything like that it wasn't any i mean she was quite old when she became famous so it didn't affect her like that you know and she kept painting presumably she just loved to paint she painted from she'd have a go out to shopping or something then she'd paint all morning have lunch and then she'd paint until the light faded and she did it as a job you know she was very disciplined yes you always hear that about people who have a large body of work that the discipline is there and of course sometimes the enjoyment but also the pain if they're creating something and as you say they can get stuck was she was she a big hot drink taker was she the tea and the

coffee or was she drinking something else absolutely she loved smoking and she loved uh eating um humbugs these were all pacifiers so that she could sit there painting and um uh what else and chocolates she loved chocolates oh she sounds like she's having a good time when she was doing this when she wasn't getting stuck rachel what was she like in person when you interviewed her she was so shy she wouldn't meet me in person i had to do it over the phone in the days before zoom she agreed to do it it was very rare and she was a very reticent person and she didn't actually want to meet because she said that would make her shy and she would rather talk to me on the telephone so yes as you say pre pre-zoom pre-people doing this yeah very reticent very very humble she didn't you know I asked her about

whether she felt resentful at all that she's collected I believe by a few regional galleries but she's not in the Tate or anywhere which which is odd for someone who's given such wide ranging pleasure. And she said, I don't care one iota about the Tate. All I want is to give people enjoyment. Yes. I mean, they're very famous people also now own her. It's written up people like Yoko Ono. Yeah. I mean, I think that actually in future years, historians will actually be able to reconstruct a picture of our society from her works. I mean, who else has documented all those characters, you know, the man with the pint in the pub, the fashions for tattoos, the white stilettos, the kiss me quick hat, the, you know, the little chef uniform, nothing was too humble or too insignificant for her attention. You know, she's, this is the woman

who would paint the queue in the ladies' loo, who remembers for us and paint our full English breakfast. Well, I mean, if the queue continues to always be as long as it is for the ladies' loo, you've got quite a long time to be in it. That's often the problem if you're in one of these. And there's some great characters. It's a good inspiration. She also told me that she carried a little camera. She used to sketch quietly, sort of in her bag, but she also, later, she carried a little camera

and she'd take little snaps of things that interested her, whip it out quietly and take a little picture so that she could capture the details for later. Beryl's art has meant to you. This one from Deborah, who emailed us to say, sitting in my kitchen in the company of my pictures, Beryl Cook has kept me company for the last 35 years. And Madeline Grieve got in touch via Twitter, simply sums her up by saying, absolute icon. Now, a powerful new documentary about whistleblowers has just been released. When We Speak follows the stories of three women whistleblowers, sharing their motivations, experiences, and the fallout from their actions.

One of the women featured is Helen Evans, a former Oxfam employee who spoke out about sexual exploitation and abuse at Oxfam GB. I spoke to her about when she went out to Haiti in 2011 after the 2010 earthquake and started by asking her what happened. So at that time I was in an HR room and I went there in an HR capacity and they were investigating allegations of sexual exploitation. So this is basically women there, survivors of the earthquake, having to have survival sex with aid workers in order to feed their kids. And Oxfam workers taking advantage of that. Afterwards, I then became the global head of

safeguarding. And I think like many people, I thought that was a one off. And very sadly, quickly became apparent it wasn't and that there were systemic issues so I was visiting many country programs and time and time again I was hearing the same story and my hope had been I thought well it's perhaps the organization isn't fully aware of this and if I bring enough information to their attention they will take it seriously and act and they didn't. So I presented, we did a survey with 120 staff and one in 10 of the staff were telling us they'd witnessed or experienced sexual exploitation and abuse. And in one country programme, we had 7% saying they'd witnessed or experienced rape or attempted rape. Really serious allegations. And at this point, you're head of safeguarding. Yeah.

And there was me and one other person and a network of focal points. And I was desperately saying, you know, we've got a systemic issue and we've got a massive problem that we need to get on top of. And at the meeting, I was meant to present that to the chief exec. They cancelled my session. And that was the point where I walked out took it to the charity commission unfortunately at that time it wasn't taken seriously enough and it took a couple of years until Sean O'Neill of the Times broke the story about Haiti another whistleblower gave him that information but he broke the story and finally people took note. So just to get the timeline you left you quit the job in 2015, but you weren't

the whistleblower. Not the times. I spent a year after I left Oxfam trying to get people to listen again and again, going back to the charity commission who didn't even invite me in for an interview. And then it was another person in 2018 shared that story with the Times. And at that point, I thought this is my moment moment and I think because when I was speaking out we hadn't had Me Too, we hadn't got all the information that we now have so it was the right time for that story to go public and thankfully people did then listen. And you went to in 2018 you gave your first interview to Cathy Newman at Channel 4 News, how come? Because I wanted to give the story to someone I could trust.

And I'd seen the way that Cathy had covered other stories of that nature. And to keep survivors at the heart of it. And for me, that was the key thing. So, yeah, I just cold called Channel 4 and said, you know, I'd like to speak with Cathy. And Cathy was just wonderful because I was so nervous and so unsure about was I doing the right thing because up until that point I hadn't spoken to the press and she was just so thoughtful and sensitive and really made me feel able to tell that story to her. And before we find out what happened after that what was your life like in the interim between 2015 and that interview with with Cathy?

It was tough. I constantly felt like I'd let people down by not being able to get the senior management to take me seriously. And that's so hard when you've heard disclosures and people put their trust in you. In some of the countries we're operating in, to disclose rape or sexual assault, you put your life at risk if that becomes known. So they trust you with that information

and they trust that you're going to take action and you're in a senior role and then when you can't affect the change needed you feel so powerless and I felt really powerless for the years in between and that I'd let them down. And also you didn't have a job. Yeah I walked out and I had a one-year-old son at the time and it wasn't easy. It took a bit of a while for me to get back on my feet. I mean there was a huge fallout for Oxfam, a government inquiry, withdrawal of government funding, statutory inquiries by the Charity Commission into Oxfam and a few months later to save the children. But what about the fallout for your life? What was it like for you after that

interview in 2018? So at the time I gave the interview, the Charity Commission were just kicking off their investigation. MPs were just starting to look at it. And so for Oxfam staff, there's a question there, is this true? And, you know, the vast majority of Oxfam workers are dedicated, committed, and you want to think the best of your organisation. So for many of them, they thought, what are her motivations here? Is this really true or is there another agenda? And they were hurt and angry. And I live in Oxford, or I used to live in Oxford,

and that's where most of the Oxfam workers are based. And inevitably, when I was out and about, some people shared how they felt. And I totally understood it, but that was really hard to be on the raw end of people saying you know Oxfam staffs um you know Oxfam's lost income we're losing our jobs and that's on you and it's a huge global charity that actually does a lot of good work as well and people you and relies on people supporting them and funding them so it's a big conflict because you wanted to you want you loved your job yeah and that that was you know that was probably the biggest thing in my mind going over and over before I did the channel

for interview is could I be responsible for loss of income for Oxfam that would then mean less help for people and you know I've worked that through and I very much understand that that responsibility lay with senior management for their failures um but that was really when people then were repeating that back to me and saying this is on you you feel terrible about it and they were coming up to you in the street yeah it was um it was when they did that with my son that was the tipping point where i thought actually i don't think i can carry on living here anymore so i did um then relocate um because i just i don't want to put him in that position ways having people up having a go at his mum. So you left Oxford the place that was your home? Yeah. That's a huge life

decision to make. It was really tough and it was tough for my son and my husband at the time we've since divorced but it was necessary um unfortunately and you've divorced as well so the impact on your life was catastrophic it was hard um you know it became something that I struggled to think about other things I think you become so focused on these when you become a whistleblower that issue becomes everything and and sometimes that can be um to the exclusion of other people um and yeah it was it was a tough few years the documentary which as i said is a really powerful watch it is about three female whistleblowers what what do you think being a female whistleblower, how do you think that makes a difference being a woman? I was really conscious when I spoke that a lot of women whistleblowers

are dismissed as hysterical, overreacting, overly emotional. I'm autistic and I think that gave me an advantage because I'm used to masking and when I my interview, I thought I have just got to be cool and calm if I'm to be believed. Because if I show emotion through these interviews, they're not going to take me seriously as a woman. And that was something I had to really hold. And it meant people did listen that I got invited to speak to MPs. I got the interviews. But that does come at a toll as neurodivergent people know when you mask that long and you have to conceal how you're feeling it comes out in different ways we have had a statement from a spokesperson for Oxfam and they said we should have acted more quickly on Helen's concerns and deeply regret that we did not we've since increased investment and introduced a range

of measures to help prevent abuses of power and better protect all those with whom we work while the uk government and our regulator the charity commission have acknowledged the progress we've made we know there will always be more to do we continue to strive to improve our safeguarding and ensure that survivors and whistleblowers feel safe to report concerns no one should suffer for speaking out um what do you think about that? I think progress has been made, but there's still so much further to go. I was one whistleblower. There's so many other incredible women who contributed to the change and are still in that space. But it was only, you know, in 21, 21, they were, their funding was reinstated. And then a month later, it was only, you know, in 21, their funding was reinstated and then a month later it was stripped from them for more allegations.

There's an acknowledgement by government that progress has been made, but there's still challenges. There's still so much further to go. Helen Evans, one of the women whose story is told in the very powerful documentary When We Speak. It's available to rent now on most major streaming platforms. Still to come on the programme, award-winning actor Kate Winslet on everything from not wearing a bra in lockdown to the current cost of living crisis. And how do you decide where your family

spends the holidays and with whom? Do sons get overpowered by their partners when it comes to Christmas decisions? We'll be getting to the bottom of that. Now, it's often been said a woman's work is never done. Well, we are planning a whole programme devoted to the theme of rest. We'd like to know what does rest mean to you? How do you achieve it? Where and when do you rest? And do you feel guilty or are you able to immerse yourself and enjoy the sensation of restfulness you can text the program the number is 84844 you can contact us via social media or drop us an email by going to our website or you can even send us a whatsapp it's 03700 100 444 and remember you can enjoy woman's hour any hour of the day if you can't join join us live at 10am during the week, all you need to do is go to BBC Sounds and search for Woman's Hour. And by the way, it's free and

very restful. Now, this week on Woman's Hour, Emma spoke to none other than multi-award winning actor Kate Winslet. In her latest project, she stars alongside her real life daughter Mia Threepleton in Channel 4's anthology series I Am. It's a feature-length episode telling the story of Ruth, a mother who becomes concerned for her teenage daughter's welfare as she becomes consumed by the pressures of social media and suffers a mental health crisis. Emma started by asking Kate what made her want to get involved with the project. We just wanted to tell a story that was truthful and resonated with people in a way that might be new, might hopefully help them to have conversations with their teenagers that they have been nervous to have, haven't known how to have. It's so clearly a massive issue for parents these days, struggling with teenagers and their mental health

and the addiction to telephones and the use of social media and not knowing how to sometimes even get through or communicate with their child. We wanted to tell a story that was real and that means sometimes painful and difficult to watch, but we didn't want to shy away from anything. What do you make of how your character handles it? Because there are times where, and I say this as a parent of only a four-year-old, so I'm not at this point yet, and I'm looking to learn,

but there are points where I wanted your character to just go in the room earlier on and get this phone that is making this noise and driving her daughter to such a dark place? Well, it's actually kind of a natural reaction. You know, as parents, we don't want our children to hate us. We want to do the right thing. That's why so often parents will say, well, you know, you have to let them have social media because all their friends have had it.

And how do you say no? And well, you can say no, you can intervene. It just takes an enormous amount of courage and you do you say no and well you can say no you can intervene it just takes an enormous amount of courage and you have to follow through and you know I don't have a rule book I don't have a manual I'm like any other parent who's made it up as I've gone along well but I can tell you for sure that you know when you can hear that your child is using a phone excessively you slightly have to kind of let them do it and hope they're going to stop and hope that they might listen to you when you say, oh, go to bed now, darling.

You know, we've all been there. I have been there too myself. And we wanted to take the character to a point that she had to intervene because she could see that what was happening to her child was without question actively damaging and truly harming her mental health. And that's when the story really cracks open. Yeah, it's very pertinent as well for lots of reasons that you've said. But also, I was just looking back on this.

Only a few days ago, the Children's Commissioner for England, Dame Rachel D'Souza, has said, we're going to look back on this with horror as to the fact we gave smartphones to children and what they've been able to see. Her research has said kids have seen, we know about porn, of course, but also beheadings online by a very young age. And the message that came from her was, do not buy your children a smartphone. What do you make of that?

She's right. She's right. I don't want to be accused of being a celebrity standing up on a soapbox, but it is possible to just say no. My children don't have social media and haven't had social media. There are many fake accounts out there for myself and also my children, weirdly, so I'm told. But it's possible to just say no, you can't have it. You can't have it because I want you to enjoy your life. I want you to be a child. I want you to look at the clouds and not photograph them and post them on your Instagram page and then

decide whether or not the clouds were worth looking at because someone thought that they were rubbish. It's tampering with sometimes a very basic level of self-esteem, but on a bigger and darker scale, it is tampering with young people's self-esteem to the extent that they are completely losing a sense of who they are and don't know how to communicate with not just their friends but their families and it's making them depressed it's clearly making them depressed it's obviously a huge problem and she's right don't let your children have a phone if they are too young to know what to do with it. What age do you manage to hold out on with your children? I actually can't remember, but they were most certainly not 11. But I actually can't remember. It's got an added

element to this when we're talking about being a parent from your perspective, because your actual daughter is your daughter in this. She's gone into the same world as you, different surname, so not always linked. And I did wonder, on a slightly lighter note, when there's lots of running up and down the stairs and listening outside the room, and then that moment where you talk about her skirt being too short for school, any elements of that that had rang true in real life? Well, listen, let me tell you, this film was not scripted in the sense that there is no written dialogue for the actors to learn.

So we came up with all of that ourselves. So for sure, there were certainly things that we drew upon of our own experiences without question. I mean, I think going into it, we knew as a mother and daughter that there were inevitably going to be some areas of overlap luckily we are close luckily she shares with me um and I have always been able to support her and really listen but yeah a little bit of our own experiences for sure are in there absolutely I think I'm sure I probably have said to her at one point are you really going to go out the house wearing a skirt that short I'm sure I've done it I certainly know my mother would say that to me or my mother would say get

that muck off your face about makeup I'll get that muck off your face yes take your hair down that was one my mum will take your hair down darling you look lovely with it down and of course immediately you're like well I'm going to keep it up then I'm scraping it right back off my face right now with that muck on it yeah there was that moment where I think she attacks what you're wearing and you attack what she's wearing and it just resonated very much I mean I do also love the fact that you've talked relatively recently about being obsessive about your feet saying you pick at them but you're not sure everyone wants to know that this was after my feet hurt so much I've just taken my shoes off because they're so big arthritis in my big toe and my left foot swells up in the heat.

I mean, I'm 47. You know, there are bits that don't do what you want them to do anymore. And there's something kind of fab about going, oh, well, that's just the way it is, isn't it? But here's the other thing that I do want to say is that I think women come into their 40s, certainly mid 40s, thinking, oh, well, you know, this is the beginning of the decline. Things start to change and fade and kind of slide in directions that I don't want them to go in anymore. And, you know, I've just decided, no, we become more women, more powerful, more sexy. We grow into ourselves more. We have opportunity to speak and speak our mind and, you know, not be afraid of what people think

of us, not care what we look like quite so much. I think it's amazing. You know, let's go, girls. Let's just be in our power. Why not? Life's too flipping short, you know? But this all came about, and there'll be a lot of people screaming amen at the radio to that when they hear it.

But this came about because there was such a fuss, wasn't there, about playing the detective role in The Mayor of Easttown and how you didn't look versus how you did look in it. This idea that, you know, you didn't wear any makeup. But you know what's really funny is that, you know, you're absolutely right, I know it was absurd. I mean, we'd never make that thing. It's such a great programme.

You'd never make that fuss or that much noise about a male actor's appearance, would you now? No, you flipping wouldn't. So it was a bit irritating. Also, by the way, I did have makeup on. I absolutely had makeup on. And so when I came to do I Am Ruth, which was the next thing I filmed after Mare of Easttown, I thought, well, I've only got one option here. And that's to go one step further and really actually not wear any makeup and just scrape my hair back into a crappy old ponytail like I do every day of

my life anyway. There are a lot of myths, I think, around perfection and actresses looking perfect all the time and how real that is or that isn't. And I do care about being real and telling stories that are truthful and come from a place of integrity. And that's certainly something that I feel is a shift in this time in my life that I care passionately about that now, about highlighting issues that need to be talked about, that perhaps people find hard to talk about, not shying away from, yeah, I mean, like in I Am Ruth, truly looking like, you know, kind of a hot mess a lot of the time. Well, I also think a i also think when they go on the school run i don't no i mean and then there is the irony that you will have been as you say wearing some makeup to look like that but a lot of us watched mayor of east town i adored it during

lockdown and you know we were permanently living on the sofa eating crisps as many fake foods as possible and just only wearing tracksuit pants because nothing else would do up. I know. A bra was a real step forward. A real, yeah. Bras became super challenging and really painful when we finally had to put them back on and walk out into the real world. It's like, oh, my God, what is this halter we're wearing? What's the terrible thing that no longer does up in the back? You had ample opportunity to pick your feet, I'm sure, during lockdown, which is, you know, part of the activities.

There was also a lovely quote, I remember you saying, I looked it up again this morning, I burp, I fart, I am a real woman, which you need to get put on a T-shirt, Kate Winslet. Let's do it. Should we get one in? Yes. I'm keen.

I'm terribly, terribly keen. Can I just ask, while I have you, one more on this, because you were in the news recently, especially in the UK, for a donation you made. I'm not bringing this up to get your blushes, but it really speaks to the times that we are living in. To help another mother, you donated some money to a mum facing sky-high energy bills

to try and help with her daughter's life support stay on. And it's her daughter Freya, who's 12, has severe cerebral palsy. She relies on oxygen for chronic breathing problems. How did that story cross your path? And what's it meant to you to be able to try to help? Well, I've always been, I mean, I think I get this from my own mother, I've always felt enormous compassion for the individual who is in a powerless position through the state of the systems. And especially when it comes to mothers and children and the treatment of children and the lack of care, the lack of acknowledgement that a life is a life, a mother has a right to

mother that child in their home on their terms. And the fact that this woman, Carolyn Hunter, the fact that she was going to have to possibly put her child into care because she couldn't afford her energy bills, I couldn't let that happen. I just couldn't let that happen. I read it on the BBC Scotland news page and tried to track her down, which is actually quite difficult to do because when someone gives an interview, or tells their story publicly, there's a lot of protections around them. But using GoFundMe, fundraising, you see that I've worked with in the past, using some friends that I've made there, we were able to get in touch with her and say to her, look, we'd like to make

a donation, let's set up a page for you and make that possible. And that was how we were able to set up the fundraising page. I made a donation. And what was remarkable and utterly moving to me is that in the six days following my initial donation, what I had donated more than doubled in donations from people who put in a fiver, a tenner, people putting their hand in their pocket because they wanted to make a difference to that woman when they clearly probably had very little funds to be able to actually help themselves. They were able to put their hand on their heart,

their hand in their pocket and help. And that gives me hope about the way of the world. I couldn't let Carolyn and Freya suffer. They need support. Did you manage to talk to her as well? Yeah, my son and our youngest and I, we had a lovely FaceTime call with her and we were able to meet with Freya. And that was very special. Yeah, very special. Kate Winslet speaking to a mother. And the next day, Krupa spoke to Freya's mother, Carolyn, about what that donation from Kate meant to them. And if you want to hear that interview, you can head to BBC Sounds.

And I Am Ruth is available to watch now on all four, the Channel 4 On Demand service. And there were two bits of that discussion which particularly resonated with you listening at home. Here are just a few messages. On the issue of children and smartphones, Sharon sends us an email. She says, in years to come, we will be horrified that we allowed teenagers to have smartphones.

There is clearly a link between smartphones and mental health. I did not have to deal with this because my daughters are 33 and 35. Why do parents give phones to toddlers? What is wrong with a colouring book? And lots of you celebrating what Kate said about women in their 40s. This email from Annabelle says, Well done, Kate Winslet. I agree completely about women in their 40s. We have experience and must embrace life. I love it completely. And finally from Jeannie on Twitter,

Totally! Yes! Exclamation mark. So agree. I'm 78, still telling it like it is. After 40, it's all simpler and better. Amen to that. Thank you all for your messages, as always. Now, we're just a couple of weeks away from Christmas, but who are you spending it with this year?

According to the relationship charity Relate, deciding who to spend Christmas with is often a major source of tension in relationships and families. Mum, actor and writer Sue Elliott Nichols says now that her sons are older with girlfriends, she's going to have to lure them to her house for Christmas Day because when it comes to the festive day, she says women will always choose to spend it with their mum and family. Krupa spoke to Sue, along with relationship psychologist Emma Kenny, to find out if there's any truth in the argument that it's the women who have control over this Christmas Day dilemma.

She started by talking to Sue, who has two sons aged 21 and 27, about her situation and why she's worried. I just think that I'm beta mum, aren't I now? You know, and I can see it looming. It's disheartening. I know, I know. I can see it looming. It's disheartening. I know, I know. I can see it starting to happen. Where are you going to go, you know, for the summer? Who are you going to go on holiday with? Staying with the girlfriends.

And I just think that you're kind of like three laps behind as the mother of the boy. You know, you won't be there at the birth. You won't get the phone calls saying the first tooth's arrived, the first steps. We all ring at mum's first. You know, I did not have a great relationship with my mum, but she was still the first person I rang, even before my husband. You know, you're saying this and all I'm thinking about is my sweet six-year-old boy. Boy? Yes, yes.

And him flying the nest and me turning into you. It's hideous. It's hideous. And I thought I was going to be the coolest. Right. I thought, oh, I've got my life. I'm going to be fine. But you have to pretend as well.

You have to pretend that you're really happy about everything. You're really happy about the fact that they leave. They abandon you, basically. They abandon you. Well, tell us what's happened so far. How you've come to this point in thinking that that's it. When it comes to Christmas Day, I'm taking second place. All out.

Well, I might not take second place. I mean, gloves might be on. I definitely will be getting the inflatable Santa. And I think the trick will be to work out what's missing from other granny and supply it right you know strategic yes and maybe even a bit of cash could change hands between me and the grandchildren on the quiet don't tell your mum here's a tenner go buy yourself something and a lovely new toy right and I think it's just you slowly start to realize when they get into their 20s that it's like karma coming back. Because I, you know, I made the decisions really about what we did at Christmas.

I was going to say, does this mirror what's been happening in your own family unit over the years with your husband, for example? Well, I mean, we did go. In the end, we decided not to go to either of them because we did the best Christmas ever. And I feel like, you know, we might be the most conflict free. Definitely the most conflict free. But I can see with friends that are becoming grandparents or as the boys get girlfriends that, you know, the mothers of the girls, the girls come and stay with them with their baby and have a little sleepover, watch a bit of Strictly on a Saturday night. The boys don't.

I can't ever imagine my sons thinking, oh, I'll come and stay over the night. Maybe they will. Maybe I just need to work on that. No, they're only 21 and 27. So they've got a lot of relationships possibly to come. I'm thinking ahead. I'm planning. Let me bring in Emma Kenny here. Emma, is this about the gender stereotype of lazy men versus organised women? Or is there some truth in what Sue is saying there? And of course, we're just talking about heterosexual couples at this point. do do more of the decision making but then with respect that's because they take 70 percent of their housework and domestic duties and child care even when they work so I don't think we can come

down too hard on women saying well I organize this because it has to be somebody who follows for it to actually eventuate in a reality if a man's just going to say that's fine then maybe what we need to do with our boys and I've got two boys so I've brought them up subliminally processing them to understand the importance of remaining with family at all times, no matter how they marry it out. That's definitely a fear that I think most of us feel with our children per se. I think there are a lot of stereotypes associated with boys because at the end of the day, it used to be that women didn't have the same protocol of work.

Now we do. We are leaders. We are all those things work now we do we are leaders we are all those things and we are also often leaders in our home but negotiation is really important it's really humor orientating when I hear what's being discussed because it's that genuine sense of grief the fear of loss and it's a beautiful thing because what it says is you have this profoundly important incredibly strong relationship of love that you have managed to manifest in your family and sometimes we feel bad that we have these feelings of well I want my boys or my girls to be with me for Christmas because we think that that's maybe a bit selfish because at the end of the day we've got to share but it comes from this exceptionally beautiful place of this connection so I think when it comes down to making Christmas

fair firstly it's today. It really doesn't matter whether it's Christmas Day or Boxing Day or New Year's Day that you get, as long as you get, you can organise and synchronise. You can move Christmas. You can, but maybe be explicit.

So my boys have grown up with me saying, one day, stereotypically, you would abandon me, but that's never going to happen because you and I are going to make sure that we always have this contact and they kind of laugh about it. And yet it's real. So maybe it's more about us being honest about our feelings, not being ashamed that we have them, expressing it as a moment and meaning of love and working hard on those relationships. Maybe not

bribing them, although I love that. It made me giggle. Pay the grandchildren. You come here, you get more. But, you know, doing that strategic, as you said, relationship building, because a lot of the time it comes down to the fact that we choose what feels best. History and familiarity and nostalgia creates connections with families. But you know what? Over the years, you can build those incredible bonds with anybody, partner-wise, with your children. I like the positivity, Emma, I really do.

I talked about gender stereotypes there between husbands and wives. Is it less complicated for same-sex couples? It tends to be, with respect, the person who organises the household that has more of a say. And even when we are in same-sex relationships, even when we look at polyamorous relationships, so we're not just talking about two, we could talk about three, you still tend to have what we would consider a dominant system within a home that comes down to the organization and actually if all we ever do is say well okay it's your job to organize and i've got an easy life then it's not going to be a surprise that they choose their needs a little bit more than your needs when it comes down to the things like big days so maybe we all have to just be a bit

more honest about our roles our relationships and our expectations with one another so that we can be a bit fairer. But like I said, everything that's been said about those children and those boys and like yourself with your six year old, it just comes from the most profoundly beautiful place. I just don't think we should beat ourselves up for those feelings because it means your children are adored and cherished. And what a gift that is, whether they're six or 60. What a lovely message there Sue are you the more organized one? Do you know I'd like to say yes but no I'm not well maybe that's what you need to do that maybe that's what I that's the role I need to um yes and I love it that you said that you've kind of said to your boys you know you need to we need to carry on

cherishing each other because you know it was really interesting my son said you know my oldest son said he might need to move back for a while and I said oh well you know secretly I was thinking yes yes yes but I was like you know yeah you could move back you probably wouldn't be back for that long because you know you'd need to find another flat and he said I feel like you don't really want me to come back and I was like oh my god you are so jokey. I literally pretend that I'm happy that you've gone. I absolutely hate it. It's a front.

It's a front. I've got to put these messages to you. We've had Alison get in touch saying, oh, get over yourselves. Your children don't belong to you. Yes, they do. And should be making their own choices and living their own lives. Fiona says, seriously, let your kids live their lives and don't overthink Christmas visits. This kind of pressure is totally unnecessary, but a son is a son until he takes him a wife. A daughter's your daughter for all her life.

I've heard that many a time. Emma? Yes, I've heard that very many times. I do understand when people get in contact and they're like, don't sweat it. Stop being overreactive. But I think we should never minimise some of these feelings. And actually, our children are profoundly important. And it's totally all right to have these feelings and it's most important to work them through and

figure out strategies that work for you as a family yeah i'm not judgmental at all of those feelings i think you're a normal loving mother sue elliot nichols and emma kenney talking there about the dilemma about whose parents to spend christmas with or just do what i do sometimes spend it with neither. That's all from me today. Don't forget, Woman's Hour is back on Monday morning at 10am. Emma will be speaking to Marina Litvinenko, the wife of Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB agent who defected to Britain and died after he was poisoned in 2006. That's 10 o'clock on Monday morning. Have a great rest of your weekend.

I'm Sarah Trelevan, 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.