Woman's Hour - The Silent Twins, the science behind 'mummy brain', Rosie Pearson, Lorien Haynes

Episode Date: December 6, 2022

The story is that of June and Jennifer Gibbons who grew up in Wales in the 1970s. For years, the two would only speak to each other earning them the name ‘the silent twins’. At 19, they were institutionalised at Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital indefinitely. They remained there for 11 years. In 1993, they were moved to a less restrictive clinic in Wales. However Jennifer died during transit. The cause of her death has never been fully determined but has been suggested it was part of their pact as twins. Their story has been largely forgotten or left to folklore. It is now being brought to light in a new biographical film that comes out this Friday, called The Silent Twins. We speak to the award-winning actors, Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrance, who star as the silent twins. We also hear from Marjorie Wallace, former investigative journalist and founder of mental health charity, SANE, whose book inspired the film.‘Mummy Brain’ is the term given to feelings of brain fog or memory loss that women experience during and post pregnancy. Despite the fact that 80% of pregnant women will experience this, very little is known about the specific causes. What we do know is that women’s brains change more during pregnancy than at any other time during adulthood. Dr Jodi Pawluski has been researching the topic for over 20 years and has personally experienced ‘mummy brain’ herself. She tells Emma what we currently know about the impact pregnancy and parenthood has on women’s brains - and what more we still are yet to find out.How much should you tell your children about your past? In the new film ‘Everything I Ever Wanted to Tell My Daughter About Men’, a woman details every relationship she has been in, in the hope that her daughter won't make the same mistakes. The film is backed by Refuge - the charity supporting survivors of domestic violence. It's made by 21 female directors across 23 short films. Then Lorien Haynes, who wrote the script and acted in the films, made one full length movie feature from the short films. All proceeds from the movie will go to Refuge. Emma speaks to Lorien about why she wanted to do this project.In one of his first big tests as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has had to water down housing targets for local councils - faced by a rebellion from his own backbenchers. The former Northern Ireland and DEFRA minister Theresa Villers led the charge alongside fellow Conservative MP Bob Seeley. Housing Secretary Michael Gove has now offered councils more flexibility over meeting the government-set targets. The 60 rebels had argued they are excessive and undermine local councils. Emma talks to Kitty Donaldson, UK Political Editor at Bloomberg News and to Rosie Pearson, who has been branded by some as the 'Queen of NIMBYs', due to her campaigning on this issue.

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Good morning and welcome to the programme. Today we hear the retelling of a story you may remember, the so-called Silent Twins from Wales, whose unique and haunting experiences have been made into a new film. Ever heard the one about so-called Mummy Brain? Well, apart from being a terrible name, it turns out it's pretty terribly understood. We'll be separating scientific fact from fiction. But we're going to start today's programme with the reaction of a woman who's been nicknamed the Queen of the Nimbys to Rishi Sunak's having to row back on his enforced house building targets after a conservative rebellion raised its head. The new Prime Minister's reversal is music to

the ears of Rosie Pearson, who's the head and co-founder of the Community Planning Alliance, a group of around 600 grassroots community planning groups that have come together to lobby the government for change when it comes to local planning. Rosie, a stay-at-home mother, says she was radicalised, and that's the word she uses, into standing up for her local area and blocking certain developers from home building after going to one terse meeting of her local councillors.

Many women are involved in this space. She works with a lot of them. But Rosie also notes how rude and aggressive it can be in the planning world. And I wonder, have you dipped your toe in? Are you involved with these sorts of campaigning groups, these sorts of neighbourhood forums? Are you reading the fine print in your local area on behalf of others? Or do you run a mile from this? Maybe you're a developer. Maybe you're coming up against somebody like Rosie and some of her colleagues as she now finds them. Tell me about your involvement or could you think of nothing worse? Do let me know. I have to say at the heart of this as well, on the political side of this,

which we'll get into very shortly, there's a row brewing over new homes, affordability, accusations of a lack of intergenerational fairness. Once again, it's being said with this government that the needs of the young who want to get on the housing ladder are being sidelined for those already in homes and don't want unsightly new developments popping up, to paraphrase one side of this.

But Rosie Pearson and others, and other Conservative MPs, it should be said, rejects this as a way of describing that side of things. And the idea of that is also an anathema to the woman who co-led the rebellion against Rishi Sunak last night, that these housing targets are arbitrary, they're not the way to go, and things would be better in the hands of those who live in the area. So it is a real debate on the political side, on the local side. Where are you on this? Do get in touch. The number is 84844. Text will be charged to your standard message rate on social media or at BBC Women's Hour.

Or send a WhatsApp message or a voice note using a different number. 03700 100 444. Just check those data charges. As I always say, you may wish to use Wi-Fi if you can. But in what is being described as one of his first big tests as prime minister, Rishi Sunak has had to water down housing targets for local councils, faced by a rebellion from his own backbenchers. The former Northern Ireland and DEFRA Minister, Theresa Villiers, led the charge alongside Bob Seeley, a fellow Conservative MP. The Housing Secretary, Michael Gove, has now offered councils more flexibility over meeting the government's set targets. The 60 rebels had argued that they are excessive and undermine local councils.

Well, in a moment, I will speak to that woman who's been nicknamed by some, and she deals with that as well in our interview, as the queen of the NIMBYs, which stands for, if you're not aware, not in my backyard due to her campaigning on this issue. But first, to put us in the picture, Kitty Donaldson, UK political editor at Bloomberg News. Kitty, good morning. Morning. What has happened to these targets? Well, in effect, the government blinked in the face of the rebels' dismay

and the central targets, the government had a target to build 300,000 new homes a year. The central target will now be advisory and that means councils can get rid of them if building plans are harmful to the character of an area. And this represents a win for people like Theresa Belliers who represents, I suppose you put it, pretty bits of the countryside.

And what does that mean about that side of the argument where the MPs who are concerned about house building targets appealing to the young, appealing to those who want to get on the ladder? Well, exactly. I mean, it's not a win necessarily for the Tories, is it? It sparked a row internally with claim and counterclaim. Two things really. One is, does Rishi Sunak look incredibly weak because he's back down in the face of his party? I mean, that's an open question at the moment. I suspect you'll come onto it in a minute, but there's another rebellion going on as well on onshore wind.

And that's on the same bill. That's on the levelling up bill as well. But secondly, it's pitting true blue voters who possibly already own homes against younger people who are trying to get onto the housing ladder. And actually, one of the biggest factors in indicating Tory voting uh tory voting is home ownership so for people like um theresa villiers she's been an mp since 2005 she's probably pretty safe she survived the brexit years you know she's got a good career behind her but for younger mps particularly representing red wall areas such as

um deanna davidson and she was the emblem of the red wall surgeon 29 support for the tories i mean she's announced she's stepping down i mean you'd have to ask her for her exact reasons but i can't imagine defending the fact that um there won't be much house building her in her area will go down well on the doorstep although as i explore because i did uh record this interview with rosie pearson uh just before. Although we explore, it doesn't necessarily mean there won't be house building. It's just how much of it and whether it will be affordable and the call for the government to do that. So there's some detail in that. But I take the bigger point. The row then politically about whether Rishi Sunak has the power, has the dominance in his party.

It is being described as one of the first big tests because it shows whether he's got control. Absolutely. It's an almost existential point, isn't it? We're two years away from an election and he's ostensibly got a 70 seat majority. I mean, down a bit from what Boris Johnson won of about 80 seats. But if you've got 70 seats and you can't do anything with it, you know, what's the point point are they just gliding towards the election well there's also of course the idea of politics of consensus trying to get people to come around to you he wasn't the uh the man in charge when the the polls opened and i suppose it's trying to keep everybody within the same thing but you mentioned that was it within the same park on the same agreement but you also mentioned uh there's other battles coming and absolutely and and and you're right about the the point about trying to

get consensus and actually i think that is to be fair to rishi sunak is one of the characteristics of his form of governance and i've been talking to some of the rebels who are involved in the planning issue and and actually they've been saying that the negotiations with number 10 and the whips the whips you know the party managers have actually been quite amicable and that makes quite a stark difference and a stark change from what we saw under Liz Truss and the way there was quite a lot of arm bending going on and during the Brexit years of course when there was very vicious infighting yes absolutely but Kitty just finally then, to the overall house building targets, the Housing Secretary, Michael Gove, has said no change.

300,000, still the target, even though it's not been met since the 70s. Well, it's the arbitrary number, isn't it? I mean, yes, he said that, but what does it mean in practice? Yes, but I'm just checking. That's not changed in the last few minutes or no developments on that? No, I don't think so. But whether they get there, that's a completely different question. One you'll have your eye on and perhaps we'll talk again. Kitty Donaldson, thank you very much. UK political editor at Bloomberg News. Well, I did mention the term NIMBY, not in my backyard.

But have you also heard of NOTES and bananas with a small, be the acronym spelt like that, I should say. Believe it or not, these are also terms to do with planning objections. They stand for not over there either and build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything. Well, joining me now is someone who knows these terms very well. They're often put in her direction. And she, as I say, has been branded by Summer's Queen of the Nimbys. Her name is Rosie Pearson. She's the founder, the co-founder of the Community Planning Alliance and now the co-head of it, a group of around 600 grassroots community planning groups that have come together to lobby the government for change when it comes to local planning. I spoke to Rosie just before I came on air and I asked her for her reaction to those changes that Rishi Sunak has been forced to make to housing targets. We think it's amazing. It seems to be moving towards redressing the balance

back away from developers towards communities, which is exactly what we campaigned for. And we're really pleased to see MP Bob Seeley on Twitter last night saying that he has agreed with Michael Gove that the planning system will be more community-led, green and regenerative. So all of those words are music to our ears. Do you worry, worry though about this concern

around intergenerational fairness and the government still falling short of its house building targets and how to get those who need homes onto the ladder? We do not feel that removing top-down targets makes any difference to redressing the balance with intergenerational unfairness because actually what we've seen in in recent years with planning is that um housing that's being built is not affordable that developers often renege on their affordable promises and that social housing isn't being built so we we don't feel like any difference to allow communities greater say on what gets built and where and it might actually make a positive difference no social housing being built no new properties are more affordable.

Can you really say that? Very few new properties. There are around about 6,000 new social houses built in 2020 and through Right to Buy, more social housing is being sold off than is being built. So there's a real problem with housing waiting lists getting ever longer and those people not being provided with housing. Affordable housing that developers provide, which is called affordable, is often not very affordable because it's just at 20% below market price. And developers are told to

meet a commitment of around about 20% to 30% affordable. They often come back and claim the site's not viable and they don't even provide that amount of affordable housing. So the top down targets that ask developers to build 300,000 homes a year don't redress the intergenerational divide anyway. What would? I think giving communities more control over building the right things will start to make a difference, which is exactly what these new proposals are trying to do. I also think the government does need to step up to the mark, invest in social housing in a very big way. And if we look at past house building numbers, the time when government met higher housing targets was when it was building hundreds of thousands of affordable homes. And I know Shelter says we need to be building 90,000 social houses a year. So they've

got a long way to go. But that's what needs to happen. We need to look at what's happening for those that really, really need a house, that can can't afford one and top-down targets are doing nothing for that anyway even if people do agree with you about the target side of things and it seems of course the prime minister for whatever the reason we can talk about the politics of it if we get there um but it'll be people will be aware that this is a defeat if you like for his leadership at the moment even if you agree about the target, I know that you will have faced your fair share of, how do we put it, backlash at the worst,

opposition in some ways, that some would say people like yourself and those you work with also won't let new houses be built in many different places. You know, the nickname, build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything. What do you say to that? Because yes, it's going back into the local control. But, you know, if there's no agreement about where things can be built, what do you say to that? Well, yes, I mean, you're absolutely right. I'm um labeled a nimby um and other uh insults but

actually i have always said there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting the best for your local community and whether that means local biodiversity whether that means wanting affordable housing uh wanting housing that not is not just car dependent urban sprawl yeah um so the planning system at the moment is very confrontational and what it does is it presents communities with a done deal and it then forces them to fight that if there isn't the infrastructure, if there aren't the doctor's places, if there aren't the schools or if wildlife isn't protected. So what we're advocating in the Community Planning Alliance is that the whole system is rebalanced towards asking communities what they want and need, letting communities set out the problems such as infrastructure deficits,

and then finding ways to sort those problems out and to address the issues and to provide the affordable housing. And I think if you ask anybody, and in fact, there are surveys that show that people support house building, but they don't support what you see, which is sort of generic, unaffordable housing estates plonked on the edge of villages with no care for the wildlife. Developers are making on their affordable promises and all the problems are associated with that lack of school places. You talk about NIMBYs. You've even been branded, I believe, in a recent article I read within a profile of you, an interview with you in The Sunday Times as queen of the NIMBYs. How did this happen for you? You talk about being radicalised. Yeah, well, I mean, it sounds like a strong word, doesn't it? But actually, other people

have said subsequent to that article, they feel the same. And I became particularly angry about planning by going along to local council meetings and presenting evidence about problems with proposals they were putting forward and not only being ignored but being um quite abusively treated as were other members of the public and it was interesting anyone that by who so just by who by by councillors and by the council leader um so when you find the people that are supposed to be making the right decisions treating you pretty rudely and not listening to evidence that was then proven to be correct by a planning inspector um you do find yourself getting angrier and angrier because you want the right thing to be done. And invariably, the proposals that are put forward have got flaws in them.

And for people to be called nimbies for holding councils to account and developers to account, I think is wrong. You mentioned that things get heated and people not being treated quite as they should. Are you a rare woman in this space? How do you describe that? You are obviously talking on Women's Hour. Yeah, no, there are a lot of women in campaigning. And I think a lot of women in sort of community groups, community action groups. So yes, we are all very used to being often treated quite badly. But you can't necessarily say that's just a gender thing. I did ask around my committee and one lady in particular has had definite sexism, both online and in person. So it can be an issue.

As you say, targets have been missed. I mean, the target to build 300,000 houses a year, Michael Gove, is still insisting that is the target, that it remains, despite these new powers for councils to dismiss it. It's not been hit since the 70s, which is also just something to say at this point. Do you get a buzz from this? Not necessarily even stopping things going forward because you've explained it's not just about that. But what is it that's got you in and kept you in? And is this your job now? How does it occupy in your life? What role does it play?

Yeah, I mean, I'm sort of officially a stay at home mum, but I am working full time unpaid as a campaigner. So it's trying to protect the environment and trying to make sure communities are listened to in the way that we weren't really motivates me because you see from our group, we've got 600 campaigners on our map all over the country or campaign groups and you hear similar stories everywhere i mean i'm getting emails every day i'm seeing on our facebook page that people are being badly treated evidence is being ignored councils are railroading things through so i am very motivated by helping those campaigners to fight their campaigns as i started out as a campaigner, knowing nothing about planning. Have you ever been wrong? I suppose I will be wrong in arguments, but actually the two planning battles I've fought so far,

we have won and we were proven right. So not to say I'm always right, of course, but so... So you have sympathy for those in the cabinet looking to increase housing targets on that side of things, but doing it in a different way? No, I don't have sympathy with increasing housing targets because the current ones are too high anyway. They're based on out of date projections. We have to, for boring technical planning reasons, use the 2014 housing projections. Despite the fact the census this year has shown that housing has not grown as fast as those projections. And everyone's known that for some years. Just so I get this right, what's the number you would agree with?

Is there a number that you would agree with? Yeah, around about 160,000 was the household projections figures. But again, it's not as simple as a number. No, no, I recognise that. But where you have sympathy is the need, of course, for more housing, but not at the same level that we've been talking about. Exactly. And the need for the right types of homes. And affordable is the real need.

There's no shortage of investor homes, luxury pimp houses and sort of executive boxes. There's plenty of those. Anyone who wants to or can afford those can buy them. But there's a desperate shortage of truly affordable housing. And literally by having a target, that makes no difference because the developers won't build the affordable housing. And why should they? They're running businesses. So government will need to step up to help them build. Some of them will say that perhaps they are motivated to,

but you need the government, as you're saying as well, to step up. For those who think planning is the dreariest thing in the world, they wouldn't want to go anywhere near it. They don't want to read these sorts of documents. They certainly don't want to spend their evenings being, as you say, having some very passionate conversations with their local councillors. Let's cast it like that.

What would you say to them? I'd say, yes, that that is the problem with the planning system, is that you have to get involved with the technical side of it. But that if you really care passionately, and you should do, because planning affects literally everything about your life, then it's very worth getting involved in a

local neighborhood plan which is a much more positive way of doing things because that helps to plan for your area's future is jackie weaver one of your heroes do you have the authority yes she is isn't she so yes managing managing those men very well well rosie it's another name for people's minds your your name, that is. Thank you very much for your views this morning and telling us a bit how you got into this. Thank you very much. Rosie Pearson there, the founder of the Community Planning Alliance, a group of around 600 grassroots community planning groups

that have come together to lobby the government for change on this subject. Rosie mentioned there some difficult meetings and treatments she experienced by council members and council leaders. Of course, they're not here to give their perspective, but you are and you're texting in. I'm a woman in the planning industry. I am appalled by this slashing of targets, the news this morning out of the government. Rosie is just harking back to stale arguments regarding building on brownfield, resulting in houses in which people like her wouldn't want to live, not to mention the limited feasibility of this due to the Greenbelt policy.

No, she has compromised the ability of women like me to get our foot on the housing ladder and secure stable housing, reads this message. But Gemma's written in to say, as someone who is concerned by the lack of truly affordable housing, but also has a passionate interest in the environment i welcome a pause on indiscriminate house building targets a mixture of increased home working plus a change in shopping habits towards online means there are empty attractive buildings plus brownfield sites suitable for redevelopment once we build on our precious green spaces they are lost forever and so it continues many of you very passionate about this indeed do keep keep those messages coming in. 84844 is the number you need to text or get in touch on social media or drop us an email via the Ormizal website. Well, one set of such twins, June and Jennifer Gibbons, had a very extreme version of that close bond. They grew up in Wales in the 70s and for years would only speak to each other and no one else, earning them the name the Silent Twins.

After failed attempts to separate the girls by placing them in different boarding schools, they were allowed to remain together. But later bouts of drug use and petty crime resulted in them being institutionalised indefinitely at the age of 19 at the notorious Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital, a place where you also know murderers including Peter Sutcliffe and Ronnie Cray, criminals as well, Ronnie Cray, were held. They remained there for 11 years and in 1993 were moved to a less restrictive clinic in Wales, or at least that was the plan, because Jennifer Gibbons died during transit and the cause of her death has never been fully determined. Their story has now been brought to light again in a new biographical film that comes out this Friday called The Silent Twins. It stars Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrence, who also serve

as the film's co-producer and executive producer. Both of them join me now, first of all. Good morning, Letitia. Good morning, Tamara. Thank you for joining us. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Well, let me start, first of all, with you, Tamara. You star as Jennifer Gibbons, Letitia, you as June. Tamara, why were you drawn to 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 um 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 marginalisation 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, she 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? Leticia. For me, 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 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, like you say. I will be talking to Marjorie Wallace in in just a moment and there's there's diary entries there's poetry there's short stories that's that's formed a bigger understanding of them and and their relationship as it were Tamara for you do you feel that you can you know you can understand

also how intense that relationship was try 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 sometimes they were very unhappy with each other. Yeah, exactly. I think that was something that was of great fascination to me, 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, to which you have to um who on some level yes is your your best friend for life and someone who you're expected to get along with and spend most of your time together but who um you are often compared and contrasted to um who especially where June and Jennifer weren't able to connect and really desired to connect with their family and and to belong to friendship groups and be understood I think amidst all of that to also find this discord with your twin who also misinterprets you I felt it yeah it created a lot of friction and and. And I think the obsession and codependency of their relationship

resulted in extreme violence as well as extreme love between them. Yes. Tamara, thank you so much for that. And the film is called The Silent Twins. As I say, I'll be talking to Marjorie in just a moment. Leticia, while I've got you, just before you go, Leticia, right, you you know you do also play for a lot of other people will be

thinking of you as Shuri the cleverest woman in Wakanda possibly the whole Marvel universe in the Black Panther film franchise has that rubbed off on you in your real life are you uh are you a semi-permanent genius now and uh do you have people coming up to you thinking you've got all the answers? Yes, that happens quite often and I just I don't know. It's been difficult. What a mantle to wear though. But I did read that you wouldn't have necessarily gone for a role if it had been in any way sort of a stereotypical kind of princessy role or that sort of thing. It was actually about the fact that she is an intelligent character to look up to and and what that can then hopefully give

especially to black girls 100 percent um throughout my whole career um and as it continues i always want to play roles that are impactful and for me i'd never seen on paper a princess who's a genius in one of the most fascinating kingdoms in the universe, all in one setting. And I thought that would be a beautiful opportunity. And so, so proud of myself for being able to be a part of it. Well, thank you for talking to us this morning. Good luck as well with this film, as I say. Letitia Wright there, Tamara Lawrence. The film's called The Silent Twins and it is based, as they were just

referring to on that best-selling book by the investigative journalist Marjorie Wallace, who first wrote about the twins in the Sunday Times in 1982, drawing national interest to their story. She remains to this day, I believe, a friend of June Gibbons. You'll also know Marjorie for her work as the chief executive and founder of the mental health charity SANE. Marjorie, good morning.

Good morning. Just join me now in the studio. When you came across this story, how did it cross your desk? Well, 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. Yeah. They said, 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 sort of 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 had 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, Emily Bronte, all the famous classics, Jane Austen, this incredible self-education. And I sort of thought to myself, I'd 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 practiced synchrony, mirror image movements. Sat down, eyes downcast, lips sealed. Went on like this for nearly an hour. And 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, Emma. Oh, wow, you've 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. When it came to their court case, I went with the family and Tim Thomas to the court case

and absolutely shocked that they, these girls who'd made such an effort to improve their lives and to educate, were actually being sent to Broadmoor because no other institution, no other hospital would take them. Was there a diagnosis of any kind, of anything? Well, in the Cord case, they were called psychopathic disorder and were said to be a danger mutually to themselves, which indeed by that time they were.

You've heard the story that Tamara and Letitia said. But they were not a danger to other people because I had read in the diaries that they had checked the three buildings they set fire to. They had carefully checked there was no one there. When we're referring to crime and some of the incidents that had happened before. That had happened. They had three counts of arson. But the rest of it was pathetic. They stole one packet of polar mint, half a pencil sharpener, a bit of Play-Doh.

I mean, it was extraordinary. These were two girls. They were trapped. They were lost. They were like twin stars in the 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 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 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 was, it seemed to be a pact that they made at 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 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 to keep themselves together and against 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 8 o'clock that night, their psychiatrist from 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 the most extraordinary sort of afternoon of 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 June was saying to me, Margie said, put up a banner over Haverford West. June is alive and well and at last coming to her own. At the same time as she was in grief. And there was no known cause of death, as you mentioned.

It was acute myocarditis, 50 possible causes, none established. I bought Jennifer's grave. I was there at her funeral. And then I kept in touch with June for 40 years. And I actually spent my honeymoon last year with David with June because, you know, in Wales, because, you know, she's an extraordinary person. She herself has brought herself through this. It's not been a therapy she's had. She's no longer in any form of contact with psychiatric services, no medication. And she's a very calm, confident, poisedised person and the story will now be i suppose back in people's minds yes but she she begs people not to intrude in a private happy domestic life

she has she does live her life now as a private person well marjorie thank you so much for telling us uh in you know a relatively of time, a very large story that was a big part and has been a big part of your career and also your personal life. Marjorie Wallace talking ahead of this new film, which is called The Silent Twins. Now, have you ever heard of the term mummy brain? It is what some would say a patronising and rather terribly named label

given to the brain fog and memory loss that mothers can experience during and post pregnancy. Perhaps you've experienced it yourself, perhaps you've noticed it in a partner or a family member. I probably won't remember most of this discussion. But people talk about mummy brain in relation to forgetting the keys or words that aren't coming to mind, or perhaps just feeling your brain isn't working quite the same as it did before.

The point is, in spite of the soft-sounding name, pregnant women's brains do change. Evidence has proven that women's brains undergo structural changes during pregnancy. In fact, the most brain changes a person will go through at any point in adulthood. But what is not yet known is what specific impact these changes have

and whether they can be held responsible for memory loss and that brain fog. My next guest has spent 20 years looking into so-called mummy brain, Dr Jodie Paluski, a research associate at the University of Rennes in France. She has a podcast in which she speaks to scientists about this topic and also has experienced this terribly named thing, mummy brain herself. Good morning. Good morning.

Thank you for being with us. What was your own experience? Let's start there being with us what was your own experience let's start there yeah what was my own experience well I had been aware that this could happen before I got pregnant because I was already doing research in this area and my own experience was forgetting words or not being able to find them I was probably mid-pregnant with my first and all sudden the word was not there I was like oh, oh, this is what they talk about. Yeah. Well, I don't think I should admit whether I feel that at eight months pregnant right now, being a live broadcaster. But yes, yes, you do sometimes reach for a word and you write things

down. I mean, it's interesting. You always find workarounds. You try to anyway in this. But what is clear, and I don't know, do you like the name Mummy Brain? Do you think we should be calling it something else? No, I don't like the name Mummy Brain. In fact, because I feel it has really negative connotation when we talk about the brains of mothers and brains of women, because we always associate it with this deficit in memory. And so I would love it to be rebranded because in fact, our brain is doing pretty incredible things, reorganizing itself in preparation to learn how to parent. And so I think we give our female brains, our women, our maternal brains really, we don't give it the credits that

it deserves, essentially, because there's lots going on. There is. And what we do know, looking at some of the studies, in 2016, there's been research that was done, which shows an MRI scan on the brains of 25 first time mothers before they got pregnant. And then again, first few weeks after they gave birth, compared them to the brain of 20 women who hadn't given birth and found they were starkly different. The amount of grey matter in the brains of women who'd recently given birth seemed to be reduced and those changes stuck around for almost up to two years after birth that plays your gray matter a large role in muscle control the execution of high level tasks like seeing hearing processing memory um what what can we take from the research that exists about the changes and what they mean yeah so i think that you know

there's lots going on in the brain and i think it's been great seeing this this research in women coming out showing these structural brain changes that are happening so there's it seems to be a decrease in the size of certain brain areas that are important for mothering across pregnancy and and in the to the early postpartum period but we also see the activity of the brain is being augmented or enhanced in response to baby cues. And so there's, you know, I like to think of it as a huge reorganization, a fine tuning of the brain. It's becoming really efficient. It's being primed to care for baby, or at least to rapidly learn how to care for baby, especially if the birthing parent is a primary caregiver. Of course, dads and partners can learn how to care for baby, especially if the birthing parent is a primary caregiver. Of course,

dads and partners can learn how to parent and their brain will change too, not to the same way, same extent as the effects of pregnancy and those hormones. But there's lots of changes that are really important to keep a baby alive, essentially. And I think we forget that. we get a bit bogged down in like, I'm forgetting more often. But the interesting thing is 80% of women will say they experienced some sort of brain fog or memory, like loss during pregnancy in the postpartum period. And we really don't know how it's linked with these brain changes. And in fact, that study you talked about didn't see any relationship between those brain changes and memory. And so I think it's, you know, I always say 80% of dads were complaining about memory changes, we probably know a lot more about what's going on in the brain. So there's a definite neglect there in mother maternal health and understanding the maternal brain. But there's

also, you know, different, I think, things at play here. So for one, we know from the limited research in this area, if you bring in a pregnant person into the lab, they do a standard test of memory, they'll perform usually just as well as a non-pregnant person. We do see the verbal memory deficits coming out or the working memory deficits coming out. But in fact, with other memory, they're the same. A recent study came out this year. In fact, pregnant women have enhanced memory for baby related objects. And so there's a shift perhaps, or this reorganization in memory. And then, you know, memory is also really multifaceted. So I think we really have

have much to do in understanding the science and the link with these brain changes when it comes to memory and motherhood. But the point is the brain is changing. The brain is changing massively, definitely. Very briefly, does it go back to how it was? Does it go back to how it was? Yes. So this is a good question. When we talk about these structural changes,

because remember there's activity and functional changes as well. So the structural changes they've in most of the brain areas investigated to date, they've, you know, the study that's been done has shown that they last up to six years, except for in the hippocampus, one brain area that's important for memory, it seems to increase back in size. But also we know during the early postpartum period, some of these brain regions will increase in size and then they'll probably decrease in size again. But I like to talk about this and I've written a review with the author on that paper in 2016 about this is really a fine tuning of the brain. So there's massive changes going on, but in order to make the brain really efficient and geared towards caring for baby

but we then need to understand what else is going on how is this affecting our emotions how is this affecting our memory but the point is it changes it can go back it does go back in some way but we still have a lot of gaps in our knowledge and presumably it changes again if you keep if you go on to have another child and then more change again there's there's a lot more i could do with this and i will try and retain it myself as will others i'm sure uh dr jodie paluski you can look up her work uh on the the so-called mummy brain let's call it that for now the working title but a better title needed thank you for that well it's sort of linked in terms of how you use your brain and how you want to talk about relationships if you do go on to have children. How much should you

tell your children about your past? There's a new film called Everything I Ever Wanted to Tell My Daughter About Men. A woman details every relationship she has been in, in the hope that her daughter will not make the same mistakes. The film is backed by Refuge, the charity supporting survivors of domestic violence. It's made by 21 female directors across 23 short films. Laurie and Hayes, who wrote the script and also appeared in these films, made then one full-length movie feature from those short films. All proceeds from the movie will go to Refuge to support survivors.

When I spoke to Laurie and i asked her about the starting point for this concept this all came about really because i wanted to write a film or a piece of work about child abuse and i didn't know how to do that um i wanted to do a piece of work that showed what i'd learned throughout the course of my life which was when i reached a point in my 40s when I could start understanding and looking at the fact that I'd experienced child abuse as a child not at the hands of my parents but a family friend who's now dead I realized that that experience had dictated my sense of self-worth and it had created a sexualization in me very early on and had determined a series of choices I'd made

in relationships that I don't think I would have made had I not had that experience at a really young age. So the film deals with that, but it also deals with a series of choices that a woman makes who has sort of low self-esteem and lack of confidence and how this person gets into a situation where she ends up experiencing violence at the hands of men coercive control at the hands of men alcoholism her own other people's so she kind of navigates and it is funny can I just say this it's not just this horrendous sort of a series of vignettes of a woman going through hell. The point was to create a series of relationship universals that people could relate to in lots and lots of different ways and to explore all the different elements of relationships. I, for example, had an abortion when I was 16.

And I wanted to be honest with my daughter about that because it was a really miserable experience for me and one that took me a long time to recover from but I didn't want to say to her don't have unprotected sex darling because it's just not good I wanted to say to her I did this I really don't want you to go through this and this is why and that's kind of one example of, I think, as a parent, children need information and education and they need to know the honest truth of the whys and how you've learnt the hard way, perhaps. They will make their own mistakes. It's inevitable.

So you've got a kind of honest take on or a realistic perception of how effective this could be? Because we know that when you're younger, listening to your parents can be limiting. Yes, and so prescriptive. And it's the difference between saying don't do that and can you be careful? And I remember watching her growing up. She responded to those things in very different ways. The no generates a curiosity around it.

The be careful because, it permeates in a slightly different way. And I do think, and having been working in the survivor space for quite a long time now, that actually being honest about these things and trying to start a dialogue about them with each other as adult women but also with your children and your daughters and fathers to daughters as well as mothers to daughters is possibly the best way that you can try and protect and navigate your kids through the waters of their teens and then on into their adult life. And my feeling was that, you know, having had negative experiences very, very young, it's really, really hard to grow up into a healthy, sexually active adult after those experiences.

And working in the domestic violence space as well, it's really important for women to understand and not blame themselves for why they get into certain situations and that there's a dialogue that can be about how to navigate your way out of those situations without all this blame attached um to them and just a sense of self-understanding and self-discovery and honesty um i think makes a huge difference. And that's why this is specifically towards a daughter rather than a son, because you, I'm sure, will have been asked the question, everything I ever wanted to tell my son about men, why not that? Because I was working from personal experience and I felt that if I was

approaching a son and I don't have a son I would have to go about it in a completely different way and I would want to trust my male partner and talk to him about the discussions that needed to be had but I also think in this environment there's a whole other space which is the influx of pornography into teenagers' lives and social media and the kind of whole aesthetic fascism that young adults are facing and problems across the board about identity and anorexia and depression and all these things that are, it's a different territory to navigate than the one that I navigated.

But I would say as an artist and a writer as well I can write from my experience and share that honestly I tend I wouldn't pretend to know about things that aren't within my you know um particularly when things are that personal yes no it was just those experiences could also you you could argue be useful for for boys hear. I also recognise you don't have a son, which is an extra complication, perhaps if you're trying to change that title or appraise it. What about the idea that sometimes we don't want our parents to have had bad experiences? We don't want our parents to be hurt.

And you've got to straddle that thing between protecting them and their view of you and how you want them to feel in the world versus trying to teach them things. How did you come to where you came to on that? I think it's got a lot to do with age. I think I think it's something that I felt I could address when she became 16 and where there was more sexual activity going on, where the things that were reality for me at that time were also becoming a reality for her and her contemporaries, where I became aware of consent and I became aware of really wanting to protect her. And I think you have to weigh up. You have to weigh up the point at which your children have to begin to see you as human beings.

And I would apologise to my daughter, you know, hand on heart. And I'm sure it hasn't been easy for her because I am quite so candid. But I also think I felt intuitively that it was the right thing to do within our relationship. And how is it now between you having gone through telling her then the film and I should say the film has been backed by Refuge, the domestic abuse charity. It's also getting awards at film festivals it goes to. I know people can see a few screenings in February next year. But how are you and your daughter now? Well she's she has amazed me throughout this process she volunteered to come to the first ever screening at the Austin Film Festival I didn't ask her to come with me she said can I come with you because she as strange as it may sound the process of making

the film and the purpose behind the film that it it was a non-profit, the fact that we were supporting female filmmakers and it's to collaborate with Refuge and why we're just hugely thrilled that they've endorsed the film. Because the Q&As we've had after it have been really profound. And the idea was to create a safe space where survivors could talk and men and women could talk about the issues the film raises and the process um was entirely different from the actual sitting in the cinema and watching the product yes as as an actor i find that utterly unbearable um and because the subject matter is really personal to me i actually find i get really triggered by watching it i bet bet. Particularly the end. And I won't give that away. And God bless her.

She came to support me. You know, so we sat in the cinema and she held my hand and she was the person that fed back, you know, and said, you know, the Q&A was this, you know, the experience, you know, did you hear the audience do this? You know, and I was so impressed with her. Laurie and Hayes, if you've been affected by any of these issues, do visit our website for support links. I'll be back with you tomorrow at 10.

That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. Hello, I'm Anita Arnand and I'm hosting this year's BBC Reith Lectures, which are on the subject of freedom. The lectures are inspired by Franklin D. Roosevelt's famous Four Freedoms speech. And this year, we have not one, but four speakers. We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way.

The third is freedom from want. The fourth is freedom from fear. A quartet of speakers examine what freedom means today, beginning with the best-selling author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Freedom of speech is, I think, essential to being human. You can hear all the lectures on Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. Just search for The Reith Lectures. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year,

I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was 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.