Woman's Hour - The UK’s first woman vascular surgeon, South African choreographer Dada Masilo, Benefits of older siblings.

Episode Date: February 23, 2023

Averil Mansfield was the UK’s first woman vascular surgeon and first female professor of surgery. She qualified as a surgeon in the early 1970s, at a time when only two per cent of her colleagues were female – and was often met with disbelief bordering on amusement when telling people what she did. She talks to Woman’s Hour about her medical achievements, which she downplays to, ‘It’s just glorified plumbing,’ as detailed in her memoir ‘Life in Her Hands.’A a new app to block child abuse images has received £1.8m pounds of EU funding, with the aim to help combat what has been described as a "growing demand" for child abuse images. According to the NSPCC, child abuse image offences have reached record levels with more than 30,000 reported in the last year. It also revealed that the police have recorded the first child abuse crimes in the metaverse, with eight instances recorded last year. We hear from Rani Govinder, Senior Child Safety Online policy officer from the NSPCC and John Staines, former police officer from E-Safety Training who goes into schools to educate children and teens about online safety. Dada Masilo is a South African choreographer, who is known for her re-working of classic stories to reflect black female identity. Her latest show is called Sacrifice, inspired by Stravinksy’s iconic ballet Rite of Spring is on a national tour of the UK, and will be performed at the Sadler’s Wells in London this weekend. Plus the new study from the Cambridge Centre for Family Research which shows that having an older sibling helped keep children well-adjusted during lockdown. Prof Claire Hughes joins Nuala to discuss how older siblings can provide protection from stress.Presenter Hayley Hassall Producer Beverley Purcell

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Hayley Hassell and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Good morning and welcome to the programme. We have got some exciting interviews and guests coming up on the show for you this morning. Shortly, I'll be talking to Avril Mansfield, who made history as the UK's first female vascular surgeon. She was often met with disbelief and what would today be called misogynistic comments, but her amazing achievements have stood out for themselves and I'll be talking to her very shortly. I'll also be joined by Dada Masilo as she talks about her

new ballet called Sacrifice. It's an empowering display of female power, dance and nature. It's got some rhythm and style that you probably have never come across before. So make sure you stay tuned and with us for that. And we have some new research from the Cambridge Centre of Family Research, which has surveyed children over lockdowns from around the world and found that children with older siblings have fared best, whilst only children have suffered more. But I'd love to know if you can relate to this. Perhaps you have siblings and feel they've supported you and protected you in your life in some way. Have they been your linchpin during the pandemic?

Well, maybe you wish you didn't have siblings and envy those only children who get to do more of the things they want their way. Well, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this one. Please do get in touch. Women's Hour is, of course, all about you and your involvement in our discussion. So please let me know your thoughts on this one. You can text the programme. The number is 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. On social media, we're at BBC Women's Hour and you can email us through our website too. Many of you have already been responding with me on this. From Instagram, Cam says, My sister is 16 months younger than me, and we are very protective of each other.

The same amount, which is a lot. And another says, Well, please keep those comments in. It's great to get an insight into your lives. And you can now also send a WhatsApp message or a voice note using the number 03700 100 444. It would be great to hear your voice with those. And data charges may apply depending on your provider.

So you might want to use Wi-Fi if you can. Terms and conditions can be found on our website. But first this morning you may have seen the news headlines that a new app to block child abuse images has received 18 million pounds of EU funding, sorry 1.8 million pounds of EU funding, with the aim to help combat what has been described as a growing demand for child abuse images. Now, according to the NSPCC, child abuse image offences have reached record levels with more than 30,000 reported in the last year. This represents a 66% increase in child abuse images

and offences recorded by UK Police Police in the last five years. Well, their new report has also revealed that the police have recorded the first child abuse crimes in the metaverse, with eight instances recorded last year. Well, to discuss this further, I'm joined by Rani Govinda, Senior Child Safety Online Policy Officer from the NSPCC, and John Staines, former police officer from East Safety Training, who now goes into schools to educate children and teens about online safety. Welcome to the show, both of you. Rani, I'm going to start with you, please, because I know children are in constant conversation with you through Childline and your own reporting systems. So do these figures surprise you at all? No, unfortunately,

at the NSPCC, these figures don't surprise us as much as they are incredibly concerning. As you mentioned, we hear through Childline and children that we work with, that child abuse image crimes are unfortunately pervasive on social media now. We get calls, for example, to Childline from children that are really worried about these kinds of images, which they know have been shared about them online and don't know who to talk to and how these can be tackled or taken down. It's extremely worrying though that there has been such an increase over the last five years. It's an issue we've been highlighting for some time and does indicate that tech companies need to be doing much more proactively to tackle these crimes

online. Why is there that increase? Have you got any idea what is behind the surge in these child abuse images? There are a couple of reasons why we might be seeing this increase. One reason is that in the pandemic, we saw the online world become a really integral part of all our lives. That was the case for children. But unfortunately, offenders exploited that and found new ways to abuse and offend children online based on that increased use of the internet. And that has really been a structural change, which has continued since the pandemic and might be a reason why these crimes have continued to go up. But again, another reason is that technology is evolving. There are increasingly new and complex ways that you can communicate and share images online. And this has happened at a really rapid pace

and we haven't seen enough action from the tech firms to think about what the risks of these changes might be to children and how they can help prevent those. Yeah, I just want to go back to what you were saying about the increase in children contacting you and what they're saying so that we can fully understand this. What are children saying to you? What are the sort of things they're talking to you about?

So one example for example that we get through um from children is when they have perhaps consensually shared an image with with someone else but then this has been uh shared with others in perhaps in their schools or other people that they know and they're really worried because that's people that they know that are seeing this um but then a different a different case is when children have been groomed online by adults and typically male offenders and they have shared these images because they've essentially been blackmailed into doing it and then they ring because they have no idea really who this person is or what's happening with those photos so there are different ways that this abuse can play out,

but the clear running theme is that there needs to be more done and much more support in place for children, as well as, you know, design features that can proactively tackle this harm. And sooner as well. It shouldn't be getting to the point that the ringing child line, you know, it should be before that, that children are able to notify this. Or it should be prevented before it even gets to the child itself? Yeah absolutely we would really call for prevention being the solution here it

can't be allowed that in five years time we're still seeing an increase in these cases we know that there are steps that tech platforms can take to change the way that children are interacted with online so that we can help really bring down these cases. But also, as you say, if these instances do occur, there must be the reporting tools in place and children must be signposted to the right support so that they know they aren't alone when these crimes do happen. Yeah, you talk about the online space there

and I know your report shows that these perpetrators have moved on to the metaverse. Can you explain to us what that metaverse is and how children are being approached and groomed there? Absolutely. So the metaverse is essentially a virtual world. A lot of people, if they have used it, might have put on headsets and it takes you into a virtual alternate reality where you can communicate with other people who are also wearing these headsets and are in these new spaces. And this might be in a virtual cafe or park, or you might be able to play games with people. This is, as you say, a new and emerging threat. So we don't know exactly how these crimes have been taking place. What's clear is that offenders will find ways that

they can exploit this new and evolving technology, particularly ones like the metaverse, where it really does make you feel like you are meeting these people and that you know them, when in fact they might be complete strangers and you've never spoken to them before. And this for children can make them particularly vulnerable. So that's why we are concerned that we're seeing the first reports of these crimes. It shows that at Meta, for example, who have this platform and are rolling out these tools, they need to make sure children's safety is an absolute priority when they're designing them, because otherwise it will be exploited and used by offenders.

Right. Yeah. I'm going to bring in John on that now, because obviously, John, you go into schools to talk to children about the dangers. What do they tell you? What are their experiences in this online world, this metaverse? It's one of them areas. Good morning, by the way. The metaverse hasn't really come big in our world at this time. So it is there and people are using it but because like um as just explained you do need headsets you do need more equipment to use it we are finding more grooming is actually taking place on the front end of the internet just in normal games rather than offline i mean this reminds me of many many years ago when i was working in the field of the online protection world and

we had a thing called second life now that was a virtual world as well wasn't 3d as the metaverse is because this is an evolution of the internet to make it all 3D and more immersive. But Second Life was exactly the same thing. And there was areas in Second Life where perpetrators would go to groom children. So these platforms have been there, but they're more specialized, I think, than the front end. Our biggest problem, like you just heard with the increase in imagery, is really on the front end of gaming and on the front end of the open Internet, really. And I think that's the problem. Sometimes, even when we talk to parents and professionals, we're still very hooked up on the dark web, the underbelly of the badness and all the rest of it, where this stuff has really moved into the front end of the Internet. And it's under our noses, but that's why we're not seeing it.

So how does it work then? How do the perpetrators target children on these various platforms well we we've come up with basically a three-step approach and it's not a scientific one it's what we've seen over the years working in the field when we're in the police and now the children tell us the same way first thing is three steps first one you have to get a child to like you which is common sense so that can be done in three ways one you give the child something now again in a game it's very easy to go down to your local supermarket buy a scratch card with the amount on like playstation card or anything really give the child the code they load that to their account they've got money to spend in the game secondly you can trade in a game so you can buy a super cool item in a game whether it's a from fifa right up to roblox you buy something you

trade that with a child again you're their best friend best friend. Or thirdly, the one that's the main one is the actual, what we're finding is emotional support. And that is horrendous because the child has perhaps a bad home life or is upset or got pressures of score, could be anything. And this could be from any age, really, we're talking primary and secondary. They go home at night, log on to their game, and then someone in the game says, how are you today? and that's the first person that's been nice to them so they go well oh thanks for asking and they start talking that emotional support and when you talk to children you say does it matter how old that person is they'll say no so that's your first step second step is to get them out of the game which sounds bizarre so because again you if you're relying on tech companies and a lot of them

will do this they're like they'll put age 13 you can't chat if you're under 13. So that doesn't help. You can't send pictures in a lot of games. That doesn't help a bad person at all. So you want to get them out onto a third party app. And that could be anything from FaceTime to Kick Messenger to Discord, could be anything. But that's the second stage, get them out of the game onto a third party app so for example if you was playing fortnight but you've moved the chat onto to a say a discord server your parents would see you sitting there you'd have a headset on you'd have a game on a telly you're talking away parents would quite happily think you're talking to a friend at school when you're actually talking to the bad person and then the last step is to get you to send a picture now that won't be a indecent picture won't be a rude picture that'll be just a picture from the game and this was one we had recently, a 10-year-old girl sent a picture of her pets in her game to this person that she thought was another 10-year-old. They did what we've shown many children what to do, how to geolocate a picture, as in work out where it was taken because of the

seconds in a device it was taken on. They geolocated it, went back to her, and this sounds really horrible and I do apologise, they said said if you don't send us a naked picture of yourself we're going to murder your parents she had a choice go to her parents say mum dad i've been threatened or send a picture 80 of children we talk to from year three up to well once you get to secondary they'll all do it because the answer is i can't tell my parents because i've broken one of the rules i've talked to a stranger in a game so i'll send a picture and then you've got them and that is simple as that. It does seem incredibly simple and quite quick for these strangers to get hold of information from these children but you make a good point that they don't want to tell the parents because

they don't want to get in trouble and perhaps there's many of these online spaces that parents don't understand as much as the children do. Do you think there's a naivety as far as parents are concerned? Oh, yeah. I mean, there is. It's a lack of awareness and education from the parents' point of view. And I understand as parents, everyone is busy, everyone is doing everything. And unlike our younger people, we've got hours and hours to spend looking at stuff. But we use two simple analogies as a training company to parents we say two things one we call the internet the internet express and we say it's a train it's on a journey and no one knows where it's going but the child jumps on

that train and goes on the journey of a lifetime and gets on every stop they can so whether that would be perhaps tiktok snapchat instagram social media gaming could be anywhere they're going to get off every stop and explore it as a parent you've got a choice get on the train with them or wave them off at the station unfortunately most parents are at the station waving them off and hope they get where they are with no stranger danger messages no education in it so it's a bit like saying you know as parents we invest a lot of time in our children in unfortunately i hate this what we call the real world so if you're teaching your child to swim you wouldn't just walk up to a swimming pool throw him in and say off you go you get in the water with him you get armbands you give him lessons you do the whole lot on the internet off you go

for example hobbies and the big one we talk about with hobbies and things like that in life we say to him like if your child does any hobby i can guarantee his parents and we've all been there who if you're listening as a parent where you rush home you rush dinner you get them to the club you get back saturday morning you're up at eight o'clock to go down the field you've all done that we spend time but on the internet we don't we just ignore it rather than just sit with them for 20 minutes once a week play the game look at the commodities look at the dangers give them the stranger danger message in that game what the bad people are going to do and how they can look and open the doors of communication then we will crack this world so get on there with them i may not understand what my kids are playing online but

it's about time i did and get on there and understand it just like you would going to the park but john we i i've been with you when you've been to schools and we've we visited children and asked them lots of questions about safety online and one of the things i was struck by was when we went into a primary school and i'd say about 80% of the children said they'd been asked for pictures online. So did the statistics coming out today, do they surprise you at all? Or have you been expecting this for a long time? No, we, it sounds really horrible. Again, we said at the start of the pandemic back in 2020, when we were closed and we was in schools at the time, right up until the Friday, everything's shut. We said like, this is going to be a complete nightmare because all right everyone's being

furloughed everyone's being sent home also so are the perpetrators they're all going to be at home so the ones that and it sounds horrible because some of these people work there's some of these are i won't use the word normal people but they've got normal lives as such they're not just sitting there all day trying to groom children and that's something they do on top but they had lots and lots of time on their hands in when the pandemic came so we knew this would explode and you know when you look at some of the figures even from the NSPCC or even the Internet Watch Foundation a thousand percent increase a thousand percent worse since lockdown. Thank you John and Rani just back to you for a moment because I know you found that police are taking notice of this online world there have

been criminal charges but is it being taken seriously enough? What are you asking to happen that will better protect children from this? Absolutely. It's really important that the police are collecting this data so we can understand where these harms are emerging from and make sure action is being taken to tackle that. But we do have the online safety bill, which is going through Parliament at the moment. That's a really important child protection measure, because that's going to make sure that companies have to take steps to tackle illegal threats such as child sexual abuse on their platforms. At the NSPCC, a step we'd like the government to take is to introduce a user advocacy body for children in that bill, because children really do need a champion in this new regulatory world. We can see with the increase in these kinds of crimes that children at the body for children in that bill, because children really do need a champion in this new regulatory

world. We can see with the increase in these kinds of crimes that children at the minute are too vulnerable and being left to carry the burden essentially for the failure of tech companies to protect them properly. So we want to see the government commit to having a body that can represent children, that can listen to them, understand new harms that are coming through, for example, on the metaverse, and make sure that tech companies finally take the steps to prioritise children's safety on their platforms. And I understand that there are reporting out there,

there are ways to report this. You can go to Childline, of course, or the NSPCC. But my big concern is, is that not too late? Children have already seen these images by then, they've already shared those images by then, they've already been abused in some way. Are we not behind the wheel in this? I think at this stage we are, yeah.

Prevention is absolutely the most important approach to take here and no child should ever have to go through this experience and then the reporting system afterwards. So we do need that approach that focuses on prevention, taking proactive steps to look at new features that are on platforms like live streaming, like being able to connect with strangers and think about the risks that might pose to children so that we can upfront be tackling these and really bring these figures down over coming years. Thank you Rani and thank you John. Rani Govinda is a senior child safety officer policy from the NSPCC,

and John Staines, former police officer, now runs e-safety training in school. Well, the Meta have produced a statement that says, this horrific content is banned in our apps, and we report instances of child sexual exploitation to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children. We lead the industry in the development and use of technology to prevent and remove this content and we work with the police, child safety experts and industry partners to

tackle this societal issue. Our work in this area is never done and we'll continue to do everything we can to keep this content on our apps. Well do please keep your comments coming in on this issue. I know lots of people will have children or young people they know who are online a lot. I'm sure many of you have come across this. Please get in touch with the competition as we go along. Now, my next guest has made waves in the medical world and has done so more often than not as the only woman surgeon in the hospital. Avril Mansfield qualified as a surgeon in the early 1970s, a time when women

medics were outnumbered by men eight to one. Back then, a woman saying that she was a surgeon was met with surprise, disbelief and sometimes amusement. Nonetheless, Avril rose through the ranks and went on to become the UK's first female vascular surgeon and first female professor of surgery. Now age 85, Avril has written her memoir, Life in Her Hands, and joins me now. Avril, thank you so much for coming on Woman's Hour. Thank you very much for having me. Now I've read your book and it's something I've got to admit I wouldn't normally read. I'm a classic 19th century literature girl myself, but I was enthralled,

not just because we're from the same town of Blackpool, but mostly because you bring to the medical world of surgery a sort of humble, natural heroism that often made my jaw drop and I'd wanted to turn the page wondering what on earth I've been doing with my life because you've achieved so much from such an early age. You were the first female vascular surgeon in the UK.

You were the first female to be honoured by the American College of Surgeons. You became the first woman to be a professor of surgery. And you set up an initiative called Women in Surgical Training to encourage more women to take up the profession. I mean, I could go on. But can you tell me what we all want to know? Why did you do it? Why did you choose to go into surgery in the first place?

It's a good question. And I don't have a very clear answer to that. I started to read books when I was about eight or nine about medicine and particularly about surgery and the history of surgery. And I was fascinated by the fact that people were exploring operations without them knowing whether they could work or even if people could survive. Perhaps, for example, having their chest opened. Somebody had to do it first. And as a small child, I was captivated by that. work or even if people could survive, perhaps, for example, having their chest opened. Somebody had to do it first. And as a small child, I was captivated by that. And I wanted to go along in that direction. I was used to seeing women doctors. Surprisingly, my school doctor was female. The person who delivered me into the world was female. So women doctors were not a rarity for me. So it

seemed perfectly reasonable that I should think I could go along in that direction in my future career. And talking about how you came into this world, I was fascinated to read that your first interest into medical research was when you learnt about your own quite traumatic birth for your mother and how there was no real understanding of your mother's complications. Did that map your interest into surgery? It certainly mapped a specialty interest in my future career because she got a deep vein thrombosis and a massive pulmonary embolism,

which very nearly killed her. And I was completely perplexed by this and fascinated by why it should happen. And a lot of my research was about why that should happen and how we can prevent it from happening. It's much less frequent now than it used to be, but in those days it was often fairly lethal. Yes, and I'm sure your family are very proud about that. But I believe you were in the local paper when you were a child,

and you said you wanted to be a surgeon, but they printed that you wanted to be a nurse why what why was that was it was that just because it was seen as inappropriate or unlikely that girls could be doctors no it was my mother my mother thought it was above my station to say I wanted to be a doctor certainly not a surgeon but certainly just to say you want to be a doctor you can't say that you can say you want to be a nurse if you if you must and I have nothing against nurses at all I love nurses but I wanted to be a doctor. You can't say that. You can say you want to be a nurse if you must. And I have nothing against nurses at all. I love nurses, but I wanted to be a doctor and I wanted to make that quite plain. So I was really very cross about that. But yes, indeed, they did publish that.

See, I always imagine it's the person at the top is keeping you down. But in a way, it can sometimes be people close to home that are too scared to push those boundaries when you yourself wanted to. Yes. I mean, my parents had not had the benefit of higher education. They both had to leave school at 13 or 14. They were intelligent people. They could have done much, much more. And I was the one with the opportunities and I was the fortunate one. Well, when you were a child living in Blackpool, there was no NHS, of course. And I read with fascination you describing your father coming home with his wages and putting money in a pot on the mantelpiece for the doctor.

Yes. So becoming ill or being in an accident must have been quite a worry then. What was life like for you before the NHS? It was extremely difficult. And it is really a very strong memory when the NHS came into existence and that pot on the mantelpiece could be removed. Things like my mother requiring surgery to correct for the damage that had been done when I was born put a huge strain on family resources. It had to be paid for. It wasn't going to come free. So I saw that weight of responsibility that came from quite a small income. My father was on a relatively small wage as a welder, which is what his job was.

So to see that change, to think that everybody could be treated properly and when they needed it was a wonderful step forward, even for a child of eight or nine or whatever age I was at the time, it was very clear that this was a momentous moment. That moment when the NHS was created, and I think you were 11 at the time, how important was that to you and how important do you still hold dear the NHS? It's been absolutely central in the whole of my life. I've wanted to see the NHS thrive and

prosper. And it has been such a wonderful thing that people can have healthcare as and when they need it without having to count the cost. So yes, it has been a really important part of my life. But I do wonder how you look on the medical students of today because for instance you talk about current students not being able to perform minor operations until much later in their study in their career but how much do you think today's teachings have changed from when you were there and is that positive or negative in some ways? In some respects it's changed but in truth the medical students are just the same they're wonderful young people who really do want to be looking after patients doing the best for patients that they are all like that and we need to foster that in our young students we need to encourage that because that's really

what we all want when we're sick we want somebody who wants to care for us and to give of their best to us. And most students do. Clearly, the fact that they can't do some procedures when they're students, which I was allowed to do, is just the way of life. It's pushed things back a little bit. And I sometimes am concerned that people don't discover whether they really have aptitude for something like surgery, which is after all a skill. They may not learn that at an early age. They may have to wait a bit before they can discover whether that really is the future career for them because of putting it back to a slightly older age. Yeah. You going into that world as a surgeon and then as a consultant as well, it was a male dominated environment and you were often overlooked. You were called a slip of a thing and someone presumed that you were just taking someone's history and the doctor was on their way. Were you overlooked and how difficult was it in that environment for you? Well, you would write in a way that people would be surprised and almost reluctant to believe that you could be that person with that amount of responsibility.

It sometimes worked in the opposite direction, of course, because once they discovered that, in fact, you were that person with that responsibility, then suddenly it seemed as though you must be something extra special. So being female, it was not without its advantages. You stood out from the crowd. You weren't one of a huge crowd of men. You were the odd female. So there were some benefits from being the occasional woman. And I believe when you told your senior surgeon that you planned to get married, said what a pity I thought you had such a promising career ahead of you. He did I was really disappointed by that because he was a great supporter he was the senior consultant and clearly you know from a different era not used to having women who wanted to pursue a career in surgery and it he saw it as something that you had to be totally dedicated to

and there wouldn't be room in your life for anything else. But I proved that that was not the case. You could do both. You did. And then you went on to set up the Women in Surgery Initiative. What have you done for women beyond just succeeding yourself? You've helped so many generations after you as well. My hope is that what we did with that women in surgical training scheme at the college was to make them aware of the fact that it's perfectly feasible, perfectly possible and indeed desirable for women to pursue a career in surgery.

There's nothing odd about it. There's nothing wrong with it. And it is, of course, an extremely fulfilling career. And a lot of women have said you can't be what you can't see and so making it more visible I think was really very important. And the other aspect of it was that we were at that stage only 2% of surgeons were female and we were approaching about 50% of medical students were female. So the sums just

didn't add up. We needed to encourage some of those women going into medicine to believe that it was perfectly okay to become a surgeon if that's what you wanted to do. I've said all my life that what's most important is that you actually take a good close look at the career of surgery because you're going to be stuck with it for the next 30 years. And it is quite a demanding job, as you can imagine, and a wonderful one. Don't get me wrong, I loved it. I loved every minute of it. But you do have to make sure that that is what you want to do. So I encourage young women to explore it and enjoy it. Yeah, bringing us to that current generation, many of the papers are inundated with stories of the NHS strikes at the moment. Now, you said to yourself that you were in this to

help people. Altruism was the core of being a doctor for you. You wouldn't walk away from anything. So with that in mind, I'd love to know your opinions on the recent strikes in the NHS. How do you feel about doctors going on strike? It's often criticised as leaving vulnerable patients without care. Isn't that a difficult question? I kind of guessed you would ask me about this. This is one. Because it's topical.

But it's something I know that I could not have done. I couldn't have walked away. I never could. And sometimes I would actually dedicate myself to a patient when perhaps I should have been dedicating myself to some other issue in the family or at home. Because they were paramount. The patient was always the paramount concern as far as I was concerned. I understand and sympathise with the situation that the medical profession is in. I want the health service to succeed. I want it to be successful. I want it to engage with the young people who are working in it so that they are content to stay in it and are properly paid to do what they're doing in it because they do work hard, extremely hard. But it's just, for me, it would have been extremely difficult to walk away from a patient. I'm sure it's difficult for them too.

I don't think any of them actually want to neglect their patients. They just need to give a message to someone and that's the way they're finding to do it. You're right and it is a difficult subject, especially in your position, but I do want to also reflect on your life works. Lots of people are getting in touch with the programme who are huge admirers of yourself. I want to read a few of them out to you.

Fiona says, I remember from my days as a nurse in Liverpool in the late 1970s, the huge respect we had for Miss Mansfield. She was one of, if not the only, female consultant and everyone held her in high esteem. It's great to hear from her today. And Dr. Sarah Pape, who's a consultant burns and plastic surgeon, says we have never met, but Miss Mansfield was well known for her wise words which i have learned them from those who did have the honor of working with her i qualified as a doctor in 1982 when it was still difficult to be taken seriously as a female surgeon but thanks to the pioneering work of a very small number of women like miss mansfield who went before me it was not impossible she will

never know how much i owe to her. That's lovely. Thank you for coming on the show. You've obviously helped many women and it's been lovely to have you. I don't know what you're going to do next. You've got so many awards, you've achieved so much, you've even met the Queen. What is next for you Avril? Well I took up the cello in retirement so that's really the thing I need to concentrate on is getting better at playing my cello which I love. Like you do. Honestly you're unstoppable but it's been so lovely to have you. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you very much, Avril Mansfield. Now, lots of you are also getting in touch with the show about your older siblings. We're talking about this because Cambridge Centre of Family Research

has found out that during the pandemic, many children were affected and went through difficult times, but those with older siblings came off a little better. We've a shared history with our siblings that can be really valuable when going through a crisis. And according to this study, the older sibling can help keep younger children well adjusted. Well, Professor Claire Hughes from the Cambridge Centre of Family Research joins me to discuss the adverse effects of restrictions during the pandemic on younger children and why sibling relationships are so important. Hello, Claire, lovely to have you on the programme. Thank you very much. Isn't that lovely to be here?

Now, the survey, it surveyed thousands of children from six different countries, I believe, all of which had very different attitudes towards lockdown. But tell me more about the study, why you did it and what you were hoping to find. Of course, yes. So we're at the Centre for Family Research. So when the pandemic happened, it was obviously a question on our minds was how is all this going to make a difference to families? It's going to be terribly difficult. We didn't know at that time how long it was going to go on for, but it was clear that the experiences were likely to be different in different countries.

So Italy was a little bit stricter than we were, and I have colleagues in Italy. So the idea just came of joining in with others like me who were interested so that we could get a little bit of extra power because we're exploring it in different countries. So one of the countries was Sweden, for example, where they didn't have mass school closures at home. And it turns out that those children, they were affected by the pandemic, they didn't emerge unscathed, but they were doing better than the children in the other

countries. So that was one of the reasons for having the international design. The idea for looking at siblings actually came from one of my collaborators who in Italy was stuck alone with her one child thinking life would be so much easier for him if he had a playmate and thinking about it in siblings don't get an awful lot of research attention when they do and when people think about siblings it's often in quite a negative way so recently we've heard an awful lot about sibling rivalry that's something that gets a lot of airtime. But parents are also worried when they have a second child that they're not going to be able to give their second child the same kind of attention and time that they might have given their first child. And they're quite right, they probably won't be able to. But what

these findings are indicating is that that doesn't matter because that's more than offset in terms of children's behavioural and emotional adjustments. That's more than offset by what the younger child gets from their older sibling. Now, we don't exactly know what the mechanisms are. It could be that the child themselves acts as a secure base, that they're acting as a little caregiver, particularly during the pandemic. They may have been acting as a playmate. They may have been helping the child with their schoolwork or whatever. So they may have been stepping in as a little parent. It may also be that there's a learning from experience effect that by the time you have your second child, that you as a parent are more skilled. So it's a little bit more indirect, the effect that the first child is kind of blazing a

trail and parents are making whatever mistakes they make with that first child, and they're getting a little bit more kind of in tune with the second child. So it could be not the child themselves, but how the family has changed and how the parents changed. We don't really understand the mechanism. But I think it's really important, given that there is such a lot of negative coverage about siblings, to remember that siblings can be really powerful sources of support and that you're not in it alone as a parent, that the children, the older children are actually playing their roles in terms of looking after little ones. It's really interesting that you find it is beneficial to have older siblings. But is it any way beneficial for the older sibling to have

a younger brother or sister? Or is that just a pain? In the pandemic, we were looking at three to seven year olds, and we asked whether they had an older sibling or a younger sibling. And at that age range, if they had a younger sibling, there was a smaller negative effect, which we think is to do with just how busy the parents were caring for children, that they weren't perhaps able to make as much time as they would do for their older child. So that's kind of interesting, isn't it? The parents might worry that the second child isn't getting what they gave the first. But maybe it's what you're used to. And if the first child is used to a lot and then suddenly they're having to lose some of that parental time because their parents are busy looking after their baby sibling, then that could affect their emotional or behavioral adjustments. So there was an effect that was slightly negative. But these things play out over time.

One of the really important things about the sibling relationship is that it is the most enduring of all close relationships. It goes on throughout the lifespan and it changes. You know, it becomes more egalitarian as the younger child grows up and becomes more of a kind of equal sparring partner, conversational partner, whatever. So even if things are a little bit more difficult in the early days, that doesn't mean it's always going to be more difficult. Which is what our listeners are saying actually right now. They're texting, emailing, whatsapping us. Debbie says, my little sister is nine years younger than me. I am 62 after the death of our wonderful mum who my sister lived next door to and I spoke to every single day of my adult life. We have made that our new default. We talk every morning on FaceTime whilst munching on our bowls of cereal. This closeness has been a wonderful part of our

lives and a big shout out to all siblings. Another one in here from Maureen. I have a twin sister who contacted me every day in COVID. She would walk with me and eat meals in her garden. She is the other half of my identity. We are part of the Twins UK study and 60 years old in a few weeks. I would have faulted with her in every way um another one here my sisters are my absolute best friends i'm the middle of three girls and love being both a younger and an older sister without my sisters i wouldn't be the person i am now i'm eternally grateful for them but i i think if i can claire because it's not as clean cut as always the older child um you know, has a more tricky time.

The younger child benefits from that because, for instance, if children were from a disruptive or unhappy home, they're going to be affected by that division and perhaps it might not fare well. Did your study go into the different situations that siblings are at home and how that can affect them? We did find that, of course, that effect doesn't. So the other one of the other really interesting things about sibling relationships is that they're not just longer lasting than any others, but they're also more diverse. That if you know that somebody is your friend, then you know something about the quality of that relationship to know that somebody is your sibling. It could be wonderful. It could be horrendous at home. So they do you do get the kind of that relationship. To know that somebody's your sibling, it could be wonderful. It could be horrendous at home.

So you do get the kind of chalk and cheese all the way through to peas in a pod. And it's really heartwarming to hear the positive stories. I think that's very important. But we know that sibling violence is the most common form of violence in the home. So, you know, it can be really a source of stress

if that sibling relationship isn't going well. And we did have some measures about sibling conflict. And of course, where there was conflict in the sibling relationship, that buffering effect wasn't there. So it is taking the assumption that you've got a supportive functional relationship. And in that case, having an older sibling would be best. But of course, you wouldn't want to be making generalizations to any one particular family because the relationships can be so different from family to family. And of course, during lockdown, you're stuck with each other, aren't you? And of course, you can't choose your siblings. So how does that affect the dynamic of the sibling relationships,

the different personalities that are in that home? That's a really, really good point. So siblings have been described as having a love hate quality that historically psychoanalysts like Freud would have put down to that whole sibling rivalry that you're competing for parental attention. That's why you kind of love and hate. I think it's much more likely that you've got that love hate relationship simply because it's an involuntary relationship. Your sib is your sib, no matter how badly you treat them, they're there, whereas you will lose your friend if you don't treat them well. And so you have a kind of license to be who you are with your sibling. And usually that means that you can get a really lovely intimacy that means that those relationships are so special as you've been hearing from your listeners. But it does also mean that children can show complete rage at a sibling in a way that they wouldn't with a friend.

And so that involuntary nature of the relationship is one of the reasons why it is so diverse. Let's talk about only children for a moment because if they have been affected more negatively by lockdown, is there anything we can do? Do we know the full effects of how that's going to affect them in later life? Or are we just waiting to find that out? So we know from the China one child policy that the notion of an only child syndrome doesn't really have any evidence base at all. So overall, only children do just fine. But I think oftentimes they do fine

because the parents compensate. The parents find ways of making sure that they're seeing their cousins or that they're having friends over for playdates. You don't have to have a sibling, but children do need other children in their lives. So you can find other ways of doing that. In fact, just this weekend at my college, Newnham College, that funded this study, we had an event to bring families together to do some shared capler play. It's just a building thing. And it was to compensate, if you like, for the way in which the pandemic has taken away those opportunities for families to reach out and engage socially and for children to spend time together. So of course, there are ways that

we can do that. And as working parents, I went through lockdown with a six-year-old and a three-year-old. So it's very relevant to your study. And both me and my husband had to work through it at the same time. It's inevitable that you have to leave them to their own devices. And they also are stuck with each other 24 hours a day. Is there, hopefully we won't be in that situation again, but as a parent, is there anything we can do to help that relationship be more fruitful? So yes, to some extent, the fact that they are unsupervised, that might be seen as a risk, but it is also an opportunity.

It does allow children to kind of grow and to take on responsibility in a way that they wouldn't necessarily if the parents were there in the room kind of looking after them all the time. But in terms of sibling conflict, I think that the two mistakes that parents typically make is either they just say, sort it out yourselves, you know, I don't want to know. And maybe the children don't actually have the cognitive maturity to do that or they jump in as the referee typically telling the oldest one you know you're the oldest you should know better set a good example without necessarily knowing so the advice I would normally give is to imagine more that say you're a mediator and you've got a couple who want

to get divorced as the mediator your job is not to decide who's right, who's wrong, but it's to get them to listen to each other. It's to get them to talk about their problem kind of constructively and come to a resolution together. So you set the ground rules for how they can resolve that disagreement, but it's not you in charge of deciding who's right or who's wrong. Well, I'll try that one when I get home, Claire. I'm not sure how it'll go, but I'll give it a go.

Now, I know we don't know the full effects of what lockdown has had on children, but how can the results from your study be used in the future or what do you hope it will be used for? So I was thinking about this earlier and the way in which, yes, let's hope it's a very long time before we're in that sort of pandemic situation again. But to some extent, we're in another pandemic with the cost of living crisis that is equally sort of unexplained and uncontrollable for parents. So parents can be under a lot of stress in the same way as they were under stress in the first lockdown. And one of our measures we included was the stringency of what was going on, the differences between the countries, but also the way it changes over time.

And we were finding that children were being affected by that as much as by the family stress within the home. And so I think as a society, we really need to be careful about how we message these things going across. So we have another paper coming out which showed that the children were less pro-social as well as showing more problem behaviours. And that that was explained by their kind of distress around the social distancing rules, that they were getting upset and anxious about the fact that they couldn't go near people or they had to keep washing their hands or whatever. So it's really important that children are getting the message they need to get. But the way we communicate that message isn't something that kind of causes them additional anxiety. So the messaging, I think, is something that we can all work on.

Claire, this is something that has got our listeners so excited. We're having so many messages coming through at the moment and a bit of fan mail as well. This one says, My big sister Rachel was actually one of Professor Claire Hughes' former students and she's one of the best people I know. She has supported me at every turn from teaching me my eight times tables as a kid to taking me to my first gigs as a teenager

to driving me around to our holidays together as an adult. She is one of the most compassionate, clever and funny people I know. And I aspire to be even half as good as her. Thank you, Rachel, for being my sister. Now, I don't know the sister's name and I don't know how much that was down to you, but I think you should take the credit there. Definitely. This one in says, my sister is 10 years older than me.

My brother is seven years older. They have been my great guides and protectors, now wonderful friends. We have a very busy WhatsApp chat where we share updates, woes, silly gifts, anecdotes, all the drama and the stuff that makes up daily life. And this one, my older sister Claire paved the way for me. She made all the mistakes first, got caught,

got into trouble with our parents, making me the better liar about what I was up to when it was my turn. That's Romana. So there you go. There can be benefits from older sister in all ways. Isn't it wonderful to hear? It really is. Now, teachers are telling us that a lot of children who went through this pandemic are the lost generation and they've missed out, especially those ages you're talking about, age three to six, they've missed out, especially those ages you're talking about, age three to six, they've missed out on those vital years, not only in education, but in social aspects. Now we're hopefully through the worst of it. What can we do to get our children back in

those spaces? It's a really good point. So I'm doing work at the moment on children's school readiness. And that's a term we often use thinking, is the child ready for school? But you could also think, is the school ready for the children to come? So I think schools are having to change a little bit how they do to accommodate for the fact that the children that are arriving through their doors have had these difficult experiences, haven't had the same sort of opportunities to pick up the social skills that they might otherwise have done. So I think as a community, we need to be seeing that we're all responsible for raising the child. You know, it's that African saying give children that will help them to grow, that's something that we all ought to do because we're in it together because, you know, children are the future.

Thank you, Claire. Thank you so much. That was Professor Claire Hughes from the Cambridge Centre of Family Research. Please do keep your comments coming in. I'm loving hearing all your stories about your older or younger siblings and how they've got you out of trouble or helped you in your time of need. Now, my next guest is Dada Masilo. She's a South African choreographer who is known for her reworking of classic stories to reflect black female identity. Her latest show is called Sacrifice,

and it's inspired by Stravinsky's iconic ballet Rite of Spring. The story is about the return of spring and the renewal of the earth through the sacrifice of a young woman or maiden who is chosen by the community to dance herself to death. Dada herself plays the role of the maiden in this new production, which is on a national tour of the UK at the moment and will be performed at the Sadler's Wells in London this weekend. Dada, thank you so much for coming on the

programme. Thank you for having me. First of all, can you tell me about the story? Because I know a little bit about the Rite of Spring and that it's often called the most controversial ballet of its time. But the original, that Eastern European folktale, is very different to what you're trying to portray today in Sacrifice, isn't it? How have you moved the story on? How have you interpreted the Rite of Spring? I think that one of? How have you interpreted the rite of spring? I think that one of the most challenging things about the rite of spring for me

is the thin narrative. And so what I wanted to do is explore how I can stretch it out because it is divided into the adoration of the earth, which is about ritual, and then the sacrifice, which is the maiden dancing herself to death. So what I wanted to do is I wanted to put it in the context of South Africa because we've got a lot

of rituals, cultures, traditions. I mean there are rituals for everything in South Africa. For getting married, for death, for parties, for asking for rain. So, you know, I just focused more on that so that I could try and stretch the narrative out because otherwise it would have just been a dance and I didn't want that.

And I wanted to create a work that would move people. And it was just so interesting now to hear from the woman that you've just spoken to that in the beginning, I wanted to make a very dark work. But because of COVID, everything just changed completely. So then the work became about healing. And because a lot of the company members lost their families and friends and there was a lot of grief going around. So I wanted to go embrace the grief and then let's heal. You know, so that is what it's about now.

It's not about darkness or whatever. I mean, that is happening around the world anyway. So I think that it's time that we heal because we live in such a desensitized world where we just hide our feelings and we just go about our business. But we don't let ourselves go and we don't let our feelings show. So I think that that is really important. And because with dance, we always say we work in a safe space,

it's very important for people to just be able to come to the studio and break down and know that somebody's going to hug you without judging you. Because, I mean, during COVID, we were all just going, you know, and I think that that's really important. That must have been such a tough time for you, especially that time when you couldn't do what you loved, but you couldn't support your colleagues, you couldn't perform at all um and you couldn't be together and it's very interesting to see that um sacrifices is a very together dance if you know what I mean you are a

tribe you are you are together quite closely like like siblings that we've just been talked about was it one of those things you wanted to express? We're together now. Let's go full out here. Yeah. And I think that we have a saying that we do during our focus. It goes, Mother Earth, community, the universe. So the community are the people that help to make the sacrifice anyway. So yes, being apart always was a nightmare.

And I mean, of course course there was quite a bit of depression to go with it because if you dance for a living and that is taken away from you then what do you do you know so it was frustrating but um I think that's just through talking to each other about the work on Zoom and on the phone and throwing ideas around, that really helped. For me, it was a little bit difficult because I feel as if I've made four works in a year and a half because we'd go to work for one month

and then that'd be locked down. And then I'd be at home for a month and everything would change. And I'd change everything and then go'd be locked down and then I'd be at home for a month and everything would change and I'd change everything and then go back to work and then we'd do that again and then everything would change again um it was it was um a difficult process but I think that it was one that I needed to go through uh because I think that if I just had three months to make the work then it wouldn't be the work that it is now. Amazing. Now you play the maiden, don't you, Dada, who has been chosen by her community to dance herself to death so that spring can arrive.

Why did you want to tell the story from her point of view? Because that's very different to the original Rite of Spring, which was from the community aspect. Because I think that people need to understand the journey. So there is a journey into being sacrificed so it's not just like the community who just decides who is going to be sacrificed and then the sacrifice happens but for me i wanted it to be seen through the maiden's um eyes and to go okay i'm going through this journey so that I can reach that point and say, I'm not okay with it. Because there is a point where she does fight, she fights it, but then she's told, no, you

can't fight it. And what I'm doing in my version is that I'm choosing her own mother to sacrifice her. Normally it would be done by a man, but because I didn't want it to look like rape um I thought okay uh let's have the mother do it because I think it's also um so much more emotional when the mother sacrifices her own child incredibly so and it's quite hard to watch I've not seen the whole thing live but I've seen seen many clips of it. And it's what I call a different style of ballet dance. I'm going to call it on the edge of your seat dance because the rhythms are so jerky, fast, surprising. How did you find choreographing and dancing to this?

I understand you had to learn a whole new dance style. Is that right? Yes, I had to learn toana dance, which is a dance from my heritage. But the complex rhythms from Tuanadans reminded me of Stravinsky's music and the score dance and just, you know, one minute. Yeah, very quick, sharp, odd. So that was what inspired me. And so, yeah, that's where the inspiration for twanadance came through uh so it's unpredictable uh you don't you don't know what's going to happen and i think that when we in performance sometimes because i've got four um musicians sometimes we we play with each other

tease um each other about okay when are they gonna? To make it even more tense than it is. And for one scene, you're quite tall and upright and quite jerky, and you all kind of work together in a group in the middle of the stage. And I think you've described it as sort of meerkat dancing, and that is what it looks like. Yeah, that's great. I'm glad it comes across that way. Yeah, it's been a good one.

The meerkat family is a community, so I wanted to really retain that aspect of it, that it's about the community coming together, working together. And I think for me, ensemble work has always been so important. You know, there are no

solos in ensemble work. We all have to get together and move as one and not oh okay i've got a solo to say yeah i mean they are solos and whatever but um each solo is about informing the rest of the community of what is going on so it's not just there for somebody to showcase their technique it is about going okay i'm passing on this message from this person to that person. And then we come together as a community and we create the sacrifice. Well, it's wonderful, Dada.

And I wish you every luck with your tour. Wish the cast luck as well, or break a leg, as I should say. And thank you so much for coming on the show and talking so eloquently about it. Lovely to meet you. Thank you. And thank you so much for coming on the show and talking so eloquently about it. Lovely to meet you. Thank you. And thank you so much for joining in the conversation today. I want to reflect on a few of your messages you've sent in. There really have been so many this morning.

But lots of you have responded to our story about pictures and sexual abuse on the metaverse. This one says, My 13-year-old was friends with a 12-year-old girl who had given a naked picture of herself to a boyfriend. The boyfriend broke up with the girl and sent the picture to all his mates, including my son. My son was horrified, showed the picture to the girl, that she could do something about it. This ended up with a police who called my son

for downloading this type of picture. He was only released after the girl's father pointed out how ridiculous this was. We need ways for boys to report these things without the risk of being put on the sex offenders register um my daughter is six and has already started to ask to play and we will have loads more of those um coming up in the program but it's been lovely to have the time with you this morning we will be back tomorrow at 10 o'clock make sure you join in the conversation then bye bye well thanks for listening there's plenty more from Woman's Hour on BBC Sounds.

Introducing Gaslight. I think there's something peculiar about this house. A new drama from BBC Radio 4. The gaslight's over there above the fireplace. Yes.

I wonder if Mummy might be trying to get in touch. Is the light playing tricks on you? Or is it just your mind? What if we both sold this place and you got a job in one of those little colleges that would be pleased to have you? You don't really believe that, do you? I'm trying to be kind. Like you were with the dog.

How much do we really know about the person we love? Is there something I should know about, Jack? No. I didn't put a foot wrong. Quite a bit younger than you appear to be on screen. And you look like you've been crying. You can't talk to me like that. I don't even know who you are. Available on BBC Sounds. 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.