Woman's Hour - The Whyte Review into British Gymnastics, Women’s Health Ambassador, the Future of Cars

Episode Date: June 17, 2022

Following a two year investigation into bullying, abuse and discrimination the Whyte Review into British Gymnastics is finally published. We hear from ex-gymnast Claire Heafford, co-founder and campaign director of Gymnasts 4 Change, and Sarah Moore, lawyer and partner at Hausfeld who are acting on behalf of 38 former elite gymnasts against British Gymnastics in relation to allegations of abuse.It’s has just been announced that Professor Dame Lesley Regan has been appointed as the first ever Women’s Health Ambassador for England. She’ll support the implementation of the upcoming Government led women’s health strategy, which aims to close the gender health gap and ensure services meet the needs of women throughout their life. We hear from her about what she hopes to achieve in this new role. This summer marks two years since the start of Covid-19. We hear from psychologist Ciara Dockery at Gurls Talk, the community-led non-profit organisation, about why they are encouraging young women and girls to write a letter to their pre-pandemic selves. What is the future of cars? Linda Zhang is the Chief Engineer of the Ford F-150 Lightning pick-up truck, the newly-electrified version of the USA’s most popular vehicle. She is in the UK to take part in the BBC World Service’s Future of Cars event staged at the Science Museum with the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. She tells us why bringing out an electric version of this monster vehicle is so important and why young people and women want to drive it. A house in Hackney, which in the early 20th century sheltered hundreds of stranded and abandoned South and East Asian Nannies – known as Ayah’s, has been commemorated with a blue plaque. Historian Dr Rebecca Preston tells us who these women were and their importance to British and international history. Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning, welcome to Friday's Woman's Hour. Now, I want you all to take a second and have a think. It's pretty hot, isn't it? So just have a breather and think about this. Knowing what you know now about the world and yourself, what advice would you give to your pre-pandemic self? What would you tell yourself

about what you've learned or how you've changed? It's something the non-profit organisation Girls Talk have been encouraging their community to do as a way of processing the impact of the pandemic and the effect it's had on our mental health. We've lived through a trauma and it's affected us all in various ways, both individually and collectively. So I want you to have a think about that this morning. Cara has written something about being disabled and vulnerable in the pandemic. And she says, I will be so proud of you in the end because you'll experience so many fluctuating emotions throughout this time. You'll learn that happiness, like sadness or anger, is just a feeling, not a destination. You'll learn through everything

to be gentle with yourself. Some days you'll feel heavy again, but the next day you'll get out of it again. You'll go go outside you'll notice a stranger staring and it won't make you feel vulnerable it will make you feel seen that was what cara had to say to her pre-pandemic self i'd love to hear what you would say to yourself how have you changed in the last couple of years and what have you learned about yourself and what advice would you give to your pre-pandemic self you can text text me. It's 84844. Texts will be charged at your standard message rate. You can also contact us via social media.

It's at BBC Women's Hour or you can email us through our website. Also on the show, I'll be speaking to the newly appointed Women's Health Ambassador. Congratulations to Dame Leslie Regan on getting the job. But what would you like her to focus on? We talk about women's health and various issues surrounding it on the show all the time,. But what would you like her to focus on? We talk about women's health and various issues

surrounding it on the show all the time, but what changes would you like her to see? Also, we'll be discussing the White Review into British gymnastics, which has come out today after a two-year investigation, and the levels of abuse are shocking. It's been revealed that medals were prioritised over the welfare of the children, and in gymnastics, the athletes are often children.

You might also be inspired on the show this morning by Linda Zhang. She's the chief engineer who led the team at Ford to electrify their most popular American pickup truck. And also on the show, a bit of history, the forgotten story of the Ayers, who often accompanied British families on trips back to the UK from Asia during the empire to look after their children, but were abandoned in a foreign land. Forgotten no more. Now, first, late yesterday afternoon, the White Review into British gymnastics was finally published. The investigation that began almost two years ago, led by Anne White QC and co-commissioned by UK Sport and Sport England, looked into accusations of bullying, abuse and discrimination after numerous British gymnastics spoke out. The result? A damning report that makes for shocking reading.

It details the continued mistreatment of gymnasts in Britain, including sexual assault, illustrating, as one gymnast put it, the child abuse of athletes that was taking place and how physical and emotional abuse within gymnastics in Britain was systemic. From Olympians to local gymnasts, the investigation received more than 400 written submissions, which some claim represent

just the tip of the iceberg of those more than 40 percent described physically abusive behavior by coaches more than 50 percent reported an element of emotional abuse and more than 25 percent included reference to excessive weight management 39 of those cases were considered so serious they've been passed to local authorities because of child safeguarding reasons or concerns of ongoing criminal conduct. Now, to discuss this on the show today, I'm joined by ex-gymnast Claire Hefford, co-founder and campaign director of Gymnasts for Change, and Sarah Moore, lawyer and partner at Housefield, who are acting on behalf of 38 former elite gymnasts against British gymnastics. Welcome to the show, both of you. I'm going to start with you, Claire.

What's your reaction to the report? I'm feeling really vindicated. As you can imagine, being a whistleblower and speaking out about this kind of abuse is really difficult. And I've spent personally the last two years alongside a whole team of other gymnasts who've been speaking out about these issues and at times we've definitely felt overwhelmed with a sense that we weren't going to be believed so to find so many of our experiences and feelings represented accurately in Anne White's review is very heartening and it's a massive moment of both vindication and, yeah, it's a good moment. I'm going to come to you now, Sarah.

I mean, the 38 gymnasts that you're representing must be feeling a similar feeling of vindication. But, I mean, the levels and the degree of abuse that's been revealed is quite shocking. There must be some anger as well. I think that's absolutely right. I mean, Claire is completely right. And Claire's one of our clients. You know, the fundamental response has been vindication. And I think there is a satisfaction in seeing these experiences laid bare. And Anne White really make the point that these are institutional failings.

These are not rogue bad apple coaches. What she points out is systematic abuse over very many years. So there is anger and there's also a hope, I think, that things get better in terms of reform, but also as a legal team, we need to see substantive redress for those affected. So not only should these changes be made looking forward, but British Gymnastics really now have to engage with the mistakes and the problems that have been created and the injuries suffered by those whom we represent. Claire, what are we talking about here? What has come out in the report? What's been happening? So two years ago when we began this campaign work, people would ask us, what does this abuse look like? How does it show up? And that was a really

difficult thing to describe. But we now have legal legal definitions there's been an academic who's spent the past two years doing academic research project on the reset on the gymnast alliance movement and the gymnasts around the world speaking out so those legal definitions are emotional and physical violence physical violence with boundary violation, sexual violence and then neglect. And one of the major things that Nathalie Barker-Ripty has identified is the immensely damaging impact of the gaslighting. So often these are gymnasts who have reported sexual abuse and say that the sexual abuse has affected them less than the gaslighting and the constant ongoing years and years of being belittled and humiliated and told that then

they're worth nothing which leaves gymnasts emotionally broken with lifelong confidence issues and it's the detail that's come out as well i mean some of the things that just jump out that have really left an impression with me, you know, the body shaming, the hiding of the food behind tiles and also being forced into positions, you know, being stretched. Yeah. I mean, all of those are really standard procedures within the elite side of gymnastics. So to gymnasts, those aren't surprising. The things that we want recognition for, as I say, is the fact that you're training often for a 10-year period with coaches who really make it their business to humiliate you and belittle you and tell you that the skills,

you only have these skills because of them. What the report highlights is that it's a coach-centric system and even the language that coaches use to describe gymnasts is that they've created a gymnast and that idea that the gymnast is nothing without the coach speaks to the absolute power dynamics that exist at the heart of the sport and it's those power dynamics that are at the heart of the sport. And it's those power dynamics that are so damaging, and are absolutely so out of date in this day and age. It's disrespectful to women, it's disrespectful to young girls. And it means that it creates athletes who have no autonomy, no voice, no agency. Something else that really stood out for me, and maybe this all plays into

what you're just talking about, Claire, the power dynamics the the age of the gymnasts um and I can see that you're both nodding here that 95% are under 18 and 75% are under 12 we're talking about children here aren't we Sarah? Yeah we're absolutely talking about children I think one of the I'm picking on what Claire said um I think one of the overriding impressions I was left with reading the report last night was that the culture which Anne White describes, which dictates how British gymnastics has worked over very fact that athlete well-being wasn't a central issue for British gymnastics. It was almost as though, I think, gymnasts for very many years have been seen but not heard. And I think that's the culture in which this abuse has grown up. And that's in contrast with every other way in which British society now deals with children. If we look at the educational system, if we look at schools,

there is much better safeguarding. And yet this institution, which has 75% of members under the age of 12, has been enabled. And the system has been perpetuated in which abuse has caused so much damage. So I think it's a very shocking expose of what's been going on. Yeah, as expected, the document strongly criticised the governing body's previous leadership. The ex-CEO, Jane Allen, has been gone for a while now, and British Gymnastics have committed themselves to making significant changes. It makes you wonder, Sarah, doesn't it, what's been happening until now? Yeah, I think that's absolutely right.

And I should say that the clients that we represent, their claims actually run back as early as 1978. So whilst the White Review only picks up on the period between 2008 and 2020, so the last 12 years, the allegations that we read in the report, some of which are from our clients, but they're also consistent and they're entirely corroborated by the accounts that we've got from other gymnasts

over a much longer historic period. So it does beg the question, Anita, why has this been going on for so long? You know, we heard yesterday that British gymnastics want to be judged by their actions and not by their words, but we need to see something substantive and we need to see something wholesale because everything done to date clearly hasn't worked or we wouldn't be in this position now. Well, here's a short clip of Sarah Powell, the current CEO of British Gymnastics. This is what she had to say about the report.

It was very difficult to read. Sport has been so important to me in all of my life. And to see that gymnasts had such poor experiences due to, and I will say it, the failings of our organisation. I was able to speak to some of the gymnasts this morning and to say sorry to them. And I wholeheartedly apologise. Claire, she wholeheartedly apologises. What does that mean to you?

Not particularly meaningful. I've spoken to British Gymnastics a number of times in the last six months and they've sat on this. We provided to them our document which has 78 recommendations and calls for change in policy as opposed to Anne White's 17. And they could have started to take actions sooner. I think the reasons they've not been able to are institutional. They're to do with the organisation, the level of competency in the organisation, the lack of belief, actually, that there are still many, many people within the organisation that don't believe this report was needed and felt it was unfair. You know, the issue now is Anne White's done a great job

in exposing this culture, and I hope that the next step is that our community of coaches now really starts to listen. There's still an awful lot of denial going on around this and coaches feeling that this is this is unfair and unrepresentative can you can you take us into the world a little bit and try and explain to us how this culture was normalized from your own experience um i mean there's there's so many things i could say about the history of the sport and how we arrived here, that it was built into the sport from when it was first admitted to the Olympics in 1928 as a women's sport that was

promoting values of dance and femininity and calisthenics. At late 1960s, it turned into a sport that was about risk and danger. The sport became acrobatized and many of the male coaches from the USSR moved over to the women's side not because they had any experience with dealing with women but because they knew how to deal with with boys bodies small boys bodies and that was where this kind of desire for the prepubescent body came from because the male coaches found it easier to deal with prepubescent girls so a lot of it is woven into the cultural fabric of the sexual politics of what the sport is but in terms of what we found out yesterday I think what was astonishing in its detail was the utter failings and non-existence of adequate up-to-date safeguarding systems so what we know anecdotally to have been

going on is that if you have made some kind of a complaint or whistle blown on a coach you've witnessed an incident and you report it to British Gymnastics what they've never done is had a proper filing system so they've never collated multiple complaints against one coach one gym they have no ability I mean this is the really astounding thing. Zero ability to track across the organisation who's been reported over a 10, 15, 20 year period on multiple occasions. Why do you think that's happened, Sarah? Is that because it's children? I think it's because it's children. But I think it's also worth just quoting some of what Anne White has found. You know, she talks her words not mine an insular organization she talks about a defensive myopic approach to criticism she talks

about a cultural disregard for the athlete's voice and in her recent interviews with the board of British Gymnastics so we're talking about their reaction to to the investigation very recently she comments that she heard on multiple occasions the phrase we only know what we know and I mean Anne Wyders said that's no answer and of course that's no answer it's not good enough to shrug your shoulders and say how could we know they had a responsibility they were negligent in discharging that responsibility unfortunately the consequences that very many women and men have suffered significant physical and psychiatric injuries as a consequence. But we have had a statement from British Gymnastics in their

written response to the White Review. Sarah Powell, who's the CEO, says British Gymnastics accepts all of the recommendations and key findings. We will now fully consider the detail of the review and put in place a roadmap roadmap that addresses the recommendations in full we know we will be judged by our actions not our words let me be clear she says this is no place for abuse of any kind in our sport and coaching standards of the past will not be those of the future for anyone who's been affected by these findings details by the review we have set up a free and confidential nspcc helpline on 0800 587 6696 there is also further advice and support on our website for gymnasts parents coaches and clubs more than 400 written submissions sarah this is only the tip of the iceberg do you think this

report will give more people the confidence to come forward i think it absolutely will if they don't want to mount legal action i mean that that's for them but i think i hope that it as class as it vindicates that experience and it enables a space within which people can speak out about this and access the therapies that they need and claire this is such an important moment for gymnastics you said yourself you feel vindicated i know that you you're an activist. You're active because of your own experience as well. What do you want to see happen now? I want to see law change because Anne White has highlighted everything that we know has been going on in the culture,

but there's nothing in there that will actually make this legally mandatable. There are so many legal loopholes. And as you said, and as Sarah made the point, schools have all sorts of safeguarding in place and there are all kinds of procedures that mean that the law applies to kids in a particular way in schools. Those laws currently don't apply to kids in sport. So we need to have massive

legislative change so my primary goal now is to bring in mandatory reporting because I would like to see the administrators of sports being held to account if if it was a legal requirement to report mandatory reporting of any sexual abuse or any other kind of abuse in sport, then we would have a leg to stand on in terms of getting accountability from the administrators who've overseen this system for 30 years. And you mentioned that Jane Allen has been highlighted in the report, but we've had leadership change multiple times during this timeframe, but there has been no culture change. So what will it take really to change the culture? Sarah Powell can say everything that she'd like to about changing the culture but

it's going to be so difficult and it will only be possible if we do that in tandem with law change just had a message in from someone saying I worked in an elite sports center and saw the dreadful treatment of children in gymnastics I've always told people who were wanting to join gymnastics that they were toxic. I'm glad it's being done at long last. You started, Claire, by saying you feel vindicated. Your own experience happened in the 90s. This report only looks back to 2008. Sarah's mentioned that there are cases

going back to 1978. I just want to know what the emotion is that you're feeling because I can hear it in your voice. I can see it in your eyes. Just tell me what what is going on. I just feel so validated. So much, as I said, of the abuse is about gaslighting. And for me personally, as a 10 year old going through this, witnessing the abuse, experiencing the abuse. I was shut down, I was silenced, and I took on a belief that I was a hateable person and I've spent my entire adult life believing I was hateable. And today I don't need to feel that anymore.

You don't. Thank you so much. Thank you, Claire, for coming in to speak to us. And I'm sure we will be discussing this. Take a deep breath. and thank you very much Sarah your thoughts on this 84844 I mean are your children in gymnastics

would you consider putting them into the sport now, I would love to hear your opinions you can also contact me via social media it's at BBC Woman's Hour now it's just been announced that professor dame leslie reagan has been appointed as the first ever women's health ambassador for england she'll support the implementation of the upcoming government-led women's health strategy for england

which aims to close the gender health gap and ensure services meet the needs for women throughout their life you may remember last year a call for evidence to inform the strategy. There were more than 100,000 responses. Many women said they felt they were not listened to by health professionals and were not supported when dealing with health conditions. Well, I'm joined now by Professor Dame Leslie Reagan, who's also a professor of obstetrics and gynecology and a former past president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. The first president, female president in 64 years, on the line from Milbank. Very good morning. Welcome to Woman's Hour and congratulations on your appointment. Why did you want the job? Well, good morning, Anita. Lovely to hear your voice and to be joining Woman's Hour.

Why did I want the job? Well, it's a unique opportunity, I think, to reset the dial for women's health. I think we've spoken before on this programme about how important it is to recognise that women have been repeatedly disadvantaged by the way that our health services are set up. And I'm really appreciative of the fact that this government has decided

that they're going to prioritise women's health and that they're going to have a strategy to improve it. So I think it's a one-off opportunity. And that's why I wanted to throw my hat into the ring. And I'm delighted I've been appointed. So what impact do you plan on making as Women's Health Ambassador? Well, I want to make all the day-to-day things that women have to deal with much easier to access. So many of the things that you and I, or my daughters, for example, need to access now aren't complex medical problems. They're not ill, but they need to be able to go and find really

good contraception and have it easily. It's difficult in this country, which is why we've got such a high unplanned pregnancy rate. And we need them to understand exactly what it is to improve or make the very best outcome of their pregnancies if they choose to have children. And then, of course, as you will be very aware, Anita, there's been an enormous outpouring, if you like, from women's groups and from the public as well regarding the menopause, which is finally getting a look in. So if you ask me what I'd like to achieve, I think I'd like to make menstrual period problems and endometriosis and all of those other

things that affect women's day-to-day lives as top of the list on the agenda as the menopause has become in the last few months. And if we could do that, I think it will be a really, really good step forward because we just need women to be able to get on with their lives rather than being debilitated by problems that can be easily solved. And also, I think it's really important that we stop them having to fight to access what are very basic services. And we need to make it, I think, very easy for them to go and do the right thing to ensure that they're maintaining their health and well-being and that we're preventing disorders from developing. We've got to move away from an NHS that's a disease intervention service to one that's really preventing ill health developing. Leslie you're saying all the right things to the Women's Hour audience and I'm sure lots of women will be nodding away saying yes yes yes this is what we

need. You've worked hard for change in women's health your entire career. How is this role going to be different? What powers will you have now that you didn't have before? You're on the other side now aren't you? Well I'm on the side, but I think I've hopefully will have a voice that's listened to more because I'm going to be working with the people who deliver those services. And I've been impressed by how welcoming both the Department of Health and Social Care, the ministers involved in women's health and NHS England and improvement have been. And as you know, Enita, because we've talked about it before, I'm very passionate about getting, for example, all the professionals to collaborate rather than fight for territories. And I think that's one of

the things that I hope to be able to bring to the table, getting people to agree that what we've got to do is wrap the services around women and not actually make them walk around the services, or having the territories that so often professional groups seem to be confused by or strapped by, if you like. Last year, the government received more than 100,000 responses to inform the Women's Health Strategy. Can you remind us of some of the things that were said? Yes, I can. And I'm not going to give you an exhaustive list because we'll be here all day. Just a couple. But just a few.

But what women flagged up and what the respondents flagged up was that exactly what I've been saying about finding solutions for common problems. And right at the top of that list of to-dos and right at the top of the priority list that the Women's Health Vision document published just before Christmas, and I think is very, very much front and centre of the new strategy document, which hopefully will be published in the next few weeks, are things like menstrual problems. And so many of them are very easy to resolve if women can access the help that they need.

We want to change it from being a problem that keeps girls out of school every month and women out of the workplace or out of their caring roles every month to being something that they know what's normal and abnormal and they know where they can access help if they want it. And menstrual problems, as I say, fertility issues, the postcode lottery for fertility issues that exist, we need to tackle that one. That was a very common complaint. Improving outcomes and improving support for women who suffer from baby loss or pregnancy loss, miscarriage, or later problems in later pregnancy. And the list goes on and on. But as you will have known, I've always felt very strongly about the fact that accessing women accessing contraception is really got to be very, very

at the top of this list, because it really is the single most cost effective intervention in healthcare. And I think it's essential that women are able to make sensible, well, sensible and personal decisions about if, when, how many times and with whom they become pregnant. And I think that it's very simple to implement if we ensure that we make it a top priority. And I think it will have enormous benefits, not just in terms of women's health and girls' health, but also in terms of the fiscal budget post-pandemic, because at the moment I believe that we're wasting lots of money in telling women and girls that they can't access things,

all sorts of things, whereas actually what they really want is to be able to visit a one-stop shop or a women's health hub. You want to be able to go and do your smear and your contraception or your HRT and all of those things or get your period problems sorted out just in a couple of hours at most and that's all it should take not going around lots and lots of different services and facilities and meeting lots and lots of different people in reception saying no you can't have that here we don't do that so that's my that's my goal or my ambition that we actually turn things around. I mean a one-stop shop would be great would be so convenient is aren't is there the funds to do it we're constantly being told

that gp services are strapped you can't get appointments you're not seeing we know we know the list of things uh because what women who listen to the program get in touch with us to tell us all the time um do you know what you what what what powers you will have to be able to implement something like that well i'm exploring what powers i might have to be able to implement something like that? Well, I'm exploring what powers I might have to implement that, and I'll keep you updated. But I think that everyone I've spoken to about trying to provide better care for less, and by moving things around and making things more accessible, I'm not talking about setting up masses and masses of different facilities. I'm talking about utilising the ones we've already got and making them really cost efficient. And I think that's good for the health service. And it's good for women and it's good for girls. So I can't see

who would object to that really, because it's common sense. What do you personally see are the biggest barriers to women accessing good health care at the moment? Well, I think they've been lumped in with men. It's always been assumed that if you have, for example, heart disease, that you will follow the male pattern of presentation. And that's just simply not the case. And I think the people who have really lobbied recently over recent years to demonstrate that we need to have much better data collection on women's health and how they present differently and need different therapies and treatments. That's important. I think there's all sorts of ways in which just by listening to what women want, we can be more responsive to them. And I think very importantly, Anita,

it's about making women part of the solution. I've always been impressed, and I've been in gynaecology for four decades now, but I've always been impressed how almost every woman I see in a clinical setting, if we take the time and trouble to explain to her what she needs to do, she invariably does it. And she's extremely generous with the information she receives

because she doesn't just keep it to herself. She shares it with her daughter, her sister, her neighbour, her community, the people she works with. So I think we're missing a trick if we don't get them all as being part of this ambassador journey to really, really improve things because I think that most of the women that I see and that you meet and talk to, Anita, would be very happy to participate in that and to contribute. Because at the end of the day, most times when women go to health professionals,

they're not ill. They're just trying to do everyday things and maintain their health and maintain their place in the workplace and in their families. You're right. Everything you're saying, Leslie, you know, the medical system, women have been lumped in with men. We need to listen to women. They need to be part of the solution. We need to ask women. It's 2022. You know, you've been in this career for over 40 years, you know, because you've tried to implement change. It makes you wonder whether the NHS is sexist. Well, I don't think it's sexist. I think that they have had so many competing priorities, particularly over the last couple of years.

And so I think it's even more important for us to embrace this step forward and to say, you know, this is a one-off opportunity to try and reset the dial. And that's what I hope that I'll be able to go some way to achieve. And when can we expect the Women's Health Strategy? I'm very much hoping it's going to be in the next month. And I think that will be important for people to, or the public and women in particular, to realise that lots of what they've complained about and said they want to be able to access has been listened to. It's full of aspirations, the drafts that I've seen, and expectations,

and we will have to prioritise that. And I very much hope that what we'll be able to set out in the next month or so is a rough plan of what we're going to do in the short, the medium and the long term. We can't do everything next week or next month, but what we can do is have a sensible plan to make some visible or palpable differences quickly and then to give a bit more time and investment of thought, etc., etc., the last 24 hours with women's health groups and charities all wanting to contribute. And what they all say is, what can I do to help? And I think that's a really positive feeling to be starting off on this on this journey. It's going to be a journey. It's not going to be easy. I don't pretend that for a moment, but I think it will be exciting. And I think we've got the potential to really change things if we all collaborate. And as I often say, you know, you can travel so much farther and faster on a journey if you stop worrying about who's getting the credit along the way.

Well, we look forward to getting you on the show to talk to us about it again in the future. Professor Dame Leslie Reagan, congratulations once again on the job um now at the beginning of the show i asked you to get in touch with what you would say to your pre pandemic self because as we head into the summer it marks more than two years since the start of covid19 in a new campaign the community-led non-profit organization girls talk is encouraging young women and girls to write a letter to their pre-pandemic self as a way to process what we've endured how we've changed through adversity and who we've become and claire has emailed in to say um oh let me let me get some of your messages up here

there's so many in front of me um oh sorry technology is failing me i will come back to what yeah and there's lots of them coming in. And, oh yeah, here we go. The pandemic turned my world upside down, someone says. After the first lockdown, I felt very strange. It was like I was in a dream. I seeked help through counselling and was diagnosed with chronic agoraphobia, chronic social anxiety and panic disorder.

It was strange as I enjoyed the time at home with my son and appreciated every minute of it. But when trying to re-enter the world, my mind wasn't my own anymore. Just over two years on, many hours of counselling and medication and mending from a huge mental breakdown I never expected to happen from just having to stay at home. It changed my life forever. I'm going to bring in our guests to discuss this. We're joined by psychologist and clinical lead at Girls Talk, Keira Dockery, who's in New York. Very good morning to you, Keira. Good morning. Good morning. It's quite early here.

I bet it is, but we appreciate you getting up nice and early and speaking to us. You're glowing for first thing in the morning, I must say. So why decide to encourage girls and young women to do this, to write a letter to their pre-pandemic self? You know, I think we were just I think we've always realized that the mental health impact of the pandemic was going to be really significant. I mean, I think from the beginning, you know, this big, scary thing happened that upended all of our lives. And then we were asked to do that alone, to separate, to isolate, right? So, and now I think as we're realizing there's this pressure to kind of go back to normal, we wanted to create a space, an exercise to help people process what happened, you know, because we are all changed and we are different. We can't just go back to normal, right?

And I'm so touched by what your listener just wrote in, because that is, you know, a very common, unfortunately, experience at the moment. Yes, exactly. I mean, it's easy to think the pandemic is behind us, that we're through it, but we are still very much living it and, you know, processing the trauma. And like that, that really heartfelt message that someone's just wrote into us, talking about the mental health impact on their own life. What have you been hearing about the mental health impact? You know, it's, it's, it's pretty profound. I, and I think we're not necessarily honoring that or acknowledging

that, but I think it's going to be the larger narrative here of the pandemic when we look back historically, just the mental health effects. In the U.S., we are, and I imagine it is similar, but we are seeing symptoms of anxiety at three times what they were for adults prior to the pandemic and depression at four times, you know. So right now, we do sort of a, the CDC does a survey every two weeks in the U.S. to check in on sort of the mental health. And, you know, when I looked back at the most recent one, which was done in May, you know, adults in the U.S. are reporting clinical symptoms of anxiety, 27% of adults, and 30, sorry, 22% are experiencing clinical symptoms of depression, and 31% of adults in the U.S. are reporting clinical symptoms of depression or anxiety.

That is a third of our population. And then, and you know, when we break it down to kind of our girls talk community, you know, young people have been hugely impacted by this. So when we look at that age group, 18 to 24, they're reporting these symptoms at 49%, 49% are reporting clinical symptoms of anxiety or depression. And I should note for the general population, that number was 8% at this time in 2019. So we really can't underestimate the mental health impact here. So many messages, so many messages coming in, Kira. Oh, good, good.

Someone has messaged in to say, and this is, we've been asking you to get in touch to say what you would say to your pre-pandemic self. This, I found this very, this one's very moving. I'd say cherish your lovely husband while you can, because he will spend his last birthday, his 69th, in isolation. And his dementia will progress quickly, as you're not allowed to be with him when he needs you most. We have, like, you know, this is, and this is, I guess, what this is about. We need to be able to talk about this.

You know, we can't like this idea that we've moved into normality again. We're not there yet. No, no. And I think there's a lot of pressure. I don't know if you've been feeling it, Anita, but like, you know, people we want to forget about it. We want to get back. We want to enjoy life. Right.

But people have experienced, I mean, just that example there, a huge amount of loss. And we're hearing that from our community. And that's one of the major themes in these letters. And that's not just loss of a loved one as kind of evidence there. It's loss of community, identity, major milestones in life. And we've experienced all this life, life this loss and we couldn't do it together right we had to be alone is there do you think there's a pressure to be back to normal whatever that is I do I do I think there is um a pressure because this has been so hard I mean it's been exhausting right um and so I think that people want to get out there and kind of say, like, this is over.

And I think that we can't sort of push down and pretend or, you know, what has happened and how we've been changed and how we've been affected. And the pandemic, it was a prolonged experience with no definitive end. How is that different from experiencing a short traumatic event? You know, we don't have a lot of research around this, right? You know, as psychologists, we're trying to figure this out a little bit as we go. With a more finite trauma, right, there's this horrible experience and then it ends and we can, there's the healing period can begin. You can come together and you can reestablish a sense of safety, right? You can turn off that sort of hypervigilance for threats or that. But with this,

you know, we've had so many starts and stops, right? So many times we thought, okay, I can breathe again. It might be able to go back, right? And then boom, something happens, another variant, another lockdown. So, and I think it's also, as I mentioned before, so different than previous traumas because we didn't have our normal coping mechanisms to use, right? We didn't have support structures that we normally would have, routines that we normally would have, routines that we normally would have, communities that we normally would have, because we were really asked to kind of isolate and do this alone, which is very different. So this is really new for us to understand how we heal from it. The response to asking people to talk, what they would say to their pre-pandemic self has been huge. Why is letter writing so cathartic and healing?

You know, I think it's really a tool for reflection, right? It's a tool to kind of, sort of like journal writing, to learn about ourselves and fundamentally to process, right? Naturally, I think we want to avoid hard feelings just as human beings. We think we can't handle them or we can't go through them, but if we kind of attend and spend some time, and I hope your listeners might even try this exercise today and, you know, write this letter to themselves. It also allows us to create sort of an intentional crafting of the narrative around can really, surprisingly at times, and I think you'll see this maybe with your listeners, you realize a lot of resilience and a lot of

strength has come out of this too. Absolutely. Keira Dockery, thank you for joining us from New York. Thank you for giving us lots to think about and the homework as well. We should all write this letter to our pre-pandemic selves this weekend. I'm just going to read out one of the ones that was actually from your community, from Girls Talk. Greta on finding a new sense of grounding. She says, when life throws lemons at you, duck and cover. While delicious in refreshing summer beverages, they suck to be hit with. You will do just that, duck and cover, moving home during a time in life you'd expected to explore the world. You'll undoubtedly feel a deep sense of loneliness and lack of belonging,

but as you shatter into a million pieces, you can pick the ones up you want to keep and drop the ones you don't. Nice positive one to end on there. Please keep your thoughts coming in, 84844. Now, what is the future of cars? Linda Zhang is the chief engineer of the Ford F-150 Lightning pickup truck, the newly electrified version of the USA's most popular vehicle. And she's one of the speakers taking part in the BBC World Service's Future of Cars event staged at the Science Museum tomorrow. In terms of money, the Ford F-150 series generates more revenue than many Fortune 100 companies,

including Nike, Coca-Cola, Netflix and Tesla. So there. It's a major gas guzzler, macho monster vehicle. So bringing out an electric version is a big deal in America. Linda Zhang is the lead on the project and she leads a team of hundreds of engineers to do just that and she joins me now. Welcome to Woman's Hour. What is it about this particular truck that makes it so popular in America? Let's understand the F-150. Thanks for having me. F-Series is actually a really important brand in America. when you think about it from that perspective, it's really, well, why is America so in love with the pickup truck? Why? And a lot of it has to do with it provides that customer set with a sense of freedom, a sense of being able to do anything that you want to do, go anywhere that you want to go.

It's not just driving from point A to point B, but taking that off-road adventure, if you'd like to take that off-road adventure. Or it's the capability to be able to load up the back of the truck with whatever it is that you might need to take with you and move furniture, go buy DIY construction material to build your own home. It's very, it's very iconically American, isn't it? Also, your roads are so epically big, and they go on and on and on for ages. And you drive a lot further than we do just to go to the mall or whatever it is. Absolutely. Is there a gender divide with these pickups, though? Is it popular with men? Is it popular with women for different reasons? So I think it's there is a little bit of a gender divide in that it is known more

traditionally as a masculine truck for men. But there are actually a lot of women that do drive it because of its higher riding height and being able to see around you in a way competing with the other big vehicles in America. But also it women have the same needs for freedom to be able to go wherever they want, to be able to do whatever they need. So in a way, it's providing the same type of satisfaction and gratification for filling that need for customers. But for the Lightning, one of the things that we focused on particularly is not just replacing a gas truck with an electric truck, but really replacing it with bringing something more to the table, giving them functionality that the customers never expected from a truck at all. For example, the backup generator, being able to plug equipment in and run whatever it is that you might want to electrically for hours on end,

and even your home for days on end. Also, it's about the kind of mindset of the drivers of these vehicles, because as I described them as these kind of gas guzzlers, the grunt that you feel when you're driving these things, you're taking on something, that's what people feel about it and trying to turn it electric. Were you concerned that people weren't going to buy into it in the same way? Yes, that was actually one of our biggest challenges in the development is that truck customers are very loyal to their trucks. And the fact that it is powerful and it's doing all of these different things that require a lot of power and capability and utility. So we had to really make sure that we develop that with this EV truck, because traditionally EVs are known as more of

an eco vehicle and not something that generates a ton of power. So really, that was a myth that we had to bust very much for the American audience for this to be considered a legit truck. And where did your own passion for cars begin, Linda? My passion actually began back when I was eight years old, when I first landed in America. I'm an immigrant from China, and I moved with my family to America when I was eight years old. So it was the first time I was in a plane. It was the first time I was in a car. And after getting to the U.S., as you said earlier, I was just absolutely shocked when I was an eight-year-old by all the beautiful, big, massive roads and highways in the United States, but also by this vehicle that was transporting me from the airport to my new home. So in a way, I think there was a lot of emotional connection to the vehicle

and the fact that it lights up. It's this awesome technology I'd never seen. And it goes so fast on the highway. You're preaching to the converted. I love cars. I love driving. I love the experience. I love the independence. All of that is lots of emotion attached to driving for me. But you becoming an engineer, was that because both your parents were engineers as well? because naturally, I was always very curious as a child. And I always tinkered with things. I wanted to know how things worked. I also, you know, really wanted to improve things. And that was something that, you know, my parents did a really great job of nurturing and fostering, allowing me to kind of do all of that and learn in those areas and pursue a career in engineering. And so how was it stepping into the world of engineering and at Ford as well? Oh, it was lovely. I actually had a very fortunate time. I learned a lot in school and it really

didn't. But as a woman, you must have been one of the few. Yeah, actually, you know, it's interesting to think about it from that perspective, because to be honest with you, as I grew up, I never really thought about it from that distinct way. My parents had always kind of taught me to be who I am and do what I want to do. The gender was never something that they said, oh, you're a woman or you're a girl, you should do X, Y, Z. So I think in school, as I reflect back on it, for sure, there's now looking at it, I was definitely one of the fewer engineers back then. And even at Ford when I first started, but I think my attitude at the time was always, so what? I'm a girl, you have freckles. What's the difference? And that's, and you know, that attitude is sometimes you've got to kind of adopt

these attitudes when you're one of the early, early ones to get through the system. But now you're in a position of power. Here you are having led this team of engineers who's done something as radical as turn the most popular pickup truck in the States into an electric vehicle. How conscious are you of this gender divide of your team and making sure that the pathways into engineering for women are open? Yeah, so I'm actually very pleased with the diversity on my team. Our team is very diverse, whether it's ethnicity, whether it's gender, whether it's even, you know, the way of thinking. And I think that actually provides a better product at the end, because we're able to consider the different considerations. So that is definitely something that we definitely nurture is that diversity.

And for me, I do a lot of that through mentoring of the younger engineers coming up. And it's not just for women. It's also for men, too. There's a lot of really great individuals out there trying to be engineers and trying to figure things out and find the best way to get somewhere. And I'm always willing to share my experience and advice with whomever that wants it. And I understand that President Joe Biden was one of the first people outside of Ford to drive one of your electric trucks. What did he make of it? Oh, he loved it. His fun quote was, that sucker is quick. And he nailed it right on the head because it's very quick,

zero to 60 in mid four seconds. That is quick. What I wanted to say very quickly, as you know, I've admitted that I do love cars. When can we realistically be driving electric cars, all of us, that we don't have to charge every two minutes, that it's going to have the mileage and that we're going to be able to charge quickly and get to where we want to be? Well, the lightning's already out in the US. We started delivery last month. So that's really good. And we had over 200,000 reservations even at the end of last year. So we're doubling our capacity to be able to meet that demand. But I think overall with EVs, Ford is definitely taking a big step forward.

And what makes us different is the fact that we are really producing products, iconic products that people love. Other cars are available too. Yes, they are. And with the capacity increases and the demand for all of the different products, we're expecting to be at 600,000 units by the end of next year. Linda, thank you very much for speaking to me this morning. I'm looking forward to that dream electric car that will take me around and I'll be able to charge super quickly. It's all happening very soon, I'm sure. Thank you once again, Linda. Thank you. Now a house in Hackney which in the early 20th century sheltered hundreds of thousands of stranded and sometimes abandoned South and East Asian nannies

known as Ayers has been commemorated with an English heritage blue plaque. The term Ayers was applied to women who served the British in India and other colonies as children's nannies, nurse maids and ladies maids. I'm joined by Dr Rebecca Preston, who's the blue plaque historian at English Heritage, who's going to tell us all about it. Tell me more about these women. Who were they? Who were the Ayers? Hello, Anita.

Well, we will never know the names of all of them. We'd have snapshots of particular women from South and East Asia. But they looked after the British in India and other colonies, but some were called travelling ayahs or armours, and they went back and forward from Britain to the various parts of what was then the British Empire. And some were given the means to support in the interim while they were in London to wait to go back to India

or Hong Kong, Singapore, all the other places, but some were either abandoned or effectively abandoned and they ended up in the workhouse. So there were servants that families would have to help bring up their children? Yeah, they were skilled servants and they particularly worked with the children and the women. And children became devoted to them.

And so the home was set up because, you know, there's a sort of floating population of women that were just, were abandoned or that were fierce for their safety because they were in a strange country and there'd be several months before they went back so what exactly happened then they were brought they were brought with families on ships and did they know what would happen to them when they would arrive here well because they weren't needed here because the families had their own um permanent service they waited and either went

back with the same family or another and gradually it became the home set up in the 1820s so you know it had a very long history in the early 19th century it became almost like an agency so while it did care for the abandoned the women could go there and another family could come and pick, you know, what were called expert nurses and ladies' maids. So we shouldn't just think of them as victims. Some became very seasoned travellers and, you know, made that astonishing journey, scores of times. Why were they abandoned? Because some of the families were not honourable that's a polite way of putting it

they had been looked after on the journey and then either there was no promise or they broke their promise to come back with them and we should remember that many of these women were mothers they left their children at home with family. So, you know, it's an interesting story and sometimes it's sad, but I think we should sort of salute their bravery and courage. Absolutely.

It's an interesting and important immigration story, but this is British history. And that house in Hackney, a few miles to the of where where the homes were originally in the city of London near the docks um it's a kind of snapshot of that picture for the 90 100 or so women that pass through its doors um each year um from um the blue plaque marks the house where the home was between 1900 and 1921, but then moved a little further up the road. Like you say, sadly we'll never know the names of these women. But how many women worked in these roles during that time?

How many families would have had an Iyer? I should think thousands. Interviews in the press talked about most of the families being military or civil service. And within the British Library, if your readers are interested, there are passport records that do have some names, but there would have been hundreds more that we will never know. And Rebecca, why is it so important historically to remember these women? It's important because this is part of British history, it's part of global history, and their stories, because they're hidden and sometimes their names are their employers' names, we might never know them.

But this plaque, we hope, should highlight the bigger picture. And if we have more time, I'd give you their names. But it builds on fantastic work by Rosina Visran. the bigger picture. And if we have more time, I'd give you their names. But it builds on fantastic work by Rosina Vizran. Maybe we can put it up on our social media. I will definitely be visiting that house in Hackney.

Dr. Rebecca Preston, thank you very much. Loads of you getting in touch with what you would say to your pre-pandemic self this morning. Angela said, I'd say, you don't need to buy a coffee to enjoy being out get somewhere in the garden where you can shelter

from the rain and see friends safely the uk has more beautiful places than you know you'll be saddened and dismayed by how very little society wants to inconvenience itself to protect the vulnerable even in small ways by wearing a mask in busy indoor areas and um someone else will say you won't want to go back to how it was before the pandemic. Have a lovely weekend. Enjoy the sunshine. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Uncanny is back.

The hit paranormal podcast returns with a summer special that will chill you to the bone. It was a real dream holiday, really. The family trip of a lifetime becomes the holiday from hell. Whoever was in that room wanted to do us harm. They wanted to frighten us. The Uncanny Summer Special, out now. What do you think was in that house?

Six very frightened tourists and something else that didn't want us there. Subscribe to Uncanny on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven and for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who 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.