Woman's Hour - Waspi women, Dr Jen Gunter, The Liverbirds, Child poverty

Episode Date: March 21, 2024

A long-awaited report on how women born in the 1950s were affected by increases to their retirement age - the so-called WASPI women, which stands for women against state pension inequality - has been published today. It recommends compensation and says the Department for Work and Pensions failed to adequately inform the women affected. Emma Barnett hears from Steve Webb, former pensions minister from 2010 to 2015, when changes to pension ages were accelerated, and to Frances Neil, a WASPI coordinator in Essex.Dr Jen Gunter is a gynaecologist and author based in California, with a huge global following, known for calling out products marketed to women which claim to address their neglected health issues but have no evidence base and could be harmful. In her latest book, simply called Blood, she tackles the menstrual cycle and myths ancient and modern associated with it. Jen joins Emma in studio.John Lennon told them that ‘girls don’t play guitar’, but these four girls from 1960s Liverpool were determined to prove him wrong. Mary, Sylvia, Valerie and Pamela formed Britain's first female rock'n'roll band The Liverbirds, and went on to tour stadiums across Europe, record two hit albums and play with the Kinks, Rolling Stones and Chuck Berry – all in the space of five years. Emma talks to the two surviving members of the band about their incredible story.Figures out today show that 4.3 million children in the UK are living in poverty. Emma speaks to Sara Ogilvie, Policy Director at Child Poverty Action Group and to Jo, a lone parent living in Greater Manchester with a 14-year-old son and on a low income.

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 Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Just to say that for rights reasons, the music in the original radio broadcast has been removed for this podcast. Good morning, welcome to the programme. Could today be the day that thousands of women born in the 1950s get some justice? Many of these women have missed out on their pensions due to what they say were poorly communicated changes to the state pension age by the government. We'll get into the detail of this shortly and hear from a former pensions minister who worked under David Cameron as part of the coalition, for whom there are many questions. But I wanted to open Woman's Hour today to any woman affected or their family. I'm aware some women have passed on or no

longer here to tell their stories as to what the parliamentary ombudsman could recommend today as appropriate compensation. Some women are saying between £8,000 and £10,000 would do it. But how does that sit with you? What would justice look like if you have been affected by the government's changes to the female pension age? And I also wanted to ask and open up, as I always do across the whole of our listenership, to our younger listeners about your expectations for retirement and a possible pension. Does it even figure in your future plans? Do you even conceive of the idea of retirement?

How does this potential victory for older women come across to you? The state will be paying if there is compensation recommended. The intergenerational differences are stark in this country when it comes to savings, the ability to own your own home and pensions. So please do get in touch today. 84844 is the number you need to text. On social media, we're at BBC Women's Hour. You can email me through the Women's Hour website or for WhatsApp, it's 03700 100 444. Also on today's programme, two of the liverbirds. Not the sitcom, but the rock and roll band from the 60s. The first, as they

call it on their new book, Britain's first female rock and roll band. A certain John Lennon said, well girls don't play the guitar. They showed him. And the woman referred to by some as social media's gynaecologist, Dr Jen Gunter is here from California to talk all things blood.

Coming up, all that and more. As ever, if you want to get in touch about anything, please do use the same numbers. But a long-awaited report on how women born in the 1950s were affected by increases to their retirement age, the so-called WASPI women, WASPI standing for Women Against State Pension Inequality, is expected to be published later today.

WASPI campaigners are hopeful it may mean significant compensation for the women affected, still able to claim, who are here having campaigned for at least £10,000 for each of the 3.6 million women affected. You do the math on that. In 2021, the body published the first stage of its report, this ombudsman, which criticised the government for being too slow to inform these women how they would be affected. Today's report is expected to deal with whether those communication failings amounted to injustice and possible recommendations to be shared on compensation. Steve Webb is the former pensions minister from 2010 to 2015 when changes to pension ages were accelerated.

I'll come to him shortly. But first, let's pass the microphone, shall we, to Francis Neill, a WASPI coordinator, a campaigner in Essex. Francis, good morning. Before we get to how you feel about today, I just want to give our listeners a sense of who you are and what you were doing before you retired. You were a headteacher, as I understand, expecting to get your teacher's pension and estate pension aged 60. When did you find out things were not going to be as you expected? Roughly about a year, a year to nine months before, I received a letter saying there were changes. And then I was invited to a meeting with my finance manager who ran my school budget, who told me that I was going to be one of the women in the school that was affected by a raise in state pension age. And she was surprised I didn't know. And I said, well, I didn't know. So sitting, talking with her, realised that I had a letter that she was going to tell me that my state pension age was being raised to 62 or 63, depending on which month of the year I was born in my birth year.

And that was the first I'd heard of that. And were you 59 you were 59 what was your plan at that point in terms of uh how you were going to carry on or not carry on with working and how had you been planning for that moment um well i've been planning by checking up my state pension so i was told i would get a full state pension that i had 30 years plus uh qualification for ni so and that my teacher's pension I could take that from 60 onwards whenever I wished and that depends on how long you've worked what post you've had and how much you've paid in now when I was told it was going to be 62 and not 60 it was a shock I had already told my governors to prepare for succession planning. As a head

teacher, you need to give two terms notice. So it was quite a long involved job for them and they had to decide what they wanted and how they were going to approach it. I met the chair of governors and told her that unfortunately, I was going to have to backtrack on that. Unfortunately, I hadn't resigned. So they were very happy to have me carry on. So in those next two years, that was I was hoping that I would be able to enhance my teacher's pension to somehow take account of the drop that I was going to experience because I wasn't going to be able to get my state pension. By the time two and a half years, two years had gone uh my thyroid actually had packed up and i was actually being quite unwell my parents were in their late 80s my father was in his early 90s and uh i was needed and now before i actually managed to retire my mother did die unfortunately a very

sad circumstances and um i then uh told my governors that I wasn't well enough to carry on, really, with a very busy, very big school, lots to do. And that I was going to take retirement at 62 and that we would begin to plan. Now, I then retired only to be told by a friend, not by anybody else, that actually I better sit down because I wasn't going to get my state pension at 62 or 63 i was going to have to wait to 65 um because uh the later legislation had pushed the date for people born in the year that i was born in um further three years so that at the beginning of 53 if you were born then you had one date and by the time it got to the end of 53, every six weeks, every two weeks, it was pushed back six weeks. So being born at the end of that year, I had really one of the largest rises to cope with. And that was the second one. And I never heard anything from DWP at all. So I got in touch with them. And yes, that was confirmed. It was now 65.

I received my state pension on Equalisation Day, the first time that women and men had received it together. I think that was November the 5th, I think, of that year. And then I had by that time missed the qualifying years that had risen from 30 to 35. So that was another impact. So that, the top slicing, because I was contracted out, the two rises in age that nobody told me about, that had an impact on my state pension. And what year did you get your pension? 2018, I believe. It was 2018. So it would have been 65, yes, which was Equalisation Day.

That was Equalisation Day, for those Equalisation Day for those in the know. But thank you. Thank you. Thank you for explaining that. The compensation that may be recommended today, if as expected, this report comes out later today with the recommendations people in your position are certainly hoping for women in your position. Is £10,000 enough? Can you put a figure on it? Well, I think that is the level six, the top compensation that the PHSO at this point can offer. What decisions he's made about what compensation, we don't yet know. But I know that the all parliamentary party group from Parliament have supported level six, that was to be women have suffered the highest level of injustice that the phso scale has um and uh um we are just waiting

now for the report to see what and how uh any compensations are going to be administered what we can expect um and how that's going to be worked out. Would it be enough in terms of your situation, in terms of what you have financially, that gap? Well, I don't think that the country has a legislation to be able to allow us to recover our lost patients. No, no, so I accept that. But I'm asking, sorry, a slightly different question. And let me make it clearer. Have you put a figure on the gap that was for you? Because you had those two gaps that you weren't expecting.

Yes, it probably is around about £36,000. Had I been entitled to a full state pension, it would have been in the 40s thousands um and some of my members in our waspy group have lost 50 54 000 so your your yours is at 36 000 just around about around about that because it depends on how much the pension was and for how long i would be able to have got that amount so it's a ballpark figure Okay, I accept that as well. And thank you for sharing it. I think it's helpful for our listeners who aren't perhaps as familiar with this

to get some numbers and also hear people's personal stories, of which we have many coming in on our messages, as you would probably expect with the work that you've done on this. Can I just ask you finally, before I go to the minister, and then I'll try and bring you back again,

if I can, the former minister. How did it affect you in terms of yourself? You know, your well-being, your emotion, you've given us the facts, you've also given us that number. But what did it do to you, that lack of notice and that change of circumstance? Well, it was really shocking. You know, the government write to you every five minutes about your tax and then our eye and and to have no communication nothing official at all in time to plan and this was the big thing that the the law had been changed in 95 and then altered in

2011 why were we not all told we could have planned I would have had that figure of 62 63 firmly in my mind and I would have made plans accordingly I would not have been speaking to my mum and dad and saying actually I'm going to have time and to talking to my daughter and saying I'm so looking forward to helping you with your child care and my daughter-in-law so um and those plans all had to stop um because I had to continue working. Now, I could have taken my teacher's pension at 60 and I could have taken the five years to get there. But my husband is disabled and he has only a very tiny state pension. So I am the breadwinner. And lots of us in the WASPI group have found that lots of us are the breadwinners, the providers. And of course, we have a lot of single ladies who are looking after themselves they don't have a partner or a home

to sell so it was very shocking we had to um abandon some travel plans which is minimal compared to what some people had to think about um and uh we we got together and i said well i'm i'm okay i can carry on working which i did and my governors were very generous and wanted me to. But it did take a toll on my health because I was helping my mum and my dad. And my actually, as I said before, my thyroid gave up and I was quite unwell. Didn't know what it was, but was unwell. Well, let me. So it did have that sort of effect. And then, of course, once one had begun to think about leaving a job and begun to plan

leaving it to then regain and I think I did quite well to regain the energy and the focus and to keep going and um continuing my work that took quite a lot of um coming to terms really I imagine those changes and then to be told there was another change as you described yes I think this is the perfect point to bring in Steve Webb, Francis, stay with me. The former pensions minister from 2010 to 2015. I mentioned Steve as a liberal Democrat, as a member of that coalition working under the prime minister then, David Cameron. There were changes to pension ages were accelerated. You've just heard the impact on Francis being directly caught up in that acceleration.

Do you have anything you'd like to say to Frances this morning? I think what's striking from what Frances has said is that she should have been told what was going on. And with those second round of changes that you just referred to, Emma, we did actually write vast numbers of letters. Now, of course, when you write millions of letters, somebody doesn't get one, I accept that. But I know for a fact, vast numbers of letters were sent, because people wrote back to me, and I spent literally years replying to those replies. So the big difference between the changes we made in 2011, which the Ombudsman didn't find with maladministration, is that having made those difficult changes, we did then tell vast numbers of people, whereas the 1995 changes, which are the ones that added five years to some

people's pension ages the big failing was that the department of work and pensions found out that people didn't know they did research in the early 2000s they found out that plenty of people didn't know and they did nothing and that in my view was the big failure so equalizing pension ages i think was right yes however but the reason of it the reason for it was to reduce the cost of the state pension system to the taxpayer no no what was the reason so the reason for equalizing from 60 to 65 was a european court decision no no sorry the acceleration the acceleration. The acceleration to the shift. Yeah, so the acceleration was that equality at 65 wasn't due to be reached until 2020. And that would have been male state pension age would have been unchanged in nearly a century when we were all living on average substantially longer.

So the goal was to raise men and women's pension age. And that couldn't be done until equality had been reached. So equality was brought forward by about 18 months and then men and women's pension age and that couldn't be done until equality had been reached so equality was brought forward by about 18 months and then men and women so so you know i raised my own that's an absolute that's a double hammer blow to women yes isn't it now you're hearing a yes from francis there but yes steve you know you've explained it and we can talk about court rulings and equalization and believe me i'm sitting on Woman's Hour. Equalisation is in the DNA of this programme. But it's a moot point when you're Francis in that petition, isn't it? When you've had that first hammer blow and then a second hammer blow because of the incompetence of the government to communicate.

Well, I agree. No, no, sorry, Francis, it is important to let Steve respond to that. I will bring you in, I promise. No, no, please don't apologise, but let Steve reply, please. And I agree. I think when the government realised in the early 2000s that people didn't know, if they had then taken action, then Francis would have known about that first change. Now, I've no idea why she didn't get the letter about the second change. I can't really deal with that. Although a lot of effort was made to tell people about the second change. But if people had known, then if Frances had had a letter in 2002, when the government knew that

she didn't know, she'd have had eight or nine years notice, she'd have been able to make plans. That was the failing. Now, I think it's really important to say, Emma, obviously, we'll see what the report says, probably in a few hours. I don't think the ombudsman is going to write very large checks to large numbers of women. I think actually many of the women have been misled by some of the media and so on, not yourself, but some of the media who've sort of said, oh, you're just going to get big checks. I don't think that's where the ombudsman is going to end up. And it'd be unfortunate if people heard the programme and thought, you know, when am I going to get my check? I don't think that's where they're going to end up.

Because? Because what the Ombudsman says is Parliament can decide what pension ages are. And he doesn't compensate people for Parliament deciding people have to work to 65 or 66. He deals with maladministration, which is a very specific thing. So what he may do is say, if you perhaps like Francis, or others, if you made a decision, because the government didn't tell you what the rules were, and that caused loss, they may set up a scheme where people can say, here's my circumstances, I made a decision that caused me loss, compensate me for the decision I wouldn't have made, not compensate people simply because they had to work longer. And I think that's the distinction that we may see in the report.

Let's come to that in just a moment. And Francis, I promise I will let you come back in on this. But just to come back to something that one of your successors, Ros Altman, was saying to my colleagues on the Today programme this morning, working again under David Cameron on pensions. She talked about that she was instructed to ignore the WASPI women, they would go away. Is that the vibe when you were sitting around the cabinet table? What was the approach and the seriousness with which this issue was taken, not necessarily by you, but actually by the people that you were sitting around that table at? Because it's all very well to say you've got no idea why some people like Frances did not receive this letter,

but that is the case, and that acceleration was for some women a double hammer blow. What was the seriousness with which those people around the table took this issue? Yeah, I mean, I wasn't in the Cabinet, but it was taken incredibly seriously. I mean, it was one of the first bits of legislation I was involved with it we obviously then had to organize writing vast numbers of letters which

is no small task and as I say there is no you know of course there will be a person or people who say you know and I don't dispute them they say I didn't get a letter I'm not saying that's not true but I do know that vast numbers of letters were sent out because you know because they were because I got replies to them. So I wouldn't accept that people, that effort wasn't made the second time around. But I would accept is the bigger change, because the 95 Act, the original change, added up to five years. The changes we made added up to a further 18 months. So the big change is the one that should have been properly communicated.

And I have massive sympathy with people who made decisions based on incorrect information when they could have been told and previous governments didn't tell them and all the political parties are involved in that. Francis what would you want to say to Steve? Yes and I think there are ladies who were divorced who were caught in this as well so obviously financial institutions and barristers lawyers and financiers who were advising courts for ladies payment ceremony if to use that word when divorces were sorted most we know ladies who the payment stopped at 60 because the judge had made a decision that the state pension kicked in and that no longer had to carry on because that was going to finance that lady. And it didn't. So there were people who had some very serious situations to cope with.

One of the things I was going to say, and I apologise for interrupting you, Steve, was that WASPI is not against equalisation. We have all of the time said we understand and agree that that must be so, so we don't have any issues with equalisation. The actual issue is exactly what Steve said, it's we did not know. And actually, I think WASPI women largely felt that we were irrelevant. There was no thought for us. Now, whether or not there was thought it was not communicated because and francis if i can just just just come in on that i mean as well as all of the things we're talking about when we design the new state pension the single biggest reason that i wanted to restructure the state pension was because many women got atrocious state pensions and

on average i know everyone's different on average, the new state pension system is more generous than the old one to women. And that was one of the things I most wanted to achieve as a pensions minister. Well, we will, Frances. Yes, we understand that. Frances, I'm going to use this opportunity while we're on this to thank you for coming on

and also bring in some other stories from our messages that are coming in. So we hear a wide range of voices this morning. And Steve Webb, former pensions minister, thank you for coming on. So we hear a wide range of voices this morning. And Steve Webb, former pensions minister, thank you for coming on. We've talked to you before about the issue with women's pensions and savings. Perhaps we'll talk again, I'm sure.

But it's important to hear about what it was like at that decision level. Thank you, Emma. Thank you. Ahead of the Ombudsman report, this part of the report. There's a message here. This is devastating. I never received a letter from the Department for Work and Pensions.

I expected my state pension at 60. I only discovered in 2011 I had to work for another six years. I have a serious spine problem. I had severe menopause leading to bullying at work. I left a good job as a result of both. Since 2012, I've only had agency work, temping, and I'm on a zero-hours contract. I have 18 months to go, and it distressed me every single day,

just trying to get through each week living hand-to-mouth. I have lost 48,000 minimum. I've also lost my health, my job, my savings. I had no notification of any changes. My retirement has been ruined in so many ways. This would never have been done to men. As far as successive governments are concerned, women are simply non-entities

who should have the decency to die before they can claim a pension they have paid for. I think the pension age being raised was totally an unflagged blow to women who have worked all their lives and were planning to ease off at 60. I feel it's totally unacceptable. Women deserve to be compensated fully.

It has affected mental and physical health and caused much unnecessary stress. The age of 60 often coincides with looking after aging parents when women need to become carers again. But I have to say we've also had a few messages along these lines which I wanted to share because I asked you about some of our younger listeners and intergenerational fairness and your view of this potential victory today, this potential sense of justice that may be coming. I find it very hard to have sympathy with the WASPI campaign. I'm 38. I don't expect to ever get a state pension.

I resent paying compensation for comparatively well-off people to choose to retire earlier than our male peers. Public services are falling apart. Childcare is astronomical. Extra taxpayer money for the older generation does not feel fair when younger people are struggling. I have sympathy for those who need to retire sooner and I agree the communication should have been better. But it wasn't unknown there were public messages. And another one from one of our 33-year-old listeners.

I am a woman, I'm 33, and while I think what's happened to these waspy women is terrible my friends and i are fully expecting the pension age the retirement age will go up again and again we think we'll never get to retire certainly not before we're too old and broken to be of use to ourselves or businesses and in interesting sense there across the ages around this and also some very heartfelt and personal stories. And the report is actually just out. I can bring you that as I'm talking.

The report is out. We're working through it now here at Women's Hour. But one of the key findings that the report outlines is that the government should do the right thing, apologise and pay compensation to women hit by changes. If we've still got Frances on the line, Frances, women should be compensated. As a WASPI woman, as a woman who missed out

on some more than £30,000, what is your reaction? I think that's wonderful news that we should be compensated. And now it's up to the political will, the politicians to get together and treat the WASPI women with the respect that they deserve. And also, there is a 184 billion underspend in the NI pot from our contributions that have not been used to support us. So the people who are younger and saying it's going to impact on them, no, it isn't. We paid in this money, all of our working lives, and we were expecting the social covenant that we knew from cradle

to working to kick in and support us. But this is a real moment in terms of this report. I recognise you're just processing it and hearing it. Important to have that response to our listeners. But I imagine are women for whom this is going to be a life changing award if there is to be one, because there are women who are really suffering in poverty, destitute, loan sharks having to be used. You know, they've had to sell down size. They've had to go from one social housing with one bed flat to a studio or sharing a studio with a friend. Well, let me let me let me tell you also a statement here within the report or part of the report. It says this report, if you're just joining us now from the parliamentary ombudsman about the WASPI Women campaign. It says the Department for Work and Pensions, the DWP, failed to adequately inform thousands of women that the state pension age had changed.

The DWP has not acknowledged its failings nor put things right for these women affected. So just to bring you that piece of breaking news here on Women's Hour, which will affect thousands of women across the UK, how it will affect them will women across the UK. How it will affect them will be a whole other matter. We don't yet know that, but that is the ruling of that report. Well, just walked into the studio, two women, certainly with some life experience if we're talking about older women and expectations. Girls don't play guitars. That's what John Lennon

said to four working class girls from 1960s Liverpool, who went on to form one of the first all-female rock and roll bands in the world. Who am I talking about? The Liverbirds. They proved John Lennon wrong, touring stadiums across Europe, playing with Chuck Berry, the Kinks, the Rolling Stones, to name but a few, and winning over tough crowds at Hamburg's legendary Star Club all in the space of just five years. But unlike their male counterparts, the same length of career and riches perhaps didn't follow in quite the same way, but a fantastic experience, I'm sure, and we'll hear in just a moment from two surviving members of the band about their new book, The Liverbirds. But first, take a listen to this.

That's The Liverbirds, their signature cover of the song Peanut Butter, with me in the studio, bass player Mary McGlorian, drummer Sylvia Saunders. Good morning. Good morning. Lovely to have you here. How does it feel, Sylvia, I'll start with you, how does it feel listening to that? Absolutely fantastic going back there. But we're like 16-year-olds again.

What memories come to mind for you, Mary? For me, listening to Peanut Butter. Well, going to Hamburg, of course, on the train, practising songs, getting to Hamburg and going on this fantastic stage. And the people just went crazy. We turned around and started waggling our behinds because they were shouting the same as they did to the Beatles, Max Schau, and that was our Schau.

And the people started throwing money on stage shouting the same as they did to the Beatles, Max Schau, and that was our Schau. And the people started throwing money on stage and were really, really going mad. I wonder if I'd just take you back a tiny bit, Sylvia, with how you actually got together as a band. Yes, well, first of all, Mary, she had photographs taken because they were going to form a group. And then we saw an advert in the paper

which was the Mersey Beat then and that these four girls were going to start a group and Valerie and I had the idea also because Valerie was lead guitarist but then I couldn't play the guitar because my fingers were too small for the fret so I said I'll get a kit of drums and then we went to Mary's house and we said, have you got a band? Is everything going all right? And she said, no, we stopped. We couldn't play. And Valerie said, well, don't worry.

You've got the instruments. I'll teach you. And that's how we come together. That's amazing. And the name? Who named you? Well, as a matter of fact, it was my cousin who was in the group at first,

but she couldn't play neither. So she said before she left, she had a good idea for this name, Liverbirds, because up to then, nobody had thought of using this word referring to females from Liverpool. And that's how we got the name. Yes, synonymous with Liverpool. And taking us back to that time, you mentioned the Beatles, but it was a really important time, wasn't it? Culturally, music-wise, but mainly men.

It was all men. I mean, when we first seen the Beatles on stage, we just thought, well, why the hell aren't women doing this as well? And that gave us the idea, let's do that. But like Sylvia said my first group my cousins we couldn't play. I love that you couldn't play but you still formed a band. Yeah and we even bought the instruments as well and when we got to the shop we said to each other well what instrument are you going to play and I said well I want to play bass like Paul McCartney so that's

how I got a bass. And this quote from John Lennon about girls not playing guitars, how did that come about or who did he say it to? He said it to all of us. The four of us were in the cavern and Bob Waller, the DJ, said, would you like to come and meet the boys who had just come off stage in the dressing room in their undies, getting themselves dried with a big towel? And Bob

Wallace said to Paul McCartney and John Lennon, this is the Liveabirds. They're going to be the first all-female band. And Paul McCartney said, oh, what a great idea. And John Lennon just looked at us and said, girls don't play guitars. What did he say, Pat? What was the response? Well, we said, we'll show him. We're going to show him. Giles, can play guitars and drums, of course. Yes.

Because I couldn't play the drums at all, neither. And did you say that to him at that time? Or was that one of those moments where you think of the response later, you know, the brilliant thing to say? As we sort of come out the dressing room, we both look, well, four of us, Mary and I both looked at each other and turned around and said, we'll show him, won't we? And we did. Yes, and I mean, going to Hamburg, this whole journey, how did that come about?

We'd heard about a man coming from Hamburg to do auditions for the Star Club. It was Bill Harry from the Merseybees who told us to go to these auditions. We auditioned and Henry Henroyd, the man, said right away, oh, we definitely have to have you in Hamburg. And how did you find it? What was the experience like, Sylvia? It was fantastic, but of course we couldn't go right away because I was only 17. So we had to get special permission from Bow Street Magistrates' Court

for me to go. Wow. Yeah, and so I got the permission and when we actually arrived at the Star Club, it was absolutely, we couldn't believe it. You know, we saw the street with all lights, all sex and, you know, we just saw an amazement. And of course, Mary was going to be a nun, don't forget.

Wow. The bass playing nun. Yeah nun taking Hamburg by storm. There's still time. I was going to say, is that the latter aspiration? Yeah, I can give up, yes. Just been a bit distracted along the way. But it went well in Hamburg. You guys are still huge there, right?

You have a real following. Yes, every time I go over to Hamburg, because of course Mary, she married a German, who was lovely, Frank Dostal, who wrote Yes, Sir, I Can Boogie. Oh, there you go. And she is still there, living there 60 years. And I go over, and sometimes we'll go to a show to see something,

and people come over to us and say, you're the live a bit, aren't you? And we're signing autographs. That's amazing. It is amazing. And I was looking back at a video of you performing Peanut Butter and it's really striking. People may have heard your music, but maybe not everybody has

or can necessarily think about what you look like and how you dressed and how you presented yourself. And you didn't trade on your sexuality. You look in some ways like the boys or they look like you, whichever way round. But was that a very deliberate choice? Did you talk about that? Yeah, it was at the time.

We didn't want to be going on stage in frilly dresses or things like that. And Astrid Kirker, who was a good friend of the Beatles, who was engaged to the one that died in Hamburg, she helped us have the idea of having these black trousers and white frilly blouses on. So a tiny bit of frill, but not too much. A nod to a frill.

And hardly any make-up. Yes, and it's a very cool thing to look back on, I have to say. How do you feel about it now, that whole look and the way you came across? Well, as a matter of fact, it's very popular at the moment. When you walk into the shops, you see all these frilly blouses. Yeah. All the frilly blouses are coming back and also the trousers with the little slit at the front. Yes.

What we used to call then the, they call them bootleg trousers now, don't they? They are. I'm wearing a little bit today. No slip, but yeah, you're right, they're back. Yeah, yeah. And was it for you? I mean, how do you think you experienced, because now, you know, we still see the Rolling Stones on tour, for instance, right? You know, and I wonder how that feels to you

having come up at a similar time. Well, as a matter of fact, we are starting off again. Five years ago, we got an offer for a musical about us and that really took off called girls don't play guitars in the royal chorus and now we've just recorded a new album with the two girls who play pam and val in the musical and of course the book yes which is everything we're talking about and and many stories in there i suppose it's also just that what the lives were like for you being in the first situation

of a female rock band here and how it was for the men as well. It is different, isn't it? Well, I mean we mixed with them, you know, I mean we were looked upon as part of the gang and even the females who were like the groupies in them

days, they accepted us. In fact, you know, they used to come to us and say, to help them, you know, because they used to be in the beer shop where the Beatles used to go. Everybody used to sort of congregate into this beer shop. And they'd ask our advisor,

oh, could you tell us, what do we say to the boys? Because, of course, they were trying to speak English, you know. Yes, and your group course, they were trying to speak English, you know. Yes. And your groupies, how are they? Oh, fantastic. Our husbands always said they were our first groupies. Yeah.

I feel there was a lot more that was about to be said here by Sylvia. Yes, yeah, that's true. Read the book. All right. Well, that's a good plug. We'll end it on that. But, you know, I don't get often the chance to ask female rock bands about their groupies.

It's certainly a different lens on it. Mary McGlory, Sylvia Saunders, all the best with it. The book is called The Liverbirds, Our Life in Britain's First Female Rock and Roll Band. Thank you very much. Thank you. Indeed. Many messages coming in about your response to the

fact that we've just had that report in from the ombudsman the parliamentary ombudsman uh regarding uh going talking about the waspy women and the campaign there and whether the communications were uh fair or not um and messages along the lines of whether you've been affected or not um coming in and just to say the key line of that as we're going through it is that the Department for Work and Pensions have failed, this is what the parliamentary ombudsman has found, to adequately inform thousands of women that the state pension age had changed. The DWP has not acknowledged its failings nor put things right for those women affected.

The report says women should be compensated. And messages here, I have worked for 40 years i live with heart failure the rise in age means i'll have to keep working i want the choice to retire with the state pension i've paid for now it's highly unlikely i'll get to 67 like many women i have also cared for loved ones too much of my paid work has been part-time the government should listen to women who are like me and understand that maybe 40 years of work is enough. That's from Jellica. Thank you very much.

And more messages, if I can, I'll come back to. But let me tell you who's just walked into the studio. We've gone from rock bands to rock star gynecologists. I can't always say that, but she's referred to by some as social media's resident gynaecologists. Dr. Jen Gunter is a doctor and author based in California with a serious online following. In her first major book, The Vagina Bible, she called out products marketed to women which claim to address our neglected health issues

but have no evidence, could be harmful. In her latest book, Simply Called Blood, she tackles the menstrual cycle and myths, ancient and modern, associated with it. She also looks at contraception and abortion, both hot topics. Well, all of the time, but especially in America at the moment. A reminder, since Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022, 14 states have enacted near total abortion bans, while seven states now limit the procedure somewhere between 12 and 18 weeks gestation.

At the same time, other states have enacted laws to protect abortion rights. We will perhaps get to that. But just to paint a bit of an image of the country you're coming to us from this morning, Jen, I mean, I know you're not from there, from Canada originally, but good morning. Why blood? Why have you gone to this, the science, medicine and mythology of menstruation? Well, thanks for having me. Yeah, you know, I felt this was the third in the series. I had written about the vagina and vulva. I'd written about menopause. And I thought, this is the last piece of gynecological information. I think that's missing from

the repertoire. And what are you trying to get across, perhaps, in terms of the gaps? Well, I hear so often from women that, why didn't I know this? Why didn't I know this? Whether it's with dealing with disinformation online or not being heard in the doctor's office or just not even knowing how their body works. And I really wanted to provide them that information so they wouldn't feel like that, that they would know how everything was working and know how to seek care when they need it. One of the examples, I'm happy to be able to get straight to this, that was a bit of a light bulb moment for you was menstrual diarrhea.

Should we get there? Yeah, I'm always happy to talk about it. Yeah, I, as a teen, had terrible menstrual diarrhea. I mean, it's silly to call it terrible because if you've had it, that's really what you don't need to qualify it. And I thought that was just me. I thought I was uniquely broken. I'd never heard about it. I'd never to qualify it. And I thought that was just me. I thought I was uniquely broken. I'd never heard about it. I'd never read about it. Not that there were many places to read about

periods in the 1980s. And it wasn't until I got into medical school and heard a lecture about the hormones called prostaglandins that I put two and two together, and I was having a normal experience. And then I was able to get on the birth control pill and that corrected things significantly. And I spent, you know, probably 10 years of my life suffering needlessly. Sorry. And what you heard about was the reason why that happened. Exactly. So it was a lecture on hormones called prostaglandins and they're made at sites with injury and inflammation and they can cause diarrhea, some kinds of prostaglandins and they're made at sites with injury and inflammation and they can cause diarrhea, some kinds of prostaglandins. And we make prostaglandins when we menstruate.

So I was like, wait a minute. Those two go together. Yeah. Big light bulb moment sitting in medical school class. I ran down and asked the professor afterwards, could this be a cause for diarrhea during the menstrual cycle? And he said, I never really thought about it, but sure. You then go on to, as you say, the pill. You have an experience which removes the need to have a period if you want. You can obviously have that break. There's a whole other discussion about why people do or do not have that break

and medically can they, which you also talk about in the book. And there are the historic reasons perhaps for that as well, people wanting to still have a cycle, not knowing if they were pregnant. But going to your experience, because I'm aware that we're talking, and you're very aware of this, in an era of people sharing information wrongly online, but also there are trends, and one of the trends is moving away, for some women, from those sorts of pills,

from that sort of hormonal contraception, over fears of the side effects, mood changes, and also the feeling that they can naturally cycle and chart it and still be able to stop themselves from getting pregnant. What do you make of some of the concerns women are sharing about being on hormonal contraception when for some it can really improve their life not having a period? Yeah, so it's always hard to parse what people are talking about online because you don't ever have the full story. So you never know what was presented to that person in the office. You don't know if they were completely dismissed, if they were going in and having symptoms dismissed.

You don't know what their medical background is. You don't have anything. So it's very difficult to comment on it. But there is a bit of a demonization by some at the moment, isn't there? Right, there is. And also based on real experience, if they've had bad side effects. So there definitely are people who have side effects on the pill. There's people who have side effects with any medication. And I would say, undoubtedly, people have their side effects dismissed, especially women. But I would also caution that, especially in the United States, there's a big overlap between sort of the anti-pill brigade and right-wing sort of desires to take contraception away from women altogether.

So it's very important to kind of understand where the person who's spreading the information is coming from. And that's not always easy to tell. I'm all for choice in all aspects of medical care. So if people don't want to be on the birth control pill, they don't want to be on hormonal contraception, we should give them all the options that are available. There are very few though sometimes, aren't there? That's the issue. I say as someone with, you know, I'm not making this about me, but someone with endometriosis, with adenomyosis, there are still a paucity of options if you can't tolerate hormonal contraception, mood impact or whatever, because we don't have research around certain parts of women's health,

women's body and how our hormones work. Right. So there is a systemic underfunding of diseases that uniquely affect women, right? So polycystic ovarian syndrome, endometriosis, adenomyosis would be three of the very common ones, PMS, PMDD as well. And so unfortunately, we have to do the best with what we have because in the office today, I can't fix the systemic sort of underfunding. And it's true, we absolutely need much more research. But because we don't understand even the basic biology, for example, of endometriosis, it's very hard to come up with a better drug. So when people can't tolerate hormonal contraception, then we just have to come up with the other options that we have available.

And, you know, there are a variety of different ones, some better than others. Also for endometriosis, there's surgical interventions, obviously, as well. Do you feel concerned in your, where you live now in America, that, you know, there is this conflation, as you were starting to talk about that, between people's political views and the rights, the medical rights of women? And are you concerned that Roe v. Wade being overturned could lead to contraception, hormonal contraception being taken away in some states? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. This is, we're on the track in the United States to absolutely not, you know, having, there's a fear about, you know, certainly if Donald Trump's elected a national abortion ban, there's fear that in the states that have already

banned abortion, that we'll start to see, you know, banning of IUDs and hormonal contraception and everything. It's all connected. And what a lot of people are unaware of is there's a big connection with the wellness industry and these type of leanings as well. And so often it's kind of a soft sell into it. And unfortunately, there are many gaps in medicine. What do you mean the links with wellness? Oh, so you know, a lot of wellness is about about moving away from, you know, any kind of medication. But many of these people also have, you know, right wing associations, they're wanting people to have a traditional home life. They want women to not go to work, you want to stay at home, you're going to care for your period at home, you're going to do all of these things. So

how does somebody care for their period if they're going to be a surgeon? Well, the answer is you don't become a surgeon, you stay at home. So that's interesting because, you know, wellness also sometimes gets associated with phrases like woo woo. And it wouldn't be associated with right wing politics necessarily. It would be associated with we don't want to go anywhere near big pharma. We don't want to support big capitalism. It might be the other side of the political spectrum. Well, I would say that when you go extreme in both directions, you start to meet, right? So when you go all the way around to the left and you all the way around to the right,

you're kind of, you've come to the sort of the same position. And when I look on Instagram and I see a profile from someone who calls herself a Jesus loving mama and I see who's espousing very right wing values. And I see someone from a natural loving mama and she's exposing very left wing values and their Instagram pages look almost identical. How interesting. And I mentioned when I was talking about you coming on the program today, I mentioned your concern about this critical point we're coming to when it comes to not just women's health, but information, I suppose, generally, but from your lens, how concerned are you about voices like yours versus other voices, which perhaps don't have as much, well, certainly don't have as much information? Yeah, so propaganda is a real problem. And disinformation is a real problem. And not listening to women when they're having concerns about their health is a real problem.

And so I think that now more than ever, we really need to be teaching people about their bodies and how they work so they can advocate for the care they deserve. They can advocate for politicians to do the right thing, to actually provide the funding to close those gaps that, you know, people are taking advantage of. I mean, also, just when you were talking there, a lot of top US anti-vaxxers are also wellness influencers. So it's, there are things coming together. But I suppose it's that line between, you know, so-called empowerment and advocating, and then not just going off on your own track and believing something that's not true.

Yeah, I mean, you know, it's very difficult for people to assess the quality of health information online because if you just do a Google search, you know, there are so many data voids out there. The way people manipulate search engines is search engine optimization. It can be very difficult unless you actually know how to search for something. So that's why teaching people how they need to step back each time they see information online to do the search correctly so they can validate what they're listening to. And if they find out the influencer they're following is spreading disinformation, they should really think about making a conscious choice not to be involved with that person. Because if there's been one piece of disinformation, there's almost certainly going to be another.

It is a minefield, and you might not even be feeling very well while you're trying to get through it. That's the other side of it. Dr. Jen Gunter, thank you for talking to us. The book is called Blood. It has a very good illustration on the front of a droplet going down the page within a V. It was perhaps a heartback to your previous book about the vagina, the Vagina Bible. It's the science, medicine and mythology of menstruation.

Thank you very much for coming to talk to us today. Now, data published in the last hour by the Department of Work and Pensions. We've heard a bit about that department already this morning because of pensions. Shows that child poverty in the UK has increased by 100,000 to 4.3 million. These statistics illustrate the overall proportion of UK children in poverty, but also provide a breakdown of, for example, the number of those who are part of working families on low incomes, those from ethnic minority backgrounds, families headed by a single parent, and also where there are more than three children.

I'm joined by Jo, a lone parent living in Greater Manchester on a low income with a 14-year-old son. But first, Sarah Ogilvie, Policy Director at Child Poverty Action Group, a charity campaigning for an end to child poverty in the UK and for a better deal for low income families is with me. The figures then, are you surprised by this increase in the numbers of children living in poverty? Good morning. Morning, Emma. I mean, I'm gutted to be sitting here talking about a record number of children living in poverty in the UK. I work on this issue every day, and actually the numbers still do shock me every time I hear it.

You kind of have to let it sink in that it's 4 million kids living in poverty here. Most of us, I think you want the best for kids, you know, whether it's your own kids, your nieces and nephews, the kids that you see walking to school or in the playground. So this really goes against your human instinct, I think. But having said all of that, if the question is, am I surprised? The answer has to be no, because this has been a trend for recent years, really. And it's a sign that we're doing something wrong, sadly. The government says in a statement today there are 1.1 million fewer people in absolute poverty after housing costs since 2010, including 100,000 children.

I've also got a statement here from the Department for Work and Pensions. This is Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Mel Stride who's talked about knowing that the last few years have been tough with the aftershocks of Covid, the war of Ukraine driving up inflation and the cost of living pressures. That's why Mel Stride says we stepped in with the biggest cost of living package in Europe with an average of £3,800 per household and this unprecedented support prevented 1.3 million people falling into poverty in 2022 to 2023. I could carry on talking about delivering tax cuts, but what is your response to that? I mean, the government likes to use absolute poverty figures, but the truth is absolute poverty should never go up. That's comparing living standards to how they were in 2010. So if they are going backwards, and they are actually for child poverty starting to go backwards. And that is a real sign that things are going massively wrong.

But really, poverty is about how you engage in relation to the society that you live in. You know, can kids have the things that they need to have a decent childhood? And today's stats actually show that they don't. Let me bring in Joe for now. And if I can, I'll come back to you, Sarah. But let's hear from you, Joe. Good morning. Good morning, Emma. now and if I can I'll come back to you Sarah but let's let's hear from you Jo good morning good morning Emma could you tell us a bit about the situation that will the financial situation

you you and your son now find yourselves in um yeah so we live below the median poverty line and um this sort of the reality of that is really limited experiences for my son and actually I asked my son if he could speak to you what he would say so can I share that? Of course. I asked him what it would what he would say to you about a life in poverty if he was speaking to you and he said your dreams fade away you look around you and if you live in an impoverished area, you look around you and you see older people who are grey, who are heavy and you think this is my future with nothing. There's more crime in impoverished areas and he's deeply concerned that he'll be in the wrong place at the wrong time and his future will be gone. I think if I look at my son when he was four years old, five years old, six years old,

you know, these dreams of being a footballer, these dreams that anything is possible and me constantly telling him while managing this sort of cognitive load of living in poverty, for that to have disappeared for him and for him to see his future so bleak is terrible because it is a toxic environment. It's very, very stressful. And with the best will in the world as a parent, you can't constantly hide the reality from your child because no is a regular word, you know, in our household. And I don't want to sort of put this to be all about me because we're two of many. Yes. You were in a situation, and I know that with the pandemic happening as well,

but is it that you lost your job before the pandemic or how did you find yourself quite where you are now um so it began with a high conflict separation when my son was quite young um i didn't get any financial support from the state and so that was really the beginning of the spiral into debt it cost me a lot of money to go through family court life savings you know i was a professional before i became a parent um and at the beginning of the pandemic I lost my job because I just my son has additional needs and that in itself is a portal to poverty for many many people and for us that was the beginning of our sort of descent into

abject poverty and losing my job I was I was working as a cleaner when I'd previously been an audiovisual producer. You know, I'd come from poverty, worked really hard to sort of elevate myself and found myself back in abject poverty using food banks, you know, living in a very cold house, living in a house that needed so much work, pardon me, needed so much work doing to it, but I couldn't afford to get people in to help me. And it's, it just, you end up battered and you really, you know, not just my son's dream have disappeared, but mine as well. It's a really difficult situation because I'm unsupported and there isn't a scaffolding for families like myself to enable us to go out to work, to enable us to sort of work the jobs that we would be most productive at if that's how we're

going to measure it, you know. What would need to change, do you think? Have you had any thoughts on that? Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts on that. I'm a participant on the Changing Realities Project, which Child Poverty Action Group are involved in. And for me, the £20 uplift was a game changer. It lifted 400,000 children out of poverty. And it looks like it could lift half a million children out of poverty. So £20 uplift for those on benefits would be a game changer. It was a game changer. You know, that's evidence based during the pandemic. And I think closing the gap in terms of when you apply

for universal credit, there's a five week wait minimum. And that can be the difference for somebody like me, it was just a month or two months of not being able to pay my bills because I was suspended in that application process. And that absolutely changed everything. I ended up in debt. You can't come back from that because you've got no way to replenish that money. Thank you for talking to us. Can I just give Sarah Ogilvie,

Policy Director at Child Poverty Action Group, just a brief moment, if you can, to respond. What do you want to say to Jo? I mean, Jo is the reason why in our family the reason why we're here to try and do this work and to make life better for children and families who are living in poverty and she's really clear that the thing that made a difference to her life was getting more cash in her family's pockets and there are a couple of ways that government could do that and It needs to increase benefits for children.

Government told you that it had increased benefits, but actually the value of benefits compared to how much families need, it just isn't cutting the mustard. And in particular, we know that the biggest driver at the moment of children's poverty is the two-child limit. So that's the policy that means that you only get money for your first two children, and if you have additional children, you don't get any extra support. And as it stands the Labour Party has yet to say it will reverse that should it get into power of course that will come up as we hear more about an election

but it's important to to hear your response to what we just heard from Jo. Jo thank you very much to you and to your son for your words this morning. Sarah Ogilvie, thank you to you. And thank you very much to all of you for your contributions this morning, especially as we heard that news about the women campaigning for pension changes. Tomorrow, Anita is in Doncaster. Join her then. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. Hi, I'm India Rackerson and I want to tell you a story. It's the story of you. In our series,

Child, from BBC Radio 4, I'm going to be exploring how a foetus develops and is influenced by the world from the very get-go. Then, in the middle of the series, we take a deep look at the mechanics and politics of birth, turning a light on our struggling maternity services and exploring how the impact of birth on a mother affects us all. Then we're going to look at the incredible feat of human growth and learning in the first 12 months of life. Whatever shape the journey takes, this is a story that helps us know our world.

Listen on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven, Listen on BBC Sounds. 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.