Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman’s Hour: 7/7 attacks, Artist Emily Kam Kngwarray, Christine McGuinness, Fangirls, Fats Timbo, Katie Brayben

Episode Date: July 12, 2025

It’s been 20 years since the 7/7 attacks in London, which claimed the lives of 52 civilians and injured almost 800. Krupa Padhy talked to Gill Hicks, who was on the Piccadilly line Tube that morning and lost her legs in the blast, and nurse Kate Price, who was working in intensive care at St Thomas’ Hospital. They discuss their memories of that day and the aftermath, as well as the lasting bond they have formed.An exhibition celebrating the life and work of renowned Australian artist Emily Kam Kngwarray has opened at the Tate Modern in London. Respectfully known as ‘the old lady’ by her community, Emily didn’t start painting on canvas until her 70s. Anita Rani talked to art curator Kelli Cole about Emily's paintings, which were inspired by her life as a senior Anmatyerr woman from the Sandover region of the Northern Territory of Australia.The TV presenter and autism advocacy campaigner, Christine McGuinness, is mother of three autistic children, and she received an autism diagnosis herself as an adult. She is highlighting new research that found that half of parents of children with disabilities surveyed said their child is excluded from play due to playgrounds being inaccessible to them. From Frank Sinatra to the Beatles, many of the biggest male stars built their early careers on the romantic appeal to young women. Bea Martinez-Gatell is author of Swoon, Fangirls, Their Idols And The Counterculture of Female Lust – From Byron To The Beatles. She joined Anita to explain that far from passive consumers, fangirls were actually tastemakers, visionaries and cultural disruptors.Fatima Timbo, known as Fats Timbo, is a content creator and comedian who has amassed an incredible 3 million followers on TikTok. Since appearing on TV show The Undateables in 2018, she's also been part of the team bringing us the Paralympics coverage from Paris last year. Born with achondroplasia, a form of dwarfism, she shares her tips for succeeding in a world where it’s difficult to be different in her book Main Character Energy: Ten Commandments for Living Life Fearlessly. Katie Brayben is a two-time Olivier award winner for Best Actress in A Musical for Tammy Faye and Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. Now she is reprising the role of Elizabeth Laine in Girl From the North Country currently on stage at the Old Vic in London. Katie sang live in the studio. Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Annette Wells Editor: Andrea Kidd

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. deal ratings and price history. So you know a great deal when you see one. That's cargurus.ca. BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani 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. Hello and welcome to the programme. Coming up, some highlights from the week. As we marked the 20th anniversary of the London bombings on the 7th July, we heard about a unique friendship that formed that day between two women, Jill Hicks, who lost both her legs, and nurse Kate Price, who was working

in intensive care at St Thomas' Hospital that day and helped look after Jill. We'll hear about a new exhibition of the paintings of Emily Karma-Ngware, a prolific and preeminent Aboriginal artist who died in 1996 at the Tate Modern in London. TV presenter and autism advocacy campaigner Christine McGuinness on raising three children with autism and getting her own diagnosis as an adult. Also content creator and comedian Fats Timbo who was born with achondroplasia,

a form of dwarfism on taking on her bullies. So settle in as we begin. We start, however, with the 20th anniversary of 7-7, the attack in London in which three bombs were set off on the underground and one on a bus killing 52 civilians and injuring almost 800 people. Jill Hicks was on the Piccadilly line tube train that morning. After the bomb she lost 75% of her blood and both her legs and was in such a bad way when she was admitted to hospital that she was labelled one unknown

estimated female. Nurse Kate Price was working in intensive care at St Thomas' hospital that day and helped look after Jill in the ward. They formed a bond and met up for the 20 year commemorations in the capital. Krupa Paddy spoke to both of them ahead of those commemorations, with Jill on a line from her home in Australia. She asked Jill what her memories were of the moments straight after the attack. The aftermath is perhaps the most interesting for me in terms of just being so uncertain and unclear of what had happened, no idea, it's unfathomable that this was you know a deliberate act and it was a bomb blast and I've always tried to think of it in terms of there

was no sound, there was no you know there was no indicator of what was about to happen. It was literally the time it takes to draw a breath and the world just went completely dark. And it was a darkness that felt like a thick tar almost that my body was being held within and although it felt like I was flying through the air at some incredible speed, I was also just being gently cradled until I reached the bottom of whatever the bottom was. When we think of London, when we think of commuters, sort of that beautiful etiquette of you don't speak to anyone on the underground, you don't look at anyone in the underground. So those anonymous commuters became the first lifelines and that

is what I hold on to. When I think about the aftermath, I think about the cradling of the darkness holding my body, and then literally hands holding on to each other. And it was extraordinary. You describe it all so eloquently. It was an hour before the emergency services even reached you, Jill. And during that time, many people would have frozen in fear, not knowing what on earth is going on, yet you took initiative to stop that extreme flow of blood.

Just explain that to us. So out of character for me, I had a scarf on that day, and luckily, it was a piece of clothing that was still on my body, and I was able to tie tourniquets around the tops of my legs You know, I often talk about myself in the third person if ever I'm describing this because I am I'm still 20 years on in absolute awe of Our ability to respond in such a way if you'd said to me the day before Jill this is what's going to happen this is what you're going to do I would have absolutely categorically said there's no way I could do that. amazing when we're pushed into a corner, I felt that I had no other option.

You know, I wanted to survive. I wanted to live. And so if that meant having presence enough to tie tornices, then that's what I did. That's so powerful hearing you say that. I wanted to survive. I wanted to live. And part of that journey was you then coming into the emergency services at st. Thomas's Hospital I understand you know the names of all the people who found you and took you there and you've stayed in touch. Oh

Absolutely. I mean how well, how do you thank people? You know that that that was my absolute quest Afterwards of finding every single person that touched my body that gave their all and looking at them and just saying thank you and then finding a way to physically say thank you to be able to live a life of absolute gratitude and honor of everything they did that morning. That they didn't just save my life that day, they have saved my life every single day since. Let's bring you into our conversation now, Kate,

because you are one of those medical professionals in those early hours, in those early days. Very little was known about Jill at that time. She was known as patient one, unknown, because of the severity of her condition. Can you just outline what you recall from those first moments interacting with Jill and seeing her condition? That bit is a complete blur for me. When she arrived onto the unit at St Thomas's, we were aware that she had had a couple of cardiac arrests outside of the hospital and we knew she was in theatre having surgery.

We just knew that our role was to essentially bring all her vital signs up into normal range so that we could really assess the impact of her injuries. And then also to buy the police time to establish her identity, because there was nothing for us to really go on and also locate her next of kin as well. So we just remember just like it was just all hands on deck in those first immediate moments. Yet all whilst not knowing what exactly had happened. That must have been very confusing for you. You yourself must have felt quite vulnerable.

Yeah, I suppose for me, and I always feel a little bit of an imposter in this situation, was that I did feel very safe. I was very secure in the safety of my hospital. But by the time Jill came to us, it had been established that it had been an attack. Like before that, early on in the safety of my hospital. But by the time Jill came to us, it had been established that it had been an attack. Like before that, early on in the morning, early in the shift,

I remember Stuart, the charge nurse coming up to me and saying, we're on red alert, something's happened, we don't know what. At that initial stage, it was maybe it's a power surge. So by the time Jill came, we did have an appreciation of actually what had happened so at that point it was a situation that none of us had ever been in before and so we were we were all very much learning on that as well and

and I remember the doctors going into this whole okay so this is this is what happens when there is a bomb blast this is these are the injuries this is the impact this is what we need to be looking out for. You talked about monitoring Jill's vital signs, but you also had the role of washing her, washing those injuries. Why was that so important? So I didn't actually manage to achieve that in that shift, but it was something that I really wanted to do. It's such a clinical environment, like bar theaters,

there's no other environment that is so dehumanizing in a medical situation and I just desperately wanted to give her that, to clean her so if we did locate the family they could come and they wouldn't see how it was when she'd first arrived but what was happening was that every time things started to stabilize, people left the bed space, I would type up notes, I would do all my observations, and I would fill the bowl up with water, and I'd put it on the end of the bed space, and I'd look up, and then she'd start deteriorating again, and then it was all hands on deck.

And I don't know how many times I filled that bowl of water up and just didn't manage to do that. And I think, I'm pretty sure the first thing I handed over to the night shift to David and Jamie was, I haven't managed to wash her, I'm really sorry I haven't managed to wash her. And they just looked at me, of course, like I had three heads because they were looking at me this day that we'd had. Sorry, Jill. Jill, how do you feel hearing Kate talk about the importance of you not feeling dehumanised

because that's quite striking to hear. I know Kate very well now and so I think that that's very typical and I feel so fortunate that this is why I am who I am today. These are the hands of the people that cared for me. To wash somebody, that's not bringing me back from life or death. That's saying I'm delivering you to whatever your next situation is going to be, whether that is passing away, whether that is surviving but being with your family. I will give you the best that I can give you and that dignity. And

I absolutely attribute those sorts of actions to why I'm even the person I am today. What do you remember about waking up? That I felt incredibly loved. My mother passed away when I was 18 and I have never felt that sense of unconditional love since until I was there in hospital and that's how I felt. And was Kate there? Well not when I initially opened my eyes so I missed her by a narrow margin which I'm forever apologetic about. I should have known, and I could have just closed my eyes again and just... But it's intense. It's a bond and a deep emotion that stays with you forever. And I felt... Well, firstly firstly I felt safe, you know, and that's all that matters. If I had died

in that situation, I would have died feeling safe and loved and that's extraordinary. Kate, so you missed that moment by a few minutes? Yeah, I have a new theory about that. I've been reflecting on it this week and so one of the first lessons you learn in intensive care is because it's so dehumanizing, the importance of touch. And when you're approaching the bed space of holding a hand, placing your hand on someone's arm and introducing yourself and then explaining what you're doing because it's there's loads of noises, even though people are sedated, there's still a lot going on. I did not want to go on my break. I had so much adrenaline and so much to do

and I needed to wash her that I got forced to go on my break. And my theory now is that Jill sensed that I was no longer there and like a child, she was like, where's Kate? Where's my nurse? So I now can find it in my heart, Jill, to forgive you for. Thank you, thank you. It's okay, I'm okay with it now. But what I'm hearing

here and I've just been speaking to you for a few minutes now is this beautiful bond that has come out of something so traumatic and I know Jill you were saying that you've kept in touch with many people or at least you learnt the names of so many people. This friendship, this relationship in particular, how has it grown from strength to strength? What I think is really important is the events on July 7 isn't what defines our friendship and that I've gotten to know Kate and her family and we now have 20 years of experiences with each other that is, it's a forever bond, it's for life.

It makes you emotional. I just, I would give anything for that day not to have happened. I wasn't even supposed to be working on East Wing 1, I was moved up to East Wing 2 because the skill mix was very junior and I harrumped my way upstairs. But I feel so fortunate and so lucky to be one of the people that has the privilege of knowing Jill and seeing what she has made of her life from that. In the work that I do now, I'm very much about like if you focus on the thing in front of you and think about the ripple effects of that interaction and that good moment that you can give someone. To hear how much that is actually valued in a

life-long lasting way is a really validating but really quite wild. Yeah. Let's pick up on that. Let's talk about your healing journeys because they've been unique in their own ways. For you, Jill, part of that was essentially going to see the legs that you lost in the attack.

Why was it important to you to go through that? So I first inquired about the legs when the forensic team via the police brought back my briefcase and some of the things that I had with me that morning they'd found in the carriage. And so that then led me to ask the question, did you find my limbs? And they sort of went very quiet. This is the police team. And they said, actually we have. And they then handed over to the hospital team who said, we've all been trying to work out how we approach this subject

with you because how do we tell you that we have your legs, we have them here? And they were in the morgue. Unexpectedly for them, I just sat up in my bed and just said, can I go and see them? And no one expected me to ask that. And I just felt I couldn't believe that they'd been found. I couldn't believe that they were there in the hospital and I just wanted to say goodbye and to see them one last time. And I remember they took me down to the sort of the family room where

you might go and say goodbye to a loved one and out was presented my feet first and they were on a cushion and they were absolutely perfect. So all the toenails were all painted that were just perfect as I remembered them. And then the legs came out separately and they were so good. But I meant managed to touch each of the toes and thank my feet for everything they'd given me up to that point. And it was very important, I think, to have that goodbye moment because I could, I don't want to say move on, but I could sort of comprehend that I won't recover. My legs will not grow back. And this was a moment where I had to say goodbye. Kate Price and Jill Hicks there.

Now, an Australian artist who only took up painting on canvas in her 70s has a landmark exhibition opening this week at the Tate Modern in London. Emily Kama Nware, respectfully known as the Old Lady by her Aboriginal community, produced nearly 3,000 paintings and achieved huge critical acclaim before her death in 1996. Her art is often monumental and depicts the women's dance ceremonies of her indigenous community, the plants and animals of her country and her spiritual connection to it. And Warray's show is being touted as one of this summer's blockbusters. Well I was joined by its curator Kelly Cole and I started by asking her how it feels to bring her work to a new audience here in the UK.

We did an exhibition of hers at the National Gallery of Australia in, you know, December 2023. But having it here in London and for a European audience is so exciting. You talked about the emotion that you felt. I've done quite a few tours and have been around enough people in the galleries and they are all saying they are feeling that emotion. They're trying to understand and grapple with what is making their body react to these paintings. What is it? You're the curator. Tell us what is it that we're feeling? Well, look, you know, Inwadi herself said, you know, she painted her country and people,

she loved her country so much. That means that if people are loving her paintings, they're loving her country. So she is so proud of what she painted. I think it's the energy that she put within her painting. We talk about the fact that she was an older lady. She lived a life on her country. She did her wulia, which is women's ceremony song and dance, as you mentioned. You stand in front of these paintings called a wulia. They are striped paintings of multi-colours. They are representing that body paint of painting up and they vibrate with energy. You feel that

energy in that room. You feel like those women are singing and all Wadah and Wadah is singing and you feel the energy of them, you know, in their country painting up. I think we should understand who she is. Let's start at the beginning. Who was Emily, Kamma and Wairé? Well look, and Wairé was born around 1914 on a country called Alokra. Alokra is 240 kilometres away from Alice Springs, so right in the centre of Australia. The other thing about our country is it is in the centre, it is a spiritual place. She spent her time working on stations prior to being an artist.

She actually started doing batik. So that is a technique, a batik technique, for 11 years, even before she moved into the painting medium. The other interesting thing about her, when we say that she only started painting in 1988, 89, she'd been painting on her body and other women's bodies, you know for generations and Everything is very gestural So if you think about how she moved her hand Across the chest across the breast and across the arms to do that painting in ochre natural ochre pigments And then she moves on to do in her painting using the same style and the same style same strokes

Just with a brush in her hand So she was born in Australia's northern, spent her entire life in her ancestral homeland and then colonises as we know appeared in Australia in 1870s. What would life have been like for her when she was growing up? Well, it's interesting if we even talk about her name, so Emily Karma Nware. Her name Karma is a name that was given to her at birth from her grandparent or a family member. In Wadé is what we call a skin classification name. So it's not a surname like we do. So it's a name that is how you sort of are situated in your community. There's a story about in Wadé when she was about 12 or 13, the first

time she ever saw a white fella on a horse. They look like a ghost to her. Her and her friend were terrified and she runs away. So the other thing about the Northern Territory, it was colonised a lot later than the East Coast of Australia. So we're talking about 1925 around that period is when she first saw a white person. Tell us what people will see at the exhibition. Her first painting is called Immy Woman. Now, Immu Woman is like a self-portrait of herself. You will see this amazing Immu rib cage within the painting. The reason she paints the Immu is her country, we talked about Alokra, a sibling country right beside her, Anunkara. If you think of Europe, you know, you have your two countries that have countries that, you know, have borders.

And those countries are sibling countries, they're Imus. And so they're these two Imu brothers. And her country, Alokra, is the sibling country. So she paints a lot of representations or iconography of Imus and Imu footprints to begin with. But she changed her style over the eight years she painted. She's got about six different styles. So iconography I talked about, so that's circles, tracking, she moves into fine dotting over the top of paintings, linear works and those lines that are, you saw them squiggle

across a canvas, go backwards and forwards in multi, multi colours. And then just the lines across, directly across the canvas, vibrant colours. Vibrancy, that's what I was going to get to, it was the use of colour and there's one huge piece that really stands out, you kind of walk through all of them and you're already in a space, it's so prolific. Explain what that huge piece is that really struck me. Yeah, so you're talking about the Alocra Suite, again, that name of her country. It's a 22 panel work. It is multicolored.

We say it's like a kaleidoscopic view of country. Again, for Aboriginal people, we don't just have the four seasons. We have multiple seasons. That painting would have been, you know, it represents the morning sun, the evening sun, the different changes during those seasons. Our country is just so alive and it changes all the time. Beautiful blues. The other thing about our country is our horizons go on forever.

Her country is red escarpments and it's like a multifaceted view of her country. So when did fame and fortune come her way? What was the twist in her tale? What happened? Yeah, look, you know, we talk about she is an older woman. In 1993, she wins a major award, so the Clemordier Award, and that was actually that a Locher Suite painting that we talked about. So then she's also presented by the Prime Minister of Australia with an award which has a cash value to it. At that

point she sort of says I'm you know finished, I'm old, I'm now retiring, I want to give up, but she continues to paint. The dealers are aware that her paintings are selling, the collectors are lining up to buy her work, she's getting commissioned to do paintings and she passed away in 1976. 1977, the year after she passed, she's represented in the Venice Biennale with two other First Nations artists. So she really was an artist even way back when she first started painting, quite famous in that sense. And you worked with her descendants to bring this exhibition to life.

Look, I also met her as well when I was younger. Tell me about that. So growing up in Alice Springs, my uncle, you know, Rodney Gooch, who is mentioned all the way through the text, was actually one of her first art advisors. So I went to Utopia a couple of times with Uncle Rodney. You know, they did watching them do batik. And then she would come into town with a couple of the ladies in paint

at my Uncle Rodney and Uncle Robbie's house. Robert Cole is actually my uncle who was an artist and Rodney was his lover, his partner. The ladies would just gather under the tree, chat, paint. Our artists paint on the ground. They do not paint on an easel. The canvases are not stretched when they paint and it's like painting that country on country, which is really, really important. And your own involvement. Is it vital that you're also an Aboriginal woman from the same region?

Yeah, look, that is a really lovely question. What's been happening over probably the last 25 years, us First Nations curators are curating our shows about our own people. Yeah. You know, we work with the community. I say that we collaborate. I don't believe in consultation.

Consultation is going in and out of communities and doing a little bit of work. My relationship with her family and her descendants now will be forever. It's a community that's only 240 kilometres away from where I live in Alice Springs. I see them all the time and I go out on community all the time. I must add that every painting, every photograph, every text, anything that is included in this exhibition has been approved by family and that's really, really key to this exhibition. Kelly Colver and Emily Carmer-Anguare's exhibition is on at the Tate Modern in London. Now the TV presenter and autism advocacy campaigner Christine McGuinness is a mother of three autistic children and was diagnosed with autism herself as an adult.

New research from the property development company Barrett Redrow finds that half of parents of children with disabilities surveyed said their child is excluded from play due to playgrounds not being accessible to them. They also said they're travelling an average of five miles to reach a suitable play area. Christine is highlighting this issue and she joined Krupa earlier in the week. She began by asking her about her children and how their autism presents itself. I mean it's different, it's different for all three of them, like it is for all autistic children. I always say if you've met one autistic person you you've met one. We're not all the same.

And my three are evident of that. All of their personalities, the way they play, the way they socialise, the way they communicate, it is all completely different. But the one thing that we have in common with all of them is finding places to play, especially outdoors that is suitable for them, is a real challenge. It's very limited, the places that we can go to, and it's not really got any easier as they've gotten older. Help me understand those specific challenges. Finding places that are tailored for them, where it feels like they are included with

the other children. There's not many parks or outdoor play areas that will have sensory equipment or that will have a quiet area or that are gated, you know, to obviously to keep them safe and more so for children with additional needs, especially neurodiverse, when they haven't got that awareness of danger, it's really important to have a park that has got a fence around it where I can close the gate because if they do get overwhelmed or even if they're really excited it might be a positive feeling for them and they're running around or they're

overstimulated in a positive way, they can run and they can climb and there may not be a gate there that I can close for when you know they're not aware of everything going on outside the car park and everything and they'll just, they'll run excited and there's no way to keep them safe. And like I said, with the sensory areas to try and help them calm down or to give them something that they are actually going to enjoy doing, there isn't really a lot. I mean, the research shows there's really just, there isn't enough and families are traveling up to five miles, if not more, to go and try and find somewhere that is suitable for their children, which it's not okay. You know, outdoor place should be there for everyone. It is a right for everybody. It shouldn't just be as limited as what it is.

Having your personal experience in this is really important for us to understand those key challenges. Just to give us a sense of when you go to the park with your three children, and as you've rightly highlighted, their autism manifests in different ways. When you take them to the park, what actually happens? Like what is the process? Is it a specific play area that

troubles them? Is it an enjoyable experience overall? I mean for us, for years, it's been trying to find places, first of all, that are suitable. So there's that challenge of doing that research myself. If I do find somewhere that I think, okay this might be okay, it might work, if I do find somewhere that I think, okay, this might be okay, it might work, then I would start with taking photographs or even videoing to show the children where we're going. So you have to prep them in advance? To prepare them, yeah, so they know where they're going. And then I would usually be

going at times that aren't really ideal, just so that it's that little bit quieter. So that if they do struggle there, you know, or if there is too many people there or the equipment isn't quite right, that, you know, it's usually just me and the children or I'd go when the weather's bad and just trying to make use of what is there but it shouldn't be like that. And it's difficult because other children in that space won't understand your child's situation. Yeah absolutely and I think this is why it's so important what we're talking about today is making places more available, making more of them you know Barrett and Red Row are committing to

do at least 100 parks that are accessible not just for noradiverse children but for children with physical disabilities as well and it's important for everybodyadiverse children, but for children with physical disabilities as well. And it's important for everybody, for other children, to see children like mine and for my children to be able to get out, to socialise. It is one of those things as a parent that, you know, we all feel guilty of when they're sat in and they're having too much screen time and we don't really want that. Yes, it's nice of course, now and again, when you want a bit of quiet, but what we all want for our children is to have those social skills, to have some outdoor play, to be in the fresh air and to be amongst others as well.

That's exactly a very similar tone to what we heard from Baroness Anne Longfield, Executive Chair of the Centre for Young Lives, a few weeks ago about a new report about raising the Nation Play Commission which she co-leads and she said children are not playing outside enough instead they are sedentary scrolling and alone and that the freedom to play has dwindled and dwindled and that's something you're seeing too. Definitely and I think it's important to say for the parents and for the carers as well who have got these children and we're trying to do our best we're trying to look after them it's very very isolating

for us I think I found it one of the most loneliest times when my children were really little and there really wasn't any way to take them and I haven't seen much change in that so it's amazing to see that it's happened. Let's talk about your own diagnosis which came about at the age of 33 of autism. How did you come to realize that you might be autistic? It was after the children's diagnosis. I didn't understand why they were considered different because they were just like me. So when they got their diagnosis then yeah I kind of had to go okay well we've

we've got this and similar, we're common in that area. And I thought it was just cause they were my babies. So of course they're gonna be like me, but they were areas of quite difficult times and challenges. Like when it came to socializing, sensory food issues, sensory just being out and about, you know, in busier places, I always struggled with. And I just thought that was me and part of my personality. And I suppose in some ways it is because it doesn't completely define us.

You know, yes, we are autistic. I'm autistic and ADHD, but I'm still me. And it's, it's just a part of me and I accepted that and I accepted it with my children. So when I realized that it was because of autism and ADHD, then it kind of answered a lot of questions, but it also opened up a load more of... Changed your outlook? Yeah, yeah, completely. But it's helped me. It's helped me massively. And it's... I always understood my children anyway, but it's helped me, you know, keep that strong bond that we

always had. And it's helped me reassure them that everything's going to be okay and mommy is capable of doing things and you're going to be capable of doing things too. So it reassures them as a parent who has autism, parenting children who are autistic. Are there any times when it is extremely testing for you as someone who has the condition to be parenting children who have the condition? Yeah, of course. Of course, my priority always is going to be pushing my children, but not pushing them too much. I think it's probably a really good positive thing that I'm autistic to because I can understand where that line is.

You know, there's encouraging them to go out and play and to try different foods and even textures with clothes. And it can sort of go too much sometimes and it will make them step back. And I know that because of me and my own experiences. And I think knowing that has been an absolute blessing and it's helped so much. And I love how much I understand the children. And I do feel like more and more as they're getting older, especially me twins, Leon and Penelope, they're 12, our conversations now are some of the best conversations I have because I feel understood. Christine McGuinness speaking to Creupa.

Now, is there a topic or an issue on Woman's Hour you've never heard discussed but would really like us to talk about it? Well, last year, one listener suggested the topic of Widow's Fire, the desire for instant gratification after sudden bereavement. I've described it to my friends as being like having my pants on fire. So you feel sort of permanently kind of tingly. Now sometimes it's worse than others, but it's pretty much there all the time.

And in the beginning, certainly, it would wake me up at night, I would be getting out of bed first thing in the morning. And I found the only thing that could really get rid of it was either masturbation or some form of exercise because it makes you very restless. I thought this was some sort of strange side effect, well of course it was. But it not talked about. But not talked about and eventually I talked to some of my friends who haven't been bereaved and they said we haven't got a clue and then talked to a couple of people, one a man, one a woman, who said, oh yeah, that's the thing, I went through that.

And then I started to think, well, why doesn't anybody talk about this? Well, we were so glad you did because so many related to this story. So have you got something that you would like to share that you feel needs to be discussed on Woman's Hour? Because I bet other people will also be able to relate to your story. So get in touch with us in the usual way, the text number 84844. If you feel like emailing us then go to our website or you can contact us on social media, it's at BBC Woman's Hour.

Now was your bedroom wall covered in posters of your favourite idol? Maybe you spent hours daydreaming about them or screamed your lungs out at their concert. From Frank Sinatra to the Beatles, many of the biggest male stars built their early careers on their romantic appeal to young women. Just listen to this news report about Beatlemania in 1963. What's a woman's opinion of the Beatles? A young woman's opinion that is. I love them. I don't care what anybody thinks. I love the Beatles for them and I'll always love them.

Even when I'm 105 and an old grandmother, I'll love them. And Paul McCartney, if you are listening, Adrienne from Brooklyn loves you with all her heart. And Ringo, you can look at her too because I like you. Well just one fan's experience there, but far from passive consumers, these fangirls were tast-makers, visionaries and cultural disruptors. That's according to Bea Martinez-Gatell, author of a new book, Swoon, Fangirls, their idols and the counterculture of female lust from Byron

to the Beatles. Well, I started by asking Bea why she wanted to write about fangirls. So I am a fangirl by nature. So my my teen obsession was Leonardo DiCaprio. I don't know how many times I watched Titanic. When I went to uni, I ended up writing about Leo. That was my dissertation. And while I was researching that, I started reading about the early history of fandom. I think we think it started with the Beatles. It really doesn't.

It goes way back to the 19th century. And I was kind of surprised that I think we, today we understand the power of fans. But when we think about the fans of the past, if we do, they're sort of dismissed as silly, hysterical maidens. Because we're so used to seeing sites of crowds of teenage girls screaming and crying. In the early days of pop culture, it was completely new and people were really panicked seeing women expressing themselves in this way. The way you've planned the book is, it's a great book by the way, you've given us six main men, well not main men, six moments where fandom was at its peak. Tell us about the six people. Okay, so these are the six moments, I picked the six where there was kind of mass hysteria

about one person, the six most famous moments where there was mass hysteria and there was mass panic about the hysteria. And it turned out they were all women basically obsessing over men, which is quite interesting. Female stars had fans as well, but people weren't so panicked about women obsessing over women So we start with Lord Byron in the 19th century Franz Liszt rock star pianist and we go all the way through Until the Beatles in the 60s. So let's start the beginning. All right, talk about Byron mania. What was going on? Why was it so important? What what happened to change society? So women had just learned to read happened to change society. So women had just learned to read. Women had just learned to read and romanticism was happening. So poets were writing about their feelings in

this way that no one ever had before. And kind of just like Taylor Swift, he was putting Easter eggs and autobiographical stuff in his poems, and people suddenly felt they knew him. I mean, my favorite story possibly in the whole book is a girl called Isabella. She's writing fan letters to him, kind of saying, I don't know what this feeling is. I feel like I know you. It's not love, but I think about you all day long. So she's kind of processing this idea of fandom even before fandom exists. So Byron got lots of love letters.

Did he respond to any? He was getting the love letters? And some pubic hair in the post. Okay. Yeah. I mean, he didn't respond. I mean, he did a little bit. I think his most famous fan is Caroline Lamb,

who is kind of, she's gone down in history as really a crazy stalker, when actually she was a writer who saw a lot of herself in Byron. So female fandom back then would be more of a private matter if they were writing their sort of innermost feelings to him privately, they weren't out in the streets sort of screaming.

In fact, 19th century women were supposed to be passionate. You weren't supposed to even have emotions, let alone be writing them down, let alone be sending them to a lord. So fan mail seems so everyday now, but at that time it was really shocking. Isabella, this girl, she snuck to the post office and wouldn't have told her parents. One of my favourite little bits also from your book being a bit of a bronzy fangirl is that they were also part of the Byron fandom.

Right, exactly. Would have been, obviously. Heathcliff, hello. Connect the dots. Lord Byron fan fiction, right? And then List, tell us about him. So he was kind of the first rock star pianist. He was doing concerts in person.

So he had merch, crowds. So what's really interesting about him, I think he's one of the people that if people know about him, there are urban legends about women's crazy behavior, stuffing cigar butts into their cleavages and collecting his coffee drugs. They did do those things. However, it was a lot more meaningful to fans when you read their diaries and hear their experiences of actual women. Seeing this man with long hair play the piano. The piano was a women's instrument at that time, really. So they were, he meant a lot more to them than just, you know, sex. What did he mean? He was sexy too. He meant a lot more to them than just, you know, sex. What did he mean?

He was sexy too. He meant freedom. When women's lives, I mean, you could hardly leave the house. Your life was so completely... Yeah, enclosed and trapped. Right. To come to a concert, be in a crowd, this is a huge deal. And then later, as we move on in time, women coming together in groups at

times when women didn't really do that was a big deal. And also, back to Byron, not that I want to obsess over Byron but okay let's do it a little bit. It wasn't just so much the outrage of it like what is this man doing corrupting women, it's the writing, the fact that women can read, the liberation of their ability to read they were worried about that Completely and there were there were lots of fears about women's access to books. What would happen which kind of also overlaps with the fear of enthusiasm so the French Revolution had kind of started because

everyday people could read read some revolutionary books and people could read, read some revolutionary books and people who feared revolution thought that part of it was this enthusiasm. If charismatic leaders influenced people through writing, they might lead to some sort of civil unrest. You've called the book Swoon. So we've got to talk about Frank Sinatra. His fans were known for swooning. Where did the idea of swoon come from? What is a swoon? I mean, should I?

Yeah. I guess it's like a half fainting. I'm not going to do the sound. And I think this was the first time that they started vocalizing. Like in List's time, they sort of sighed and maybe shed a little tear. But in the 40s they started being loud and just think of it when you when you've been raised to be a good girl and be quiet and your whole life is set up around basically preparing

yourself to find a good husband to be in public making noise with your friends girls would practice swooning at home before they went to a Frank Sinatra concert and there's something about that power of the collective. You've just heard Katie talking about how empowering it is to have, you know, her band around her and the people that are on stage with her. That power of all those teenage girls who all just understand that feeling. Right, and it's finding your people. And even I look back at my Leomania days and it was more about my friends. It was what we were doing together than it really was about Leo. He was just kind of a useful reason to be bonding.

But the question is, where would Leo be without you? Exactly. Not at the Oscars. Bea Martinez-Gatell and her book Swoon Fangirls, Their Idols and the Counterculture of Female Lust from Byron to the Beatles is out now. Now, Fats Timbo is a content creator and comedian who's amassed an incredible three million followers on TikTok. Born with achondroplasia, a form of dwarfism, Fats documents her experiences of being, as she describes it, a little person. And after first

appearing on our TV screens in the Undateables back in 2018, last year she was part of Channel 4's team bringing us the Paralympic coverage from Paris. Well now she's sharing her tips for succeeding in a world where it's difficult to be different in her book Main Character Energy, 10 Commandments for Living Life Fearlessly. Fats joined Krupa this week and she began by asking her where that main character energy title comes from and what it means to her. That title actually came from social media,

and I think what was so important about that title is that it reminds people that they need to take ownership of their own narrative and their own lives, and to stop being background characters and just be that person they've always wanted to be. Being a main character in your story it's not always easy is it when you are in the face of adversity of bullying and you encountered so much bullying growing up. How difficult was that? It was extremely difficult growing

up with that. Sometimes I get flashbacks about it, but I know that I've come through the other side. During that time when I was going through it, I didn't realise how much it affected me because I was very depressed. I didn't want to be seen outside because I knew the attention that I would get, the

negative attention that I get because of my dwarfism. It's almost like wearing a funny costume sometimes. And it's just stressful being that. And then in school, kids not understanding what my condition is, that I can't grow as fast as them, making kids making fun of how I look on a daily basis constantly. It really weighs on you and it weighs on your self-esteem and the way you look at yourself sometimes in the mirror. It just makes you feel very ugly and that's what I felt all the time. But I knew with the love that my

parents gave me that I wasn't ugly, I wasn't unlovable, I wasn't all of these things. I had friends as well that supported me you know but it was just constant. I just couldn't, I didn't have a switch off button to the bullying so I just yeah it was really really hard, extremely hard. And you talk quite openly in the book about specific incidences one being Three boys putting you into an industrial waste bin How do you deal with situations that extreme or bullying is difficult? But it was situations like that take it to another level of aggression

No one expects that to happen to you and it just made me feel like I was trash, I was a waste of space and I didn't deserve to be here and that was their intention of course because they thought it was funny and for me it was just, it took me a long time to recover from that incident as well mentally because for a long time I just felt like how can somebody, how can people be so cruel? But at the same time it was just, yeah, trying to get through it and trying to tell myself that I am worth something.

I can be confident just because I've had that incident happen to me. Doesn't mean that I am trash like I always used to think. You got through it through something called BBB, bullying bounce backs. Yes. Tell us about bullying bounce backs. Bullying bounce back is basically rising above which is one of my commandments. It's saying to yourself that, okay, yeah, this person has said so and so to me, or they

can name call me, but I need to remember who I am and bounce back from it and be resilient. It's all about teaching resilience as well, because I think a lot of people struggle with that. It's hard to bounce back from adversity and negativity, but the only person that can do it for yourself is yourself because it's something that I think people think negativity but the only person that can do it for yourself is yourself because it's it's something that I think people think it's gonna be you know outside

something that they can acquire from outside but it comes from within inside yeah it comes from inside and that's the best confidence that's the best bounce back you could ever get in your life it's something though that almost needs to come when you're ready in its own time, right? Exactly. When you're ready. It's a conscious decision that you need to make to yourself and commit to it as well. Once you commit to it, it's something that you can't go back from. And it's like going to the gym, right? You can come back from it. But I'm just saying like, if you want the results,

if you want the results, you have to stay committed. So I said, I made that conscious decision that I'm gonna, I wanna be confident. I want to be, I want to get out of my comfort zone. I wanna be a different person to who I used to be, that depressed person that felt like a victim all the time. So when I started modeling and started doing all these things that kind of helped me build my confidence

and going out of my comfort zone, I was so uncomfortable at first because I was just used to just being sheltered or just being at home or where no one could hurt me. When you expose yourself in that way, it's like, wow, okay wow okay yes I'm gonna face even more adversity but it's gonna make me stronger so I've had a lifetime of it and I think I'm just if I can give a smidge of that to people that would be

great. Some of these bullies since you've had such wonderful success they've been in touch with you. Yes of course they have because they've messaged me on Instagram and messaged me saying, oh you know you're doing amazing now or one of them actually said, oh you look very beautiful and I said, wow do you not remember bullying me and they said, well I was young so I was like, and they said, well I was young. So I was like, I guess you were young, yes, young and dumb but it still was very horrible how they treated me. I remember my mum saying this to me all the time that, you know, please ignore them, please just keep being you and just keep putting your head forward and focus, be tunnel vision and yeah you will get to where you want to be and I'm really grateful for my parents encouragement because without

them I honestly don't know where I'd be. And your own parents have gone through their own hardships they separately left the Civil War in Sierra Leone they met here in the UK and they've obviously been a central force in your life specifically the women you've spoken about coming from a family of unstoppable women. Oh yeah, absolutely, I've got four sisters. So we're just queens, absolute mega forces and honestly, I just, with their encouragement, with their force for life and will to just live. It's just amazing to be around. Like, I can't be a victim because I'm with them. I can't feel sorry for myself because, you know, they just push through in life and they're such ambitious, hardworking women that I have. So two of my sisters, they have five children and you know, they're just amazing.

It's a busy house. It's a very busy house. And you also mentioned your grandma who can't stop moving, which leads me on to your dancing as well, because it was during the pandemic, you were fired from accountancy from the firm that you were working at. I imagine that didn't go down too well with the parents? No, it didn't, because they what are you going to do? And I said I want to make this content thing work and they said well you've got like a month to show us and I did. Whenever you give me a task I always get it done. And you treated it like a business, you analysed trends, you looked at the videos and that had done really well, you approached it like a real job. Exactly that, I did. I looked at the videos and that it's done really well you approached it like a real job. Exactly that I did. I looked at how trends would work in I was looking at what are doing what's doing the best and at the time I saw that comedy was doing

really well and I was contemplating for a while do I do comedy as well and I said to myself do you know what I am funny I need to as well? And I said to myself, do you know what? I am funny. I need to show my funny side. I know people have seen my dancey side, my modeling side, but they need to see the comedic side of me. So when I started doing that, it literally blew up. Like it just, TikTok was blowing up.

It was insane. And it encouraged me and made me feel like, you know what, I've got an audience to appease now. I need to start pumping out more. And it just, I started coming out with more ideas and trying to execute them. Yeah. I just thought I need to create this path for myself.

I don't know what's happening. I'm just building and seeing where it goes. That's Timbo there and her book Main Character Energy is out now. That's it from me. Join us again on Monday when Nula will be joined by actor Helena Bonham Carter to hear all about her new film Four Letters of Love. Enjoy the weekend.