Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman’s Hour: Abandoned babies, Isabel Allende, ADHD and menopause, Teaching 'grit', Anna Lapwood

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

Police have said they are searching for the parents of three new-born babies, all abandoned in East London between 2017 to 2024. The search is focusing on about 400 nearby houses. Anita Rani spoke to Met Police Detective Superintendent Lewis Basford and clinical psychologist Professor Lorraine Sherr, head of the Health Psychology Unit at UCL.Nuala McGovern was joined by the best-selling author Isabel Allende about her latest book My Name is Emilia Del Valle. It follows a young female journalist intent on covering the civil war in Chile in 1891 despite having to write under a man’s name.It’s thought that around 3 to 4% of people in the UK have ADHD - Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. But many women remain undiagnosed for decades, with those in their 40s, 50s and 60s only now discovering they have it for the first time. Jo Beazley was diagnosed with ADHD just two years ago at the age of 49, after her symptoms worsened during the menopause. She joined Nuala along with Amanda Kirby, former chair of the ADHD Foundation and a professor in the field of neurodiversity.Imagine you’re preparing to host a party at your house when a lost elderly woman shows up at your door. What would you do? This actually happened to writer and director Nadia Conners. Nadia explained to Nuala why the interaction stuck with her for years and has now inspired her debut feature film, The Uninvited.How do we teach children to have grit? That's what the Government is suggesting needs to be a new focus in schools, to bolster children's mental health. To discuss how parents can help their children develop resilience, Anita was joined by Sue Atkins, parenting coach and author of Parenting Made Easy and child psychologist Laverne Antrobus.Anna Lapwood is one of the world’s most famous organists and an internet sensation, with over two million social media followers. Hailed as ‘classical music’s Taylor Swift', she told Anita about co-curating a special BBC Prom, the music she has included in her album Firedove which is out later this month, and what it meant to her to be appointed the first ever official ‘Organist of the Royal Albert Hall.’Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Annette Wells Editor: Rebecca Myatt

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. Over the next hour, you're going to hear a few choice highlights from the week. Coming up, the best-selling Chilean-American novelist Isabel Allende on her latest work, My Name Is Amelia de Balle. We'll be exploring an ADHD diagnosis during the menopause. There's the film director Nadia Connors on her first feature, The Uninvited, based in part on her experience of an elderly uninvited guest turning

up at her door as she was getting ready to throw a party and the confusion and conflicting emotions that threw up. Also as the government steps in to try and improve mental health in schools, we discuss how do you build much needed grit in children? And Anna Lapwood, one of the world's most famous organists who's just been announced as the first official organ player at the Royal Albert Hall. Lots to get through, so let's begin. This week, the police have been searching for the parents of three newborn babies, all

siblings and all abandoned in East London, minutes after their birth in similar circumstances. The third was baby Elsa, left in a carrier bag near a footpath in Newham on 18 January 2024. She was discovered by a dog walker. Subsequent DNA tests showed that she was the sibling of two other babies, a boy Harry and a girl Roman, each found in 2017 and 2019. Despite police appeals, the parents of the three babies have still not yet been identified. Officers are now going door to door, focusing on about 400 nearby houses. To explain more about the investigation, I was joined by clinical psychologist Professor Lorraine Schaer, who is head of the Health Psychology Unit at University College, and

Metropolitan Police Detective Superintendent Lewis Baysford. I began by asking him why the police are now going door to door asking for DNA in this case. This is now the third baby that has been abandoned and we have by DNA been able to link all three babies to the same mum. We have a very strange circumstance in that we know that babies are abandoned firstly, but that obviously in this circumstance that it's been free.

But actually what happens when you do have a number of incidents that then are linked, and obviously in this case we have three babies that have been abandoned, is that you do get to the point where we start to work around our geographical locations and start to use the sort of information intelligence that we've managed to cover through the investigation. And the reason that we are focusing very heavily and tightly in such a tight geographical area

is because we've managed to work alongside our colleagues from the National Crime Agency, particularly around geographical profiling and behavioural elements that we believe that mum or dad may have presented in those minutes after birth to really focus on this particular area. And we believe that the answers will resonate certainly between the periods of when baby number one and baby else and baby number three was found, we really believe that the answers are in that particular community based on investigation, intelligence, being able to really hopefully try to tighten down on our CCTV inquiries. And you're going door to door asking for DNA, how unusual is this kind of measure?

So the sort of tactic and sort of DNA sort of profile that we will be doing normally would be sort of adapted to sort of what I would say is you know very major investigations from murder investigations where we're being very suspect specific. What I want to say about this case is that whilst the abandonments in themselves and you refer to the dog walker finding baby Elsa, you know It could have ended up in a tragic or in a different way We you know what we can say is obviously the babies are and all the children are doing very well and very healthy but we do start particularly in this inquiry with How is mum, you know, what's going on? Can mums actually have the ability to reach out to the police or support mechanisms?

And so whilst, yes, the abandonments were very serious in being left where they were, certainly our position at this moment is actually trying to understand actually, you know, where is mum and does mum need help? Yeah, concerns for the mother in all of this, which is probably something that you thought about when you were talking about going door to door asking for DNA, it sort of sounds like a manhunt, doesn't it? Even coming on Woman's Hour to talk about it. So how do you kind of balance the need of the mother alongside having to go and find out where she is without absolutely terrifying her? Exactly. And actually the door to door that we are doing, you know, we were very unsure as the response from the community and the people.

But actually, because I think of the nature of this particular case, the community and the people that we are knocking on the doors and speaking to have been very very forthcoming because there is a drive from everybody to understand where is mum, who is mum but actually does mum need help from from society, from us as a community ourselves. Why has it been so difficult to track the parents down? Normally obviously we work traditional investigative tactics from CCTV to house to house and local intelligence. And one of the things I will reflect on here is, you know, some will be saying, you know,

this has happened in London, you know, London is one of the most surveilled parts of the United Kingdom in the world. And yes, it is. But we can't get away from actually this is you know very much a residential community area and I think it's highlighted actually that there are pockets of areas within London in itself which don't have that high density of CCB and actually it also asks the question you know do we actually have such cohesion in our communities? You know, do you know who your next door neighbour is

or who lives across the road? Or do we walk by every day as we leave the house with our iPhone, you know, phones and earpods listening to music and not seeing what's around us? And what we're trying to do specifically with this particular sort of outreach now, particularly where we're so close and so driven around a certain area, is he asks those questions and just say, look up, think back to the time when Bayessa was left and actually who may have been there that's not there now, who was there during the period of the abandonments. And hopefully through that, through that community intelligence,

we'll be able to move forward. And what happens if and when you find the parents or parents? Will they have committed a crime? We have to be open to the fact that actually, the babies were abandoned in, unfortunately at times, you know, low temperatures, low stage. And we will have to address that at some point,

but I want to be really clear that actually the starting point of my position and the investigation team and the senior investigating officer who's leading this is very much the health, well-being and really firstly to get a true understanding of why. And I think if we understand the why we will be able to move forward in a proportionate manner because this is all about making sure that actually mum is safe and well is the first primary objective. Detective Superintendent Louis Batesford, thank you very much for joining me this morning. Now to discuss what can lie behind babies being abandoned and the potential impact on

them and their mothers. I'm joined by clinical psychologist, Professor Lorraine Share, who is head of the health psychology units at University College. Good morning Lorraine. How unusual is this case? It's very unusual. It's probably unique in my experience. It's the confluence of new technology being able to look at DNA, which we've not had in the last 100 years, you couldn't have done this. And for one baby to be abandoned, but for three, that's very, very high. So when you first heard about this case, where did your mind go to? I mean, everybody, it's one of those stories that kind of really strikes all of us.

As someone who's sort of professional in this field, who've done some research, where did your mind go? So my first thoughts were that this is a mother who herself has been abandoned, abandoned by the system. We have very good systems in place for child adoption, for care, for antenatal, postnatal care. It's very straightforward. Yet she wasn't availing herself of any of these. We have delays and the judicial and legal system is slow and the needs of the child and the mother are immediate and those have clashed.

mother are immediate and those have clashed. I was intrigued to find a door-to-door search when this is nearly two years now. I mean I can't remember what I did in January of previous years. So there's these conflicting lines of what's going on and it sounds to me a little bit like just confusion. How often are babies abandoned given what you've just said that there is support available, the changes in attitudes that have happened within society at least here in the UK? I would imagine it happens less frequently than before. It's a rare occurrence and that's why everyone is so intrigued on it. It's rare. We try to track the actual incidents and there's a pooling

lack of numbers. You know, there is documents kept through, it's a criminal offense to abandon a child. So those records are unclear. They don't differentiate between newborn abandonment and any other form. We found the numbers somewhere around 16 per annum but in fact it's going down and there's great fluctuation on those numbers. So it's a rare and getting even a rarer event. And talking to the detective superintendent there, he was saying that the focus is on the mother. How might the mother be affected by this press coverage that this case is getting? Well, as a psychologist, it's very hard to imagine, but the kind of things that come

to my mind is if she was alienated and frightened and anxious or suffering in any way, emotional, abuse, lack of confidence, fear, this would heighten it. Our data we looked at when we did a caseload evaluation, we looked at what we called babies abandoned to live or abandoned to die. So looking at place of abandonment. So if you abandon a baby, you know, the hospital corridor, there's a sense of a place of safety, whereas a baby abandoned outdoors is less so, and outdoors in the cold, even less so. So we have lots of concerns about the mode. And what reasons and situations can lead to babies being abandoned in the first place? Well, we can speculate, but actually so few mothers come forward that we don't really know. So there's very little information

and the information we have is skewed because all we can do is interviews those ones who we find and of course they're so rare that they're not typical. And so we just have to look at what we know from mental health and from psychology and human behavior. But it's usually not a planned act. People don't think, oh, I'll plan to do this. Maybe it's spontaneous. I think it would go without saying that there's a lot of trauma and mental health around it. And probably the suffering is lifelong. If somebody has abandoned the baby, they will never forget it for their life.

And then of course we have to think of the needs and interests of the child, the mental health of the child. They suffer delays, they have to get into the system. In a way, all the literature on adoption would be relevant to them, but also disclosure. Nowadays, adoptive children can search out both parents, and this particular group don't have that. Many of them, we did an interview study of adults who were abandoned as babies,

even as old as in their seventies, grappling for information, some of them trying to find their finders and the finders are left behind. It's a complex situation and we need much more resources and much more understanding. Professor Lorraine Scherr and Metropolitan Police Detective Superintendent Lewis Baysford. Isabel Allende is the best-selling Chilean-American author loved by so many. She's considered the world's most widely read Spanish-language author, winning Chile's National Literature Prize. She's also an American literary icon. In 2014, she was awarded the Presidential Medal

of Freedom by Barack Obama. Her work includes The House of the Spirits, Eva Luna and Via Letter. She also wrote a memoir for her daughter Paula, who died at just 29. The protagonists of her fiction books are strong women, and her latest work, My Name is Amelia de Baillet, is no exception. Nula spoke to Isabel this week, who was in her home in California, and started by asking her about the book's main character, Amelia. She's a young, feisty, rebellious, curious woman ahead of her time, because this is the late 1800s, when women had very few options, but she's good at writing, and she manages to get a job in the examiner,

the newspaper of San Francisco at the time, with a male pseudonym, because women were not supposed to do anything. They didn't have a voice. But eventually there is a civil war in Chile, and because she speaks Spanish, and she has roots in Chile, her biological father is Chilean,

she gets to be sent to Chile to cover the war. And this woman who is young and adventurous and thinks she's going to a great trip and adventure really, finds herself in the middle of the battlefield and then she gets in touch with the reality of death and violence and pain and war. And why did you want to write about this particular period you mentioned there? It's Chile, it's the Civil War of 1891. Because it has echoes with what happened in 1973 with Salvador Allende. Both presidents, Balmaceda and Allende, wanted to change many things in the country and things that would benefit the underprivileged.

And of course they found themselves confronted by a horrible opposition of the conservatives. And in both cases, the armed forces intervened and also the United States intervened, by the way. And Great Britain, because they had interests in the mines in the north. And in the first case, in 1891, the armed forces split. And therefore there was a confrontation, a military confrontation, a horrible civil war in which more Chileans died in four months than in the four years of the war against the Pacific, against Peru and Bolivia called

the Pacific War. And then in 1973, Salvador Allende also confronted a horrible opposition. But in this case, the armed forces did not split. And we had a military coup and 17 years of dictatorship. In both cases, Balmaceda and Allende committed suicide. And this, also for those that aren't familiar, of course they will hear the name, but President Salvador Allende was your father's cousin. And what happened at that point really threw a whole different fork in the road for you and what was to become off your life. And before I go to that, though, I want to still stay with the book for a moment, because I learned about people in the book

who were involved in the war, women that I really didn't know about before. You wrote about Angelita Ayaleff and the Mapuche woman who was part of the so-called Cantineras women. Tell us a little bit about them. Well, in order to put together this story, I start with questions. So I say, for example, who is going to narrate the story? I want a neutral voice, not someone that is on one or the other side of the conflict.

So I choose someone that comes from abroad. And asking the, washes the clothes, who helps the soldiers? And then I found out that there were women, they don't, they have no voice or name in the history books, but they existed. And they did a lot of the work and then they were in the battlefield providing water and support and often taking care of the work and then they were in the battlefield providing water and support and often taking care of the wounded. And so these canteen girls were really essential and they are totally ignored by history. And they come to life instead in your book. You know, when you were describing Amelia,

they're, you know, curious and strong and wants to be a journalist. I was like, there are some similarities here. Definitely with yourself, I don't have to look too far. There is a part in the book where she begins writing, as you mentioned, under a man's name. Her stepfather says to her, remember, princess, that you will have to make twice as much effort as any man to get half the recognition. Are you speaking from experience?

Absolutely. And I think that any woman in any field can say the same thing. But in my field, when I wrote The House of the Spirits, it was the boom of Latin American literature. Great names, famous names, not one woman in the lot, not one feminine voice. And so when I wrote The House of the Spirits and it became very successful, they said that I was the only woman in the boom. And then immediately a week later, they said, no, no, no, she does not belong to the boom. She is just another narrator from somewhere. So it has taken me a long time, especially in Chile,

to be recognized and have the respect that I have in other places. It's so interesting. When you speak, you remind me of the great Irish author Edna O'Brien, who got such success internationally before ever being recognized at home, particularly in the pantheon of mainly Irish male writers. Exactly the same in Chile. My colleagues in Chile, I'm not part of the lot. And that is mainly because I sell more books than they do. That really makes them very angry.

Yes, yes, I can imagine. And you've definitely done that by the bucket load. I want to turn back to when you were a journalist, though, however, and perhaps you could tell our listeners this anecdote of meeting with the great Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda. Yeah, he called the publishing house where I was working and asked me to go visit him. So I thought I was going to interview him and I felt so proud that he would have chosen me as the best journalist in the country to interview him. So I went, it was winter, raining, two hours the road, and I got there and we had lunch, we had a

bottle of wine. He showed me his collections of junk, really, bottles or whatever. And then around three o'clock, I said, look, I have to do the interview because I need to get back home before it gets dark. And he said, what interview? I said, well, I've come to interview you. Oh no, he said, I would never be interviewed by you. You are the worst journalist in this country. You put yourself in the middle of everything.

You cannot be objective. And I'm sure that if you don't have a story, you make it up. Why don't you switch to literature where all these defects are virtuous? I should have paid attention then. This was two months before the military coup. So two months later, he was two months before the military coup. So two months later he was dead. Oh my goodness. And did that advice that you got from Pablo Neruda, did it enter your brain?

Did you think maybe he's onto something? No. At the moment I felt insulted. And I never paid attention or remembered because life just turned upside down after the military corps. Yes, you had to flee. Yeah, I had to get out. And then when I got to Venezuela, I had to make a living and support my kids.

The idea of becoming a writer, that never crossed my mind for years and years. So what happened? Well, journalists were left behind because I didn't have a choice. And I became a writer, I think that out of longing. I felt that my life was going nowhere. I was going to be 40 years old and I had nothing to show except my two kids. And then at that point, on January 8th, 1981,

I got a phone call that my grandfather was dying in Chile. And I started a letter for him to prove to him that I remembered everything he had ever told me. He was a great storyteller, and I come from a Gracie family. So the anecdotes of all my relatives, I remembered them. And they are all in the House of the Spirits. So my grandfather died, and I kept on writing and writing and by the end of the year, I had more than 500 pages on the kitchen counter.

And that was my first novel. The amazing Isabel Allende there and her book, My Name is Amelia de Baillet, is out now. Now, it's thought that around three to 4 percent of people in the UK have ADHD, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. However many women still remain undiagnosed for decades of their lives only discovering in their 40s, 50s and 60s they have it for the first time. Following the success of the award-winning BBC2 series Inside Our Autistic Minds which explored the success of the award-winning BBC Two series Inside Our Autistic Minds, which explored the experiences of neurodivergent people, a new documentary,

Hearing the Stories of People, with ADHD Head this week. One of those taking part is Jo Beasley. She was diagnosed with ADHD just two years ago at the age of 49, after her symptoms worsened during the menopause. Jo joined Nuala this week along with Amanda Kirby, the former chair of the ADHD Foundation and a professor in the field of neurodiversity. Nuala began by asking Joe what her life was like before the menopause and before she got her ADHD diagnosis. So before the menopause, when I reflect back, the undiagnosed ADHD on reflection had an impact on me from when I was quite small, from when I was at school, through my teenage

years, through various careers, etc. On reflection I can see the struggle with time, tasks, sitting still. Girls were expected, late 70s, early 80s, to sit very still at school and concentrate and get things in on time. I struggled quite a bit with that and then it was when the menopause hit things started to really become even more apparent and it was quite a struggle at that time. So what was it as you had perimenopause, menopause, wash, weeded, manifest? I remember one significant moment when my wife Ali came home from work and I was sitting

on the dining room table with my laptop and I just sat there in tears and said, I think I'm going to have to give up my job. I don't think I can do this anymore because the requirement to do things on time, the tasks, etc. that I was doing, you throw in menopausal symptoms as well that I've since learned they don't run nicely next to each other at all. So I think I had exacerbated symptoms of both going on at one time and it was just really, it was too much and I thought I just wasn't coping at all. And at that point though, you went to speak to somebody and got a diagnosis? What happened then was my wife Ali was working with somebody who had recently been diagnosed.

My eldest daughter Katie was at uni with somebody who was diagnosed with ADHD and they both kind of around the same time came to me and said, I think we look at this and my manager at a time was previously a special educational needs teacher I mentioned it to her and she said yes I think maybe you should look at that and then there was then the whole journey really began after that. And I want to come back to how it meant to get that diagnosis but I do want to bring Amanda in here. What is it about perimenopause or menopause that might exacerbate the symptoms of ADHD? Well I think one of the big things is you've got estrogen going up and down and all over the place and estrogen can interact with dopamine and serotonin and so you

might have had those symptoms but the depletion of estrogen really exacerbates it and as Jo says rightly you've got a combination of the two so quite difficult sometimes to recognize which is menopausal symptoms, perimenopausal symptoms and on top of this which are the ADHD symptoms which are being unmasked and you're seeing the combination of the two having worse outcomes. We didn't think about it though, we weren't thinking about women 10-15 years ago so these are new conversations which is remarkable really. Yes it is because we often hear about girls when we talk about autism and masking very well but talking about women menopause post-menopausal women

getting this diagnosis do we know what percentage of women have ADHD? We were talking about in the population as a whole about three to four percent in the UK. Well I think we don't exactly because what we were doing with most of the research done 15-20 years ago was done on boys, on men and so you look at the research studies they were predominantly boys and we're looking for boys and men symptoms. We're seeing in other conditions like autism as well it's likely to be the gender difference are not so great as we always thought. We always thought it was two, three to one males to females. We're thinking it was two, three to one, males to females.

We're thinking it's probably much less than that, and maybe a little bit more males, but nothing like the low levels of lack of diagnosis that we actually saw. Do you believe there's a higher awareness now among medical practitioners? We've got a way to go, I think. You know, I think we've got GPs and psychiatrists,

clinicians as well. You know, you've got gynaecologists who are seeing women with menopause need to think about ADHD alongside perimenopausal symptoms so I think we've still got a way to go. You know I was quite struck Jo in the documentary about the grief you were feeling post diagnosis yes you had a reason for some of the ways you were feeling or had behaved, but grief and anger for all those years that were lost perhaps is one way of describing it. I was actually sitting in this studio making part of that film and Candace, the director who was amazing and worked alongside her a lot, she said bringing some pictures of you as a child and let's talk about how you felt. So that's when I was really struck by the memories of, you know, at school, sit still,

stop chattering, you know, be quiet, you're a bit too much. And it's really that, I mean, I've had, my life is great. You know, I have a wonderful life, but I did sit and look back and think, well, if I'd have perhaps got that support earlier on, would it have been less than a struggle? Could I have had a different career? Could I have achieved more? You set your film to dance music. This is part of what's in the documentary. I just want to play a little burst of it, actually.

You recorded it in the studio. I thought it's very moving when I looked at it. And now you're back here with us speaking about it. Let's play it. My dad used to call me a butterfly. At 13 or 14 careers, got bored, want to try something else? You forget people's birthdays, double book, let somebody down. That panic and that guilt and that worry.

Mother, mother, mother. Bad friend, bad friend, bad friend. Bad daughter, bad daughter. Bad mother, bad mother. I mean you sum it up in 30 seconds, you love dance music, hence that beat that's there behind. Your dad used to describe you like a butterfly, but bad mother, bad daughter, bad friend, which I know when your friends and your wife and your daughter saw it, of course, they wanted to reassure you that you're none of that. But the low self-esteem. the low self-esteem. If you think of, if somebody forgets something, it's just that one thing that they've forgotten. If I forget to text a friend back a birthday, forget something,

I'm not dealing with that one time I've forgotten something. I'm dealing with decades of feeling bad that I have been a bad friend or I've been a bad mum if I've forgotten the birthday party, etc. It's like it starts off with something in your pocket, it's then this little rucksack on your back and then it becomes this huge piece of luggage that you carry all the time. So then the next time you do something that to somebody else might seem quite small, it's not just that one time that I'm carrying it. I've carried it for decades. The response to all of that has been wonderful when people have said, you're never too much for me.

In fact, I haven't had enough of you. I've gone goosebumps because that was beautiful to hear, but it's still, it's decades of feeling that you are too much for people and you're bad at so many things because life is around, you have to do things on time, be organised etc. And when you can't do that, it's tricky. Joe Beasley and Amanda Kirby speaking to Nula there. Still to come on the programme, grit and resilience and maybe some tenacity chucked in for good

measure, how can parents instill it in their children? And remember you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day. If you can't join us live at 10am during the week, all you need to do is subscribe to the daily podcast. It's free via BBC Sounds. Now let me set the scene for you. Imagine you're preparing to host a big party at your house when a lost elderly woman shows up at your door. What do you do? Well this actually happened to the writer and director Nadia Connors. The interaction stuck with Nadia for years and it inspired her debut feature film, The Uninvited, which

is in cinemas now. The indie film has some serious star power though, including Walton Goggins, who also happens to be Nadia's real-life husband. It is a very female-focused film, one that celebrates the complexities and the struggles of being a middle-aged woman and a mother, whilst also taking a swipe at Hollywood's double standards in beauty and age. Nadia Connors joined Nula this week from New York, and Nula started by asking her what inspired the film. We did live in Hollywood. We don't anymore. And we were throwing a party one night when our son was very young and I was busy trying to get him down to sleep.

Right before the party started, I saw someone in the driveway and I ran down and there was a distressed elderly woman and she was trying to get into the garage with her clicker and you know I explained just as the woman does a movie this is not your house. Anyhow I you know I really was so obviously instantly taken by her predicament but couldn't find anyone you know couldn't find her phone couldn't find anyone, you know, couldn't find her phone, couldn't find anyone that knew her. And so ultimately had to call the police who came and they took her back to the assisted living home where she had come from.

And the police were wonderful. It wasn't, you know, a horribly bleak situation or anything like that. But she did, right before she left, she grabbed my hand and said, thank you for being so lovely. And then off they went. And when I got back to our house, I realized the party had started and had been going on for quite some time and no one had really recognized the fact that I had been gone and down the streets. And it struck me on so many levels because people

were so used to me being gone because I had a little guy. Anytime we had people around for drinks or whatever, like I often disappeared and put him to bed and never came back. You know, I have been to so many of those parties where the woman in the couple I'm visiting goes up to put the kid or the kids down and I never see her again. And it always makes me so sad. And but but how how observant of you to then put that on film and congratulations on doing it. I believe you're in your mid 50s. You set out to do this about 30 years ago.

I want to play a little clip. I suppose we should say it's a Hollywood home. There are these big male stars, as we talked about, but we also have the film centering around Rose, who's a former actress. We have the elderly woman who is Helen played by the amazing Lois Smith and also we have a younger woman who's Delia, a young starlet Eve de Domenici. We have them at these different stages of their life and I want to play a little clip. This is where Rose has been expounding, so middle-aged, on the difficulty of motherhood to the shocked young actress Delia. I thought you liked being a mother.

No. No. I do not. It's lonely. And no one tells you that no matter how much help you seek from experts, there's no way to fix that loneliness because the person you miss is yourself. And the older you are when you have your first child, the bigger the gap between who you And the older you are when you have your first child, the bigger the gap between who you were and who you've become. It's so big, in fact, it will swallow you whole one afternoon when you're innocently trying to baby proof the electrical outlets.

That line stayed with me. The older you are when you have the child, like the harder it is to accept that gaping change or what valley we want to call between the before and after of being a mother. Tell me a little bit more about the thinking. Well, you know, I had my son at 40, you know, and so I felt, you know, in many ways, you know, I am born in 1969, Gen X, you know, product of the messaging of like, wait to have your child, have your career first because you can't have your career and have a child. And so, you know, was as dutiful to that as anything as women are in the past to other messages, you know, I sort of didn't question those messages.

And I think that was the reason why I was so shocked when I was 40 that, first of all, becoming a mother was amazing, but it also like filled with that grief and filled with, you know, what if you want to call it postpartum or just, you know, becoming a new person, which is very, you know,

was an unexpected aspect for me was the level of grief that I had. And so in searching for answers around that, I realized, you know, I think that the, for me, the later you are, when you have your child, the more of this kind of like adulthood you have, it is, it puts this, you know, what felt to me like I had developed this whole life as opposed to like having a child very quickly and then not having developed that whole life.

But you know, it's really a hard thing to talk about because there is so much love and gratitude that I have for having my child. But I do think that it's important to have these conversations. And in the film, you know, in that moment when she finally does say that, you know, I don't want to say what happens immediately after that. But I wrote that scene and what follows because of even the feeling that I have right now on your show that I can't actually let myself talk about this. This is the reason I asked you now,ia, because I was thinking when I heard Rose, that is played marvelously by Elizabeth Rieser, I don't like being a mother. And I was like, huh, quite a brave thing that you don't hear said in society that often.

No. And, you know, we played the film at a festival near where we live in New York, but my son came to that one and he's now, you know, 14. And it was really wild having him in the audience, like watching Rose, you know, and he was there through the Q&A's and we had such an incredible conversation afterwards. You know, about... Can I ask what was said? Well, the thing is, is that he, you know, he knows that I have been there, you know, and it really has been quite a surprise for him that I almost had this entire internal

world. I had been a writer for so long before he was born. I had been trying to be a director for many years, and that's another conversation. All of this is to say that the conversation that I had with him was not that different than the conversation that I've had with other mothers, or, you know, it's just this, like, uncomfortable truth.

Also making the film was that I had to leave home, you know, it's just this, like, uncomfortable truth. Also making the film was that I had to leave home, you know? And I had to be away from him because it's 14-hour days, you know, and you're not gonna see your children, whether they're in the same city or not. And that was the other reason that I had postponed directing. I was attached to direct a movie when I was pregnant. And after I had my son son I came in and said to my agent I can't do this and he said to me why don't you just get a nanny and I

said you know first of all he was a 30 year old guy you know and you know I started to cry in the office because it's not, first of all, it's very expensive to get a nanny full-time like that. And then second, I did want to be his mother. I wanted to be there. And it was such a conflicted moment for me. And ultimately, they dropped me that age. Yeah, pretty quickly right after that.

I don't think that would happen again today. I do think progress has been made. I mean, that was, you know, 14 years ago now, but it really was very, very hard to become a director as a woman before I became a mother and then after, it was, you know, uniquely difficult. Nadia Connors. Now, how do we teach children to have grit? That's what the government

is suggesting needs to be a new focus in schools to bolster children's mental health. Many minors are experiencing serious mental health issues and at times may not be getting the support they need to deal with those. But there's also discussion around how to help kids, particularly in light of increasing numbers of school absences. Well yesterday the Education Minister Bridget Phillipson spoke to the Today programme and explained what the government is proposing. It's about having the grit, the resilience, the ability to cope with life's ups and downs about the challenges that are thrown at you. And young people today face many challenges,

very different to some of the challenges that I faced and what I'm announcing today with the Health Secretary is that a million more young people will be able to access mental health support teams in schools. That's about getting in there early when young people are struggling, making sure they've got access to trained qualified professionals who can help them manage all of this. Bridget Phillipson, Education Minister there. So what we wanted to know was, what can parents do when it comes to teaching their children? Great. I was joined by Sue Atkins, parenting coach and author of Parenting Made Easy, and child psychologist Laverne Antrobus. What

did she make of the government's proposal? Well I think it's an amazing and fantastic idea but I'd say that some schools are already doing this, it's not so new and that's important to recognise and even if schools haven't got dedicated mental health staff in schools there are a lot of teachers and a lot of teaching assistants who are dedicating a lot of their time to noticing when children need a little bit more help, a little bit more noticing because they're not quite you know where we would want them to be in terms of their mental health or their resilience. So I think it's a good idea

but I'd want to say you'd be that the government are building on something that some schools have already feel is a very important part of the school day. And I'm reaching out to all parents and teachers if you're listening get in touch as well 84844. Sue, how did we get to this point that the government is having to legislate on this? Very interesting isn't it? It's always saying oh it's the nanny state interrupting. There are a lot of factors in it over the last few years that I've noticed. Obviously the pandemic has exacerbated some aspects of this in terms of anxiety and also the idea of

parents working from home perhaps putting on their you know keeping on their slippers not putting on their school shoes sort of approach but it's complicated but I think it's also needs modeling you know parents need to model what I call tenacity or resilience or you know perseverance and it starts I think even from toddler age, where you help them persist at trying to do up their zip or pull on their wellies, because those sorts of things are building their stickability.

And you don't always get things right the first time, you've got to keep at it. So I've done a whole host of tips that are very practical, I think, for parents on my blog this morning. We're going to talk about those. We're going to come to all of it. But before we move on to sort of 10 tips that are very practical I think for parents on my blog this morning. We're going to talk about those, we're going to come to all of it but before we move on to sort of practical tips about what parents should and shouldn't be doing or should be doing, is there anything, is there no such thing as shouldn't, or maybe there is, I don't know, you're the experts. Is school the right

place to be tackling this? Laverne just mentioned there that some schools are already doing it and teachers are already noticing and quite rightly they should be but is it the right place? Should they have more on their plate? Of course as a former deputy head and head of PSHE in a school for many years schools of course some schools are doing a fantastic job at that but teachers are being asked to do more and more and more I think really but I think teaching these basics starts in the home, doesn't it? As I mentioned from toddlers onwards, you model and talk about having another go or trying a, you know, and you don't praise them for the, you know, you praise them for the

effort, not the outcome. So all of this mindset comes really, first of all, from parents. But parents and schools need to work together and they often do, but I think it's not just one or the other, it's both. So Laverne, how do parents do it right? Well, I think Sue's absolutely right. I think it's the sort of bread and butter of parenting,

but I think when we're thinking about building resilient children, there's something about noticing as a parent when things aren't where you'd want them to be and helping a child to sort of tackle that. I mean, this is, in a way it's nothing new, but it's the building blocks of how are we as parents using our support mechanisms around us to help us?

Because this takes time and actually it takes confidence. And I think often parents lose their confidence because they feel they're not doing it in the right way or they look over their shoulders and think that somebody else is doing it better than them. You are the only person that can be in a relationship with your child and know what they need and also know how you want to raise them. I think the way in which this meshes with schools is that schools then have your child for six hours a day. So you want to be in a relationship with them and you want to be thinking with school about how you've prepared your child for some of the very real challenges that they're going to come across.

Not feeling so happy on a particular day, you know, not getting things right, however that looks at school. But parents and schools, I think, do work together. I agree with Sue, there's a sort of building blocks that parents put in, but once they're in school it's about a joint effort really. What if the parents don't have the building blocks in the first place? What if they're feeling all the anxiety and they don't feel gritty or resilient or tenacious themselves? Well, and therein lies a real dilemma because you know, I think we imagine that as a parent things are going to come naturally but I'm very much in the school of thought that actually we've got to give

ourselves a little bit of a break here. I think most parents are trying very, very hard to get things as right as they can do. And when things go wrong, the parents that I encounter, and it's not just that I'm encountering them in the clinic setting, are relying on the resources around them. Sometimes parents are quite isolated but often picking up the phone to a friend and saying, I don't think I got something right today, can you help me think this through, is a really valuable resource. We have to be a bit kinder to ourselves I think and know that actually this isn't something that comes

naturally to everybody, it is work that we've all got to be doing. Sue, what's going wrong here? Have we set up a society that makes things too easy for children? I'm just thinking of all the conversations you over here where people say, you know, it was very different when we were growing up and all the stuff that pops up on my social media about Generation X compared to Generation Z. Is it that the world is so much, we've just made it too easy for children or is it that the world is too challenging right now? I think a lot, I've noticed over the last 25 years I've been doing this, I think a lot of parents want to be their kids friend, not their parents, so they don't like saying no

to them or you know, keeping at things with them. They helicopter parenting has been a thing that has developed where they rush in to rescue rather than let a child sort of struggle a bit. Now I'm not talking about leaving a child struggling for ages but you know struggle with your zip, struggle doing the jigsaw, struggle with that homework that you've got, you know keep going when things get a bit tough. That's the difference and I am mindful and I don't hopefully sound like an old fuddy-duddy but you know my mum or my grandparents would have found this rather you know how extraordinary that people are not just getting on with it but I always talk about it as failing

forward. We all make mistakes, we all get things wrong, we all need to kind of get back up and have another go no matter how old we are So we need to model that and teach children that they struggle a little bit sometimes in life, because it's not easy and it's not always straightforward. But we do them a disservice if we rush in to rescue them, I think. You're not coming across as a fuddy-duddy. Wise, I would say, Sue. What about you, Laverne? What do you think you were nodding? I am because I think that actually, there's a real pull to rescue.

And I think it's wrapped up in an emotional connection that you can have with your child where you think, oh, actually, if I just do that last bit of the lace, then we can get going. But actually stepping back and having the confidence to know that actually you saying, go on, keep going. Gosh, didn't you do that well? Is the making of, you know,

I can overcome the challenges that are there. That's a tiny challenge. Much more difficult if you're sitting with a teenager who's had a really difficult day at school and fallen out with friends and you want to sort of rescue that situation. You've then got to give the time and appreciate that actually you might not have the answers,

but actually giving a space for your child to think about how terrible they feel, and you saying, you know what, it's really great that you can think with me about this, is what we want. So the rescue sort of way of thinking that that's gonna cause, you know, get something out of there quickly, is not the way we want to do it.

We want people to have confidence, to sit back just a little bit but be present. Okay well I think we should help them but Sue, you talk, Laverne just mentioned teenagers there, let's stick with the teenagers, lots of them facing exams at the minute, GCSEs, A levels. How do parents who themselves might not feel very gritty teach their children to get through these real, real world big pressures like exams, what the practical things that can be done and at the same time they might be falling out with their friends and they might have you know telephones and all the rest of

it, what practical things can be done? Well you break things down into bite sized steps really because what happens is people get totally overwhelmed and I think if you go alongside them instead of rescuing them, so ask them questions. What are you struggling with? Is there anything I can help you with? What can we do together? Those sorts of language words and things, I think those sort of scripts help children feel

not abandoned, but not necessarily rescued so they don't have to try. And it is more complicated with smartphones. You know, it is about teaching children by talking to them, not at them, listening to them and supporting them. And as I said, going along with them, that we actually eventually, it's not one size fits all, not one instant moment is it going to work, but it's a mindset, it's a growth mindset that you help your children not disable them by rescuing them, I think. Sue Atkins and Laverne Antrobus. Now, Anna Lapwood is one of the world's most famous

organists and an internet sensation with over two million social media followers. Hailed as classical music's Taylor Swift, she's co-curating and performing in a special BBC Prom, has an album out this month and she's been appointed as the first ever official organist of the Royal Albert Hall. Given how busy she is, perhaps it's not surprising that Anna has been included in the Sunday Times Young Power List for 2025. I know, what have the rest of us been doing with our lives? Well, Anna joined me this week and I asked her what it means to be appointed the first ever official organist of the Royal Albert Hall. It's so surreal. I mean, I'm sitting at the Albert Hall now in my dressing room. I've got a show here tonight and I've been lucky

enough to get to play this amazing organ for the last three years as an associate artist, this scheme that they set up to kind of bring in a different audience, but also to give a platform to a whole load of amazing young artists. And to sort of see that now growing into this more official role going forwards, that is putting the organ front and center

and celebrating this iconic instrument here at the hall. It just, it feels like such a special moment and it's almost exactly three years since everything sort of first started with the hall, so yeah, it's very special. Yeah, it was built over 150 years ago, this particular organ, and it was the biggest instrument in the world. What makes it so special? It was the biggest and I mean, it's still pretty... Huge. It's still pretty huge. Pretty huge. It's 9,999 pipes.

And oh my gosh, it has so much sort of range. It can copy all these different orchestral instruments. It can pretend to be a percussion section. But I think the thing I love most about it is the fact that often people come to a show at the hall and they're coming to see an artist, they're not expecting to hear the organ. They see this amazing organ facade and they sort coming to see an artist, they're not expecting to hear the organ. They see this amazing organ facade and they sort of think, oh, well, it's just for show or it's, I don't know, an ornament.

And then I can sort of sneak up and suddenly surprise them with the feeling of the full organ in the middle of one of these shows. And it just takes the sound in that room to a totally different level. And it's, yeah, been one of the loveliest things about the last three years, getting to explore that. And what does that feel like for you?

We get a sense of it from watching you on social media because you are so, you express your emotion. But what is that feeling when you get to play it in that incredible auditorium? It honestly feels like flying. It's really hard to explain because you almost fuse with the instrument. And so it's like, there isn't a sort of, there's not a breaking explain because you almost fuse with the instrument and so it's like there isn't a sort of there's not a breaking point between your body and the instrument itself. So when it really is shaking the entire room it feels like that is just coming from you and it's

this explosion of energy and emotion that is also feeding off everyone else in the room. So yeah, it's quite an addictive feeling. What do you want to do with this role? What does it mean? What can you do? Well I think the big thing for me is I'm hoping to open this instrument up to as many different people as possible because at the moment I felt very lucky to get to play it but it's pretty hard to get practice time here, it's pretty hard for any organists to get time here so one of the things we're doing is introducing an organ scholarship role which will help mentor a young organist and give them the chance to play this instrument. And with the organ scholar, we're going to be running various days to

get more young people playing the organ, experimenting, getting the chance to get their hands on this one. Because I honestly think if you get to play this instrument, this particular organ, there is no way you don't fall in love with the organ more generally. I think we should hear some of it. This is you in action. This is from Cornfield Chase from your album Midnight Sessions at the Royal Albert Hall. Now, for the first time since 1983, people are going to be able to be part of your night-time

world as you co-create and perform an overnight at this year's BBC Proms on the 9th of August. What experience do you want to share with the audience? Tell us more. Well, I get to do all my rehearsals in the middle of the night here. We tend to practice between 11 and 7 in the morning and it's just a completely magical place. I know people probably think of the film Night at the Museum and it does feel a little bit like that in that all the cleaners are in, all the security guys are in and we order McDonald's, like we just have a really really great time and I feel like you get to know iconic buildings in such a different way when you're here in the middle of the night and so for a long time we've been talking about trying to open that up to people and I had a chat with the proms about it last year, we tried to make it happen, couldn't

make it happen and we were determined that this time around we would. So we basically want people to come, not to sleep, but just to experience this kind of weird space of being in this iconic building while everyone else is asleep and just making music together and having a bit of a party. Anna Lapwood and Anna's BBC prom, Called Dark Till Dawn is on at the Royal Albert Hall on the 9th of August. That's it from me. Do join us next week though when Nuala will be chatting to the bestselling author of The

Lamplighter, Emma Stonex, about her gripping new revenge thriller, The Sunshine Man. That's from Monday at 10. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.