Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour: Dame Kelly Holmes, justice secretary Alex Chalk, history of eyeliner

Episode Date: November 18, 2023

Olympic champion Dame Kelly Holmes spoke publicly about her sexuality for the first time last year. Her new memoir, Unique, details how serving in the military in the late 1980s - when it was illegal to be gay in the military – was a major factor in contributing to her decades-long silence. She joins us to speak about her experience.After a reshuffle that left the government with no women in the “big four” offices of state, we speak to Justice Secretary Alex Chalk about the impact of the reshuffle as well as sentencing reforms which will affect women.From Nefertiti to Amy Winehouse, what is the personal and political power of eyeliner? We discuss with Zahra Hankir, author of Eyeliner: A Cultural History.Tish Murtha is a celebrated photographer whose images of working-class life in North East England can be found in the National Portrait Gallery and Tate Britain. But in her lifetime, Murtha struggled to find work of any kind. Now her daughter, Ella, has made a film about Murtha’s life and work. We speak to Ella and producer of the documentary, Jen Corcoran.How is our interaction with AI shifting our concepts of intimacy and sexuality as humans? We discuss with Kate Devlin, Reader in Artificial Intelligence & Society at King's College London, and to Trudy Barber, Senior Lecturer at Portsmouth University in Media Studies.In April 2020, Debenhams in Ireland closed all 11 of its stores, informing its staff they had been let go in the process. What ensued were pickets and protests across Ireland that lasted for 406 days. As a new film is released on the subject, we're joined by two women who were involved, Carol Ann Bridgeman and Jane Crowe.

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

Hello and welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour, where we bring you the highlights from the week just gone. Coming up, following this week's cabinet reshuffle, there are now no women in the four great offices of state. We ask the Justice Secretary why. How will sex bots and AI-generated pornography affect the future of sex and intimacy? Two academics share their findings and the personal and political power of the humble eyeliner. But first, last Friday, Olympic champion Dame Kelly Holmes

made her first red carpet appearance with her girlfriend, Lou Cullen, after speaking publicly about her sexuality for the first time in June last year. One of this country's most decorated athletes, having won seven gold, eight silver and four bronze Olympic, Commonwealth and European medals throughout her athletic career, she's now published a memoir, Unique. In it, she tells her experience of serving in the army in the

late 80s, when it was illegal to be gay in the armed forces, a position that held until as recently as the year 2000. The Olympic champion was one of those who testified as part of the LGBT Veterans Independent Review, which made 49 recommendations to the government, the first of which, an apology from the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, was issued in July last year. She also encouraged other LGBT veterans to take part in the review. Well, Emma spoke to her earlier this week and began by asking her why she's written this memoir. So last year I did my documentary, Kelly Holmes, Me and Me, and that was only June 2022. And now I've written my book. Now,

the thing is, why I've written the book really is to document almost like that journey, the motive journey behind me coming out. Because I actually did my autobiography back in 2005 with another chapter, I think 2008. But there's been such this gap, which I've done a lot. But I think even in that other autobiography... Which you mustn't have mentioned any of this, really. No, no, no. Oh, gosh, no. So the thing is is in that other autobiography of course I talked about my life and my athletics career and everything that built up to becoming that double olympic champion and then I opened up about having the mental health problems which nobody in the public eye was talking openly about mental health and I remember when that first book come out it came

in a paper the next day oh you know can I, can I have this talk about? Then it was not talked about at all again. And then it was only in 2017 that we started picking up that narrative. Now, the thing is, my life has been full of a lot of mental health problems because of, one, the absolute diehard focus I had as an athlete to become the person I wanted to be. Because it gave me validation and an identity and purpose. But also because of the fact that I was suppressing who I was as a person, when you're looking behind your back, when you're worried what people might say, when you think you might get judged or you've got caught out, you're just holding that back. And that caused me a life of mental health problems. And 34 years of living in fear because

I served in the military also didn't help. No, because your job is tied to that as well, your ability to have your security and have your position. Yeah. So a couple of things. The reason why I only came out last year is I lived with this whole trauma in my mindset of fear. And the fear was basically stood to the fact that I served in the military for nearly 10 years. And during that time, I realized that I was gay. I mean, I didn't when I joined. I joined as a teenager. People were exploring their sexuality.

And basically, there was a law in place for anyone in the LGBT community, so against homosexuality. And I was fearful of losing my career, because I loved my career. And the whole point was, is that fear really ingrained so much anxiety. And like, I was so scared of what the repercussions were of losing my job that I had to keep it in at the same time I then became a world-class athlete no one talked about being gay I had no role modeling in sport so again I didn't tell anyone then I become a celebrated athlete you know put on the pedestal two gold medals medals in 2004. No one else had done it. And then I thought, oh, my God, what if someone outs me, someone that knew me in the army, someone that I'd been out with.

That fear then carried on. What, I'm 19 years retired now, so it took 18 years of that worry of somebody outing me for me to then do what I did last year. And, yeah, it's been a rollercoaster ride, I'm not going to lie. Where are you up to with that? Because that's going to take a long time to unpick in some ways or not. Yeah, so obviously having the freedom to come out. So when I say this, what people, again, I hope could understand,

and the reason why I wrote the book wasn't just about me saying me. It's about how I can message things to people. So the thing is that you know I'm 39 plus 14 I don't like the aging bit um come on I I don't feel I ever lived my life just being me you know happy and the fact is that I feel that there's a lot of people I lived through a society and generation where it was very taboo we had section 28 where it was against the law in the in you know the uk to be again let alone the army ban that only got lifted in 2000 and i feel that a lot of people have lived in society in generations where they conformed to what that went because they didn't know any different it wasn't talked about now people are realizing that life is for them to

live not for living for other people and like me it's it's like, hold on, I want to be me. I want to be able to not have a, watch every word that I say to someone, go out for a coffee and a lunch with people that I've known for years, because I don't mind if they ask me about my relationships. I never did that. And so what happened was in lockdown, I mean, so many people dealt with lockdown in so many ways, didn't we? You know, some had a lovely summer holiday. It was beautiful during that time. And I originally did.

And then I went through some really, really dark days. And that led me to choose to live or to not and I decided that the only way to really feel me was to be able to publicly announce that I'm a gay woman because I am in the public eye but do it in a way that told the background to the trauma of not doing it and how fear can be so debilitating what was it about lockdown that made you face that so um well firstly my mum passed away in 2017 and I'm sure there's listeners that dealt with bereavement so bad and I it literally destroyed me my mum passing away like tall piece of my heart has never been fixed and I remember her always wanting me just to be me to say like live your life you know and on the day of funeral, I had that first undercut because I thought she can't live,

I've got to live, but I didn't know how to articulate what was inside. So anyway, lockdown come, I submersed myself into work because I started having this narrative of, like, I just want to breathe. I just want to feel free.

And I got the first bout of COVID. I'm laying on my sofa for three weeks and I kept watching, you know, the terrible news that we were seeing. I'm thinking, when I die, all my friends and family, who I'm very lucky, I must say, who have supported me all the way, I thought to myself, they can talk to people about me and say, oh, wasn't it a shame she couldn't live her life? And I thought, that's my right. I suddenly got this real sense of complete breathlessness of anxiety of thinking I've got to do something about this. Anyway, I put myself into work. I'm on the

screen. I'm a motivational speaker. I do all this talk. I do mental health awareness and I remember this one morning picked up my laptop and I was meant to do a mental health talk and I had to tell them and I suddenly went I'm not in a good place I don't know if I can do this I was filling up welling up and I had 500 people on the screen you know and I'm thinking I put the laptop down and I took 10 months off of my professional work because I had burnout because I'd suppressed these feelings the narrative was so strong I had to do it anyway. I got to a point very quickly, one night, I became a self-harmer in 2003 because of the trauma that I was feeling for my athletic career, that identity I put myself in.

I didn't self-harm. The last day I did was the day my mother died. I then had this urge to go downstairs and to do more than just that. And this one night, I held myself back, terrified of seeing my, almost my spirit doing whatever. And it made me start to shape myself to, I have to speak to someone professional. I've got to get help and I've got to sort of change the way I'm doing it

and not be afraid. And that change has allowed me to talk authentically and open to hopefully to not be scared of what people think of me anymore. I'm never, ever going to be scared of what people think of me because it's your problem, not mine. If you judge me, if you cheered me on running around that track with two gold medals for Great Britain, stand on that rostrum in the national Anthem playing. And I made you proud. Me telling you you're gay shouldn't change that. But now I can talk and hopefully help others with my work.

But just because you talked about your mum there, and you do talk about the loss of her in this book, in your writing very powerfully. Did she know you were gay? Yeah. Yeah, she did. Yes, very much so. And she always wanted me to live my life. She always used to say, because she's, you know, the people that are close to you see the tears and everything and the worry about who you are. And, you know, she was always worried about me because in my public demeanor, I'm very, you know, I am a powerful woman. I'm never going to put myself down again, like I did before. I am a powerful woman. But that does not mean you can have those personal kind of issues inside you.

Of course. We know that, right? Yeah. But I ask because it must be strange for you to be doing now what you couldn't do when she was here. You know, I wonder what her reaction would be that you are doing this. Do you think about that? For sure. And I think, you know, people have lost somebody that's really had that affinity and closeness. They see signs like I've put butterflies in mine and I know she is with me. I know it. And that gives me that sense of, I don't know,

like I said about not being able to breathe. I just know she'd be so happy and proud of me and that's one thing that drives me. But I think the other drive is that I know that my words have made a lot of difference to people, other people, veterans who I was part of the review and pushing to get veterans to come forward to tell how it was for them to be mistreated with the world that they lived in. Because it's so recent as well. Yeah, so recent. I mean, so we had the Prime Minister today... An apology.

..in Parliament and, you know, he's quote, for the horrific historical treatment of LGBT people who served in the military, you know, under the ban. And he had mentioned today on behalf of the British state, I apologise. Now, what that does is, of course, give some people that validation and that feeling of pride that I actually did serve and it's got recognised. But it didn't take away the hurt of all of those years of people who lost their jobs, their medals, their livelihoods, their careers. However, the 49 recommendations that have been put in place for that review, of course, are now sitting with

the ministers. They need to move forward because MOD is ready to action this between the services. But, you know, some of them have been coming back, medals, berets, some, you know, veterans were parading at the Remembrance Sunday, which is, you know, massive for so many people to feel, oh my gosh, I've got me back again. The wonderful Dame Kelly Holmes. Her book is called Unique and if you've been affected by anything we've spoken about in that conversation, you can head to BBC Actionline for help and resources. And we got a response from the government regarding the report Dame Kelly referred to in the interview. A spokesperson said, we are proud of our LGBT veterans and grateful for their service in defence of our nation. The treatment of LGBT serving

personnel pre-2000 was wholly unacceptable and does not reflect today's armed forces. We've accepted in principle the vast majority of the Etherton Report's recommendations. Many of the recommendations are complex and it is vital that the government carefully considers their delivery to ensure the best outcomes for those affected. Now, while this week's reshuffle headlines have been dominated by the surprising return of David Cameron to government, one fact might have escaped your notice. For the first time in 14 years, there are no women in the four great offices of state. That's Prime Minister, Chancellor, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary. Why? This is a question we put to the Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, Alex Chalk,

who's been in the news with his plans for sentencing reform and what it will mean for women. Well, Emma spoke to him earlier this week and began by asking if the Cabinet had a woman problem. To your point about women, look, this is the party that has delivered three women prime ministers and I just paused to note. One for 49 days. Well, no, that's true. But the opposition has only ever been led by white men. But you're talking about results. One was there for 49 days. In fact, this is a really important point. That particular woman has had a particular impact on the household finances of women and men up and down this country. If they happen to be in a situation with their mortgage at that point.

That is a really important point when you're talking about record women and reality and finances. Of course, of course. But respectfully, you asked me about the number of women. So we were first of all talking about finances. I answered that. And then you said about the number of women. So I simply. I know. But the party playbook is to boast about how many women you've had at the top of the party.

And without taking into consideration what one of those women, in the view of some people in this country, did to their finances. The two are inextricably linked and I can't let you gloss over it. No, no. And I've accepted that point. I'm just saying that in terms of the number of women in the top jobs, which was the original point, I think it's reasonable to note that that has been the case. But the second point I was going to go on to say is that if you look at those people who've been promoted, Victoria Atkins, you think of Laura Trott. In my own department, Laura Farris, one of the great thinkers in the Conservative Party, hugely able woman. And I just feel so proud of the talent that we have in the Conservative Party.

And it is just not a thing. We don't do the kind of tick box, as it were. If people are talented, they will get promoted in the Conservative Party. And that's exactly right, because it goes to my first point. It's got to be about delivery, delivery, delivery. That is ultimately the most important thing do you think you've all do you think you've all apologized for the most recent female prime minister's performance enough we have been clear that the i was in cheltenham and i introduced um rishi sunak because i thought he was the right person to be leader of the conservative party and what I said then was in terms of the competing visions that were being proposed, Rishi Sunak was somebody who understood immediately that the best way to help the British people was to bring inflation down.

What you can't do is borrow to fund tax cuts because ultimately that risks putting more money, inflating the economy and making things go in the wrong direction, which is precisely why Rishi says that what the Labour Party want to do in terms of borrowing 28 billion takes us back to square one. Now, that was the competing vision as compared to the former prime minister. He has been resolute and disciplined about prosecuting that vision. And we are starting to see the results. Inflation is not quite what I asked you.

It's not. No, no, because everybody in your party that I speak to on air would like to move on very quickly when I bring up Liz Truss and what happened there. And it was a slightly, well, no, you were telling me what was the competing vision, which in your own party lost the vote, which is striking in itself. I just want to come on to something else,

which is not about the highest offices of state and women. Are you increasing the number of prison places? Because women's rights groups have welcomed your announcement around the idea that rapists and murders involving the most sadistic sexual conduct will have to, I'm just reminding our listeners, will have to serve their full sentence. That was in the King's speech. But a concern remains that at the moment there will be a capacity issue

because you tell me if this isn't accurate, but we've tried to make sure we are this morning 98 percent of prison places are full in this country according to recent data from your ministry what are you doing to make sure there will be the space so we have the largest program in prison of prison buildings since the Victorian era. So we are bringing on prison places at a rate of around 100 a week, which is the fastest rate in living memory. So that is the first point. We also have an additional 400 million pounds

to bring on at what's known as rapid deployment cells and three prisons in the pipeline. Indeed, one is being built at the moment. And we're doing so because we believe ultimately in public protection. And when it comes to these most appalling crimes, so you talk about whole life orders, people who have murdered in the context of sexual or sadistic conduct, or indeed rapists, we think that the way you protect the public is taking these people out of circulation. At the same time, we also want to ensure that those people, including sometimes female offenders,

for whom the science shows that it's short sentences, by that I mean under 12 months, actually increases their chances of re-offending. We want to take people away from that revolving door of crime so that they don't end up in custody in the case of those female offenders, as I spoke to you. But more importantly than that, that the public are protected because they don't go on to commit further offences. Let me come back to that in just a moment. But is it right that you're going to be renting prison places abroad to alleviate overcrowding? So it's absolutely right that we should do everything possible to ensure that there is sufficient capacity for down the line. So we are simply looking at taking a power to,

rather than executing a policy, to do what Norway has done, to do what Belgium has done, and indeed Denmark, which is that they will transfer some prisoners, and we're talking, by the way, about a relatively small number, to make use of overseas capacity.

As I say, it's not unusual. And I do want to stress as well that this is about taking a power in the event that an agreement is reached in due course. There is nothing imminent about this, but it's sensible to pull on all levers to make sure that you have sufficient capacity. That's a sensible thing to do. You talked about more women coming out of the prison population because the amount of sentences, majority of them, were for less than six months. You made the point as to why you decided to do that. Should pregnant women ever receive prison sentences, Justice Secretary? Well, ultimately, it's a matter for the courts, because as you know, and I certainly know from

my experience, that when someone is convicted, the prosecution will stand up and of course, they will read out the facts of the case. And indeed, they will look at previous convictions and so on. But then defence counsel will stand up and make a plea in mitigation when no doubt they will be referring to the fact of the pregnancy and indeed any other personal circumstances that pertain to the fact of the case and also a pre sentence report on appropriate cases from the probation officer. So it's just whether our prisoners prisons are fit to have that situation. We know of a particular case where a baby died after her vulnerable 18-year-old mother gave birth alone in a jail cell following systemic failings by state agencies. That was a coroner ruling. We may have

more places, but whether these prisons are being well run has been a huge cause for concern. That's why I ask. You know what it has and that case sent shockwaves through HMPPS. It sent shockwaves through the department that I sit in. It was very, very upsetting and in this department we were extremely concerned by what happened to that young woman and it has prompted a really seismic change in the way that maternal care, maternity care is provided in a jail. So we have new mother and baby units, we have equal access to treatment, there is much more by way of observation of pregnant mothers. The point I just make is, there will be occasions, I suspect, but it's a matter for our independent judiciary, where there will be a small minority of cases. But it is worth

just emphasising the point that you touched on very briefly. In terms of those sent to custody, around two thirds of women sent to immediate custody are sent to sentences of less than 12 months. And that is a point which I know has been of concern to some of your listeners. We are alive to that. And the central point I want to make is that if people can be properly punished because crime can't pay and the rule of law matters, but if people can be properly punished in the community, then that's a sensible thing to do, because the statistics show that those who are sentenced to immediate custody of under 12 months are over 50 percent likely to reoffend.

And yet if the sentence is suspended, in other words, you get a custodial sentence, but it doesn't take immediate effect, but there are conditions, then the re-offending rate is half that, under 25%. So we think it is sensible to follow the evidence because that's ultimately what protects the public by reducing re-offending. That was Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary speaking to Emma there. And they were talking primarily about justice in England, as other parts of the UK have different rules. And if you're interested in sentencing reform,

you might want to listen back to our episode from the 13th of November, where the poet Lady Unchained discusses the reality of life in a women's prison. Now, are you a fan of eyeliner? Why wouldn't you be? Do you prefer a cat's eye, flick or wing? I, for one, don't leave the house without it. Jet black coal liner was a rite of passage for me. I was encouraged to wear it in my waterline by my mum and aunties

and I can still see the smiles on their faces as though my face had been brought to life finally. It wasn't my period that marked me becoming a woman. It was getting my first eyeliner and I can't imagine life without it. The reason I ask is because our next guest is Zahra Hankir. She's the author of a new book, Eyeliner, A Cultural History. Well, Emma spoke to her earlier this week and began by asking her why she wanted to write a book about eyeliner. What I argue in the book and what's actually very personal to me in my own eyeliner journey is that eyeliner signifies far more than beauty and aesthetics. To me, it's sort of a connection to my cultural heritage.

I'm Lebanese, I'm Arab, I have some Egyptian heritage as well. used to observe my mother applying her eyeliner in sort of a ritualistic way that almost made me feel like I could see my ancestry in her face when I was observing her going through this ritual. And it was also a form of sort of self-care and self-preservation. You know, she had six children. She was sort of raising us all. My father was quite busy with work and she was away from her home country at the time. There was a civil war in Lebanon. And I used to feel like there was so much chaos around her. But when she would put her eyeliner on, it was as if everything came to a standstill. And of course, as a young girl, I used to think, oh, she's so beautiful. But I also understood that this connected her and by extension me to something far bigger than us. And that was our culture.

You've looked through history. Let's talk about Nefertiti and eyeliner. What do you want to say? And what have you said about her? Yeah, so I actually argue in my book that Nefertiti is the original beauty influencer. And our understanding of Nefertiti's beauty is derived from her bust, which was discovered and displayed in Germany, what was discovered in Egypt and then displayed in Germany. I would hope that eventually she'll go back home to Egypt, she's still in Germany. And when her bust was displayed so many people clamored to emulate her look because she appeared to be quote-unquote very exotic, she had an almost perfectly symmetrical face, she had the

high cheekbones, there was just something so transfixing about her beauty. And I think part of the infatuation with her at the time was this idea that she was alluring and exotic. And that was an extension of what you would call Orientalism and also Egyptomania, the fascination with ancient Egypt in the 1920s. And personally, I mean, I've been infatuated with Nefertiti myself, for different reasons, I would say, in the sense that I felt that once I encountered her, because my father has Egyptian heritage, and he used to have lots of sort of magazines about Egypt and things about Egypt at home, I felt that I was connected to her in some way. And she was a non-Westernern woman and she was quite beguiling.

And there was this idea of, you know, how do you emulate the look of Nefertiti and how, in my case, how do you connect with her? And one of the tools to do that is eyeliner. Right. So for me, it's deeply personal. It wasn't about sort of emulating her exotic look. It was about connecting myself to some part of my heritage, especially having grown up in the UK as well. And also you've looked how it's been used eyeliner around the world and in different cultures. For instance, in Chad, what can you tell us about that? What you found out? Yeah, I traveled to several countries, Chad being one of them. And that was probably the most fascinating trip that I went on. I went to observe the Wadabi community,

which is a subgroup of the Fulani ethnic group, which is a nomadic group. And every year they host a beauty contest in which the women judge the men, which was quite refreshing. And one element of beautification for them is is coal or kohl which is a naturally produced form of eyeliner and for them what's quite interesting is that beauty standards in general are quite different than what we are used to in the west or so-called eurocentric beauty standards so for them part of what they believe is beautiful is contrast. So darkness against light. So they would, for example, whiten their teeth and then dark's so important to them that they wear it in elaborate pots as necklaces, as talismans, and they also use coal to protect their eyes against the glare of the sun. And that's something that we see in other cultures in the global south as

well, whereby eyeliner is about so much more than beauty. And what I want to say about this particular community is that beauty is actually part of their moral code. So it's not just about aesthetics. It takes on sort of this other layer of importance within this culture. And that was really fascinating to observe. What does that mean, moral code? They have sort of a set of moral codes,

different aspects of life and living that they consider to be quite central to how they should be conducting their daily life. Okay and it fits in to that which is again a different way of thinking which which your arguments and the examples do because you know for instance we get when you talk about this stuff you can go as you have with the cultural side and the history and the impact or you can do it purely on a aesthetic level are you a liquid person are you a pen are you a paintbrush so i call my eyeliner aesthetic ancestral chic which is that what i try

to do is i i merge the ancient with the modern so um if you can see i have liquid eyeliner and a wing on my upper lid yeah that wing is looking good line yeah thank you so much on my waterline i use coal soohl is sort of the naturally produced eyeliner that I get from the Middle East. And it's kind of, I say it's like a mix of Amy Winehouse and Nefertiti. That sounds like the dream combination to me. That was Zahra Hankir. Still to come on the programme, after being fired by email, two women tell us how they organised protests and pickets that lasted for a staggering 406 days.

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, Tish Murtha is a celebrated photographer whose images of working-class life in north-east England can be found in the National Portrait Gallery and Tate Britain. Starting in the 1970s, she photographed some of the most deprived parts of the country, showing children playing in skips,

workers drinking pints after a mass layoff, and teenagers messing around on abandoned mattresses. But although she's fated today, in her lifetime, Mertha struggled to find work of any kind. Well, now her daughter, Ella Mertha, has made a film about Tish's life and work. Yesterday, I spoke to Ella and the producer of the documentary, Jen Corcoran, and began by asking Ella what she knew about her mum's work growing up. Well, these pictures, like they were our wallpaper. Well, when like, sorry, I feel really emotional I don't I think all of the emotion of um the build-up to the film being released has just got me but thank you for um saying what you said about my mum's work but my mum's photos like photography was

just part of her I can't imagine our life without photography but i don't ever remember her earning a single penny from her work and um you know the fact that she died penniless feeling totally worthless um it just absolutely breaks my heart and that's been me me motivation really to make sure that she gets the recognition that she deserves and we celebrate because you know it's um the vein that runs through all of your mum's work is you know it's the tragedy and the comedy and you know like even though things can be really awful you have to try and make the best of it and that's what I've tried to do. And so her life isn't just reduced to just dying in that way and I just wish that she could see how much love there is.

I feel like I'm getting a whole new wave of grief this week. I feel really, it's lovely, it's really, really lovely that so many people are sort of resonating with the film and everything but it is also really bittersweet that she's not here. Sure. You know, to see. I think we should find out a little bit more about her. So tell us about your mum.

She grew up in Elzik. I mentioned it was quite a deprived area just outside Newcastle. She was one of 10 children. So when did she start taking photographs? As a teenager. So she found an old camera not sure where it was either in an abandoned house or a skip but she found this camera anyway and it didn't even have any film in it so initially she just started wearing it because they used to have sort of a problem in the area

with curb crawlers sort of pestering her and her friends and stuff so actually she was using it as a defense at first she just carried it because as soon as like a car came along and you know tried to pick one of them up she would just sort of flash the camera at them and like posh middle class um men would just speed off because they were terrified. And so she just loved that initially. And then she had a friend called Joss who was studying art and she sort of introduced her boyfriend, had a darkroom and he sort of took my mom into the darkroom and said, look Tish, like you're actually good at this. And I think when she found the power of photography,

coupled, because she was very political. And so when she found power of photography coupled because she was very political yeah and so when she found power of photography the two married together really well and she found a calling yeah Jen I mean she was very political what was she trying to do with her photos well I think she saw the injustice um that was happening in her surroundings. She was bearing witness to it with her camera, but she very much knew what she was doing. She wanted to use her pictures as evidence to make people's lives better. And one of her best known work is a youth and employment series. Ella made a book of it not too long ago. And Tish,ish I mean as well as being a fantastic photographer she was also a very talented writer very intelligent woman and she wrote an essay to

accompany this series of photographs about what she was seeing which was talented people like her brothers and sisters unable to sort of make their way in society, but they were moved on to these youth and employment schemes that were happening at the time. And she wrote an essay that was spoken about in Parliament, just protesting the vandalism, the cultural vandalism, that so much talent was wasted. And she was really highlighting this community, but there's such tender photographs as well.

There's so much humanity in her photographs and so much joy in the photographs. What do you think she was trying to say? Well, I think what was unique about Tish is that unlike lots of other, I suppose, social documentary photographers at the time she was from the streets that she photographed the people in the in the in her pictures were her family and friends and she very much didn't want her work to be sort of poverty safari you know

kids with grubby faces and because of her experiences growing up. She did have a very volatile childhood. She had an empathy for her subject. You can see that in her pictures. But also she was celebrating the joy, the joy of childhood. You see that in the Juvenile Jazz Band series and in the Elsie Kids series. They're really wonderful, wonderful to see. She was a very strong character, your mother, wasn't she, Ella? Tell us about how she got into Newport College of Art. I mean, that was one of the most prestigious art schools in the country at the time.

Well, yeah, and it just makes me laugh because I can just imagine her getting her portfolio together and picking pictures and everything and just having this sort of energy behind her, propelling her to get to Newport and stuff. And then she got there and David Herney didn't even want to look at any pictures. He just said, like, what do you want to photograph? And she just said, like, I want to learn to take pictures of, like, policemen kicking kids.

And that was it. He said, you're in. Because, like, he knew that, you knew that she knew exactly what she wanted to do and he knew she was going to be a social photographer. And the way he saw it was that you didn't need to look at work because you can teach anyone how to point a camera and take a picture and compose an image, but you cannot teach someone how to have passion.

You've either got passion, and my mum was very, very passionate. Where did her passion come from? Where did it come from, do you think? Oh, no, it's just like, I mean, probably my nana. Do you know, my nana was a wonderful, like, old mother Hubbard with her ten kids. But, you know, she really sort of instilled culture, you know, like her favourite music, you know, like Puccini.

That was her favourite. There was always opera playing in the background. And, you know, like she would buy all the kids colouring pencils and all of them, they all play instruments. And a performer like Minanna, you know, she just allowed them creativity. And, you know, she allowed them to find all of their own passions. So I think probably from me, Nana. So incredibly working class background, humble, really humble beginnings and 10 children. But you're amazing, Nana, instilled all this culture and introduced them to all this culture.

And in fact, I know that you're named after Ella Fitzgerald as well which is great um so why wasn't she a success in her lifetime well I mean the photography world it's very I mean it's still dominated you know by your white upper middle class men um and you know she didn't know her place you know as, as a working class woman, you have to know your place. And, you know, she didn't accept. She wasn't going to be quiet. No, but why should she be? You know what I mean? You know, and, you know, she didn't sell out.

She stood up. She stood up for her values, you know. And these type of people in the art world they they don't like that you know but also as well I think she she was a working-class woman she was a single mother she had to make a living she had to work and she was applying for photography awards at the time and unfortunately her talent wasn't being recognized and so she couldn't afford the chemicals to develop her pictures. And then, you know, she was sent to work in a meat processing plant. And you have to think of the work that was lost while she's working to earn her living.

Well, there's another really moving bit in the documentary. I think it's you talking to your uncle and he tells you that he wanted to be an actor. And, you know, it's that, you know, how do you get access to the arts if you're from a really working class background? We're still having that conversation today, but it's particularly for your mum and your uncle in the 70s and 80s. Yeah.

Yeah, and if you don't mind me jumping in, it really hasn't changed. So Tish was fortunate that she had this fantastic college lecturer, Dennis, who encouraged her to apply to the University of Newport and he showed her how to get an education grant to support her attendance. At the moment tuition fees at university do, I think, make that level of education. It excludes people from working class backgrounds. And then you'll also see that arts degrees have been 100% defunded in recent years. And so I wonder how a Tish of today would get that far. And

then elsewhere, arts organisations like any other sector at the moment have been cut to the bone which means support schemes are missing development funding is missing and as a as an artist you have to work for free for a long time to develop your ideas to the point that they can be funded um and again in the economy that we we see today it is very difficult for for working-class creatives to to make their way like Tish did. Well, we have actually spoke to the Department of Education about this, and they've said that around half of pupils in state funded schools entered for arts course at key stage four in the past five years. And they say they've invested over 740 million pounds between 2016 and 2022 in music and arts education programs over and above school budgets and they said earlier this

year the office for students awarded 57 million pounds to support specialist higher education providers including in the creative and performing arts so they can continue to offer more high quality education and training however the conversation is around gatekeepers in the art world generally and how do people even if you have got the education how do you then access those worlds um ella what was the experience like of making this documentary you started by saying how emotional you feel that it's the week that it's going to be released and it is an emotional watch because it's just the work itself is so powerful to look at and you can feel what it must have been like well i can only imagine what it must have been like for you as a daughter um learning about your mum so how do you feel having made this documentary was it a cathartic experience definitely i mean when when my mum died like i don't even know how i got through it

do you know but it's it's this like, I think it's a vein of, you know, you just have to get on with it, don't you? And I never really sort of processed what happened. And I think this film has been my therapy. That was Ella Murtha and Jen Corcoran. And I do encourage you to Google Tish Murtha and have a look at her work. Now to a topic you might not have expected on a Saturday afternoon,

AI-generated porn. It's becoming more and more popular and is created by algorithms ingesting the expanse of human imagery, remixing it, then regurgitating it to suit the specific desires of users. So what does it all mean for the future of sex and intimacy? Well, to discuss this, Emma was joined by Dr. Kate Devlin, a reader in artificial intelligence and society at King's College London. She's also the author of Turned On, Science, Sex and Robots, and also by Dr.

Trudy Barber, senior lecturer at Portsmouth University in media studies, whose interests include the body, sexuality, machines and computing technology. Emma began by asking Kate if it's possible to tell that an image has been generated by AI. Well, initially there were a few tells. You could check what was AI or not AI by looking at things like how many fingers there were on the hands or perhaps you could even scrutinise other body parts more closely. But now I know it's actually got to the stage where it's very very difficult to distinguish between AI generated imagery and real imagery. And is there a is what's the issue with this what are the concerns about AI generated porn? There are a

number of different concerns about it one is that it it can use it can be mixed with the faces of living individuals, so deepfakes, but also that it's taking content without any permission. So you could look at it both ways. You could look at it being exploitative. You could see it as being something that could be damaging or hurtful to people, but also that it could be taking content that other people have created and passing it off. And Trudy, let me bring you in on that. Is that one of your concerns? Well, I think it's very intriguing as to how people do manipulate different imagery using AI, particularly in terms of how you are re-represented within these different alternative spaces. And I think it depends on how you generate the images yourself,

if you are using AI to create an image. So you're teaching the AI and the AI is giving you back what you're teaching it. So I think it's going to have an interesting impact on how we think in terms of what language we use to create the pornography or to create the imagery so um i think there's all sorts of different layers going on here as to how we think about pornography how we think of eroticism and erotica and how that's represented too so in terms of what you put into it is what you get out of it yeah because you need to be able to to get the AI to generate what you have suggested.

What do you make of the ethics of what we're doing about that, Kate? Yeah, it's difficult. So there's a lot of questions around consent as well. So has anyone consented to having their likeness used? What kind of stuff is being created? Is it stuff that is going to be shared that might be upsetting to other people? And for some platforms, for example, there's a lot of moderation that goes on and that moderation is carried out by other humans, not by the AI. It's very hard to moderate, justify a machine. So there are people having to sift through really graphic and disturbing images to process this information. So that's also a question of consent too. So there's definitely questions around that. And then yes, more widely about what it means for us in terms of our

sexuality going forward. Yeah, let's just talk about that, because we are going to do and we have done before more detail on on deep fakes and people's image being misused. But what do you think it will do for us? Because I mean, there are some programs that allow you to to have dirty talks with with an avatar and then some users may think they're talking to a real person or they may not care that they're not talking to a real person I mean what have you found out about that and what are your thoughts you've had a lot of time to think about that right so that's a really interesting area because we're seeing the rise of these artificial partners, artificial girlfriends or boyfriends, it tends to be quite gendered. It initially started with female avatars or female chatbots gendered that way, and men accessing them. But it's actually opened up much wider. And there are entire communities,

hundreds of thousands of users who get a lot out of this, who really enjoy and benefit having these interactions with virtual AI persons, personalities. And it's been very good for them. And they report, anecdotally report, that it's been something very beneficial to them. And those feelings are real. Those feelings are no different than the feelings we might have if we have a crush on another human, or if we fall in love with a character in a book or a film. It is a parasocial relationship, but it feels like a valid relationship. Now, the problem comes if that goes too far, if it's starting to interrupt people's lives, if it's causing any negative effects.

But there could be a potential to have quite a lot of support from these AI chatbots. It's not necessarily a bad thing. Do you agree with that? When you listen about it might not necessarily be a bad thing, Trudy? Yeah, I'm all for experimentation to see how these contexts work, particularly with things like, say, people who are, say, in a care home or have Alzheimer's and they have not had any affection. There are these kind of sort of robotic toy things that actually hug the person. And that's proving to be quite positive for those people experiencing that. So there's lots of different ways that we can experiment and try to see how we can look at our more in-depth emotions,

not in-depth feelings that will be able to be expressed using these other contexts. But it is so new and it is so different and there there is um an ability to come up with something completely different and completely original that's not been seen before and that's one of the things that excites me about all of this because you sort of deviate to innovate with all this stuff so um yeah i like that you should get that on a t-shirt maybe you have already deviate to innovate let talk about deviation. I'm going to ask about something I know nothing, which I love to learn. And I think that's why we're here and certainly why we listen to Radio 4, I hope. Teledildonics, Kate. Have I said that right? Because the word dildo is right in the middle of that word. You have said it right.

I've absolutely butchered it. Okay, carry on. No, you have said it right. And it's pretty much what, that does include that word, yes. So it's essentially remote controlled sex toys. It's smart, if you want to put it that way, smart sex toys that can be controlled over the internet. This is nothing new. This has been around since the first wave of virtual reality. So it's becoming more and more common now. It's becoming less taboo.

That's why we're talking about, sorry, it's becoming more and more common now yeah that's less taboo that's why we're talking about sorry it's becoming more common in this landscape yes and much less taboo as well I think having gone through the pandemic where people were conducting relationships online then you know that's quite a an interesting thing to be able to add to your relationship isn't it so what you'd get you'd get one of these sex toys you'd'd buy it for someone you like, or they have it already. And then you control it from where you are to do whatever you want. It can be that it can be toys that mirror each other so that you have similar things going on each end. Now, of course, there are lots of things to think about around that, including again, consent. So what happens if someone else takes over the control? What happens if it's hacked?

There have been some, a few cases of hacked sex toys in the media in the past. What happens with a hacked sex toy? Can't you just put it in a bin at this point? Yeah, you probably should. They're getting better at sorting out the problems there. So a lot of them are very carefully tested now to ensure this doesn't happen. Where are we going with this, do you think, Kate? Where are we going to end up? Do you know? I think there's quite a bit of fear when I talk about this and people think, oh, am I going to be replaced? Ultimately, are human-human relationships doomed to failure?

And I don't think that at all. I think there's something so intrinsically, fundamentally human about finding another human and seeking out a companion. But it does provide us with more options. It does provide us with some fun as well and some pleasure. It's not all bad. It's not all scary. But we need to go forward ethically and we need to consider what the impact's likely to be. That was Dr Kate Devlin and Dr Trudy Barber speaking with Emma. Now our next guests are two former shop workers from Ireland who did something

incredible. When they were suddenly let go from their jobs via email, they took on not just their employer Debenhams, but the police, the liquidators and the courts in order to get what they felt they deserved. In April 2020, Debenhams in Ireland closed all 11 of its stores, informing staff they'd been let go in the process. What ensued were pickets and protests by the workers and their families across Ireland that lasted for 406 days. The dispute was over redundancy pay and the 700-odd staff felt they were due more than their statutory entitlements. The story is now the subject of a new film, appropriately called 406 Days,

and earlier this week Emma spoke to two of the women involved, Carol Ann Bridgman and Jane Crow. She began by asking Jane how they started to organise their protests. Shop stewards in the 11 stores, we put a WhatsApp group together and started to organise ourselves just almost immediately. We said, this can't happen. How can they get away with this? In total, it was 1,500 people that were let go,

the majority of which were 90% were women. And no one seemed to be minding that it was happening. But we minded because, you know, we were the breadwinners in our homes and looking after our children and whatever. But we just couldn't let it go because it was COVID. Nobody wanted to know anything. We couldn't go and fight it anywhere.

So we took it upon ourselves to do protests in the middle of COVID outside our stores. And that's just where it all started then, really. And it carried on I mean Caroline you're there in all weathers you keep going what was it like I understand you also even occupied a building? I mean from the start it was I mean obviously new to each and every one of us so we learned as it went on but we started exchanging information between the pickets of the better clothing that we can wear people started putting

up shacks and tents and stuff like that just to protect us against the elements and family family members helped out by coming down in cars keeping us company it was very very difficult it was we had to try and keep our morale up and and the morale up on the pickets and the whole lot. So, I mean, the elements did have a huge influence on the way we were picketing. But we persevered, thankfully. And I mean, all those that attended the picket were amazing, absolutely brilliant. But it was tough. It was very, very tough on the pickets, five to four hundred and six days.

It's a long one. It's a really long one to make yourself heard and to keep going. And I know, Jane, for you, were you detained by the police at one point? Yes, I occupied my store in Dublin and we were detained. We were taken out in the back of

guard vans, police vans and we were brought down and processed, there were six of us that had occupied and we were put into individual police cells our laces, our jewellery, anything like that were taken off us so we couldn't harm ourselves and yeah we were processed like criminals yeah is that a first for you jane i'm not getting i'm not getting a criminal vibe but you know you never know i've never even had a parking ticket

so i mean you know we could hopefully have a bit of a bit of a smile at some point in this conversation because it's i mean it's pretty badass what you were doing. Well, I mean, yeah, I never thought I'd do anything like that. You know, never involved. Oh, my God. When we look back on it and we just say to each other, because we're all still in contact, you know, all the staff, and say, my God, did we really do that? Like, do you remember that day we done this or whatever?

And you're like, but we just sat ourselves down, you know, we would do it all again. To for our rights, we would do it all again to achieve what we did achieve. We didn't get what we wanted, but we did achieve a lot around us. Yeah, I mean, where we're up to, I believe, and you tell me is you brought your complaint

to the Workplace Relations Commission over the manner in which you were made redundant. You won, but the liquidators, in this case KPMG, is appealing the decision to the Labour Court. This case is going to be heard in February next year. Jane, how does it feel still not having an answer on that front? Oh, it's so destroying because all we were looking for was, you know, the extra payment from the company was 13 million. That would have covered everybody's second lot of redundancy money that we were promised. But the case that we won now, it's only 2 million.

So it's a drop in the ocean for the likes of KPMG, who are worldwide liquidators. And they felt the need to appeal that, that they didn't want to give it to us, you know. And it's probably costing them that in legal fees alone to take this case against us, rather than just let us have the two million. So it is soul destroying, but we keep turning up and keep standing our ground. I like the way you say that. It is soul destroying, but we keep turning up. You know, that's such an understated way of putting that there. I should say we contacted KPMG Ireland, the appointed liquidators. They did not want to comment. No comment was given. Debenhams is now an online store only and owned by Boohoo.

We contacted Boohoo and no statement was also given saying this predated its ownership of Debenhams. Caroline, what would you say to those listening who say you didn't have to use these tactics? Maybe you could have got to where you've got to in the same way. You didn't need to do more than 400 days on the picket line, occupying, you know, taking up police time. What would you say? I would say that from the outset, I mean, from the time we received a generic email onwards,

we were treated so badly. We were treated, it was discussed that we were only women. We were being led up the garden path by different people. We might have been women, but we were strong women that took a stand and that decided to fight for our rights, which then became even bigger than what we had anticipated because it covered the workers' rights for everyone. And I think people really do need to take a stand

for what they believe in and what they're entitled to. That was Jane Crow and Carol-Ann Bridgman. That's all from me this afternoon, but join Emma on Monday morning where she'll be speaking to Jamie Bernstein, Leonard Bernstein's daughter, about the new film Maestro featuring her father. There'll be news on compensation for a woman who suffered because of a vaginal mesh procedure.

And we'll be talking about weather girls, the women who bring us the weather come rain or shine. Until then, enjoy the rest of your weekend. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy.

And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.