Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour: Dame Siân Phillips, Highflying care-leavers, 'Trouser-less' trend

Episode Date: December 30, 2023

Just 14% of care leavers go to university, compared to 47% of young people who didn’t grow up in care, according to a report by the think tank Civitas. The figures have barely changed over the past 10 years and at the current rate of progress, it will take 107 years to close the gap. Two care-experienced young women who did manage to smash the so-called care ceiling share their experiences with Krupa; Rebecca Munro, who graduated with a masters in business and is now an Education Liaison Officer at the University of St Andrews and Lucy Barnes, a barrister.Up to half of women will have a UTI at some point in their life. Earlier this year the NHS launched a new awareness campaign which the filmmaker and author Kate Muir has criticised for not mentioning vaginal oestrogen as a treatment. Kate joins Krupa Padhy alongside Dr Olivia Hum, a GP who is on the Council of the British Menopause Society.Actor Dame Siân Phillips’ life and career are explored in a new documentary, Siân Phillips at 90. She joins Krupa to talk about some of her acting roles, including playing Emmeline Pankhurst in a BBC drama in the 1970s, what it was like being married to Peter O’Toole, and what she’s doing now.Terri Lyne Carrington, a multi-Grammy-winning drummer and jazz artist, saw a distinct lack of songs by female composers being learned by jazz musicians - and decided to fix it. As a ‘gender justice advocate’ she decided to create a project, the New Standards: 101 Lead Sheets By Women Composers, and an accompanying album which won a Grammy, to shine a light on female jazz composers. She joins Nuala McGovern to discuss the project and jazz and gender justice on our special programme about women digging for the truth.Would you swap your trousers for a pair of statement knickers? Julia Hobbs from Vogue tells Krupa about the new trouser-less trend that's been sweeping the catwalks and social media, and the reactions she got when testing it out on the London Underground.As a nation we eat more sprouts than any other country in Europe but it’s a vegetable that, like marmite, divides opinion. Anita Rani is joined by plant pathologist Dr Lauren Chappell and the brassica research expert Dr Rachel Wells to explain how sprouts are being engineered to taste sweeter and withstand climate change. Presenter: Krupa Padhy Producer: Hanna Ward Studio Manager: Donald MacDonald

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 some of the best bits from the week just gone. I'm Krupa Bhatti. Coming up on the programme, how would you feel about walking down the street in your knickers, albeit statement knickers? We're here from a Vogue insider about the new trouserless trend that has swept the catwalk. The whole look is very casual.

This isn't something that's in any way sort of seductive. You know, I feel, and it's something we're seeing coming very much to the fore in fashion now, is this sort of shedding and people wanting to be themselves in how they dress. Actor Dame Sian Phillips, who has just turned 90, reflects on her life and career. Also, jazz drummer Terry Lynn Carrington

tells us about her project to shine a light on female composers. I asked the students to play some music written by women and they could not really find any. And there's a book called The Real Book that most students and professionals go to and there was really only one song that was written by a woman. And we discuss women's experiences of UTIs, especially later in life. All of that to come, so get cosy and settle in. Our first discussion is about changing fortunes when you've not had

the best start in life. According to a report by the think tank Civitas this year, just 14% of care leavers go to university compared to 47% of young people who didn't grow up in care. The figures have barely changed over the past 10 years and at the current rate of progress, it will take over 100 years to close that gap. I spoke to two young care experienced women who have bucked that trend. They care passionately about girls going through similar life experiences and want to share what they've learned. Lucy Barnes is a barrister and Rebecca Munro, who graduated with a master's in business, is now the education liaison officer at the University of St Andrews. I began by asking Lucy to clarify the language. What does care leaver or care experienced actually mean? Personally, I prefer the term care experience because the term care leaver implies that care leaves you and it really shouldn't because in a normal traditional family environment, your family don't leave you. So, you know, when your care experience, it's a positive term, it connotates

a community, which is actually really supportive on the whole community, which gives you a sense of, okay, others are here, they can do it too. But care leaver makes you feel somewhat isolated and that you're different in some way. Yeah, I'm glad I asked that first, because it almost changes the direction of the rest of our conversation. Thank you for that. I want to hear both of your stories. Rebecca, I'll start with you. Both of you have excelled academically. You both entered the care system aged 13.

Take me back, Rebecca, to those days. What's care been like for you? Care has been multifaceted, I would say. I think I didn't know about the care system before I entered it. And when I entered it, when I entered it I was alone I was split from my sibling and it was just a really daunting experience to just kind of be you know at one point with the family regardless of it's of how dysfunctional it is then being in a space with strangers but people who are there and wanting to kind of support me

and just kind of feeling so out the loop. And I think that came with lots of disruptions in my high school education. And with the run up of me moving into care, you know, that required a lot of social work involvement, that made disruptions to my high school experience. And you know, that just wasn't something that I wanted to be happening but I suppose it had to happen and it was the people around me the people who were making decisions for me who felt best for me to go into care. Yeah and how did that experience go? You know it's almost two-sided so I spoke about being scared and with strangers but at the same time it helped me kind of think outside the box and look in on my life like previously from outside the box and it kind of made me realise previously from outside the box. And it kind of made me realise that, you know, the sort of path that may have been set up for me,

being in the sort of family home, will not take me where I am now. And so I think I was then able to get a good glance at what could be and the sort of support that's out there and that could help me get to where I want to be. Whereas if I was back where I came from, it wouldn't be the case. So it gave me a sort of fresh perspective on life. Just to clarify, what was your housing set up specifically? Yeah, a couple of things. Actually, I got to experience foster care. That didn't work out that well because with care experience, people, when they move from one family into another family, you know, there's difficulties there with trying to just kind of live your life in a stranger's home you know there's there's sort of there's difficulty

like I say I also then experienced sort of a residential home which was just myself and that was just kind of staff who were on rotation and that I think was the turning point for me where I kind of got to have time to myself and start that sort of reflection process that I kind of spoke about. And then later, a bit later in my later teens, I then was fortunate to be taken in from a family member, which we consider in Scotland as kinship care. So I then lived with a family member for a couple of years as well. And for a short time, I should highlight you entered the homeless system as well. Yes, unfortunately, when I became 17, just as I left high school at the end

of my education in high school although that sounds really negative and horrible yes it was in principle but actually I had amazing people around me in the homeless accommodation that really supported my aspirations and dreams and just didn't discourage me only encouraged me and so although I was homeless I had amazing people around me that made sure that I kind of got to where I wanted to go. Let me bring you in here Lucy because you also entered the system at 13 when your family could no longer care for you. Yeah that's right well I was kicked out by my biological mother and then I went into foster care with a family I knew. So that made it easier in some ways, but more difficult in others,

because I was questioning myself and thinking, where do I fit in in this notion of family? Like, I'm not really part of this family, but I'm also not part of my biological family. So that was a really complex situation. And then what happened? Probably due to complex trauma building up. Eventually, I was kicked out at 16. So I had to go back to, so I didn't hear

from a local authority at that point, my social workers stopped contact at 16. So I had to go back to my biological family, which was very, very difficult. Those two years prior to university were very, very challenging in my development. But I kind of just had it in my mindset that the only way to escape was uni. So I had that sort of tunnel vision. And I was so determined from my foster father, who had first instilled the idea in me to become a barrister. And there was a whole period from 16 to 18 where, you know, having zero connections in the legal profession, I was like, okay, I really need to get creative here. How am I going to find an in in this in this industry, it was definitely difficult to build that network that I feel like my peers just sort of had already. But I was very determined to

change that. That's so striking that it was the drive to escape from your testing situation. I mean, that's putting it mildly, from those difficult circumstances that you were growing up with. That drive to escape is what motivated you to study and that guidance from your foster father as well. I want to put this response from the Department for Education to you both.

Every child deserves equal opportunity to succeed in school regardless of their background. We will continue to support disadvantaged children including those in care through the pupil premium which has risen to almost £2.9 billion in 2023 to 2024, the highest cash terms rate since the funding began.

Our virtual schools heads specifically champion the needs of children with social workers helping schools understand how best to support them while our national tutoring programme helps level the Lucy, how well do you think schools are set up to deal with children in your position? I can only speak from personal experience because I didn't have virtual school experience, which does sound like a really good idea, but not well at all from my experience. It's difficult because there are so many complex needs related to traumatic experience. It's really difficult to grapple with. So I do think there needs to be better funding and better understanding.

And beyond that, not pitying us. I think that's the backhand of prejudice I think there's actually we're calling out for someone to see what's amazing about us and there's always something amazing about every single child particularly young people in care actually we always bring a little spark in some way and that's just waiting to be found and the saddest part is that's not been found yet so I think schools need to be better equipped at seeing our strengths because at the moment it's just trauma, you know, all the darker stuff. But actually, there's really like beautiful talents waiting to be discovered.

Yeah. Rebecca, I was watching an interview you did with the University of St. Andrews, where you talked as a collective about the stain of shame associated with growing up in care. I wonder when you got to university, how easy it was for you to be open with your peers, potential friends about what you experienced or whether you chose to hide your history from those new relationships that you were building? You know, it took me, you know, first year, you know, you kind of find your feet a little, but it wasn't until second year that I really found my feet and found my friends there. And that was when I began to be a bit more vocal about my care experience I would say in first year you're just kind of making sure you're surviving to the end of the week and getting through lectures

and I definitely kept that to myself but come second year I started doing a little bit of work with a charity in Scotland called Who Cares Scotland and that helped me come up my shell a little bit and kind of use my care experience don't fall into the stigma that other people have for me but actually shine a light on my successes which Lucy has just kind of spoke on as well and just saying okay although the statistics are against me actually that's not who I am and so I use my care experience as a much more powerful factor of my characteristic and always speak about that in a very positive light. Whereas I would say probably 10 years ago, I was hiding that and kind of really fell into that stigma and that kind of stain of shame.

But it never leaves you. I don't think it leaves you. I think it's always there niggling away. And depending on who you're speaking to or the sort of context you're in, it just come up that you're you suddenly feel like that young 13 year old scared self again you know it never leaves you what about you lucy yeah i definitely um echo that um i think there's ways that you can make it your strength and that's definitely what i did on my um scholarship and pupillage applications it actually the first time when I applied I was very ashamed of it and didn't speak about it at all and I wasn't successful that year but the second year I was like actually no I'm going to take ownership over this because I do see some strengths and that's not to glamorize the position every care experienced person deserves the best therapeutic

support but there is some sort of strengths of the resilience and that's what I was echoing in my interviews and I think that's why I was ultimately successful. So whilst it never really left me, it also transformed me. Lucy Barnes there. And we also heard from Rebecca Monroe. UTIs or urinary tract infections are something many women have experienced. They can range from uncomfortable to downright unbearable. Up to half of women will have one at some point in their life,

with between 20 to 30% of us having a recurring UTI. While both sexes can get them, they are most common in women over 65. Recent data shows they led to more than 800,000 admissions to hospitals across the country over the past five years. Earlier this year, the NHS launched a new awareness campaign to help reduce this number. My next guest wants to highlight what she perceives as a lack of awareness and knowledge in this area when it comes to a treatment for women experiencing UTIs, especially later in life. This is the filmmaker and author

Kate Muir, who first raised this concern in a recent article for The Observer. Kate has previously worked with Davina McCall on her documentaries on the menopause for Channel 4. She joined me on the programme alongside Dr Olivia Hum, a GP who is on the Council of the British Menopause Society. I began by asking Kate what got her looking into this topic. We first did it on the Davina Channel 4 menopause program when Davina herself said at 44 I was going through this, I had vaginal atrophy, I didn't know what was going on and of course we don't really understand that that is happening to almost the majority of women eventually, that the hormones disappear in the vulva area and it can cause all these other things. And she was

really courageous about talking about it. And I kept looking into that issue again and again. And then this NHS press release came out in the autumn and it said we must stop these UTIs. It had three big experts, including a gerontologist on the press release. And women must clean themselves better and drink more water. And we must be on the lookout for this. And I thought, wait a minute, what is missing here? Vaginal oestrogen, which in huge studies for the last 30 years has shown to reduce the numbers of UTIs in older women. And there was a fantastic study of women in their 70s, which showed using vaginal estrogen, half the number of UTIs. And in fact, a third of those women in that group had no UTIs at all after they started taking it. And I thought, why aren't we talking about this?

Yeah. And that's why you wanted to go a step further with that awareness campaign. Let me bring you in here, Olivia. Kate just highlighted there some of the language around UTIs, possibly some of the myths as well. Can you strip this right back? Let's go right back to basics. What is a UTI? How does it manifest? So a UTI is a urinary tract infection. And the sort of classic symptoms of a UTI are what we call dysuria, which is pain when you pee. Frequency, which is peeing more often than usual. And urgency, which is the feeling of desperately needing to go to the loo right now. And we can get other symptoms too, some tummy pain, some people get back pain.

But also, I think Kate highlighted in the article, in elderly women, sometimes we don't get any of these symptoms. So we just see someone who will become more confused, and they might end up with delirium, which is what you were talking about in the article. And there are lots of other symptoms that we see. Some would just be off their food, and it's a really big problem in older women. Kate has highlighted her call based on her evidence that she's done research on for vaginal oestrogen as a good treatment for UTIs. How do you understand it as a treatment and what is the current status of it within the NHS? So I think what we need to realise is that the lack of oestrogen to the vulva and vagina after menopause

it's not just about the vulva and vagina, it's also about the urinary symptoms. So we've sort of tried to rename the idea of vulvovaginal atrophy, which is a horrible word anyway, to genitourinary syndrome of menopause. And that's to highlight the symptoms that many women will get, which are things like all the ones we were talking about, frequency, pain when you pee,

all of these things, incontinence can happen to women postmenopausally. And because this is something that doesn't get better with time, it will often get worse and worse. So the first time it affects women will often be in their 60s and 70s when they're long past menopause, and they don't think this has anything to do with menopause at all. And for some reason, vaginal oestrogen, which is cheap and easy and safe, has been really really underused so what Kate was talking about in the article is about using it to prevent recurrent UTIs so these are women who get a lot of UTIs more than the sort of three or four a year

and we know and it's in the NICE guidelines for recurrent UTIs that actually using vaginal oestrogen can significantly reduce the number of recurrent UTIs that women get, which is really important, but yet it's just not being used. And we're using antibiotics again and again and again. And one in four women have an antibiotic resistant version of the UTI. And that is that's really important because that can affect everything else that's happening in your body. And the other thing I didn't understand till I started looking into this I was writing a book about the pill which is coming out next year and I realised Olivia that when you some women who are on the

pill who are on the progesterone only pill also get vaginal dryness. Yeah absolutely so there's some groups of women who don't even come into this conversation often so some women on the progesterone only pill women who are, interestingly, often get vulvovaginal symptoms. And then the other group is women with breast cancer who are on breast cancer treatments and they get particularly severe vulvovaginal treatments. And for years, we used to think that vaginal oestrogen was not safe in these women. But actually, we know now for many women with breast cancer that vaginal oestrogen is not only really safe but it's also really effective um so this is just a conversation which really needs to be had it's something that i talk i teach a lot of gps and the british menopause society we run a lot of courses and we're really trying to put the message out there

that vaginal oestrogen is really under prescribed in the uk actually all over the world actually as you found this in the US as well. So it's something that is really something we need to do more of. But Olivia was just saying to me she was taught an hour of menopause in her medical training. And so there's a whole generation of doctors out there that want to deal with this, but have no idea that there is a vaginal microbiome

and that you have to keep that biome happy and putting hormones back in a tiny amount creates that sort of fantastic atmosphere in our gut don't we yeah and we don't understand that they exist in other parts of the body as well yeah absolutely so the vagina is a sort of complex there's a complex balance of bacteria in the vagina and you can also that do all sorts of things so it's not not only sort of, you know, Christmas, bath bombs, bubble bath, that kind of thing, but also a lot of the products that are sold to be used by women, all of these can affect the way in which you're, and what happens is when this changes after menopause, that it allows other bacteria to overgrow. So things like E. coli, which is one of the main

bacterias that causes urine infections. On the treatment of UTIs an NHS spokesperson said urinary tract infections are not uncommon and many resolve within a few days with self-care measures such as painkillers and hydration and for some people treatment with antibiotics or vaginal oestrogen may be appropriate. For some women experiencing recurrent UTIs adopting clinically proven measures such as drinking plenty of fluids or painkillers can also be effective in helping prevent further infections. And they're encouraging people to go to their GP if they have one. Kate, I want to understand the experience of older women that we talked about at the beginning of our conversation, because your own mother has experience of this. Well, my mum had Alzheimer's. I had great carers looking after her, but they were away one weekend and my mum dehydrated. She ended up in hospital. She'd been

looking after herself at home just with a couple of people coming in. She was sort of independent and managing. And she immediately after the UTI and being on an antibiotic drip became completely disorientated. For the first time, she didn't recognise me. And me and her carer had to go in turnabout to feed her because she'd forgotten how to feed herself. And she did eventually get that back. But she really didn't walk properly again. She ended up in a wheelchair. She never went back to her flat where she'd been living. She went into a home and died a year later. And I didn't at that point, because this was in 2015, I didn't know the word vaginal oestrogen.

I didn't know about UTIs in that way and how it could affect older people mentally. And it seems to just switch a button that makes everything much worse. And there's been sort of increasing studies on this now and the effect of UTIs and dementia and confusion. And that's the sort of increasing studies on this now, and the effect of UTIs and dementia and confusion. And that's the point at which, you know, people trip and fall and break a hip and things like that, you know, rushing to the loo. And so it has all these other effects. And I mean, I'm not saying if she'd been on vaginal oestrogen, it would have saved her from

all of this. But you know, does that need to happen to so many older women? And do they need to be miserable? Yeah. What's your advice to women or indeed men who are worried about this, who want to seek out vaginal oestrogen but might have a reluctant GP, for example? Well, so it's really difficult. And I think the one thing to say is in the last three years, ever since the Davina McCall documentary, the learning curve has been massive for GPs. So at the BMS, we run courses which are always full. The Primary Care Women's Health Forum runs webinars, they'll have 2,000 sign up to that. So there is huge appetite for learning among GPs. So if you went a year ago

and your GP wasn't as pro-vaginal estrogen as you hoped, I'd say please go back, ask the receptionists, they always know who the best GP is to see. Many GPs now, they can't be experts on everything. So they'll sometimes be a GP in the surgery who is the one who keeps more up to date and who knows this. So try and find the right doctor to see. You're nodding, Kate. Yeah. I'm also thinking that I'm so pleased we're talking about this on here.

It's a good start on Women's Hour, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that we are afraid to use this and we're afraid to use the word vulva and we're afraid to talk about this. And also in terms of women's sex lives, you know, later on in life, God, we should be having sex. And, you know, why should we be dealing with, you know, a dry vagina, a dry vulva, vulva,

when, you know, we spend all this money on our faces, on Chanel for our face, and we don't think we should be spending money on that bit down there. Filmmaker and author Kate Mewler, and you also heard from the GP, Dr Olivia Hum. Dame Sian Phillips began her career as a child radio actor at the BBC, aged just 11, after winning a speech and drama award at the National Usteddfod, a cultural event in Wales. But it's her work on stage and screen for which she is most remembered. Her role as Empress Livia in the BBC miniseries

I, Claudius in 1976, for which she won a BAFTA, cemented her place in broadcasting history. Now her life is the subject of a new documentary, Sian Phillips at 90. Dame Sian joined me live in the studio and I asked her how did she feel turning 90? It was very upsetting actually for quite a while. I wasn't totally happy.

I hadn't thought about it before. I hadn't thought about ageing. But 90 somehow I realised was an event and I'm only just getting over it now. I'm over it now. And why was it an event? Why did it feel different? I don't know.

Everyone started, people started to give me their seats in the tube because I was on the radio and various things about being 90 seemed to be some step, some great step and people were being nice to me. And it's important to stress you are remarkably fit. We saw in that documentary how you do Pilates better than most 18 year olds I know. Well, I don't know. And you look remarkable as well. Let's talk about that documentary. We hear about your

early days growing up in rural Wales where you had your first encounter. At the age of just six, you went home and you wrote in your diary, I am now resolved to being an actress. It was always the plan. That was the plan. I didn't know what an actress meant, actually. I knew I wanted to be up there where the lights were. I'd seen the pantomime and I'd seen the red velvet. I'd seen the gold tassels and I'd seen the girls

in their fishnet tights kicking their legs up in the air. I wanted to be up there where it was light. I couldn't understand it, but I knew I wanted to do that. And that's exactly what you did. Yes. And we're going to talk about the various milestones in your career. A large part of this documentary focuses on your 20-year marriage to the actor Peter O'Toole.

You turned down roles as he saw your success as a threat, as you've put it. Well, it was more an inconvenience. It wasn't a threat to him in any way, but it was inconvenient. Yeah. And what do you remember feeling about those days when you got back on them? Well, it was a long process of first of feeling very sad about it, of not understanding what had happened. And then I found out that my contract had been just sold, I mean, destroyed, you know. So I didn't have an income anymore. And then I realized that I wasn't allowed to go out so much.

I stayed at home most of the time for a long time. And it was kind of sad. And I couldn't tell anyone. I felt it would be deeply disloyal because I did adore my husband. To him, for me to go and complain to anybody or explain why I was not working as much as I should be or doing the wonderful things that I was being offered. And so I was just stuck in the middle of nowhere. I didn't know what to do.

I didn't know what to do. I didn't know where to go. Eventually, I realized the only bad thing that could happen to me was that I would become bitter and twisted about the whole thing. So I took a grip and I made a life for myself, which was possible. And I did work under the radar. I became very clever at knowing what would attract attention, what would be wildly successful and what would just take over. So I had to keep working, obviously. So I just ticked over until I couldn't. But it sounds like a lonely time. It was very lonely, but I was an only child.

So it wasn't as much of a problem as it might have been for someone else. I could cope with it. Ultimately, you left. Ultimately, I decided to stop And you left with nothing really Nothing material at least Yes absolutely so I started all over again But it was exhilarating

I was I was sad obviously But it had happened gradually Over the course of about 18 months The talking, to-ing and fro-ing And when I did finally get away, I knew the children were all right because they were getting grown up almost and that my mother was at home in the house,

so they would be well looked after. And so I didn't have to worry about them and I could see them at weekends. But otherwise, I just found it immensely exhilarating. It was just wonderful to be back at weekends. But otherwise, I just found it immensely exhilarating. It was just wonderful to be back at work. I told my agent, I can't be out of work for one day. I have to buy a house. So and I did. She did and I did. Yeah. During that time of being married to Peter, you played the suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst in the BBC drama Shoulder to Shoulder. That was with a cast of 50 women, a production team that was heavily female. What was that experience like? And what did you

take away from it? Well, I think I took away the germ of an idea from it. I think that's where it all started. I realised I could have a life. That planted the seed. That is what it would cost. And looking back, I think it did plant the seed. I always denied this at the time, but I think it was true. So working with a group of shot women. They were wonderful. There was a woman, the camera person even. And it was unusual at that time and extremely unusual for actresses to be working with people their own age because

if you're in a play you're playing the girl or the mother and you have a daughter and you maybe have a mother but that's about it you know you don't meet women when you're working do you remember that moment when the penny dropped when you said no I just realized now looking back that it did drop yeah yeah after you left Peter you talk about having to, in many ways, reinvent yourself, that you'd lost a huge chunk of what should have been the prime of your life. Yes, it was. So I thought, well, I'll just catch up, you know. As simple as that when you don't even know, Sian. I knew I'd never really catch up, But I just made the best of it.

And I had a wonderful time. Another significant milestone was your marriage to Robin Sachs, who you said wasn't going to work from the outset. No, I didn't want to marry him. I really didn't. No, I told him and I told anyone who was listening that it wasn't going to work. And I was so tired. I was exhausted because I was the breadwinner and I had bought a house.

So I was working hard all the time and enjoying that very much. But I realised that he wasn't going to go away. It was just, it was... Is that why you married him? He was a nice person, but I didn't love him and I didn't want to marry him. And so many will be listening thinking, why did you?

Why did I indeed? Less trouble, I suppose. You know, it was a bit of laziness, I think, partly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It didn't last anyway. It just lasted a few years. It went on. It existed for longer than it lasted, if you know what I mean. What did you take away from it, though? Was it a sense of rejuvenation? No, nothing of the sort. No, no, no.

No, it was just had to be dealt with, you know. Your voice is one of your remarkable qualities, as we can hear now. And you move easily between speaking English and speaking Welsh, speaking different accented characters as well. How does it differ occupying those different spaces and identities in your work? Oh, I don't know, but you're right, it does occupy something different

because I've lived in London since I was 20, 21, so I don't speak Welsh every day. When my mother lived with me, we spoke Welsh at home all the time. I haven't spoken Welsh every day when my mother lived with me we spoke Welsh at home all the time I haven't spoken Welsh since 1985 at home so I've lost a lot of Welsh and it was difficult picking it up again

in order to work I was offered a job in Welsh and it was much harder than I'd realised because the language has changed a lot since I was a girl but that was a girl. But that was interesting. So I did Duolingo. Oh, we love Duolingo in our household.

Yeah. Yeah. I did a lot of that. And I had to learn the new vocabulary altogether and different slang. And I really enjoyed it, actually. I loved it. And then I was able to do this documentary in Welsh. You never stop learning do you? No you don't. That was Dame Sian Phillips speaking to me there. Still to come on the programme how would you feel about walking down the street in your knickers? We discuss the new trouserless

fashion trend and remember you can enjoy Woman's Hour at any hour of the day. If you can't join us live at 10am during the week, just subscribe to The Daily Podcast for free via BBC Sounds. On our special Boxing Day programme this week, Nuala spoke to several fascinating women about the lengths they've gone to to dig for the truth. One of the women she spoke to was Terry Lynn Carrington, a multi-Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and educator. She saw a distinct lack of songs by female composers

being learned by jazz musicians and so went in search of them to shine a light on their work. She created The New Standards, 101 lead sheets by women composers and an accompanying album, New Standards, volume one, which won a Grammy. Well, Terry joined Noola on the programme and began by explaining why she decided to create this project. I started an institute at Berkeley College of Music called the Berkeley Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice. And we had our opening reception in 2018, and I asked the students to play some music written by women,

and they could not really find any. And there's a book called The Real Book that most students go to, and professionals go to, to have a common repertoire. And when we looked through that book, there was really only one song, which is Willow Weep for Me, written by Anne Ronell. That was written by a woman. similar format to the real books where people could look at one or two pages and have recognizable forms and things that people could easily play if they were on a show together, on a gig together. So you came up with 100. I came up with 100. Well, that was my next question. Was it difficult to find the 100? Well, not at all. In fact, the publisher, when they agreed to do the book, which is Berkeley Press and Hal Leonard, and Hal Leonard is, I think, the biggest publisher in

music for these types of educational books, they said, well, you know, you could do 25 songs and we'd still like to do the book. You know, It's pretty ambitious to do 100. And are there even 100 women composers? So then I said, well, this is why we need to do the book. So yes, there are more than 100 women composers. But this is a very, very good start. How did you decide who made the cut? Well, I started with people that I had played with, and I've been playing professionally for over 40 years. So I started with just many friends, and I probably got at least half of the people that way. And then I looked at who was missing.

I wanted to make sure it was international to some degree. I wanted to make sure it had different styles covered. I wanted to make sure they were easy songs for high school students, as well as complicated songs for your consummate professional. And so once I started rounding things off, I asked friends for recommendations. And some people, I just really appreciated their artistry and you know asked them to send a few things for me to choose from some people I already knew which song I wanted and others that are really well-known composers like Carla Bley who just passed away and Maria Schneider I would take anything they offered. Yes, I was wondering about that as well.

Where did you draw the line, so to speak? But let's talk for a moment about another woman, American jazz vocalist and songwriter, Abby Lincoln, who wrote this song, Throw It Away. Why did you include that one? What does that, what meaning does that have for you? Well, Abby was a really amazing songwriter and her music is almost like a folk music, a jazz folk music.

And she was very prolific, so I wanted to include her for sure. But I picked that song because, well, just because I love it, and also because it was her most recognizable song. And I wanted some songs to be recognizable in the book. And, of course, some of the composers are recognizable names as well. So I wanted people to be able to look at it and see something they recognize, but also to discover new people. So I also have some recent graduates from Berkeley. There's about three people that had just graduated that are in the book as well.

How wonderful for them, though, like to be with some people that are so established. So you have both for the people who are using it and also the people that are in it, a real mix and a real diversity. The name Coltrane, many of our listeners will know, but they might know the name Alice Coltrane. Tell us a little bit about Alice Coltrane. Alice Coltrane was an amazing musician. She played piano and she also played harp. And she was married, of course, to John Coltrane. And often women artists that are married to well-known, iconic male artists often get overshadowed. And Alice just actually became a Downbeat Lifetime Achievement Award winner. And it was her first time on the cover of Downbeat Magazine just this

past year. And I think she's been gone, I don't know, maybe eight to 10 years. But I think that a lot of people on the inside of jazz know her. I mean, she's still iconic to most of us, but not, you know, not like her husband. So I'm happy that, you know that we got to celebrate her as well. Are there any women that you particularly remember listening to growing up? I know you came from a family steeped in jazz. to sometimes some organ players. Most women, as far as instrumentalists, played piano or organ, things that you could play in church or in the parlor. It was acceptable to take piano lessons, but not to play drums or acoustic bass or saxophone or trumpet.

These things, it happened, but it just didn't happen too regularly. Because I think, as I was listening, I'm thinking, you know, when we think of jazz and women, mistakenly, perhaps we think of the singers. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, it's an unwritten narrative that men play jazz and women sing it. And so that's what my institute is trying to address, a cultural shift. And even though it's better, it's not equitable at all. So we're still plugging away at that. Yeah. How would you describe the picture now? Well, I mean, you have polls that come out and there may be 40 to 50% women in the top 10 of an NPR poll. But if you look at the top 100,

it's not the same. It's not 40 to 50 percent. So we have to look past the exceptional women that rise to the top and really look at the whole culture and the whole scene in general. And when those numbers start to shift, then we'll know that we're making some progress. And do you see it with young girls, young women that come to the Berkeley College? Well, I see, definitely I see a lot of talented young women. Our institute is about 50-50 because there's still so many more men playing jazz.

So there's more male students that want to be in our institute. And I think that's great, too, because this work is not women's work. And these young men have to do this work for gender justice as well. And the good thing is a lot of them are rejecting the hyper-masculinity that's been found in the music. So that's wonderful. But we still have to work hard to even have 50% women in our programme. So it's still a challenge. And you were hearing there from the multi-Grammy winning jazz drummer,

Terry Lynn Carrington. And you can listen back to the full Boxing Day programme by heading over to BBC Sounds. Next, how would you feel about walking down the street in your knickers? No, this is not the start of a joke. I'm talking about a new trouserless fashion trend spearheaded by the likes of Beyoncé, the actor Emma Corrin and the model Kendall Jenner.

Seen on the catwalk at brands like Prada and Chanel, the look involves swapping a pair of trousers for a pair of statement knickers. Julia Hobbs is Acting European Fashion's Feature Editor at Vogue and she tested a designer pair. She joined me on the programme and told me more about them. They were very heavy, so it's sort of like wearing a sequined diaper. So but as you say, I road tested them in a very warm day at the end of August. And I wore them on the tube. I wore them to the Vogue offices. Did a day's work in them. And how was that received? By my colleagues with sort of very little surprise, because we're kind of used to

that kind of thing i guess happening in the office yeah a couple of quizzical looks on the tube but um actually there's there is an image of it where i'm wearing said very heavy bejeweled pants on the tube and um the picture was actually taken by a female passenger who was sat opposite me at the time and i said you're going to think I'm mad I work at Vogue and this is for a feature you know you could call it investigative investigative journalism would you mind taking a picture and she was like of course she didn't bat an eyelid yeah I think we need to describe the trend that we're actually talking about because I look at them and I thought well they're just're just hot pants, aren't they? Are they? They're a little bit more extreme than that.

I think what we're seeing now is a sort of return to very elemental dressing. And we are seeing this revival of a very 1960s look, which is wearing a pair of simple black briefs over a pair of tights. It's a look that was associated or is perhaps most famously associated with Edie Sedgwick. She's of course a very tragic figure. She was a Warhol superstar but has had a really sort of lasting mark on fashion and she was photographed for American Vogue in 1965 as part of a youth Quaker story and she is pictured doing an arabesque on her coffee table in a pair of black opaque tights with briefs over the top and a grey t-shirt and if you imagine in that context it really was something very revolutionary she was a debutante and she shed her clothing, quite literally.

She sort of shed the trappings of that time and reinvented herself. So with Edie Sedgwick, a look that was about dance and she herself was, she studied jazz ballet. So a look that was seen almost through the prism now of wellness culture, a look that was sporting, became something quite edgy and hedonistic in her hands. So she's one of the most famous proponents of the look. But actually, if we rewind a little bit earlier to 1960,

there's a wonderful Marilyn Monroe moment in the film Let's Make Love where we see Marilyn styled almost as a beatnik. And she's wearing this wonderful oversized Aaron sweater with tights and her sort of ballet knickers over the tights. And I rewatched it last night, actually. And it's one of those moments in cinema that's so charming and um it definitely feeds into what we're seeing now you know i think barely a week goes by where we don't get the celebrity notifications or see on instagram um celebrities wearing a jumper just with a pair of tights or a jacket and a bare leg um and tights feel central to styling this. How do you style a big pair of knickers?

The question you never thought you'd ask today. The question I never thought I'd ask today. Tights are essential to it. And I think that's one of the things that's very unifying about this trend is you can wear them with, you know, this sort of cinching black knickers over the top, and then just a polo neck. Does it have to be casual on top? Yes, the whole look is very casual. This isn't something that's in any way sort of seductive. I feel, and it's something we're seeing coming very much to the fore in fashion now, is this sort of shedding and people wanting to be themselves in how they dress and I think

really is a shedding yes it is quite literally a shedding I can imagine trying this out a couple of decades ago when I was at university absolutely I'd be wearing a pair right now for this festive season now I'm not so sure should any age any body shape be trying this out? Yes, absolutely. And I'm urging you to do it, Krupa. We're going to be watching your social channels on New Year's Eve. I'm going to watch you to see if you're going to do it. I need to take you shopping with me. There'll be people who might be reluctant saying this is not for me, no matter the season, I'm not going to put a pair on. But I think we should feel confident to embrace this. And I think it's interesting looking at the popularity of this trend in the context of skims and the rise of shapewear.

You know, Kim Kardashian's skims label is now worth, I think it's an estimated 4 billion. And her broad size range and really showing women in these very powerful adverts all different shapes and sizes looking great in their shapewear I think it does lean into this attitude of sort of take me as I am and feeling great in your own skin and owning it. Julia Hobbs there from Vogue telling me all about statement knickers as so many of you wanted to talk about big knickers. Alice emailed in, she said, I turned my yellow trousers into hot pants at the age of 15 to 16 and wore them to a concert with a black leather jacket, leopard swimsuit, black fishnets and red suede high court shoes. My mother was in tears and insisted I wear a skirt over the top, although I told her it would come off once I was out of sight.

And Kate says, the crucial question, do you wear an additional pair of knickers under your tights? And that is a very good question, Kate. Julia gave me the answer. She certainly does. On our special Christmas Day Women's Hour programme, we dedicated the entire show to the mighty Brussels sprout. We discussed the history of this vegetable, as well as the best recipes

with a live tasting in the studio. Anita was joined by Dr Lauren Chappell, who's a plant pathologist, and Dr Rachel Wells, who's an expert in brassica crop research to explain how sprouts are being engineered to taste sweeter and withstand climate change. You can also hear Makita Oliver, who joined in the discussion. Dr. Rachel Wells began by explaining what brassicas are. Brassicas in general are amazing and related species because they produce these sulfurous chemicals called glucosinolates. it's those glucosinolates that we can taste so if

you think they're the spiciness that you get in your rocket or the mustard and all your other brassicas so it's that flavor that's coming through and those glucosinolates themselves really good for you so and I'm sure we'll talk about that later on yes okay. Okay, they're much sweeter now than they were 30 years ago, aren't they, Lauren? Yes, they are. So researchers have really been trying to identify what was causing the bitterness and breed them out. So in the late 90s, a group of Dutch scientists together with breeding companies ran some taste panels. So they took 10 Brussels sprout varieties, and 48 members of the public and they

fed them brussel sprouts in lots of different meals and got them to rank how bitter they were and then they correlated this with some laboratory experiments identifying the compounds and they identified two specific glucosinolates that rachel was talking about so now they've identified those compounds now breeders can specifically test for them in their varieties so they can identify varieties that are low in these glucosinolates and then they'll cross-pollinate them with modern high-yielding varieties and that's how we get our modern elite varieties that you're hopefully eating today modern elite less bitter varieties isn't that dangerous it's like it's like we don't want a

sprout to not taste like a sprout like we're not meant to change the taste of it, surely. True. Yeah, and also, those glucosinolates, they have really useful properties for the plant as a whole. So they're there as defence compounds. So if you're looking at defence against fungal pathogens, actually, they help protect the plant against them. And also, protection against herbivores and pests.

So some of the work I've done is on slugs. Actually, if you give slugs a choice between high-glucosinolate and low-glucosinolate variety, they will actually always choose that variety with low-glucosinolates. And in fact, if you only give them the high-glucosinolate variety to eat, they'd rather eat the dish, the test dish that the experiment is set up in, than they will the plant material. They'll completely leave it alone. Look how happy you are about it.

Even slugs don't touch it. There is a test, though, to find out. Not everybody can taste the bitterness. Is that right? So that is right. So it depends on which taste receptors you have, which variety, you know, which version of those taste receptors you have.

So you have so you have about 30 receptors on your tongues 30 different receptors on your tongue that allow you to taste bitter compounds and one of those receptors is responsible for being able to taste that glucose in a late flavor that glucosinolate bitterness and we can do a test to see whether you have the ability to taste this or not shall we do it should we do the test to see whether you have the ability to taste this or not. Shall we do it? Shall we do the test? I'm going to do it to see whether I have the bitter receptor, whether I can taste bitter. I'm going to do the test to see whether I've got the bitter receptor.

So one is a bit of plain paper. Yeah you'll start off with the control piece of paper so you shouldn't be able to taste anything when you taste that paper. Absolutely nothing. So the next one you're going to test is one that's got PTC on it. This chemical that is not naturally occurring, but it's similar to glucosinolates. So when you put that in your mouth, if you can't taste it, it will taste like paper. If you can, you'll get that really bitter sensation. I can taste bitter. Woo!

So I'm in part of the 70%. So that can taste those bitter flavours. And I still like Brussels sprouts. Yeah, which is interesting. So maybe you're not a super sensitive taster because you get a whole range from people that really can't stand that taste on their tongue to people that can't sense it at all.

Is there any correlation between being able to taste the bitter and smell the asparagus wee? I was just wondering the same thing. Good. Glad I asked the question then. I have no idea. OK. Because not everybody has that right. Because you're a brassica expert.

I know nothing about it. Sorry. You can't tolerate coriander. Ah, yes. It tastes like soap, doesn't it? Oh, the coriander thing as well. nothing about it sorry tolerate coriander ah yes lauren i've got a question for you is there any truth in the saying that they are better after a hard frost yes it's not the old wives tale that we think it is actually a hard frost will convert some of the starches into sugars in the vegetables and it's the same for several overwintering vegetables brussels sprouts and parsnips for example another christmas favorite but they're not converting some

of these glucosinolates we've just been discussing actually they're really hardy to low temperatures but they start to degrade at higher temperatures which is why when you cook them they start to taste a little less bitter and what about the future of sprouts? Looking at a database of historical plants that you're looking at, what's going to happen in the future? Yeah. So we work with the UK Vegetable Gene Bank, which has over 6000 different varieties of brassica from all around the world. All different types of leaf shape, size, flavour, colour, you name it, it's in there. And this kind of diversity is really important because every time you breed, you're selecting for a specific gene and it kind of means you're selecting against other genes. So if you think of our modern varieties, we've selected and selected and selected and now the genetic diversity is quite narrow. So what we do is we

look back at these wild type varieties that have a really wide variety of genetics, huge genetic diversity and we look at those for novel genetics for important traits for growers and that can be things like disease resistance to pest and disease or more importantly now perhaps tolerance to climate change. So how are they going to fare with climate change? It's very challenging, I mean this year alone has been very challenging for Brussels sprout growers. It was a very rainy start to the year, very waterlogged and flooded plants has led to kind of the lower stems of Brussels being quite damaged. A lot of the harvests now focusing on the tops of the plants. But we're hopeful that we can find some kind of genetics linked to tolerance. So they'll continue to be delicious for years to come. And what about Makita's question you

know should we be messing around with them should we not all just be eating the the original old-fashioned brussels sprouts feels a bit like getting plastic surgery it's like leave it alone it was like this for a reason i think if we brought in some of the wild type brussels sprout varieties you wouldn't even recognize them as brussels sprouts wow they are so so different from what we see today um And it's been a natural process over thousands and thousands of years. It's just people selecting what they like, you know, what tastes good or what looks fun or what's easy to grow.

And now we're just using science to kind of speed up that process and make things a bit easier for growers. There's lots of pressure from pest and disease and pressure from climate, but we still want to eat those Brussels sprouts. So we kind of need to help them along a little bit. A little bit. Yeah.

Rachel, slightly left field question. Do they contain arsenic? So this is quite interesting, actually. So one of the things about brassicas is they're really great for bioremediation. So they have this great ability to pick up things that are in the soil that maybe we don't want there. So heavy metals and such and sequester that into the plant so there was some scientific research done that actually if you look at the amount of arsenic contained within people following

a diet containing brussel sprouts versus a diet without brussel sprouts you see elevated arsenic levels and that is the ability of those plants to actually sequester that arsenic into those sulfurous compounds, which is then passed down the food chain. But you've got to eat an awful lot of Brussels sprouts to actually have any effect. There you have it, Dr. Rachel Wells and Dr. Lauren Chappell telling us all about sprouts. And if you missed our special Brussels sprouts programme, you can find the episode on BBC Sounds. Just search for Woman's Hour. And that's all from me and the Woman's Hour team. Thank you for your company.

On Monday, Hayley Hassell will be marking the first day of 2024 by looking at women and negotiation, from negotiating international conflict resolutions to negotiating with a five-year-old to put their shoes on. We'll hear top tips and advice. That's Woman's Hour on Monday from 10am. I'm Sarah Trelevan, 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. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like

warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.