Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour: Emma Grede, Clothing and grief, Donor eggs

Episode Date: July 11, 2026

Emma Grede is a British entrepreneur and philanthropist who has been featured on Forbes' America’s Richest Self-Made Women list. Emma joins Nuala McGovern to discuss her book Start With Yourself: A New Vision for Work and Life.Parents are being warned about the risks of posting images of their children online due to an increase in AI-generated child abuse imagery. The Internet Watch Foundation found 3,440 AI-generated videos of child sexual abuse in 2025, compared with just 13 in 2024. Nuala is joined by Emma Hardy of the Internet Watch Foundation and Dr Elaine Kasket, cyber-psychologist and the author of Reset: Rethinking your Digital World for a Happier Life.Many of us are familiar with the often painful process of sorting through the wardrobes of our loved ones who have died. Anita Rani discusses what people can do to keep memories alive with Sophie Lewis, founder of The Reincarnation Club, a service which creates new outfits out of old and Pip Housam, of Love Keep Create, a company which transforms clothing into keepsakes.New research into IVF and donor eggs suggests that older women face a lower chance of fertility treatment working, even when using young donor eggs - with a marked drop-off from around the age of 49. Researchers believe age-related changes in the womb lining may be the cause. Nuala is joined by Dr Ippokratis Sarris, chair elect of the British Fertility Society, and writer Grace Ackroyd who had a baby at 47 using donor eggs.The Bayeux Tapestry arrived in London in the early hours of Friday morning, the first time it had left France for over 900 years. Meanwhile in Cambridgeshire, one woman has been painstakingly recreating the tapestry for the last decade. Mia Hansson joins Kylie Pentelow to explain why she took on this challenge.Presenter: Kylie Pentelow Producer: Kirsty McQuire

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Hello, this is Kylie Pentelow, and you're listening to the woman our podcast. Hello and welcome to the programme. Coming up, after the National Crime Agency warns parents about the risks of posting images of children online, we discuss the safety and the psychology of so-called share-inting. Plus, garments and grief, what do you do with the clothes your deceased loved one has left behind? And as the Bayou tapestry arrives in the UK for the first time in a thousand years, we hear from the woman who spent a decade recreating it. But first, the East London-born entrepreneur Emma Greed co-created the brand's Good American and Skims with the Kardashian-Gener's making her one of the world's richest self-made women. But even before that,

she had a host of other successful enterprises. Some of her latest ventures are her podcast, aspire with Emma Greed and the book Start With Yourself A New Vision for Work and Life with fascinating insights on how to reframe your thinking around success.

Well Emma made history as the first woman of colour to serve as a judge on ABC's Shark Tank she's also been a guest dragon on the BBC's Dragon's Den. Oh and she's also a philanthropist and has four children

with her romantic and business partner Yenz. Well Ellie this week, Emma Greed joined Noola live in the Woman's Hour studio. And Nula began by asking Emma why she believes she's programmed differently to other women. I wish I had a simple

answer to this, but some of us are just wired differently. And I think when you grow up in East London, there is this kind of distinct understanding from a very young age that no one is coming to save you. If you want something, if you want different, which was really me, I want a different from the circumstances that I saw all around

me and different from the women that I saw all around me, I really knew that I would have to do it myself. And I really imagined as a kid that I would quite literally, like, be able to work my way out of my circumstances. So I was like, I'll get a paper round, I'll work in a deli, I'll sell fireworks,

I'll do whatever I need to do to get me to somewhere else. You were a grafter from the get-go. You're reminding me of a quote in your book by Esther Lauder. I didn't dream about my career. I worked for it or something. I'm paraphrasing slightly. But, you know, you plan to write a business book, which it is, but you've also written extremely

about your personal situations as well and everything that led you to this point. You start with your upbringing in East London. Your mother was a single parent raising four girls, though reading it, you really helped raise them too. Tell me a little of what that was like and also perhaps some of the lessons from that experience. Well, you know, the funny thing is,

I never felt like it was any kind of imposition. Really? Yeah, because my mum went out to work every day and we have a joke in our family, you know, like my mum's the dad, the mum and we've got three kids together. But that was just the expectation of me, right? She had to go out and do the work.

Then I would need to help around the house and I'd need to help get the kids to school and do the pat lunch boxes and iron the shirts and all the things. So it felt much more just like doing what I needed to do to help my family. And I actually think that was a huge or has been a huge kind of foundation of my success. I've just done whatever I needed to do to get through the moment. And I saw a mum that got up every single day, left the house at seven, put on a suit, didn't come back until late. And so being somebody that was going to reimagine their circumstances,

I put that together with like, you've just got to really, really work hard. And my mum was an amazing example of that. But I never felt sorry for myself, you know? You know, I should also tell people it's kind of a workbook. Like there's exercises within it, which I loved. Well, the book is about self-leadership, right? You can't write a business book for women without talking about what holds us back. without talking about emotions, without talking about the social conditioning that women have throughout their lives.

And so I had to write something that was broadly addressing our behaviour as much as it was about the success I've had in business. We need to get into some of this. You have observed on your teams that many women are overly concerned with the needs of other people that strikes you as a uniquely female trait. Fairness of pay is one. They're more worried about like, is the team doing okay? I can't be paid that much more than that other person that even if they are more junior to me. Tell me how women should, as you see it, confront those emotional concerns. Well, here's the thing. As women, we are wired for empathy, right? We want to look after everybody.

That nurturing is not something that we need to do away with. But I think that we have to hold the truth that two things can be true at once. You can both be an empathetic leader and care about the needs of your needs of your way. your team and advocate for yourself, that we don't need to uncouple those things to be a person that is self-advocating. And so what I say is like, great, care about your team, but don't do it the detriment of yourself. And that's where we have to get rid of this scarcity mindset, the idea that if somebody over here is getting more, it means that somebody over there is getting less, because that's not how it works. And if you look at men, you can see that. It doesn't mean because Bill is taking something more that John is getting something less. So we've got to do away with the

scarcity mindset. That is what is hampering us. It may come because in certain rooms or spaces there are less women and so that scarcity mindset infiltrates instead of one of abundance. And that is true. And that is true. And that's why I say we have to hold two things to be true at once because for so long there has been only one woman that can get to the chop drop. There has been only one opportunity for women. But that won't change by us sitting back and accepting the status quo. We have to be the ones that are going to change it. We have to be the ones that say actually there should be more space. And we've got to constantly be marching forward.

And what concerns me is that sometimes we can be a little passive about the things that really need to change and get all hit up about somebody else's situation over there because it's easier. It's easier to care about someone else than it is to say, I'm going to start with myself. And that's what my book's about. And when you read it, I think that most people are getting this book in their hands

and they're going, oh, my goodness, I see that in myself. I am a people pleaser, but you can't be a people pleaser and a leader. Right. Let's get on to you mentioned the 20s like when you're 20 or 30. Oh, those old days. Yes. That good old days.

So I'm going backwards and forwards here. You're now mother of four children. You write about that time very beautifully. Also having a painful time to conceive with IVF, miscarriages and eventually surrogacy for your twins. Congratulations on all your babies. Thank you. And we often talk about fertility on this program.

But you know where my ears pricked up your thoughts on egg freezing and also when is the right time I put that inverted commas to have children. while trying to nurture a career. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about you. You're hitting all the hot buttons. We should just line them up and hit them all.

Two, three. Hit them all at once. Hit them all at once. Well, what I talk about in the book is my own experience. And I had my first two children naturally. And I had a lot of infertility in the middle, losses, eptopic pregnancies, miscarriages, and then ended up having a surrogate.

And what I understood is that I think for my entire 20s and the early part of my 30s, I did everything I could to avoid ever getting pregnant. because as a career woman, we're always told, wait, wait, wait. And what I realized is that actually we have to be really honest about what our needs are and what our wants are. And I had always decided that children were something that I would want, but I was willing to put it off.

And when the kind of time came, it was no longer my choice. I was unable to conceive. And so I think that there has to be more of a level of honesty. And I think that corporations that push the benefits of egg freezing are doing that at a disservice of winning because actually what happens, there's so few women that actually are able to get pregnant that way. And so what we have to do is take the decision making into our own hands, not think about it as something that we can constantly push down the line

because the truth is there is a window, right? There is a time when you are most fertile, when you are most able to get pregnant. And if you decide to put something else in front of that and push it down the line, the decision may no longer be yours. So it's more about actually saying, as opposed to what the common wisdom is, what is right for me? What are the things that I really want? But I suppose a lot would say, because the 30s might be the time, that you would advocate to have children, perhaps, if you're talking about a more fertile window or maybe late 20s, if you've got your career a little bit underway.

But people will say, I haven't got my career done. I haven't got my money. I haven't, you know, I'm not able to provide for a child yet. But there is this window or this biological clock that's ticking. Well, there's a biological reality, right? And I think, again, what we have to understand is that the stars don't all magically align. They don't all magically align if you have a baby at 38, if you have a baby at 34, if you do it 42, if you do it at 22. The reality is when you have a kid, it will interrupt your life no matter what time you choose to do it.

But what I want to say is let's make it your choice as opposed to something that you push down the road, thinking that there is some like magical window because that's not truth of a believer. Which I suppose I should also underline with your book that you talk about, yes, the system. should change, but don't wait for those systems to change. Kind of try and take the power into your own hands wherever you can. I think that we have to work with the world as we find it, right? We can work and advocate for change and we can look at what do we want to be different. But to try to fool ourselves into thinking that there is something else,

that there's some, you know, magical moment is just, it's foolish. Right. Let's talk about working from home. Button number four or five. You've written at Spark Debate that Working from Home, home can be career suicide for women. I was really interested in your thoughts. You're very concerned you say about putting women back in the home that have wanted to leave it. But surely flexible working enables working from home, for example, some women to work in a way that they wouldn't be able to otherwise. Absolutely. And I've never shot down flexibility. I run huge companies with

hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of female employees. I leave the office every single day at five o'clock and I've not missed a parent's evening or a moment where my kids have been in a race or had a show or anything like that. I think that most of us work in much more flexible environments than we did 20, 30 years ago. The point is that post-COVID, there are, I think, a lot of people that took advantage of a new way of working that perhaps lessened some of the burden of having to go into the office, having to meet the requirements of the office. And in my own experience, again, And I'm not an expert. I'm just a woman who's built big companies.

In my experience, what I see is the promotion of women being slowly stifled and that not happening to men. Because men came back into the office. Women were left with the caregiving. They were left with the burden of both working from home and looking after their children. And as a result of that, the proximity that comes from working in an office environment and the ease of transaction, people seeing what you're doing, is all taken away. So I think that what we have to do is have an awareness of our decisions. Nobody's saying that it's a bad idea to work from home. But what you can't do is have ambition that is sky high and keep yourself out of visibility.

That is toxic. That is not going to help women progress. And I have to be really clear about this because I'm a really ambitious person who has made hundreds of millions of dollars. And I have an purview over a lot of women working at different levels in my company. So this is much more about what do you see actually happening across the spectrum of women's work as opposed to an individual idea. That's so interesting. Yeah. Okay.

So it's kind of thinking about the sisterhood at large instead of the individual, per se. Yeah. Let's be honest. Let's have a level of honesty because we talk a lot about what flexibility and work from home culture gives us. But we don't talk about any of the rigidity of it. And if you just put work aside, we should also be thinking about. our social lives, our ability to meet people, our ability to have daily interactions with people. That is also really reduced when you're sitting in your living room on a computer all day.

That was Emma Greed talking to Noola there. And her book, Start With Yourself, A New Vision for Work and Life, is out now. Now just time to tell you that listener week is fast approaching. Is there something that's affecting you, something that's changed the way you see the world or an issue you think really deserves more attention. That could be about work, money, friendship, family life, education, maybe technology or fashion or something completely different. Look, Women's Hour, we're always looking to hear about the experiences, the challenges, debates and the joys that matter most to women.

Sometimes the most interesting discussions start with a conversation around the kitchen table, don't they? Or indeed, on a WhatsApp group, or even just in your... own head. We'd love to hear yours so you can text Woman's Hour on 84844. You can find us on social media. We're at BBC Woman's Hour or email us through our website. Next, parents are being warned about the risks of posting images of their children online due to an increase in AI-generated abuse imagery. The Internet Watch Foundation found 3,440 AI-generated videos of child sex abuse in 2025. That's compared to just 13 in 2024.

And the National Crime Agency says it's increasingly seeing offenders exploiting AI technologies to target children in new ways. So what's behind this rise? And what advice is there for parents who might be posting photos of their children online? Well, this week, Nula spoke to Dr Elaine Cascott, a cyber psychologist and the author of Reset, Rethinking Your Digital World for a happier life. and also Emma Hardy, Director of Communications at the Internet Watch Foundation. Anula asked Emma why there's been such an increase in AI-generated images and videos online.

So when it comes to AI a couple of years ago, maybe three years ago, we produced our first AI report looking at how many AI-generated child sexual abuse images and videos we could find online just to start having the conversation. And oh my goodness, as we all know, the technology has. come on leaps and bounds in lots of good ways. But, and as we know very, very well from the Internet Watch Foundation, very often it's the offenders and those who want to use new technologies for nefarious reasons that also capitalize on it. So we are seeing huge amounts of AI-generated child sexual abuse images and videos, and we're seeing this progress very, very quickly.

You were talking about the videos just then. Video technology has come along so, so fast, of us can produce a few seconds of a clip that looks really good quality. That can now be done in the comfort of people's homes using their technology that's downloadable on our phones. And so we're also unfortunately seeing how this technology is being abused to create images and videos of children. I was just wondering also reading about it, Emma. I mean, can AI videos be made from photographs? Yes. AI videos of child sexual abuse of anything can be made from photographs. There are apps out there now where you just give it two different pictures

and it will suddenly bring to life the people in the photos and it will show them kissing. I mean, that can be quite a funny thing. Maybe it's an old picture of your nan and granddad from a long time of going, but also the same can be true with children and where there aren't safeguards in place on these tools, you can use a legitimate picture of a child and you can make it into something which would be classed as child sexual abuse.

And you can also generate from scratch child sexual abuse images and videos using AI. And I think the important thing for everybody to know is that this is all illegal. Just because AI has been used in the mix somewhere doesn't make it okay. This type of content is criminal and we're seeing more and more of it. I mentioned some of the figures at the top, which is a huge, huge leap in the amount that has been generated. But with this particular campaign, along with the NCA, the National Crime Agency, what are you asking parents or caregivers to do when it comes to children's images or what not to do?

Because I suppose the big question is like, is it safe to post pictures of my kid online? And I think it's incredibly brave and bold of the National Crime Agency to be entering into this discussion actually. But I think we're at a point where it's needed. What we want parents to do is be informed. We want parents to understand what the risks are and to really question whether they should be putting images or videos of their children online and who can see it, who can see it and then what could happen with it. I think most parents probably won't realize that a picture of their child

at school in their school uniform could be taken by somebody, could be run through a very simple AI model, which is, could be found and downloaded, and it could nudify that child, which means it could remove the clothing. How would you feel as the parent if you thought that could happen? How would that child feel in that moment as well? And then if we can take it one step further, we are seeing cases where parents and schools as well are being contacted

by people who have nudified images, innocent images of children, and then they're demanding money. And they're saying, if you don't pay up, I will put this online. And we have spoken about that previously on Women's Hour. But from what you're saying, Emma, I would deduce that you're saying, do not post photographs of your children online. I would say, and this is how I've taken the advice as someone who's always been quite informed about this area, I am now, and I have been for quite some time not posting pictures of children online. As early as 2012, we did a study and we could see, we looked at the number of sexting images when sexting was first the term that had been posted online of children.

and we found many, many hundreds that had been what we called harvested from the original place had been uploaded and moved elsewhere for other reasons. AI is just an extension of that and that can take an innocent picture and harvest it, decloat it, and then put it elsewhere or use it for other reasons. So as a parent, I am personally not posting pictures. And I think if you understand what the risks are and you have the conversations in your family home, that's the best thing for you. Elaine, let me bring you in. You're a cyber psychologist, as I mentioned. You and your daughter appeared on Woman's Hour a couple of years ago talking about your decision

not to share photos of her online. I'd be curious for what you've heard so far this morning. Well, I'm in furious agreement with Emma. It was in 2019 that I opened up a conversation with my daughter about how she felt about the sharenting that I had done. I live many thousands of miles away from my family of origin had done since she was born. And in the earlier days of social media in common with a lot of parents, it was a highly normalized, reinforced kind of practice to do. It was invited by the platforms themselves. And it was, forgive me, it's just a word that you use there.

Just in case anybody isn't familiar with it. Sherenting. Yes, sharenting is the portmanteau word that refers to sharing the images of one's, children online, and of course there's also grand sharenting to recognize the fact that other relatives do it too and are often very attached to the practice. And I think that we ourselves went through a bit of a naive and childlike and playful relationship with social media back in the day where we had no idea and really no way of knowing that we could get to where we currently are today. So we're in the awkward position of having done things in the past or

developed habits that continue to this day that we're now having to radically rethink in light of how things have evolved. And so for me, that reckoning came on more of a personal, interpersonal basis where my daughter didn't like the feeling that I had more agency over what happened with her images than she did. And she'd let me know that she wanted me to take the past images down and not post about her again. That's what I did. How are you going to get all those photographs back down. I found that it was extremely difficult and sticky to do this. The mechanics of the platform made it very, very hard. I think it took me about a day and a half of dedicated work to ensure that everything that I had ever posted of her on Facebook or Instagram was taken down.

And it was also difficult, I think emotionally, because that had been the established route by which I'd shared news of my family, which included, of course, my daughter with faraway friends and family, of which I had many. And so I had to deal with my own feelings, I suppose, of guilt and regret that my daughter had had objections that she hadn't necessarily known how to voice, that I had to open up the conversation or for her two voice. And I had to reckon with my own attachment to this habit of this way of doing this. But I was able to find fairly quickly that, of course, as there always had been before, there were other roots that I could do this. And there was also other ways to scratch that completely understandable parental kind of urge or itch to to reach out and to connect.

I'm also thinking, you know, at family gatherings, etc., you know, this idea of who consents to that photograph being shared online is another conversation that can be tricky. You know, I've got a question in, and I might throw this back to you, Emma. What does posting online mean? Does it include private groups on Facebook? Does it include sending images on WhatsApp or Snapchat between friends and family? I think that you share in a digital capacity has to be thought of as posting online, mainly because, and we see this a lot with young people and we do campaigns aimed at helping young people think before they share.

For them, some of the times the sharing is via messaging platforms, for example. And it's because you don't know what somebody else might do with that image. So some of the guidance in the resource that's been launched by the National Crime Agency in IWF talks about having conversations and normalising those conversations with your friendship groups or whoever it is that you do want to share with. And it suggests almost like shrinking down the number of people that you are sharing with at once and having that trust. But I think the other side of that coin, as Elaine's been explaining,

is having that conversation with your children, actually trying to bring them into this to normalise a conversation about what we put online, what's okay to put online, what maybe the risks are in age-appropriate language, so that you know what they think about your practices as well. You can't go wrong if you talk about these things and normalise them, and that's been our advice consistently for years now. May I put a question that just came in, Elaine, to you. I'd be curious for your thoughts on this.

Somebody says they didn't post pictures of their children online. The school last week asked permission to use pictures of our children in the prospectus, schools and other children's activities, constantly asked to use pictures of our kids. Any company which needs to advertise to parents, schools, etc., have pictures of kids everywhere all over their websites. And when you say no, other parents often get upset that no pictures can be taken off the school play, for example, because of you. This also needs to be discussed.

You know, one of the hardest things I think we have in life or that we do in life is boundary communication. I think that goes for lots of situations and the situation. included. And then sometimes when there's a big group or an authority like the school or a bunch of parents, that boundary communication can feel much harder if you feel like a lone voice. It can be hard with loved ones as well who have a different opinion or who just don't understand or who think you're overreacting. And so, but this is a, this is a situation where we all need to get accustomed to good, healthy boundary communication, where we are very clear about our big

why in terms of why this matters to us or why this is important to us, where we all. We communicate a very clear boundary or a very clear ask and then be prepared to really reinforce that and stand by that and not model something different in our own behavior and be prepared to take steps to protect ourselves further if the other party doesn't respect those boundaries. Let me pop back to you, Emma. Here's a question. My daughter posts pictures of her children online with stickers obscuring their faces. Does that protect their images? Oof, no, it doesn't protect their images well enough. I remember a few years ago we were having this discussion at the Internet Watch Foundation

and one of my colleagues who works in the software development team just went, oh, it takes seconds to remove those stickers. So stickers don't do it. Stickers can be removed. Stickers won't preserve their modesty in the way that you might think. And obviously, I think as Elaine is described as well, you know, that people want to share images and they have that. urge and it's all, I suppose, for bonding and emotional connection with perhaps relatives

as a family far away. But why is the advice to stop sharing photographs instead of stopping the criminals that are perpetrating the abuse? That's a very good question. I mean, the criminals have to be stopped who are perpetrating the abuse. I think, and from what I see through our work, there are hundreds of thousands, millions of child sexual abuse images that we find every single year on the internet. There are forums filled with people who operate on the dark web that find like-minded individuals that share tactics about how to groom, how to coerce, how to share images, how to create images. What I'm trying to say is the problem is enormous and therefore it needs tackling in lots of places. It needs tackling across the internet infrastructure to close down the weaknesses that there are.

We as individuals and parents need to be better informed about what is going on so that we can take those decisions and take them with our children where they're old enough as well. And there needs to be stronger regulation. It needs to be... What we don't want is we don't want to see a world where nudification apps can be created,

can be shared, and they operate predominantly on women and girls' bodies to remove the clothes of women and children and boys as well. So there needs to be a lot of effort here, but I think we have to be informed as parents. That was Emma Hardy and Dr Elaine Caskett speaking to nude. He's widely recognised as one of the greatest footballers in history. He's won the prestigious Ballandour Award five times. He's the all-time leading goal scorer in professional football.

And according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, he's the first active footballer in history to achieve billionaire status. Guess who we're talking about yet? That's right. Good Bad Billionaire is exploring the life and fortune of football icon Cristiano Ronaldo. That's Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Listen now, wherever you get your BBC podcasts. They're there.

Still to come on the programme, the woman who spent 10 years painstakingly recreating the Bayou tapestry. And the moment she found out, she'd run out of fabric. Now, don't forget you can enjoy Women's Hour any hour of the day if you can't join us live at 10 a.m. during the week. Just subscribe to the daily podcast for free via BBC Sounds. Now, many of us are familiar with the onerous, often painful process of sorting through the wardrobes of our loved ones who've died. Just what should we do with all those clothes that can carry such emotional weight and evoke so many memories? While some might want the closure of clearing everything out and perhaps pass. it on. Others might want to hang on to things or even wear them. But perhaps the garments themselves are unsuitable, maybe a different size, different era, different gender, meaning they'll be forever mothballed in storage. Well, to find out about some innovative ways we can repurpose the clothing left behind, Anita spoke to Pip Housam of Love Keep Create, a company

which transforms cherished clothing into lasting keepsakes that preserve memories and tell stories. And also to the designer Sophie Lewis, who set up the Reincarnation Club, a bespoke service which reimagines elements of the late person's wardrobe to create new pieces for the bereaved friends or family. Anita asked Sophie where you begin with the task of working through those wardrobes. Well, I think it's an incredible thing to do, an incredible difficult thing to do, because every item brings up a new memory. What I would say is I think it's something that takes.

takes time. And I think you often have to work through that time before you're ready to really let go of an item. So I think all the stories that emerge as you're going through a wardrobe will just trigger memory after memory. And sometimes they're wonderful and sometimes you actually have to do it bit by bit. It's so part of the grieving process, isn't it? It's so intimate. The items that they wore, the memories attached, the smell. It really is. The smell is something, you know, a smell memory is an instant trigger back to a time. And you're going back to a time with somebody that you've now lost. And I say about clothes that they are a second skin. So they actually sit very close to that person. So

the idea that you're feeling and touching these items that have been with a loved one, I mean, It's incredibly, incredibly personal and sensitive. Pip, tell me a bit about your experience when you're talking to people, meeting them. What stories are they telling you? Why do you think we find it so hard to part with those items of clothing? Yeah, we've definitely had the same experience here of family saying that it takes years and years to go through the process of getting rid of the clothing. I just think it is one of those things that it seems such a big feat to go.

through. It's not one item, it's hundreds. So tell us about your business. How are you preserving memories? So when the family are ready, they come to us and they give us the materials and we transform them into many wonderful things, cushions, blankets, mainly

teddy bears and a variety of different animals. So they can kind of be tangible, displayed pieces rather than stored away. And I can see three very sweet-looking teddy bears sitting behind you. Yeah. What are the

lovely idea. Sophie, tell me about your company, because you do something a little bit different, don't you? Yeah, I mean, I transform items of clothing into new items of clothing, because often people have a memorable item in their wardrobe, which is too special for them to give to a charity shop, but too impractical to wear. Yeah. I mean, for example, my father-in-law, who was a wonderfully natty dresser, passed away a few years ago. And my mother-in-law, and my mother-in-law, had a jacket of his, which was a red tailcoat. And it was a time in which he was the captain of the golf club. Now, this tailcoat was moth-eaten and a bit tired.

But it meant so much to him and so much to her that she thought, I don't know what to do with this. I can't bring myself to give it away. But at the same time, I'm never going to wear it. And so I said to her, well, why don't you give it to me? I'll see what I can do. And I recut it. I took the enormous shoulders off.

She's a very elegant lady. He was a big man. I took the tails off and turned it into a wonderful tailored jacket for her, gave it some new sleeves and returned it to her. What was her reaction? She was thrilled and amazed, amazed that it could be transformed in that way. And the fact that she could then go out to a party wearing this red, jacket and talk to people about it. And the wonderful thing is, when people say, oh, I love your jacket,

it gave her an opportunity to talk about her husband. Yeah, lovely. Also, just the fact that he had a red tailcoat. Well, I want to know about him instantly. I mean, who's the guy that's wearing the red tail coat? And also, she says, my lovely, must say, my daughter-in-law made it from him. I mean, what they'll have kind of added twist that it's someone within the family. And what, what, Pip, what are people telling you what's their reaction when you hand back a quilt or a teddy made from the items that they've brought? Yeah, the reactions are mostly emotional, but in a good way, I think, to have something that they can hold again physically, like you were saying, it's got all those sorts of senses. It's not just the visual, is it? It's the sensory touch, it's the smell. It's

all those things. So some customers, when they come to see us in person, They don't want to open it in front of us anyway, kind of take it away. It was a private moment and some customers do. But it's that nice human connection moment where they, again, get to keep those stories alive and talk about the family members and the memories of each individual item.

Yeah, I'm going to read out a couple of messages because lots are coming through. 844-8-4-4. My son, Aidan, died in January at the age of 23. I'm so sorry to hear that. I sent his shirts to my friends, who made them into hundreds of padded hearts with his initials on them. They sit in the palm of your hand.

We gave them out at his funeral and since then people have taken them all over the world and send us a photo. It's cheered us immensely. Tell me your reaction to that. Yeah, it's just beautiful. Like there was nothing else that was going to be done and then you're managing to give people that extra bit of comfort. It's amazing.

What is it about clothes and our connection with them? Why do you think, Sophie, they mean so much, so many people? Well, I think that they're the sort of living articulation of who a person is. So even if people think, I always say that I adore clothes, not necessarily fashion, because clothes are really universal. Everyone has to get dressed in the morning, unless they're a nature race, but everyone has to get dressed in the morning. And to do so is a series of choices.

So when you see somebody, even if they're thinking they're not interested in clothes, there is something which tells the story of that person just in how they put together an outfit or choose not to put together an outfit. You know, that's as much information as somebody who's really fascinated by clothes. So I think there is this human connection that, you know, what I love about reincarnating clothes is in order for me to design something for something, for somebody. They need to tell me the story of their lost loved one. They will emot about them. And then, so I hear about their loved one and I also hear about them because I will combine the

thought of who that person was with what do you actually like to wear? How do you feel about clothes? How do you feel about your body? All of those things, it's the combination of the story of the lost loved one with the story of that person now. And, then taking all that ingredients, all that love and those, that memory and putting it together to make something new. And this idea came about because you were working for a charity in a charity shop. That's right. It was because I was working in a charity shop and I noticed that lots of people brought in donations and they said, oh, there's a bag of donations here and they'd sort of linger and you could tell that they wanted to tell you some things about them and they wanted to say that

You know, they've done a house clearance of perhaps their mother or father. And they wanted to share the story of the items with you. But of course, in a charity shop, there isn't that space or time. So part of the process is listening to those stories. And the stories just fall out of the pockets of those clothes, you know. I'm going to read some more messages out because we have got lots. And Rose Webster's been in search, said, our daughter Hattie died last year.

Her sister, Jessie, chose one of her jackets, which was beautifully embroidered, With all of Hattie's tattoos in their correct places, this is a wonderful and emotional keepsake for all of us. Now, that's something so specific, isn't it? Amazing, amazing, yeah. And I love the specificity of that. I mean, the idea that actually you're reminded of that person

every time you put that jacket on. I mean, it's wonderful that. Another one here. My friend commissioned a teddy bear maker. Here you go, Pip. Same as you. A teddy bear maker to create four beautiful patchwork bears out of their late mom's clothes for all the children and grandchildren.

to remember her by. These are lovely ideas. Yeah, we often get that for the grandchildren, especially when they think, oh, but they never got to have such a connection, perhaps, with the grandparents. It gives them something of the grandparents. So we often get, like, large orders

for the grandchildren, which is lovely. I still have my father's dressing gown. After 10 years, it was a memory of him every day, sitting, having his breakfast. It's hard to let go of it. I wonder how I could use it and not just have it in the wardrobe from Jenny.

Go on, Sophie. What should Jenny do with dad's dressing gown? Well, I would say there's a fantastic amount of fabric in a dressing gown that could be repurposed and made into something that she could wear, you know, daily. I mean, that's one of the other things is actually turning that dressing gown into the back of a jacket or the front of a skirt. You then actually elongate the life of that item. So you're not just wearing it around the house.

you can take it out of the house. And that just actually extends the life of the item. And as I said before, allows you to tell the story of your dad and his wonderful dressing gown. That was Sophie Lewis and Pip Hausam speaking to Anita this week. Now, earlier in the programme, we heard entrepreneur Emma Greed's thoughts on female fertility and how it can impact your career and vice versa.

Well, this week, new research published into IVF and donor eggs suggest that older women face a lower chance of fertility treatment working, even when using young donor eggs. Researchers believe that age-related changes in the womb lining may be the cause. Experts studying more than 1,700 women say the findings challenge the idea that donor eggs can fully reset the reproductive clock, but that it shouldn't deter older couples from trying. To discuss this, Nula was joined by Dr. Ippocratism.

Saris, the chair-elect of the British Fertility Society, and the writer Grace Akroyd, who had a baby at 47 using donor eggs. Unula began by noting that the age cited in the research as a marked drop-off point for success rates is 49 and asked Dr. Ippocratist to tell us more. We had this conventional wisdom that it was all about the egg and that the womb never ages. And lo and behold, we're wrong. It seems that like the rest of the body, the women also age. So, Rick, it's not so surprising when you say it out loud like this,

but it did take a number of studies to be able to prove it. So this study showed that after the age of 49, the chance of having a miscarriage or, for that matter, then a baby being born goes down compared to women who would be younger, even though you're using donor eggs or should theoretically be the same. Now, it's important to say that there are some other studies that's come out recently as well that's shown a similar find, but the cutoff is different.

So a study in 2025 show there might be from 40 onwards a gradual change and a second study from 45. So although this particular one said 49, it's possible that the effect is also not a cliffage, but it gradually changes from the 40 onwards. It's a very interesting finding. We don't really understand why and how this happens, but clearly it adds to the body of evidence of understanding

how the body works and biology and fertility. And can you give us any idea of how, Much the difference is in success rates of fertility, be it with 49 with this particular studies or the others you mentioned. Absolutely. I think it's important not to scare people because actually it's still a very successful treatment to try to have a child through donor eggs. So if you are below 35 or 35 to 40, the chance per embryo becoming a baby is about 45% cumulatively, which means once you used all your embryos, about 80%. And if we now look at women in this study over 49, that drops by about a third, so from 45% to about 30% per go, and overall from about a quarter drop from 80% to 60%. So though if you say a third less and a quarter less, that sounds a lot,

when you look in absolute terms, still about 60% of women having treatment after 49 with donor eggs, will have a child. You do mention there all the embryos, but how many are you talking about? Surely everybody would have a different number? Maybe they just have one, if they have. Well, absolutely. And this is where it's the nuance and the detail and why everything has to be personalized, which is also why I was mentioning the per embryo go, which goes from 45% to 30%. But it is true that in a lot of treatment of donor eggs, there'll be more than one that embryos available. So hopefully that gives another go for those that were not successful the first time.

But yes, that is the detail and the nuance when it comes down to personalizing medicine rather than just looking at these big studies with thousands of women. Indeed. But I suppose many people, as we've spoken about many times on this programme, it can be an industry that is built on hope. And so people are trying to find those specifics that relate to them, even if it is looking at a larger study. And I suppose to some of those people listening,

what would you say to women who may be worried or put off by hearing or seeing a headline like that? I think the most important thing is not obviously to scare people who want to have treatment, But it's important to also have a very strong public message, which is that if you are embarking in treatment, even if you're trying naturally for that matter, after sort of a certain age, it's important to make sure that you have a thorough medical assessment to make sure that you enter pregnancy, as healthy as you can be with all the checks, look at your blood pressure, your cholesterol, your diets, and so forth. Because we do know that when you are pregnant later on in life, there are higher risks of pregnancy and obstetric risk, so it's important to try to mitigate them. So it's not so much of being scared about going to treatment, but about doing it in a way which is as safe as possible. Interesting. Grace, let me bring you in here. You had fertility treatment, as I mentioned, with donor eggs

and a baby boy at 47. Congratulations. I saw you also had an article in The Times, which said I had a baby at 46, but science is right. 49 is too old to become a mother. Tell me a little bit about your thinking. I didn't write the headline. So I don't like to judge. As I said, in the piece, I really think it's a very kind of, you know,

it's an individual choice for women. And as Dr. Sarah said, you know, it's, you know, there will always be a personalised kind of assessment of women. And obviously my experience, I can only write from my experience. But I do feel having had a baby in my early 20s and two in between that first baby and my last baby at 47, I really felt. it did take a massive toll on my body. And I had a really quite a plain sailing pregnancy with Ray

and a really great labour, which actually I did, after giving birth to him, I did lose a lot of blood, which I hadn't with my other babies. So it was a very different experience. And I do believe that was to do with my age and possibly, you know, previous pregnancies because, you know, they all take a toll on the body and we do age, you know. And I think it isn't surprising that research, really,

to hear that our uterus's age as so to the rest of us. What made you consider having a child via donor egg at the age that you were? Did you have any reservations? I was thinking about this last night and thinking, you know, at 33, I said no, that's my last baby. And then I found myself kind of 12 years later thinking about having another baby. Because I had met my new partner, we've been together nearly eight years. And he was much younger than me and wanted a baby of his own. understood that. And I also really kind of loved the idea of having having a child with him. But we

didn't go into it, you know, without knowing the facts. And we did try naturally for over a year. I had a miscarriage. We did get pregnant. I had a miscarriage. Sorry. And then after a few months of really kind of weighing up our options, it was actually a friend who mentioned donut eggs to me. And I think I'd never really considered them. Because what I found when I was looking for all of these stories of older moms having babies was that there was not negativity around using doughnut eggs, but there was a lot of questioning around how the pregnancy had caught, you know, how somebody had achieved. So there would always be the question, was it a natural conception? So this is what mother's first question was to other women. And I found that that kind of suggests

that maybe donor egg conception isn't seen as maybe as being as good as a natural conception. And so maybe in my mind, I was like, well, no, come on, we really need to have a baby that is biologically both of ours. But then I kind of thought, no, we just, we want a baby. We want to child. And let's give it a go. And it felt like a gift, really, to have that option. Yeah, it's so interesting because obviously people have a right to their medical privacy. But there is secrecy at times around how a child was conceived.

And particularly, I think, with more public-facing people. But let me come back to you, Doctor, because, you know, If we take a moment hearing Grace's story and also seeing a headline that there's a mark drop-off at 49, that is never a headline we would have seen 15 years ago. No, you're absolutely right. And I think exactly what you said before is very important that we see all these stories now, celebrities having children at later age. And of course, as you said, they have the right to the privacy.

But if people don't know how that might have come about, they might not know the reality. It is true, though, that the number one predictor of pregnancy is, the age of the womb when it comes down to the egg. And that's why when generally speaking, the effect of the wound was not really something that we really noticed because you have such a marked effect of drop of fertility with own eggs after sort of 45 onwards. It's only really with the advent of egg donation where really any woman at any age can fall pregnant. And that's why we, in the UK, by and large, although there's no legal limit, most people wouldn't treat after sort of the age of 50 to 52, 53, so where the natural menopause would be. But technically, there being

pregnancies around the world and women in the 70s and 80s actually. So it is really the most important. Using donor eggs. Of course, yes. And I'd say using donor eggs. But also, because naturally that is quite unlikely, we couldn't see these other effects of the womb and what happens to the body, which now we can see. So it's important to have this open conversation.

At the same time, as I said, it's not about telling people what to do. It's interesting what Grace said about how she might have felt about having a donor eggs. I think it's a very personal decision. society has really changed in our thinking about families and how the family structures are being built. And as a clinician, we have to be there who offer information, but also safety. It's very important to say that, that Grace mentioned it very nicely, how she felt differently between the two pregnancies. And that is not just her thinking.

It is a fact of medicine we have all the statistics. So it's about sort of being informed, preemptive, healthy and aware of what are the challenges, but also the opportunities, I guess. I think it's really interesting, actually, and I hadn't realized. until I was preparing for this item, that there isn't a legal age limit for IVF in the UK. There are in other countries. Does that surprise you, Grace? It doesn't surprise me,

but I suppose my kind of thinking around that was, if you would be that if you're going to a very well-respected IVF clinic or somebody who specialises in donor egg conception, you're going to be dealing with clinicians who really understand the importance, of thorough assessments and giving the advice that is most appropriate for that woman or that couple. Because that's really what it's down to. It's about, you know, anybody can do anything really.

But it's about the responsibility, I think, of clinicians to really coach their, you know, their patients with a really empathetic way because nobody needs judging on this. You know, some women might get to 48 and think, I really, really want a baby and, you know, I want to give it one last shot. And I think that's the, you know, if you go to a really well-respected IVF clinic, they will, you know, you'll find people there who will give you the information and weigh everything up for you and really talk to you. And obviously there will be a cut-off age, I think, within those clinics as well. They have their own cut-off ages. Interesting. Let me get back, Doctor, to what we know or don't know.

You alluded to the fact, something to do with the lining off the womb, for example, but there's more that we need to understand. What do we not know? What would you like to know? in addition to that headline that we've spoken about. I think what I'd like to know is why we see this effect and why the ageing. I guess that's the question for the entire body. So we know that as women become older,

the woman is more likely to have pathologies like polyps, I don't know, myosis, fibres. Is that the whole answer? We don't know. Is it the fact that because women have, generally speaking, monthly cycles, every time you shed your lining, it might cause small scarring, and then you end up with a bit more sort of fibrosin scarring that has an effect. We don't know.

Is it because of inflammation? Is it because of blood flow? So many things we don't know. And if you don't know what causes something, then you don't know how to reverse it. And I think the important thing here is not just to say, well, what does that mean? We're going to have more people have slightly higher chance of having babies. It's possible that the pregnancy might even become healthier. Because if there's an effect on the womb and how the placenta then develops, maybe those are some of the reasons also why older women have higher complications. So it might not just be something that can help women having IVF with egg donation.

It could have a much wider sort of implication, and that's why we want more research. It's not just about the small number of women that might not have egg donation after 49. Grace, before I let you go, how is it having a toddler? Absolutely exhausting. It just brings everything into perspective. I just think they're the most joyful things. Toddlers, they just know how to live. Grace Akroyd and Dr. Ippocratis Saris speaking to Nula earlier this week.

And if you've been affected by anything you've heard in this disdain, discussion. You can go to the BBC Action Line where you'll find links to support. Now, you probably saw it in all the headlines yesterday. The Bayou Tapestry arrived in London in the early hours of Friday morning under the cover of darkness. It's the first time the tapestry has left France for the best part of a millennium. It's believed to have been created here in the UK nearly a thousand years ago. Or meanwhile, in Cambridgeshire, one woman has been painstakingly recreating the tapestry for the last decade. Well, I spoke to Mia Hanson yesterday and began by asking her just why she took on this huge challenge. Well, because I was bored, that's the short answer. And I can't knit

or crochet. But I can work at a small needle really, really well. And I do like a big challenge. Okay. And what were you doing at the time when you started this? You obviously have some experience in needlework. Yes, I do. My nan taught me to do cross-stitch when I was five and we had textile in school back in Sweden so, you know, needed to say that was my favourite subject. So when I started doing Viking re-enactment in 2001, I had to make my own clothes.

And of course I want to decorate them. And then I did for family and friends and museums and schools and you name it. I did it. But at the end of 2015, I had no orders coming in. And I got bored making hats and hoods and glove puppets and when I made my 40th finger puppet

and I thought, you know what, that's enough. I need a project I can't finish in a hurry. So I heard about this man who had done a half-scale version of the Bay of Tapestry. And I thought, I can do that. But to me, it's no point making a half-scale. I might as well do all of it in full scale.

So I did. Wow. And I believe you had a bit of an issue, though, with the fabric that you bought. Tell me about that. Well, you see, because I needed to buy all the fabric at the same time. So I bought, well, I paid for.

40 metres of linen, thinking if I cut that in half, stitch it together, I'll get 80 metres. It shrunk in the wash, but I still had, you know, a little bit of spare until I went to wash the penultimate five metres and the bolt finished. So I paid for 40 metres. I only got 35, so now I don't actually have enough to complete. Wow. So what are you going to do? Well, luckily, I run a Facebook group with currently 14,600 people who are totally invested in my work. And they have been scouring the world for fabric. And one lady, living in battle, believe it or not, she found a piece of fabric that will do. It's very similar, not exactly the same.

And she's promised to hand deliver it to me. So I can finish it. If I can find the exact same, that would be brilliant. but otherwise I'm kind of good to go. That's good news. Now, I don't know about you, but I studied the Bayou tapestry in school, and I went to visit it when I was a kid as well. You're from Sweden, so did you study it?

No. No, I didn't even know about it until I came to England, I think. A friend of mine went to – we used to do language school, you know, three weeks in England to learn the language, living with a family. And my friend went to Hastings. She didn't tell me about the Bay of Tapestry. She told me about the Battle of Hastings, so I knew about that.

But the actual tapestry I found out about when I came here. And we took the wrong turn going to Spain, took the wrong turn coming out of Calais and ended up in Bayer. So we did go and see it. But that was 11 years before I started this project. Oh, my goodness. So as you said, you've been doing it for 10 years, haven't you? So you've nearly finished, really. I am.

How are you feeling about it? Oh, I used to say that it's like Schrodinger's cat, but Schrodinger's tapestry. I want to finish it to say that I've done it, you know, the achievement. But then I don't want to finish it because then it'll be done. But now I have a list of things to do where I'm really excited about. So, yeah, I can't wait to finish. That was Mia Hansen there speaking to me yesterday. And one of our listeners, Vicky, got in touch to say,

Nobody's mentioned the fantastic copy made in the 1890s by nine Staffordshire women. She says it's beautifully made, full size, really well displayed in Reading Museum. It's free to visit and very well worth doing so and has the Latin text clearly translated. Brilliant tip, Vicky. Thank you so much for getting in touch with us. Well, that's it from me this week. On Monday's programme, English teacher turned writer Jennifer Saint will be joining Nula to talk about her retelling of one of the best-known Greek myths, the love story between Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and Ares, the god of war.

And there's more love and lies in The Truth, a new play in the West End about two adulterous couples, starring Sarah Hadland, who will be live in the Women's Hour studio to tell all. So join Nula at 10 a.m. on Monday. But from me, for now, thank you very much for listening and enjoy. the rest of your weekend. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Gods and monsters, wandering heroes and barefooted philosophers. That's how we often think about ancient Greece, but it's much more varied and more curious than that. I'm Mary Beard, and in Being Greek, my new podcast from BBC Radio 4, I'll be telling the stories of the real

people of ancient Greece. From a mobster. with dangerous ambitions. If you're a would-be emperor, then emperors have power to do whatever the hell they like, really. To the unrepentant husband who's murdered his wife's lover. Those of us who go in first see him lying on the bed beside my wife. Those who came in in the second wave see him standing naked. Subscribe to Being Greek with Mary Beard on BBC Sounds. He's widely recognised as one of the greatest footballers in history.

He's one the prestigious ballon door. award five times. He's the all-time leading goal scorer in professional football. And according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, he's the first active footballer in history to achieve billionaire status. Guess who we're talking about yet? That's right. Good Bad billionaire is exploring the life and fortune of football icon Cristiano Ronaldo. That's Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Listen now, wherever you get your BBC podcasts.