Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman’s Hour: Felicity Jones, Ukraine's Zla Mavka, Author Kate Fagan, Adult sons at home, WSL record signing

Episode Date: January 25, 2025

Felicity Jones has been nominated for an Oscar and a BAFTA for her role in The Brutalist, in which she plays Erzsébet, a Hungarian journalist who emigrates to the US in the late 1950s to join her architect husband. She joined Anita Rani to discuss her portrayal of this complex character and the other memorable roles she’s taken on, from Ruth Bader Ginsberg to Jane Wilde Hawking.Zla Mavka is a non-violent all-female Ukrainian resistance group, fighting against Russian occupation. It spreads newsletters and shares experiences aiming to support others. Anita was joined by the Guardian's chief culture writer, Charlotte Higgins, who has spoken to some of the members and Tetyana Filevska, the curator at the Ukrainian Institute, to find out more.Kate Fagan has been a US basketball player, an ESPN journalist and has written three non-fiction books. She joined Datshiane Navanayagam to discuss her first novel, The Three Lives of Cate Kay.More people in their late 20s are still living with their parents – it's up by more than a third in nearly two decades according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Men are also more likely than women to stay in the family home, with 23% of 25-34 year old men living with their parents compared to 15% of women the same age. Anita spoke to writer and counsellor Lucy Cavendish who has two adult sons living at home, and Associate Professor and family therapist Dr Hannah Sherbersky.It has been reported that USA women's footballer Naomi Girma has agreed terms to join Chelsea FC for a world record transfer fee of £900,000 or $1.1 million. Anita was joined by Tom Garry, Women’s Football writer at The Guardian.Elise Downing is known for running 5,000 miles self-supported around the British coast over the course of 10 months. She was not only the youngest person, but also the only female to have completed the challenge. Along the way she saw Britain at its wild and wonderful best. She has now written Walk Britain, packed with inspiring car-free ideas on how to get out and explore stunning locations – from the Cornish coast to the Yorkshire Dales and the Isle of Arran. She joined Datshiane to talk about some of the 90 different routes that can be completed on foot, all accessible by public transport.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Annette Wells Editor: Sarah Jane Griffiths

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.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Hello and welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour with me, Anita Rani. On the programme today, the actor Felicity Jones, just Oscar nominated for her role in the incredibly powerful The Brutalist, will be here to tell me all about it. The number of 25 to 34 year olds still living with their parents has gone up by more than a third in the last two decades and there are more boys than girls. But why is this? They've got nice beds,

they've got a relatively nice house, the washing machine works, and they're not having to take a lot of responsibility for that sort of day-to-day grind, that means that I'm taking that responsibility. That's the downside, because the mental, emotional load on us parents is carrying on a lot longer than we probably thought it was going to. Also, women leading multiple lives. You may feel you're one of them. Well, I'll be speaking to the Emmy Award-winning journalist and author Kate Fagan about her first fiction book, The Three Lives

of Kate Kay. And we'll be hearing from a woman who's come up with 90 different routes to access some of Britain's most beautiful and remote places without a car. Lots to get through, so let's begin. British actor Felicity Jones has played some extraordinary roles in her career. She was Jane Wilde Hawkin, the ex-wife of Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, hero Jyn Erso in the Star Wars film Rogue One, and US Supreme Court judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg in On the Basis of Sex. But her latest role of Erzsébet Toth in The Brutalist might be her most challenging and complex. The film, which is now in cinemas,

tells the story of a Hungarian architect who emigrates to the US after the Holocaust. His wife, Erzsébet, is trapped in Eastern Europe until they're reunited halfway through the film. Erzsébet is a character who confounds expectations. Here she is, surprising, wealthy philanthropist Harrison Van Buren, played by Guy Pearce, just after being reunited with her husband, Laszlo.

Elisabeth, pardon me, am I pronouncing that correctly? That's fine. Just fine. Feel free to call me Elizabeth if you prefer it And your English is impressive Thank you I attended university in England Oh, where? Oxford

To study English And I returned home for communications And did you do anything with that? Yes I wrote for a popular national paper at home. Major Namzet. A journalist? Cultural?

Foreign affairs. Well, perhaps you can help your husband sound less like he shines shoes for a wage. Haven't you told them anything about me? Well, Felicity has been BAFTA and now Oscar-nominated as Best Supporting Actress for her performance. She joined me in the studio earlier this week and I started by asking her why she said yes to this film. It was actually incredibly, it was an incredibly easy one. I'd

been reading lots of scripts at that time and hadn't come across anything that was really making an impact. And then The Brutalist came through, and I thought initially what an amazing title, such a brilliant film title. And then in reading it, I was incredibly moved by it fundamentally. And I felt that Aja Bette was this magnificent character. She was someone who is completely unafraid of who she is. When we meet her, you realise she's been through incredible trauma. She's been through concentration camps alongside her husband in different camps,

but they've been through very similar experiences. And I felt there was a great challenge in conveying this woman's experience. We heard in that clip there that she's incredibly accomplished. I do particularly like the line where, did you not tell them anything about me? I think that could have only been written by a woman. She's also physically weak and malnourished. You get to learn, actually,

that she's exceptionally strong throughout the film. And you mentioned the trauma there, because there's trauma of the Second World War, but she actually has trauma within her body. How did you prepare for that? Well, that was a huge aspect of understanding who she was. And as you say, the experiences that she's gone through are manifesting physically, the malnutrition, the psychological impact. And we see Ajebet throughout that second half of the film dealing with that. And you realize what's great about the script was that it never pinpoints anything. It never patronizes the audience. So much is conveyed just through

performance, which is obviously a delight for an actor. And you realize that in some ways, Aisabeth is she's disassociating from her physical self in some aspects as a way of dealing with the trauma that she's gone through. And in that scene that we just heard, you can see how she is getting the measure of Van Buren. She's incredibly, she has great intuition. I think she has a very low estimation of human nature from what she's been through. So her expectations of anyone are pretty down there. So she's in that moment, she's reading, is this, what is the impact of this man going to be on their lives? And I think very early on she realises that he's not a good person. He's a dodgy one. Yeah, she's very smart. She's sussed him out, hasn't she?

And the beginning of it, Adrian Brody's character has escaped Second World War. He's come to America. It's the immigration story. It's a film in two halves. You've got an hour and a half, and then there's a break, an interval, and then you get the second half where your character turns up. So you've got the huge backdrop, the big immigrant story, but then you've got the intimacy of their relationship, this husband and wife who are being reunited after all this trauma. And it's complicated and it's a really long, full reunion. What's the effect? Describe the effect that that she has first of all on the people around

her and then i want to talk about one scene as well when they're lying in bed together but first of all the effect on the people around her well she has um that you're waiting for her arrival like laszlo and and like the people that he's with like van buren so the expectations are very high and you realize that she has quite a force within her you know i've been thinking of her as as a bit like a jedi she has this she's handsy because you're in star wars yeah you know there is some sense of continuity i'm bringing gin also with me in some ways through through her and she she's she's pretty uh unafraid and she's pretty defiant and she's not going to conform to expectations.

In many ways, Van Buren thinks because he's wealthy, because he has this sense of authority that he thinks comes from that and she refuses to let him have it. There's a scene at the end of the film where she tells him exactly how it is and that actually, how dare he he has a line where he says if you'll excuse me you know he has this pretension to civility yeah and she

absolutely refuses to condone his behavior it's the rekindling of the intimacy between the husband and wife as well that is so intriguing they've been apart for so long they've been through so much and then it's the scene where they're lying in bed together and it's something just very human that happens it's the first thing that happens is they have an argument yeah how true yeah well the stakes are so high you know they haven't seen each other for eight years and then suddenly they're reunited but they're having to get to know each other again there's a certain amount of awkwardness and and they're kind of going well I, in some ways I put this person on a pedestal. And now I'm confronted with the reality of a human being and human beings are deeply flawed.

And, you know, partners get on each other's nerves. And immediately, as you say, there's something just so relatable about that is that in their nervousness, they're kind of getting under each other's skin and they're already, you know, that first night together rather than it being this sort of idealised version of a reunion. They're kind of a bit naggy with each other. You worked with your husband, the film director, Charles Gard on the film Deadshot. What do you think the secret is to a creative collaboration with

your partner? Trust the trust is already there and so often the best creative output comes from relationships where there is a deep deep trust with each other. But what happens when they wind you up? Well and then you get really annoyed with each other you go no I don't think it should be done like that I think it should be done like this. Do you talk about it at home as well? I mean, there's a good homework. There's no separation. I mean, in our household, we are, you know, we're film obsessives and can't stop talking about it.

It's a hobby and it's and it's work. So there's there's not a lot of boundaries around around work and pleasure, really. And we need to talk about some of your other work as well, because you've played some incredible characters. What's the difference between performing a completely fictional character like Elizabeth, although, by the way, like so many people, I thought this was based on a real life story. By the end, I was thinking, is this a real story? There's so much depth and complexity.

It feels like they are real people. I'm playing Joan Wildhawken and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Yeah, I seem to be attracted to these ferocious characters and these women who, I guess, they're pushing. There's a struggle inside of them. And part of that struggle is coming from operating in a, you know, a patriarchal society. And how do they navigate and find their way in these worlds? But I definitely like a, I don't know why, but I like a character with a bit of fight in them. There's something about the underdog that I really like to get my teeth into.

Is there fight in you? Someone who's pushing against. in them. There's something about the underdog that I really like to get my teeth into. Is there fighting you? Someone who's pushing against. I think definitely. I think in a lot of women. I think it is. I think there is, particularly when you have strong beliefs, then you have to be tough and you have to push. And you're in a tough industry, but you've been acting for a long time. You acted as a child, first major role in the film The Treasure Seekers when you were only 12. We've got to mention a couple of things that you're in that really does span a demographic of Radio 4 listeners. Your breakout role was Chalet Girl, but you also played emma grundy in the archers yes i started playing emma grundy

when i i think i was about 12 something like that 11 or 12 um i started off i went to a great great drama group called central junior television workshop um and i'd been interested in acting before then um i'd gone to another group at the Custard Factory in Birmingham where I grew up. And at the time, my father was working. He was a producer at Central Television. And he found out about this great drama group that was open to all children across the city. And we would go once a week in the evening and that's really where I started out and I had a fantastic teacher there called Colin Edwards and he was inspirational in bringing together young people

and he took us so seriously at such a young age and we'd be talking about Pinter and we'd be talking about Dylan Thomas. We did a production of Under Milkwood. And didn't patronize you. Exactly. And I think that's so important with children. They are not to patronize them.

And that gives you such confidence at such a young age that you have a purchase in the world, that you have a place in the world because of being taken seriously at that point. And through Central Junior Television Workshop, I was able to get an audition for The Archers. Do you miss Ambridge? Ambridge will live in me for the rest of my life. I mean, it's such a British institution. And it was just such an opportunity, really, to kind of get to know. It was a wonderful cast to get to know a varied group of people and then start doing, you know, start doing voice work. And the voice is such a big part of my preparation for, you know, for playing these characters. And you do have a beautiful voice.

Also now lots of change in the last 10 years since you were last nominated for a BAFTA and an Oscar. And very quickly, just to comment on the Chalet Girls Girls there will be a generation of young women who will never forgive me if I don't ask you about it. I mean Chalet Girl was it was a bit like doing a ski season and shooting at the same time. Did I read that you actually loved that role because finally you weren't doing a period drama? Yeah, it was nice to do something different. And again, doing comedy is something that I always have been drawn to. And then there was just something in that it was such a sweet story and such a singular narrative at the same time, just following this character. But in some ways, there's almost something a little bit Jane Austen about the story of Chalet Girl. The Brutalist is in cinemas now.

And if you do need a recommendation and you've got a spare three and a half hours, definitely go and see it. It's extraordinary. Also, another recommendation based on an actor we had in the studio, the incredible Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who was talking to me about the new Mike Lee film in which she stars Hard Truths. If you'd like to listen to that interview, go to BBC Sounds and pick Thursday the 23rd of January. Next month will mark three years since Russia invaded Ukraine.

This week, US President Donald Trump warned he will impose high tariffs and further sanctions on Russia if Vladimir Putin fails to end the war. Previously, he'd said he would negotiate a settlement to Russia's full-scale invasion in a single day. According to reports, the Kremlin is ready for a mutually respectful dialogue with the US president. For some in Ukraine, invasion meant their homes quickly became part of Russian occupied territory and still remain that way. But there are people resisting that occupation. Slav Mavka is a group of more than 100 women

across Russian occupied Ukraine who are fighting against that occupation, supporting each other to keep going in the face of their enemy. They do this using a variety of so-called peaceful and non-violent methods. Well, joining me on Friday to tell us more was Charlotte Higgins, chief culture writer at The Guardian, who has spoken to some of the Zlomavka members, and Tetiana Filevska, creative director at the Ukrainian Institute. And I started by asking Charlotte how she first came across Slav Mavka. Well, I first came across Anita because I've been reporting in Ukraine for almost three years, using culture as a lens for thinking about

and describing what's happening in Ukraine to broaden that picture. It's not the usual way of covering a war. My photographer, who I work with, a brilliant photographer, Yulia Kochetova, who won World Press Photo last year, and she's kind of a great collaborator, came across this group of women, and we decided to work on writing them up together. And she came across them because of Tatiana Falevska,

who you're going to speak to in a moment. But we were both, Julia and I, Julia and I were both incredibly struck by how clever and how moving, actually, these acts of resistance were. And as a culture writer, they actually do use culture as a means of resistance. They do things like they design very witty and funny leaflets or posters and kind of surreptitiously put them up around occupied towns. That's becoming more and more

difficult actually because surveillance is increasing in occupied territories, you know, cameras and things. One of my favourite things they did was to create faked rubel notes so um design up a a note that looks very much like a rubel note of a particular denomination and then but change the design so that it has a subversive message in like what so for example there's one that that ostensibly shows a kind of scene in crimea on the coast of crimea there's a famous monument. And in the background, the Black Sea. And into the background, the Ukrainian women implanted an image of the famous cruiser, the Moskva warship that the Ukrainians sank quite early in the war. So if a random person picks up one of these fakes up rubles in the street thinking, oh, I found some money, they'll

see a picture of a ukrainian kind of famous meme and victory i mean you know it became extremely you know kind of symbolic of ukrainian resistance and um this particular act of sinking the moskva and then the the writing instead of you know saying bank of russia it says this is no place for the bank of russia and then it says crimea is ukraine Ukraine in Russian on the note. And so what do we know about these women? Well, we don't know. We know little in a sense because their security is absolutely paramount because doing this stuff is really, really dangerous. It's not like you're going to get patted on the back and told don't do it again.

I mean, doing this stuff could get you into an extremely serious trouble. So we know that there's a core group of women who set up a telegram channel on which these little acts of resistance appear or shown, and then they invite other women to contribute to that telegram channel. So it's partly about doing acts and recording them by photographing them. It could be tiny surreptitious acts like holding up a post-it note with a kind of pro-Ukrainian slogan in front of a building in an occupied city. But it's also about inviting women to share their experience of life under occupation. So the Telegram channel also has kind of little stories from women living in very difficult circumstances. And actually, for me, that's so interesting because I'm so moving because it's very difficult to find out about life under occupation. You know, these places are cut off from us.

And certainly I could never go and report in them. And you hear about the difficulties and actually the sort of very grim compromises that people have to make. You know, these are very, it's very dark and difficult living under occupation. So hearing the truth about this from women, talking to each other,

but also spreading a message outside is fascinating. Yeah, very powerful. Tatiana, let me bring you in here. Thank you for joining us this morning. Tell us what impacts these women are having both in occupied and unoccupied areas of Ukraine and how you came across them. Well, if we are talking about Zlomovka, we are talking about women who are currently under occupation and they are going through extreme conditions right now. They're threatened, especially those who decided to still support Ukraine and to fight in their own way, sometimes very small acts of resistance. But for them, it's really huge.

It's a very important position. And that's why it was important for me as a curator working with the topic of women's resistance in Crimea to include these stories. And I included diaries of Zlomavka. telling about their fears, about the ways they are threatened and how they are managing to deal with this and not even knowing when this terror in their life will end. It is also important for us in the, let's say, liberated or in a free part of Ukraine, because we know that this battle, it was never about territory. It was always about people. And it makes us even stronger in our fight, in our battle.

It gives us motivation because we are fighting for those who, you know, who are waiting for us. Charlotte, the Russians know that Islam Africa exists, right? So how dangerous is this for the women? Oh, it's really dangerous. And one of the facts of reporting on it was, I mean, I was able to interview one of the women living in occupied Ukraine, living in very difficult circumstances. But I mean, I had to anonymise her. In fact, I have to say, I didn't know her identity. And so verifying this journalistically was you know tricky and there was an element of of you know taking it on trust in fact um um but no i mean i mean part of the reason that people

stay i mean that's one of the one of the questions is why why why didn't they get out and why don't they still get a lot A lot of people do have got out. Yeah. But because the reality is, imagine if you have a disabled family member or imagine if your livelihood is your little farm. Yeah. And that's all you have. And then you're facing a choice between hoping for the best under occupation or living as a refugee. I mean, there's a really, really tough choices. And, you know, really, I suppose one of the most moving accounts I read of one of the women was about how her son had tried to persuade her to leave,

but she had stayed because of her farm animals. And then he was being recruited into the Russian army as a Ukrainian. That's a story, you know, that's a very bleak story and we don't hear about that very much. So the women are living in fear and, you know, trying to leave now could involve, you know, would involve crossing borders.

It's almost impossible, but also filtration. And leaving behind loved ones. Leaving behind, yeah. And all of it. Tatiana, how much danger are you in yourself promoting this exhibition? Oh, well, I mean, staying in Ukraine, staying in Kiev is part of the story because, you know, we are attacked by Russian drones and missiles almost every night, like this morning, for example. The other thing is being actively involved in promoting the activist work who are under occupation.

And of course, this puts an extra danger on me. We know when the Russians occupied part of Kiev region in the beginning of 2022, they had this list of people that they would be targeting, first of all. And those lists included also people working in public institutions or working actively in culture. I do both. So I'm on that list for sure. So in case of an occupation, definitely I would be one of those who would, you know, be endangered and probably even killed.

Of course, actively supporting Zlomovka, I get an extra attention probably from that side, from the Russian side, especially considering how much attention this exhibition has been receiving. So, yeah, I feel there is danger, but i don't think it can be compared to the danger that these women under occupation are uh feeling and are going through and why do it what's the what how powerful is it that you have created this exhibition well i mean it's just uh because i feel that's the right thing to do, because I want to support these women. I want to show them our solidarity. I know how important it is for them to be heard,

for their stories to be read elsewhere. That is a huge support for them. So I'm grateful, you know, we are giving this time to them and their stories. And I encourage everyone to search for Zlomovka. They have a page on Instagram. They have a website. Please go and read those stories yourself.

Because I just feel like, you know, I couldn't not do it. It's just the proper thing and the right thing to do. Thank you to my guests, Charlotte Higgins and Tetiana Felevska. Now, our next interview has had many different identities and lives, you could say. She's played professional college basketball in the United States. She's also a New York Times bestselling author of nonfiction books, not to mention an Emmy award-winning journalist who spent seven years at the American sports channel ESPN.

Well, now she's written her first fiction novel, The Three Lives of Kate Kay, about a young woman and the three very different identities she creates. Kate Fagan joined Daciani this week and she began by asking her how closely the three lives of Kate Kay are linked to the lives of Kate Fagan. They're not really linked at all except for one part of myself that is in all of them. And that is like, all of the little details of it, like the little candies they love the the shirt or the main character KK is wearing in your opening scene, different pieces of dialogue that my friends and I always do whenever we're hanging

out like I, I buried myself in in all of them. But I wouldn't say that I am any one of those particular lives. So Annie, I should say, for the listeners who don't know the book, Annie is a young girl growing up in a small suburban town, big ambitions, and then she leaves after a significant event. I have to be so careful because there's some great spoilers and I don't want to give them away. But No, it's a thriller but it's definitely a page turn and it's very intense and and I would say I mean and you know feel free to come back at me on this I Annie the main character is is gay I I didn't see it as a coming out book I oh you're you're no I'm agreeing yes for me this was a book about intense female relationships, friendships. And you looked at every single type of relationship, mother-daughter relationships, that intense best friend connection.

I mean, I'm not giving anything away here when I say that Annie has this sublime, almost spiritual connection with her best friend Amanda. We deal with unrequited love, toxic love. You know, just reading it, I thought, gosh, even when the characters aren't always acting in a favourable way, you're kind of rooting for them because, for me, a lot of us have messy lives, right? Why did you want to write about so many different types of messy relationships in all that clarity? Yeah.

Well, it's funny, since the book has come out, a lot of people have said, like, these characters are messy. And I did not intend for them to be messy. I didn't sit down and think, I'm going to write a bunch of like bad decisions. I really thought I was writing very human characters. But since you're living inside their head, you are getting all of those messy thoughts. And then on top of it, I really wanted to write ambitious women. And if you've got women who are, success is their goal, that kind of like worldly success, I think it does lead to like leaving love behind in pursuit of this other thing. And I really wanted to write about that. So I guess all told, they end up being messy. But I think it's because they're confused about how they will feel fulfilled in life. There's that confusion of like, this ambition has like this disease of ambition has come over me and I'm in pursuit of something and I'm ignoring the beauty of the love that's around me

because I think this other thing is going to feel better than the love of this friendship or the love of this partner. There's a great line that Annie says in the book and she says it a few times when she talks about this all-consuming ambition you know this desire to eat the world and it comes on to you know when she's sort of hitting puberty and it never leaves her. Yeah. And that internal struggle, like you're saying, between love and ambition and success. And, you know, the question that women always ask, can you have it all? Yeah. Can you have it all? Do you feel you've had it all? Well, I mean, I guess I think you can have it all if you're if you're willing to go through the mess of it all. I mean, to me, this book was so much a reflection of myself when I look back on it. It's not like I sat down to write a book about ambition. But once I got through about half of the draft, I was like, actually, I think this is a book about the conflict between ambition and relationships. And when I thought about that, I was like,

that makes perfect sense. Because this idea of eating the world or another phrase that one of the characters uses in its idea of pursuing cosmic bigness. It's been something that I've been like grappling with my entire life is knowing that I want to pursue this thing and knowing because I've gotten certain things that it isn't going to fill me. And yet it never seems to dim. It's not like I achieve some milestone and I'm like, either I feel better or I realize that's not where I'm going to get my love and validation. I think maybe at some point when you hit a certain age, you finally accept that truly relationships and love are where you need to put your time. But it's hard to get there in our culture and in this world to really accept the beauty of building beauty around you rather than going chasing something that you're seeing that other people want.

That conflict to me is just so inherent in how my life has gone. And so it's not surprising now when I look back at The Three Lives of KK that my main character is also grappling with that. Yeah, that sense, it really comes through, that sense of when is enough enough? And maybe it just never is. My experience so far is it never is enough. But I'm hoping that changes at some point. Maybe as I get a,

I mean, I'm 43. I'm like, maybe I'm like, maybe when I hit 50, I'll finally accept the truth of life and that love is where you're going to find your fulfillment. And I'm getting there. I'm much better than I was 10 years ago than I was in my second life. But I'm certainly not there yet. And I said, you know, the main character is gay, but it wasn't for me a coming out book. But there is a there's a line in the book where and I should say for listeners, it's written in the form of a memoir. But Annie gets people in her life to also contribute to her memoir. And then she she she disputes some of their memories, but she allows their memories to stand. Yes. And that was something I, as someone who has

written and published memoir before, one, the reason I framed it as a pseudo fake memoir is because I wanted to give myself a device that I understood how to write. As somebody who has written memoir, I'm like, well, all right, if I'm going to try fiction, let me do it as memoir and see if I can find my voice. But the one thing that I noticed about having published memoir was that you are telling somebody a very concentrated story,

but the reader has no sense of how the memoirist is received within their own world. Like, you don't get that view. It's one of the most frustrating things when you have a very distinct memory of something and you know it happened like that to you. And the other person goes, no, it didn't. Yes.

I don't remember that. Yes. And I wanted to thank you for saying that because I wanted to explore that in this book is like a lot of times when people talk about unreliable narrators, they think it's like some huge thing that somebody is lying about. Whereas like, no, we're all just like very fundamentally detailed, unreliable narrators. Honestly, that really resonated with me because I have been told I have quite a good memory. And so I tend to remember things in microscopic detail. And I get so infuriated when other people, through no fault of their own, you know, they either blur it or they get it wrong. But you know, that is also their memory and their experience yep but for sure I mean I always feel like like I have some level of photographic memory because

I think I'm picturing like the color of the the item and the way and the place it was and when somebody says to me like it was actually green not blue I'm or red I'm like no that that like you are fundamentally like shattering my worldview here if I got these details wrong. So I love it. I wanted to explore that in this, just the the ways we we might remember details differently. And like, it's not a nefarious thing that we're remembering them differently. But the simple misremembering of them between two people can cause a lot of heartache. It can indeed. And I took you down a tangent there, but I was really interested.

Back to the gay thing, yes. Well, it's just because there is a scene in the book where one of the characters says to Annie, I'm so glad that you created a film which has gay women as a lead. And I wondered if that was something that, you know, if that was a message you wanted to put out there. I definitely wanted, as somebody who has written a lot

and in the women's sports world talked about issues of sexuality and written about it a lot, I have like outwardly written about these issues where it's like, that's what I'm writing about is either the angst of it or the struggle of it or the cultural issues at play. And in this book, I didn't want the like the heart of the book or the drama of the book to be people's coming out stories. I just didn't feel like that's the moment we were in. I wanted all of the mess to be about these other topics, whether it's mainly in this one, ambition. But the backdrop, of course, I still wanted these women who are struggling with these other avenues. The under undercurrent is also either they're dealing with coming out

or they're processing their own sexuality, but it's not like the plot line. And I didn't want it to be the plot line. It's just the context. Yes, yes. I wanted that. I wanted that so badly. So thank you for receiving it that way.

Kate Fagan there. And Kate's book, The Three Lives of Kate Kay, is out now. Still to come on the programme, Elise Downing, who's come up with 90 different routes to access some of Britain's most beautiful and remote places without a car.

And remember, you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day. If you can't join us live at 10am during the week, all you need to do is subscribe to the daily podcast. It's free via BBC Sounds. Now, more and more young people are having to live with their parents for longer. The number of 25 to 34 year olds still living at home has gone up by more than a third in the last two decades. And a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies has found that young men are even more likely to stay in the family home than women. Nearly a quarter of men in that age group are living with their parents,

compared to 15% of women. Well, joining me this week to talk about the realities of living with adult sons was writer, counsellor and mum of four, Lucy Cavendish, and Dr Hannah Schabersky, Associate Professor at the University of Exeter and CEO of the Association for Family Therapy. I started by asking Lucy about her children. I've got three sons and one daughter. I've got my, let's say, middle two sons living with me, and they are 22 and 20. And my eldest son is 28. And if we hadn't had to downsize,

he'd be living with me too. I can tell you that right now. Why? Why are they all still with you? For all sorts of reasons. I think, so one main reason which everyone's mentioned is money. You know, it is a very different world for them. They're the first generation that are going to earn less than their parents. They're not, they're in jobs. My other son works actually with the NHS. They work very hard. They are not clearing the amount of money it's going to cost them to move out and they want to save. Also, they like living with me. You know, I'm a really lovely person to live with. We all get on very well. I like living with them most of the time, not all of the time, but they're helpful. They cook, they do the laundry. And as someone else said, and I absolutely agree with this in other cultures it is totally

totally acceptable for people to live with their families their family-oriented dynamics and there's a lot of healthy stuff there but actually they got you know they've got nice beds they've got you know relatively nice house you know the washing machine works and they're not having to take a lot of responsibility for that sort of day-to-day grind that means that I'm taking that responsibility that's the downside because the mental emotional load on us parents is carrying on a lot longer than we probably thought it was going to okay so why are you taking on the mental responsibility Lucy why aren't they doing that stuff and you step back a bit oh yeah no i know i have stepped back a bit i have stepped back a bit um uh i definitely have so but it's things like when i sit down and say let's talk about putting

the bills in your name they sort of disappear it evaporates somewhere else you know that kind of world of you know i'm gradually you know to the the younger two my other son of course does all that where's your daughter is your daughter at home as well my daughter's at home but she's seven she's young yeah yeah so she gets uh she's allowed she's allowed to be here you know i haven't managed to get asleep yet um yeah they are taking i mean i don't cook for them i don't you know don't clean their rooms i don't do their laundry they help me out a bit financially they're saving to move out i don't think you think my 22 year old wants to move out because he wants to play on his xbox and it's really noisy and we're

caught and I'm constantly saying get off it's noisy be quiet I need to sleep you know there's tension but a lot of the time we have a lot of fun and I think people like living at home because they have fun with their siblings and my my 20 year old said you know I like living here because every time I I'm in the house there's someone here that I like and I thought well that's why that's why it works it's when there's someone in the house you don't like that things start getting a bit more complicated Lucy why do you think young men tend to stay at home longer than women well I think that's an interesting one because if the women aren't staying at home, where are they going? Are they moving in with other people? I think men like being around their mothers. I have to say that. Is that healthy for them? I'm sure people have a lot to say about that with my counselling

how. I think, you know, men's brains don't actually form probably till they're 25. I think it takes a little bit more time to grow these men. And we want healthy adult males, we want healthy adult females, but we're sort of growing them out of like a grow bag so that they can go forth and be good people in the world. And I think they just need a little bit more time to detach. You just said men like to be around their mothers. Is there something about mothers who like to keep their sons close as well? Well, I'm very happy to keep all my children close. For me, it's not just, it's not, I mean, I think women,

mothers and daughters clash a bit more than mothers and sons. I think the relationship with boys for women is a lot easier. I find my relationship with my sons so much easier. They're kind of pretty bog standard. You feed them, you run them. They've always been like that. And then you say, you know, you do them a bit of stroking and they like all that.

Do mothers not have any sons around? around maybe i don't think dads necessarily do because they have to do that you know oedipal clashing so it it may be more of a i think there's a mother and son thing that goes on i do think that yes this is good conversation hannah i'm going to bring you in is there something about sons enjoying being looked after for longer more than daughters i think it's a really interesting question, isn't it? And I really agree with you, Lucy. I think there's something sort of stereotypical about that idea, about mothers and sons, but it does pose some questions

about how we're bringing up our young men and whether they feel less incentivised, but also less equipped to set up on their own in the same way that we kind of expect young women to be equipped. So I think there are some bigger societal questions, really, about the kind of expectations that we place on young men, perhaps. You did mention there, Lucy, that other cultures, it is perfectly normal. In fact, yeah, absolutely. South Asian culture, it's traditionally,

boys would just remain at home and they'd get married and then the wives move in with them. But there is also, you know, conversely, the idea of mothers doing everything for their sons and sort of breeding little princes and daughters move away because they know no one's going to do it for them. So they're about as well just go and do it for themselves. Is that sort of spreading out amongst society, do you think, Hannah? I think, I mean, one of the things I just wanted to say is I think it's important to make a distinction about adult children living at home, because I think there are two more typical scenarios. There's adult children who haven't yet left home. And I think for adult children who haven't yet left home, that brings up a number of different sort of challenges and considerations compared to young adults who've left home and then returned.

I think those are two slightly different scenarios actually that are quite, it's important to pay attention to because I think if we think about leaving home as a rite of passage for those young people who haven't left home sometimes that can be tricky. I think for whatever reason perhaps something hasn't happened yet in the relationship in terms of independence and sort of detangling themselves from their family home, from their parents, which is very, very different. For people who haven't left home yet, I think there can be real challenges in terms of becoming overly dependent or parents becoming overly caretaking of those,

which is what you were kind of referring to Lucy in a way. But for those young people who've left, they might have had that kind of right of passage of feeling independent and having left home. And then coming home can feel very, very different because you're having to renegotiate all those boundaries, all those roles and responsibilities. You know, maybe those young people have lived really successful, independent lives for a period of time, and then they have to come home and sort of fit back into their old lives. And that can be really challenging for the young person and for the parents, I think, and siblings.

We're talking about how things are done in British culture, but lots of other parts of the world, people remain within the home, sons remain within the home, you have the extended family model. Could things be learned from that? Is it necessarily a rite of passage? Do you think, Hannah? I mean, I think there's a huge amount to learn. And of course, yeah, there's plenty of families live very happily in multi-generational households, both in the UK and right across the world. And in fact, it's the norm in many parts of the world, in most parts of the world so I think it can be of course a really nurturing place financially and practically very supportive of course if there are grandchildren

in the mix then we're talking about multi-generational households where you've got child care care you know supportive relationships that are going to be really helpful as well yeah Lucy can you imagine signing up for that? Partners moving in, grandchildren in the home? If I had a big house, I'd be more than happy. I think it's healthy. I think it's emotionally healthy. And also, you know, there's a couple of things I just have to say quickly. Number one, children living at home doesn't mean to say they're not independent. They can be perfectly independent and still be living at home and you have your boundaries set up. It's not that my kids come home and put their stuff down and go, wash my stuff, mum. They lead independent lives. We're sharing at home, we're having

it financially. Also, I don't think people, my daughter's just as likely to stay as my sons. I don't think it's a gendered thing necessarily that girls move out because, you know, no one's going to look after them. I don't think that's actually the case for many houses I think people like having their children around them. Lucy Cavendish and Dr Hannah Schabersky there. Now it's been reported that USA women's footballer Naomi Girma has agreed terms to join Chelsea FC for a world record transfer fee of £900,000 that's 1.1 million US dollars and so smashes the million dollar barrier for a transfer fee in women's football. And check this out for inflation, the record before this was £685,000 paid by Bay FC for Zambia's Rachel Kundunandji in February

last year. So what does this milestone mean for women's football? Well, this week I was joined by Tom Gary, women's football writer at The Guardian, and I asked him, first of all, who is Naomi Germer? Well, she has been labelled by Emma Hayes, the former Chelsea manager, as the best defender she's ever seen. She's a very stable and dependable centre-back. She plays on the west coast of America for San Diego Wave. And she sort of rose to stardom at the World Cup in 2023 when the Americans went out quite early, but she was sort of the star player in an otherwise underperforming. And then she helped the Americans win the Olympics in Paris. They won the Olympic gold there as well. So ever since those performances, I suppose she's been a very sought-after defender. But that's one of the most

remarkable things about this. This is a defender who's getting the world record transfer, which is not the usual thing we see. It's usually the goal scorers and the pacey wingers. But here we're seeing a defender breaking the transfer record. Extraordinary. Why has she broken the million-dollar barrier? Why is she worth it? Well, first of all, I she's widely regarded it as the best

defensive player available in the market right now and um chelsea for listeners who don't know are currently without one of their defenders through a season-ending injury um so they've had a need to sign a defender but i know i think um more than that i think that uh when you have the the power that chelsea have financially in the women's game and you know one of the best defenders in on the planet is available you know they're the team that are going to have the best chance of getting her and i think they've been looking to try and um secure their defense for the next kind of four five years or so and she they see her as the key to that to winning trophies and trying to win the champions league

yeah chelsea women have won the Super League five times in a row. They're beefing up their defence now. Are they going to be unstoppable? There is a risk of that now, I suppose, because they're already seven points clear at the top of the table and unbeaten this season, and then they've gone and signed one of the best players in the world. So I suppose their rivals could be quite worried. But I think what really strikes me about this is the rapid rise of the inflation. You mentioned it in your introduction. We only have to go back about 10 years to when the British transfer record

was broken by Chelsea signing Fran Kirby, who has played for the Lionesses, listeners might know her, and that was a fee of around £50,000 or £60,000. So in 10 years, we've gone up nearly 20 times that amount, which is a rapid rise and it's extraordinary. Which is super exciting because it's happening in our lifetimes. We're watching it all unfold. But back to Chelsea and this Super League that, you know,

they've won it five times. They've got their defence has been beefed up even more. If they continue to win and they're unstoppable and untouchable, is it going to make the game boring? Yeah, great question. There is a real risk of that. I think so far that hasn't happened because even though they've won the five straight titles in a row, they've been winning really narrowly.

The title has gone down to the final day of the season. Even though they've been dominant, it's carried on being competitive. But there is a risk of that, yes, because this will only widen the gap between Chelsea and the rest. And certainly they've also got the Australian star Sam Kerr This will only widen the gap between Chelsea and the rest. And, you know, certainly they've also got the Australian star Sam Kerr to come back from injury as well. He'll only make them stronger. So certainly a fear if you're a fan of their rival clubs that Chelsea will continue to dominate for many, many years to come.

So what about football teams generally? How are they funded? Because Chelsea and Arsenal have big women's teams. Is that because of the success of their men's sides? But also, I mean, Liverpool has a very successful men's team, you know, top of the Premier League, but their female team isn't as dominant. So what's happening and where's this money coming from?

Great question. It really sort of depends on the ambition of the ownership, really. A club like Liverpool, for example, have had a motto or mantra of wanting to sort of spend within their means for the women's team and roughly kind of break even and sort of grow the women's team slowly and sustainably rather than throwing money at winning it whereas I suppose the Chelsea and Arsenal and other clubs like Barcelona their attitude has been well we can afford this because it's very small change compared to the the cost of running a successful men's team So we want to win things and we're going to try and invest. And sort of the chicken and the egg argument that they're going for the money first to try and get ahead of the game, I suppose.

But what it does create is a huge disparity because in the women's game, because so few teams are professional in England, you only have to go down to roughly the 30th or 31st, 32nd team in the pyramid when you start getting towards semi-professional. And there are teams in the top 40 in England who are paying subs to play. So to go to the team at the top, Chelsea spending over a million dollars on one player, just gives you an example, I think, of the broad gap from a club like Liverpool Feds,

you know, grassroots team in the third tier to Chelsea. It's a really quick distinction from top to third tier. Oh, well, we're going to see it happen, aren't we? And Tom, you've got your ear to the ground in women's football. Can we expect any more big signings? Yeah, actually, incredibly this morning, we heard that a former World Cup winner from Japan, Saki Kumagai, who won the World Cup 2011,

a big legend in Japan, and she plays for Roma at the moment in Italy. We believe she's going to sign for a second-tier English club at London City Lionesses, which is quite a shock. That's one of the biggest names in the sport, really, joining a second-division English team. So that could happen as early as this afternoon. So really exciting if you're a fan of London City Lionesses. But I think more generally the big moves will be in the summer.

We're keeping an eye on the England analysis, Keira Walsh, possibly moving from Barcelona back to England. I think that will happen in the summer, we suspect, when her contract runs out. But yeah, it never goes dull and it's always exciting to follow as a reporter. Tom Gary there. Now, Elise Downing ran 5,000 miles self-supported around the British coast over the course of 10 months. She was not only the youngest person, but also the only female to have completed the challenge. Along the way, she saw Britain at its wild and wonderful best, ate a lot of cake and developed a terrible fear of cows. She's now written Walk Britain, a book packed with surprising ideas on how to get

out and explore stunning locations from the Cornish coast to the Isle of Arran. There are 90 different routes that can be completed on foot, all accessible by public transport. However, when she spoke to Daciani this week, she started by telling her why she ran 5,000 miles, self-supported, over 10 months in the first place. So it was 10 years ago now that I set off. It was November 2015, which has flown by. And I think I was not a sporty child at all. I think whenever on paper I tell people that I've done this,

they're like, you must be some sort of super athlete. Couldn't be less the case. I was so unqualified to set off on that adventure. But I started following all these other people who were doing these massive adventures. And I think ignorance was bliss, to be honest. There was a huge amount of naivety to it. And I just thought, well, other people seem to manage to run these crazy distances. Like, why can't I have a go at that?

So there was definitely a lot of naivety in that journey. Did you have any experience of running up until this point? So I'd started running two years previously. I'd done one extremely painful marathon, Milton Keynes Marathon. I was dressed as a purple Crayola crayon and I cried for about eight miles. And a small child heckled me and called me the crying crayon. And that was genuinely the sort of extent of my long distance running career. But was following a lady called Anna McNuff at the time who's done loads of amazing adventures and she was running the length of New Zealand and I just remember thinking she made it

seem so sort of possible to do this thing I didn't realize that Anna was the daughter of two Olympians and an ex-team GB rower and I was the crying crayon but she really inspired me to kind of get out there and have a go. Why did you decide a crayon? I dressed up as a crayon once for a night out at university and so I was trying to think of what to dress up as I was raising some money for charity and I just thought maybe I could bring out the crayon costume again. Fair enough fair enough crazier things have been done so tell us about the format of the book there are 90 different routes across england wales and scotland that you can complete on foot without using a car this this is great for me have you done all of these 90 routes yeah i've done the

wrecking process took a bit longer than i expected to so i sent out some testers to test out some of the routes that kind of changed or were sort of adapted after I'd been to the location for the first time. But they are based largely around we wanted to put a massive amount of variety in there, but also just places that I absolutely love. I think I spend a lot of time kind of talking about the outdoors and adventure at different sort of like writing about it and talking about it. And sometimes it does feel like you're preaching to the choir a bit. Someone's bought a ticket to come to a talk about a long run they're already into this and so I think I'm always trying to think about how can we get those people who don't already do these things out doing them and it is often this misconception I think that we you can

only get to these sort of wild remote places if you drive to them but I didn't pass my driving test until I was 30 I've done a lot of car free adventures before that and I was really keen to make this guidebook as accessible as possible by being there all on major train lines sort of well populated bus routes and I think it's something the UK has really got going for it our public transport system is not perfect by any means but it does we can get to so many incredible places here in a way that other countries just don't have and I think it's a real asset for us and it does really help the sort of accessibility point when it comes to outdoor adventures that's very true is do you have a favorite or a few favorites maybe it's too mean to ask one favorite in in the book that you'd

recommend yeah I think I absolutely I live up near the Lake District now it is my favorite place so sort of the mountains and lakes around Cumbria. So that chapter has definitely got a soft spot in my heart. And because I spent so much time there, it was really hard to narrow down the routes there. I also, I love some, obviously, I love a coast path. I think Pembrokeshire is incredible. A late addition to the book was actually the Isle of Man. I visited for their literary festival

just before my deadline was um booked in i fell in love with the island and they've got this amazing public transport network of buses steam trains i did an a to b run and got a steam train back which felt very exciting so yeah i think i i did scratch a few places after wrecking them because they just i didn't want i didn't want the routes to be they're not amazing but you can get a train to them so um yeah I can vouch for the fact that they are all amazing routes I think anyway and you give tips on weather navigation rescue but safety wise how have you found traveling as a solo woman yeah I think the thing that I was and I do get asked this a lot like when I went and ran around the coast of Britain I was on my own with my backpack on I was 23 at the time but the thing I always try and focus on is the kind of facts around this sometimes it can feel a bit

scary being sort of somewhere remote by yourself out in a mountain or something but the statistics are we're kind of much safer there than sort of walking around a city so I try and not let the sort of these invented fears take over and focus on the sort of realities and there are also certain things I do like I try and not focus like post live on social media where I am I like to sort of post in retrospect for instance so that you know you're not telling the whole world where to find you all alone on a mountain. Elise Downing and her book Walk Britain is out on the 6th of February and if you feel inspired you might also want to listen to

the Woman's Hour New Year's Day programme which was devoted to women and walking. Just go to BBC Sounds, you'll find it there. That's it from me. Do join Claire MacDonald on Monday's Woman's Hour where she'll be joined by Mary Robinson, Ireland's first female president, ahead of a new documentary about her. Do enjoy the rest of your weekend.

I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who'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.