Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour: Gemma Chan, Lyra McKee's sister, Endometriosis, 15-minute home care visits

Episode Date: August 3, 2019

The journalist and writer, Lyra McKee was shot dead in Londonderry nearly four months ago. She had been watching rioting in the Creggan area of the city. Her book Angels With Blue Faces, written before her death has just been published. We hear from her sister Nichola Corner.Careworker Caroline inspired this week’s drama serial Flying Visits. Frustrated by the requirement to keep her home visits to fifteen minutes, she made an impassioned speech to councillors in Southwark, London which led them to change their policy. Caroline, Ian Hudspeth from the Local Government Association and Donna Rowe-Merriman from UNISON discuss the challenges associated with home care visits.The singer Angelique Kidjo has three Grammy awards and has been described as the undisputed queen of African music. Her latest album Celia is a tribute to the Cuban salsa singer Celia Cruz. She sings for us in the studio.Endometriosis is a serious and lifelong disease which affects as many as 1 in 10 women. But it often goes undiagnosed. Karen Havelin has turned her experience of the disease into a novel, Please Read This Leaflet Carefully. And Eleanor Thom has written a manual aimed at her fellow sufferers, as well as their friends and family, Private Parts: How to Really Live with Endometriosis. Actor Gemma Chan talks about her role in the Channel 4 drama I Am Hannah - a woman in her mid-thirties struggling with the pressure to settle down and start a family.200 years ago a prison was opened in Brixton in South London. It was the first to house only women and Emma Barton was its governor. We hear from Chris Impey, author of a history of HMP Brixton and from the current Deputy Governor Louise Ysart.The food writer MiMi Aye’s new book Mandalay: Recipes and Tales from a Burmese Kitchen is a celebration of Burmese food, history and culture. She Cooks the Perfect… Red Prawn Curry.Presented by Jenni Murray Produced by Dianne McGregor Edited by Jane ThurlowInterviewed guest: Nichola Corner Interviewed guest: Ian Hudspeth Interviewed guest: Donna Rowe-Merriman Interviewed guest: Angelique Kidjo Interviewed guest: Karen Havelin Interviewed guest: Eleanor Thom Interviewed guest: Gemma Chan Interviewed guest: Chris Impey Interviewed guest: Louise Ysart Interviewed guest: MiMi Aye

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. Good afternoon. In Weekend Woman's Hour today, the care worker, Caroline, the inspiration for this week's serial, Flying Visit. She spoke to her counsel about the failure of the system. I said to him, you know, how long does it take you to get ready in the morning? Because if you can do it

in 15 minutes or less, can you come and work with me? How successful was her appeal? Endometriosis, a disease thought to affect around one in 10 women. Why is it so often misdiagnosed and how do you learn to live with it? Gemma Chan will appear on Tuesday in Channel 4's I Am Hannah. But her really big moment was the premiere of Crazy Rich Asians with her family. All of us were in tears and my mum kind of gripping my hand. And she said that she hadn't expected ever to see faces that looked like our families or the food that we grew up eating or, you know, songs that she hadn't heard since her childhood being in a mainstream Hollywood film. So it was a very cathartic experience for all of us. Angelique Kidjo has been dubbed the undisputed

queen of African music. She sings at the proms and in the Women's Hour studio. Nearly four months ago, a young journalist and writer, Lyra McKee, was shot dead in Londonderry. She'd been observing rioting in the Cregan area of the city. She'd just completed a book called Angels with Blue Faces, in which she'd investigated the murders in 1981 of an MP, Robert Bradford, and a young man called Ken Campbell. She also looked into rumours of the abuse of boys at a home called Kinkora. She didn't see her work published, but yesterday it was launched officially in Belfast

at the Lennon Hall Library where she carried out most of her research. I spoke to her sister, Nicola Corner. What would have been Lyra's reaction to the book being published? She would have been extremely excited. She would have been worried about things that didn't need to be worried about. What sort of things would she have been worried about that she didn't need to be worried about? Well, she'd have been worried about what other people would have thought of her work. She would have been very concerned about that, that you know and she would have been worried about what would happen on social media sites such as Twitter afterwards when her book came

out because she was very very self-conscious about her work you've you've written the foreword and you say she was haunted by the murders of Robert Bradford and Ken Campbell for years. Why was she haunted by them? Because she really could not believe that human beings could be so barbaric. were failed by lots of different people and that their voice deserved to be heard and that their story deserved more attention. How long, Nicola, did it take her to put all this evidence together that it's so complicated, the stories are so complicated, the sources are so difficult for her to find.

Absolutely. It took her quite a long time to get it all together because every time she uncovered one source, that led to maybe three or four different sources. And then she had to speak to each one and try and collate the information to bring it all together to create the puzzle that she was building about the truth behind these murders so yes it's extremely complicated story and so she would have spent years and years and years actually finding people

investigating people she spent 18 months looking for one source alone, you know, so she was really, really dedicated to the story and determined to uncover as much of it as she could. You mention what you describe as stark ironies in the story which link with her murder and its aftermath. You've written that in your foreword. What are they? Well, I don't want to give everything away or people might not want to buy her book,

but it begins and it ends in St Anne's Cathedral. I mean, Ken Campbell was 29. Lear was 29. Ken Campbell was killed with a single gunshot wound to the head so was she you know she was standing feeling quite safe

I expect beside a police Land Rover where Ken Campbell was standing beside a police officer whose job it was to protect the Reverend Bradford. You know, the IRA claimed responsibility for those gentlemen's murder,

and the new IRA has claimed responsibility for her murder. You know, it's almost like she has become this story, in a way, that she put so much time and energy into researching and writing. Now, we all know you from when you spoke at Lear's funeral and received a standing ovation. What do you remember of that afternoon? Well, I remember that I had to put a lot of my attention into not fainting

before I even went to speak. And, you know, I was having a little conversation in my head with Lyra as I was focusing on my breathing, saying to her, because I thought I was going to just keel over and die, to tell you the truth. And I was saying to her, oh, Lear, please don't let me die here because it will take attention away from you. And this is your day. All these people are here to see you, not to see me dying in the front row. I was having those conversations with her and focusing on my breathing to try and keep myself from fainting, if the truth be told.

And after I did speak, I could have just collapsed on the floor instead of collapsed beside my mummy. You know, it was very, very, very difficult. It's still very unbelievable that she's not going to be here because she was such a big part of my everyday life. And I'm just really honoured as well that her funeral tribute was so beautiful. How, though, is your family coping with being really in the spotlight, in the midst of your grief? Well, you see, that's why they've given me the role of the representative,

so that not everyone would be in the same position in the spotlight because we are a very, very, very private family. You know, we keep everything very close within our family circle and we wouldn't be used to any kind of public attention or public interest or anything like that. We're just quiet, ordinary people who go about our lives in very quiet and ordinary ways, you know. And I suppose, in a sense, I've been trying to protect them all, in a way, in the same way I would have done for Lear as well.

How is your mother, Nicola? in the same way I would have done for Lear as well, protect them. How is your mother, Nicola? She's not great, if the truth be told. She's not great at all. She's struggling greatly to come to terms with her loss. She is absolutely devastated and, you know, we all cry together, hanging over each other. We're all soaking with tears. You know, on a daily basis, there isn't a day goes by

that we can't believe what has happened and can't believe that she's not coming back. And she was just such an attentive, caring daughter. No-one has been charged with her murder. What happens now? Well, the only thing that we can do, really, is wait on the police doing their job. You know, I wouldn't like to be in a situation

like thousands of other people in our country who have never received justice for their loved one's murder. I'm hoping that we don't have to wait forever. I'm hoping we don't have to wait for 40 years. I'm hoping that we will receive justice before my mum takes her final breath because lots of people haven't had that opportunity in this country and it has stayed with them every single day of their life,

the fact that their family member hasn't had justice. I was talking to Nicola Corner. This week's Woman's Hour Serial was Flying Visits, inspired by a care worker, Caroline, who was so frustrated by the requirement to keep her home visits to 15 minutes, she decided to speak to her local council about the failure of the system. She made such an impassioned speech to the councillors, they agreed that Southwark would

no longer insist on such a short period of time. It was one of the first councils in the country to do it. Well, Tina spoke to Caroline, to Ian Huntsworth, the chairman of the local government association's community well-being board, and to Donna Rowe-Merriman, the Senior National Officer for Unison with responsibility for social care. How would she describe what a home care visit involves? It's personal care provided in the home, either when you've just come out of hospital or for a longer term basis. And it's providing things like personal hygiene. It's looking at simple treatments, medical treatments like helping people take their medications toileting problems with if they are immobile in any way what it's not is

housework or shopping or making beds because that can actually be an additional charge from either local authorities or can be sourced elsewhere. Caroline what's it like doing a 15-minute home visit? It's a rushed job because you're dealing with people that need to be looked after with dignity. If you thought about what you do for yourself in 15 minutes, can you actually do this for somebody who might be suffering from dementia, who could be blind, they could be deaf, you know, they could be walking on a frame. They might take five minutes to answer the door for you.

What happens if you go over? Well, that's in your own time. If you come across, you know, that you can't get done in 15 minutes, then all it does is it has a knock-on effect for the next one and the next one. How many people might you see in a day, in a typical day? You could see up to eight people a day, but then you'll be going back and forth because it'll be four visits. So you'll be going back and forth all day.

Is your travel paid for? It is now, but it wasn't. OK. And how much, if you don't mind me asking, do you get paid? I get paid the London Living Wage because Suffolk signed up for the evangelical care charter. That was part of me going to the council as well so that the carers got better terms and conditions and the service users got better quality time. Donna, is this typical of what you hear?

It's actually, in some ways, it's not typical because many of our members in the sector don't even earn what we call the real living wage. They're on the minimum pay rates for what is actually quite a skilled job. What is the problem with 15 minute visits? Because surely you can fit in seeing more people in need in that time. Yeah, the problem is in 2015, NICE recommended home care visits should last 30 minutes. And that's so that councils can fulfil what they need to do by law under the Care Act. But what we're finding is that one in five councils

around the UK are still commissioning 15-minute visits against the recommendation of NICE, which it is just a recommendation, but clearly if there's a clinical need identified for 30 minutes then anything less is cutting corners and going to impact on the dignity and safeguarding of our vulnerable citizens. Is this about money at the end of the day? Is this why we're in this situation? I think in terms of money, it's up to them to commission a service and adequately assess what it's going to cost not rushing down to the lowest common denominator of what's the bottom line we should actually be saying what should people be paid how should they be treated and delivering in that way and i think that what unison is saying is that actually social care needs to be transformed and that's got to be something that's across the whole political spectrum really

it needs to be tackled on a far bigger scale than it's been tackled before to deliver a 21st century service. I mean I don't think there's any argument about the fact that this is a crisis Boris Johnson talked about fixing the crisis in social care on the steps of Downing Street last week. Ian, why are councils in this situation? The issue is around funding. We've been having to take some really difficult decisions over the last six years. Our budgets have been cut by around 40%. By 2025, we think there'll be a shortfall of £3.6 billion across the social care sector and we've got to balance the books somehow i think the

main thing is that sometimes 15 minute visits are appropriate if there's multiple visits during the day however if there's a clinical need then a 30 minute visit is what we'd be recommending to all our councils to make sure that people have that and more importantly actually social workers are able to do the job because it's an incredibly difficult job and it's really important that people have the time to do that job. And so rushing in and thinking all the time, watching the clock, is not good enough. And I think that, you know, 30 minutes is what we should be aiming for, but there are funding issues and some councils may have taken those decisions,

which are unfortunate. I think the main thing we were saying to the new prime minister is that let's have the publication of the social health care green paper, which has been delayed three times. We want to get it out there. We want to have a conversation across the country about how we fix social care. And it shouldn't be about party politics. We all need to work together to find a solution. You represent England. Donna, what's the situation across the rest of the United Kingdom? The situation about the 15-minute visits is that they are across the rest of the United Kingdom. We can find them in Scotland, in Wales and in England. So the reality of how you can access care and what it will cost you is different where you live,

and obviously we've got English devolution just kicking in line as well around social care but um Unisys ethical care charter works with councils and helps support councils in their commissioning process so that we can we can do this I mean let's just break it down if you're talking about the the minimum living wage you're saying for somebody to do something in 15 minutes we're charging just a little over two pounds for somebody to deliver personal care to your relative or loved one that's a coffee i mean it's also that's funding is is of course an issue but it's also about the attractiveness of the job and making the job more appealing because there aren't as i understand it enough people wanting to do care work care assistants are one of the skill shortages in the UK but

actually when you go on to online to sort of sign up for this job if you look on one of the recruitment websites the first thing it says is it's a tough job and it is a tough job you need to be resilient you're the front line of a multi-billion pound care sector and you need to be prepared for anything when you walk through the door are you dealing with people with complex care needs who've been assessed to say yes we want to live in our own home independently with support but actually that's the important thing it's with support. Caroline at what point did you decide to speak out was that triggered by a particular incident? It was triggered because you're just rushing around and you're not giving the good quality care that you should be giving

and so it has a knock-on effect with you as a person so it comes to the point where it's groundhog day you're doing the same thing so I went to my local branch secretary at the time and she was the one who said come with us to the council, and that's what I'd done, and I sat down and I said to him, you know, how long does it take you to get ready in the morning? Because if you can do it in 15 minutes or less, can you come and work with me? Caroline, Donna-Roe Merriman and Ian Hudspeth, and you can listen to the whole of the serial online.

Sharon, who's a registered nurse, wrote in an email, 15-minute visits are not adequate in most cases, especially for a first visit when you're meeting a client for the first time and getting to know their routine and capabilities. When people need four calls a day, they are really dependent, and how 15 minutes can be seen as enough is questionable. Carers often go above and beyond their duties. I've heard of carers who call in on clients over and above paid calls to make sure they're drinking enough. We need to recognise their commitment properly.

Angelique Kidjo is a singer from Benin who has three Grammy Awards and 13 albums to her name. She's been named as the Undisputed Queen of African Music and is a campaigner for girls' education. On Tuesday, she sang at the proms with a nine-piece band in a late-night tribute to Celia Cruz. Angelique's latest album, Celia, is a tribute to the Cuban salsa singer who died 15 years ago. When did she first hear Celia's music? I was a teenager when I first heard Celia Cruz. For me, salsa has always been a male-dominated music genre And I tried to believe that it was a woman that was going to be a frontrunner, not a backing singer or just a puppet to be used in a salsa band. And she came on stage, and she flipped my life upside down. I've always been looking for idols and role models,

and Miriam Akiba was one of them them and a lot of women like Aretha Franklin but Celia Cruz when she arrived on stage she exudes so much confidence so much power so much positivity and knowing where she came from and to answer to racism and slavery in one word

Asoka prove her sense of humor deep embedded in her soul. And for me, from that moment on, as a young girl growing up, she brought to my attention that as a woman, you can do whatever you set yourself to do. That brain, intelligence, has no sex, has no gender, has no nationality, has no colour. It's just the fear that holds us back, us women. If we are bold enough, we can challenge any man because, as I said, our brain has no gender. And that's, for me, the turning point of how I decided what kind of artist I wanted to be. Now, what you both share in common is you were both forced into exile from your home countries.

Celia from Cuba and you, Benin. I mean, both of us, we had that passion for truth, passion for freedom. And when you're living in a country, people have lately have been finding that dictatorship is romantic. It's not romantic. It's the worst thing that can happen to you ever. Because the freedom we have to go out, to take a plane ticket to go somewhere is taken away.

You can't leave your country without authorization. It's just crazy. And for both of us, living free to be able to do our art was at the heart of everything. If you're not free, you have nothing to give. If you're not free, you can't love. If you're not free, you can't be give. If you're not free, you can't love. If you're not free, you can't be a human being. So she fled to America.

And years after I went to America, I first let stop in France. And when I moved to America in the late 90s, I happened to live in the same street and the same block where she lived in when she arrived. By sheer coincidence? I mean, I think it's what it was meant to be will be. And because we have that kind of energy, we believe in our human family beyond our own safety. And for me, any human being that is suffering this world, that suffering, I feel it in my soul. And that's how we are the artists that we are. I know you've talked about finding your African roots in Celia's music

and the fact that it was inspired by Yoruba traditional songs that migrated over to the Americas with slave workers. I didn't realise that it was always linked to men. Salsa, is that changing now? Celia, when she came, she definitely brought Latin American women to the forefront of singing also on stage to take. I mean, La Ma Ponsa is there. I mean, a lot of women start singing salsa even

till today. And even though the men are still playing, I'm not against men. Let me make this clear. I'm feminist and I believe in the fact that men and women are made to live together. To be pro-women, you don't have to be anti-men. Yeah, but some feminists are anti-men. But I'm not. I'm just a woman that was raised by a father that said to me,

go out there and challenge people with your brain. It's your ultimate weapon. Your sex don't matter. So for me, Celia represents that. That's why doing this album and bringing back the African roots, every single music on this planet have African DNA on it. It doesn't matter what skin colour you hold. It doesn't matter what language you speak.

African DNA is embedded in you because if you are Homo sapiens, you're definitely an African. You paid the ultimate tribute, Angelique, with an album. You've made so many albums. You've won Grammys. Why now? Why now? I don't know. It's always something that has to do with my inspiration.

If I'm not inspired to do something, I can't just put myself to do it because I can't even start working. I can't put the truth into it. If you are inspired to do something, it's like you are possessed. So you got to give birth to it. It's like when a woman is about to give birth, I've been through that. You can't hold back but push it. And for me, that's what it is. And it's timely also because of all the stuff that is going on around us.

We are really playing a really dangerous game. I mean, with our freedoms. When we go in a voting booth and we vote for liars, for people that can take our freedom away from us, is dangerous. For me, music is the answer to everything. Music has brought me to the world to see our differences

and our richness together and the bond that we have together. And if we break that bond because of some few people that are angry, that can't live their life, that are frustrated about this world that is evolving, we can't live their life, that are frustrated about this world that is evolving, we can't pay for that. The minority cannot rule the majority.

And that's what we are seeing today because our political system is not really democracy anymore. We are lucky enough to be able to hear you performing live now. With my percussion player. Yes, with your percussion player. You are accompanied by Maguette Su playing the djembe drum and this is the track Quimbarra. Hey mama, hey mama, hey mama, hey mama. Angelique Kidjo.

Two new books have been published this week which explore the disease known as endometriosis, thought to be suffered by around one in ten women. Karen Havlin has turned her experiences into a novel called Please Read This Leaflet Carefully and Eleanor Tom who's had it since she was 11 has written Private Parts How to Really Live with Endometriosis. How would she describe it? It's the lining of the womb, the endometrium, grows in and around the organs of the peritoneal cavity, so around your ovaries, your bowel, your bladder. Sometimes it's tiny deposits that bleed and cause pain and inflammation. Sometimes they stick organs together or cause cysts. It's very painful. It causes nausea and diarrhoea and all sorts of

other symptoms. Now Hilary Mantel, who's a very well-known sufferer, she's been very open about it. She once said it used to be described as the career woman's disease. Why might that have been the case? I think for a long time people were getting diagnosed in their 30s and 40s because it was usually diagnosed after they had issues with fertility. What we now know is that it's nothing to do with whether you put your career first or whether you had children late. It can be as early as 11. It can be as early as 8 for some people that get symptoms.

I was diagnosed at 17, so I hadn't even started my career. So it can't be that. I know you started with it at the age of 11. Now, lots of women and girls have period pains. What pain would make you think this is something serious? I think if it's stopping you doing anything. I think if you can't attend school, if you can't stand up, if you can't go to social functions, if you're bleeding very heavily, if you have other symptoms like diarrhea, vomiting, fainting, extraordinary pain that isn't covered by paracetamol, basically, I thinkting, extraordinary pain that isn't covered by

paracetamol basically I think. Now a number of women told us, we've mentioned on Instagram yesterday that we would be discussing it, that they had terrible pain and were continually misdiagnosed. How was yours picked up because it was quite a while after you'd realised you had something wrong? I went when I was 12 with my mum and I was told I'd just had bad periods, sorry, hopefully they'll settle down. So I didn't go back because I thought they'd just tell me the same thing. So I struggled for quite a long time. I eventually collapsed in a school lesson

and my white blood cell count was very high and I was hospitalised. And shortly after that, I came back and did another appointment with them and a very kind female doctor said to me, I think this is something, we need to look into this. It took seven years for anyone to recognise it was doing anything. And what difference to treatment does early diagnosis make? I think if the disease goes unmanaged, it's going to get worse. So with hormone treatment or with surgery,

you can curb the disease but you can't cure it so you can help with the symptoms particularly with pain I think if you let pain signals run a mark they can get worse your body becomes more sensitive it's sort of over sensitive to pain so ideally somebody controls the symptoms early on it can help you manage it on a monthly basis. I know you advise keeping a diary of your symptoms why keep a diary I think it helps to have evidence of what's going on when you go to a doctor I think they can't ignore that if you say look I've taken this really seriously this is when these symptoms happen these spike with this it's connected to my menstrual cycle it's not to do with food or vitamins or stress this is absolutely connected

to my cycle and I think once you've got that in front of you it's hard to do with food or vitamins or stress. This is absolutely connected to my cycle. And I think once you've got that in front of you, it's hard to ignore. They can send you for a referral at that point. Now, Karen, your novel draws on your experience, obviously, but it's fiction. Why did you decide to tell the story in that way, make it happen to somebody else? It's hard to write about the stuff. It's pretty touchy and painful and sensitive. And I found it hard enough to write about it even as fiction. I needed to have the room to make things up and stretch and shape the story. But I based the physical things

that the main character, Laura, goes through on my own experience. So, like Eleanor, I had a delayed diagnosis. I was diagnosed at 29, and I had to have some very extensive surgery then, and it was a big, big deal. But if you were diagnosed at 29, for how long had you suspected there was something very wrong? I had kind of other mixed health issues, and I always had a lot of stomach aches and allergies and stuff. So it was always sort of written off as to do with that and also as IBS, which I think happens to a lot of women.

An anxious stomach. So I had been going to doctors for that forever, basically, since I was a teenager. Curiously, in the novel, you write things in reverse order. When we first meet Laura, she's very ill. And then it goes back to when she was healthy. Why did you decide to structure it like that? Someone who read it said that this way the novel takes a sort of aesthetic revenge on the illness, which I wish I'd thought of, but I really love that thought because the illness shrinks the further you go into the book. But basically, it was important to me because chronic illness is different than other illness.

And when I was little, looking for stories and books that reflected my own experience as a sick little kid, all I ever found was stories about people who had cancer, and sometimes they were injured and stuff, but they were like a normal person who had an illness, and then they were cured or they died. And there was like a neat bow to the end of it. And everyone had learned a valuable lesson about something. And whereas chronic illness is different, you have to keep doing the work of maintaining yourself and your body and your mental health. You have to go over the same issues again and again. And you have to learn the same lessons many times. And you have to learn them with different people. And it's quite different when you're 14 or when you're 29, for example. Eleni, your treatment has gone on and on. I mean, endless surgeries, hormone hormone treatment what have you actually gone through

i've had nine surgeries and i've done two pseudo menopause treatments uh one when i was 20 another one when i was 30 pseudo menopause so it's an injection called gnrh and it's sort of like a gel that goes into your bottom and it spreads through your body over the month and it creates a pseudo-menopause so you're not it reverses once you're not taking the drug anymore but it creates a menopausal symptoms almost instantly so I was pseudo-menopause at 20 and then again at 30 which is strange when you then have to contend with the symptoms that the treatments cause. Now one of our correspondents has found herself unable to have children but two of them have had children. How often is fertility threatened?

I think it's really important that we recognise this is different for every single woman that has it. The symptoms can be different, The treatments can affect people differently. They can sometimes be wonderful. They can sometimes be really damaging. So the same for fertility. Infertility is not a blanket symptom of endometriosis. Some women have no issues with it at all. Some people need help.

You shouldn't assume that if you're diagnosed with this, that's the end of that particular dream. It's something that is told to women by doctors rather flippantly. Well, that means, you know, you won't have children now. And that's not necessarily true at all. You just need to see the right people that will be able to help you and look at your disease, your body. I was talking to Eleanor Tom and Karen Havlin. Helen sent us an email. I'm 65 now, but suffered with this very debilitating disease. I didn't get diagnosed until I was in agony. I had infrequent periods, difficulty with sex and infertility. I ended up having to have an early total hysterectomy.

I'm very sad to hear not a lot has changed from the two women on your programme. Sarah said my symptoms became so severe I was often housebound and bedbound at times for months. My life was crippled by pain. I never had a true diagnosis until my total hysterectomy, despite hundreds of doctors and specialist appointments, along with many hospital admittances and endless antibiotics. Keep going until you find the right help. Unfortunately for me, this has come at the cost of us not having children.

And Kate said, I suffered from endometriosis for 20 years and always thought I would struggle to have children. However, when my partner and I started trying for a baby when I was 39, I got pregnant immediately. First time, in fact. So, a message for those with the condition, there is definitely hope. Still to come on today's programme, the history of Brixton Prison, which celebrates its 200th anniversary,

and in the 19th century, housed female convicts and had a woman prison governor. And the food writer Mimi A, of Burmese origin, cooks the perfect red prawn curry. You may have already seen the first two of Channel 4's series featuring women. Vicky McClure took the lead role in I Am Nicola last week, Samantha Morton was in I Am Kirsty, and next Tuesday, the final drama in the series will be I Am Hannah, where Gemma Chan plays a woman in her mid-thirties, meeting men online, but with no obvious desire for a permanent partner. But her mother is clearly quite keen for her to settle down and not leave the possibility of grandchildren too late.

She worked with the writer and director Dominic Savage. Why did she choose a woman at this stage in her life? Probably has a little bit to do with the fact that I am at a similar age to Hannah. A lot of my friends have either found themselves in a similar position to Hannah's or have gone the other way and have had children and are very happy. Or I also know women who are struggling with aspects of it. But I was really keen to do something that explored that expectation that there is on women, which whether it comes from without or within, but that expectation

that you should do things at a certain time, and combined with the biological reality, of course. Now, there is a point at which Hannah sees a fertility doctor, and I know a genuine fertility doctor plays the doctor in the story. What did you learn from him? Well, it was incredibly educational for me. I went to see him and went through the whole consultation process as if I was doing it for real, as if I was thinking of freezing my eggs. And he explained everything to

do with obviously the procedure but also a lot about the context of why women might come to see him and he said something very interesting to me that you know in many ways are in especially in the last 50 years our societal attitudes have evolved really quite quickly but our biology hasn't evolved at the same rate so all these things that we have you know whether it's egg freezing or embryo freezing IVF we're trying to kind of catch up or close that gap between the societal attitudes and and what our biology can do and obviously none of these things are fail-safes which is something that we explore in the film. Where have you concluded that pressure to settle down and have children comes from? Is it from family? Is it from friends? Is it just from people around you? I think it comes from

a lot of different sources. I think there are external reminders of it, whether that comes from your social circle, from your family or friends, from the media, kind of narratives that we've internalised from such a young age. And then also, you know, it does come from within as well. I found it very interesting, I think it was a month or two ago, there was that research published about the fact that actually single childless women rank very highly on the scale of happiness. But the reaction to that was quite extraordinary. And I think, you know, the fact that we found that quite hard to believe, whether you're single or you're in a couple. Apparently, we found that very difficult.

So I think that's really interesting. It says a lot about how we view childless women. I think single childless women have often been viewed with either suspicion or pity. Now, I know you studied law at Oxford and then had a job. I actually didn't practice law no I had a job a job offer but I never never took it. What was your father's response when you said you were going to be an actor? He was very worried for me this was 11 years ago now so the landscape was was very different and I had been told you know, quite kind of bluntly that I probably wouldn't be able to get enough work in the UK. There were very few opportunities for actors of colour.

And I was told I should probably go to America where I would have more of a chance of making a living. So I completely understood my father's reaction. And, you know, both my parents are immigrants. And the luxury of being able to take a chance of a career in the arts was something that, you know, wasn't open to them. So I completely understood their fear. But I should say that they're incredibly supportive and very, very happy that it's all worked out. It was the Child 4 series Humans that gave you your big break. And we talked about it then about playing a robot.

And then you were starring last year in Crazy Rich Asians. How surprised were you at its phenomenal success? I don't think anyone could have predicted it, really. When we were shooting the film, we thought we have something here that could be special and that we hope is going to be a good film that people will enjoy. We really had no idea whether people would actually go

and pay their hard-earned disposable income to go to the cinema to see our film. So it was a really lovely surprise. And then, to be honest, I was a bit taken aback, actually, by the personal reactions that people had to the film. You know, even within my own family, I took my mum and dad to the premiere in London, and had them on either side of me and watching it with them, all of us were in tears and my mum kind of gripping my hand and she said that she hadn't expected ever to see faces that looked like our families or the food that we grew up eating or songs that she hadn't heard since her childhood being in a mainstream Hollywood film. So it was a very, not to kind of over-egg it,

but it was a very cathartic experience for all of us and very, very special. But how much is diversity changing for the better? I mean, looking at Hannah, you're a professional woman in her 30s. In a way, your racial background is completely irrelevant. Well, I suppose that's the next logical step. It's wonderful to have stories where your cultural background or your ethnicity is at the forefront. But also, you know, in a modern city like London, you can have a story about a woman who, you know,

is a modern woman who's working and where really it's not the central thing. And I think that's also an important next step. And in some respects, I think, not just to do with ethnicity or race or gender or sexuality. You know, when we get to the point where we're telling stories and it's just stories about people, that will be a new thing. I think, for example, this series has been talked about a lot in terms of it being a women led anthology. And we wouldn't call something a male led drama. I think we'll have turned the corner when it's no longer the exception that we have female centric stories. And that's the thing that, you know, seems so special because it's so rare.

Now, I couldn't help noticing that you are on Megan's Vogue list. What do you make of your inclusion as one of her star choices? It's slightly surreal. I actually didn't know that the Duchess was involved until a very late stage. I think I found out the day before the cover was released that she was involved. So I had been speaking with Edward Ennenfall, who was the editor, but it was all kept very, very hush-hush and very secret. But I think it's lovely. I really admire the other women that she chose to highlight,

and I think it's great that she is highlighting their work. I feel slightly humbled that I'm remotely considered alongside those women. But no, it was a lovely surprise. I was talking to Gemma Chan and I am Hannah is on Channel 4 next Tuesday at 10 o'clock. 200 years ago, a prison was established in Brixton in South London, expressly for the housing of female offenders. In 1853, a woman took over as the governor. Her name was Emma Martin. As the prison celebrates its 200th anniversary, it now houses men and its job is the resettlement of male offenders. Its deputy governor is a woman, Louise Isart, and Chris

Impey has written The House on the Hill, Brixton, London's oldest prison. How did Emma Martin become the first woman to govern a jail? Transportation ended in 1852 and suddenly Britain was left with all these convicts, people that they would have sent abroad before, and they didn't know what to do with them. Prisons hadn't housed long-term offenders before. And so among these were a thousand women. Brixton, a compulsory purchase was made by the government, and Brixton became the first convict prison for women. There were sensibilities about men looking after women so almost the entire staff apart from the the chaplain and the doctor were women and Emma Martin became the governor of the prison in charge of 70 staff and 700 very desperate women. What kind of woman was she? She

had children and she took them all around? Yes. Yes, we don't know a lot about her before. She was twice widowed and one of her husbands had been a prison chaplain. She had 12 children aged between six months and 17 years. They lived with her in the prison and she would take the younger ones among them on her rounds. From reading her report she comes across as a very caring person but very strict as well she's very prepared to get to give out the punishments but she spoke of the women as wretched creatures but said she she felt her compassion as she would towards her own children. Louise how do you reckon her job would have compared with what you do now? Hopefully very different you, walking into a male-dominated environment is, it's intimidating.

And I think that I'm glad that I navigated my way through in 17 years at the prison service about how I handle that. That helps me guide other female staff in Brixton around how to manage themselves and particularly their authority in HMP Brixton. I think there's a different authority that everyone has but particularly women have to think about how they walk you know past the excise yard, how do they walk on the wing, how do they deal with conflict. How do you do it? You have a set of answers that you always respond to. I think that you walk with purpose, I think that you get very comfortable in the authority that you have developed over time.

What kind of crimes, Chris, would the women in the 19th century have committed? Because I was quite surprised to find that they often pleaded guilty thinking they would be sent to Australia and were rather surprised to find themselves in Brixton. This is what Emma Martin said, that she believed that some of the women had done that. And because they were convicts,

so serving longer sentences, they tended to commit more serious crimes. So robbery, attempted murder, murder, which most commonly was infanticide at that time. So they'd committed very serious crimes. For the women prisoners, it was the same as the staff, that this was a whole new situation for them. They had been expecting to start a new life in Australia, and they were very angry about it. A lot of them would protest by ripping off their clothes, smashing windows, smashing up anything that they could find.

So Emma Martin certainly had a job on her hands, certainly when she first took over at the prison. Now you are obviously Louise, slap bang in the middle of London and it's your job to prepare prisoners for resettlement. How difficult is that when you're in a very busy urban area? I think it's an opportunity. I think that London offers the hub of all the employment and charities and agencies. And when I first went to Brixton, I asked the staff, you know, what is it about Brixton that is great? And they said, well, we're in London, its location. And we have very, very good partnerships, you know. In the last two and a half years, we have transformed the prison. You know, the inspection report shows that.

And we celebrate being a part of such a diverse community. There's quite a bit of baking gets done, isn't there? There is quite a bit of baking. And, well, we have Bad Boys Bakery and we have the Klink restaurant. So, you know, we have lots of partnerships. You know, we have B we have bounce back do painting and decorating so we really strive for when prisoners come into Brixton that they have opportunities and support to change their lives we have a high proportion of females and I think they're not

prisoners it's females on the staff so yes, yeah. No women prisoners. No female prisoners at all. So we have 798 male prisoners and 36% of our officers are females. And that's quite high in a male prison. But that figure increases as you go up the ladder. So 53% of our middle managers are females and 67% are senior leaders within Brixton. It's interesting, Chris, because you found that Brixton has overseen the testing of reform in the prison system for quite some time. How did it do that? So, well, when it was a women's prison, that was a classic example.

So you had all these convicts. We hadn't held people on a long term basis before. So they came up with a system of stages, which would start off with solitary confinement, but then women would go on to work, but then they would be given the opportunity for probation, which is the first time that anything like that had been trialled. Brixton itself was very much seen as an experiment. There was a man called Joshua Jebb who was in charge of the prisons. And it was very much seen as a rehabilitative culture and that these women should be given an opportunity for change. They would go on to a refuge at Fulham as well and be given the opportunity to train in domestic service, for example.

It also had the first woman to run a male prison. That was Joy Kinsley, I think, wasn't it? Joy Kinsley in 1986. How did she get on? She got on very well. She was described to me by an old officer, Desi, who Louise will know, who was there for many years, as a hyacinth bouquet character.

I think that was to do with her kind of prim and properness rather than her airs and graces. She'd been governor at Holloway. She came in at a very difficult time. They were renegotiating work contracts with the staff and it was a very male-dominated environment. Most of the staff were ex-military. There's a very heavy drinking culture, a very heavy Masonic element. And Joy Kinsley came in, had to negotiate with the unions. A grade A governor was another description that another officer gave to me. And don't forget as well, she was dealing with very serious offenders. IRA members were held in Brixton at that time. So she was a real force, a real trailblazer. I was talking to Chris Impey and Louise Isart. The food writer Mimi A's new book

Mandalay Recipes and Tales from a Burmese Kitchen is a celebration of Burmese food, history and culture. Along with the recipes she shares her family's stories and tales from her culinary travels around Burma. Mimi joined Tina to cook the perfect red prawn curry. How difficult is it to do? This particular dish is a tiny bit of a faff because one of the secrets for this is that you have to use whole prawns so they have their heads on them still. What are you holding right now? I've got the sauce that I cooked in advance. So this is like a tomato, paprika and turmeric based sauce. And I kind of cooked this down using a technique called si bian, which means the oil returns.

What does that mean? So basically it means that you start off with probably a bit more oil than most people are used to because the Burmese really like oil. What type of oil? Any neutral oil. So you don't want anything strong flavored so nothing like olive oil um so i use tend to use ground nut or rapeseed oil and sunflower oil is also fine and so what you do is you get lots of onions we're very big on onions um some tomatoes um garlic um

and then you kind of cook it with love i would would say. You kind of have it on a medium, medium-low heat, and you just let it simmer away until everything breaks down. So you're not mincing all of the vegetables very finely from the start. They can be sloppily done as you like. But that heat just kind of like turns it into a nice mellow mush, basically. Okay. So that's what I've got here. I like to think I approach my cooking, on the rare occasions I do cook, with love.

I'm not quite sure it works out in the way I want it to. How do you know when that's what I've got here. I like to think I approach my cooking on the rare occasions I do cook with love. I'm not quite sure it works out in the way I want it to. How do you know when that's ready? So I said it's called sibian, which means oil returns. And what that means is that when everything's all cooked down and nice and broken, the oil that you put in at the start kind of reappears like around the edges in a ring. And so that's why sibian oil returns. So you see that rise up and you go, oh, OK, this is ready because I can see the oil again.

And how spicy is Burmese food? It's one of those cultures where we like all ages to be able to eat everything. So we don't tend to put chilli in stuff from the get-go. What you have is, and I've actually brought some, you have things like chilli oil. I love spice. You have things like chilli oil or pickled chilies or roasted chili flakes at the table to add so it's kind of according to your own taste and heat level basically that sounds sensible when did you first start cooking I didn't actually start cooking until I went to university

so that would be probably about 20 20 years ago let's say um but I've always kind of been a kind of encamped in my mother's kitchen watching everything that she did ever since I was little we used to go to Burma every other year and so I'd be camped out at my aunt's house my grandmother's house we'd go to restaurants my parents are big foodies and you know I owe a lot to them for my my taste let's say and so it meant that we were always kind of like tasting things trying things bullying people to let us know what they put in their dishes that their secret ingredients were so I've always kind of been absorbing all of this stuff but I don't think it was until college that I was actually let loose into a kitchen to be fair. I wouldn't be sure about how to define Burmese food.

What characterises Burmese food? So one of my friends refers to it as Indian food on acid. OK. Probably a fair description. I think that if you're familiar with other cuisines from the region, Southeast Asia, I'd say it's most similar to Malaysian food because we have that kind of ethos where we have curries that are similar to Indian curries,

we have salads that are similar to Thai salads, we have noodles that are similar to Chinese noodles. So you know, whatever takes your fancy, what your mood is in, you can go and have it. And it's still Burmese food. How's the sauce getting along? It's just warming through. And what's going to happen is that I am going to, the prawns'd already marinated so what i'm going to do is i'm going to get the prawns and i'm just going to heat them through until they cook basically how long will that take probably about i don't know a couple of minutes really quick because it's prawns and you don't want them to go you know hard and woolly basically but how do you know when they're done um because they stop being transparent okay that's how you know you don't want to go any further sorry i'm

asking really basic questions oh no not at all not at all i mean that's the thing about seafood if you kind of let them go a bit too far they start getting chewy and you don't want that you went from law didn't you studying law at cambridge to to food writing how did that happen um do you know what there were a surprising number of foodies in law and vice versa um so i i was a solicitor and then after that I kind of decided I didn't like being a lawyer very much um and I went into publishing but then it was still legal publishing but the thing is I think you you start to hang out with people that like words that like talking about stuff that like talking about food you get that overlap and then I started a

blog many moons ago and you kind of have that thing where people say, actually, why don't you talk about something you really love, your real passion, and that's food. It's not law, unfortunately. So, yeah, I started writing about food, and then I started writing about Burmese food specifically because people said there wasn't a lot out there in the Western world. Now, the moment I've been waiting for. Mimi, is the curry ready?

Yeah, I think it is. Red prawn curry. I brought some rice as well. So I'm just going to try and dish up a little bit of rice and some prawns on each one. What would you serve it with typically? Rice? Just plain white rice

because the sauce itself is quite intense. You know, I was saying before, what makes this special is the fact that it uses the whole shell because what it uses is, there's a stuff that in Burmese we call besanzee, which kind of means I think it's called crab fat when it's in crabs, but it's basically kind of this orange elixir inside

the head and it makes everything taste a lot more prawny and you know, but a lot more prawny a lot more prawny, but it means that it is quite intense as a result so what you want to do is just have a nice kind of plain foil against it, I guess. Okay. Can you just recap the ingredients for me, please?

Yeah, you have got lots of onions in there, you've got garlic, you've got paprika, some fish sauce, some turmeric, salt, and the biggest prawns you can find, basically. That is delicious. Do you see what I mean about the prawniness though it's very prawny you're right mimi i and her red prawn curry and you can download the cook the perfect podcast through bbc sound on monday how to prepare your child for the first day of primary school and a new helpline for anyone suffering sexual harassment at work. Join Jane on Monday from me for today. Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Bye-bye. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy.

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