Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour: Julia Gillard on girls' education; Pauline Black of The Selecter; Dogs in Lockdown

Episode Date: April 24, 2021

We hear from former Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard who is working to help children from developing countries get a quality education. Josephine Kamara and Selina Nkoile are Youth Leaders for Global Partnership for Education and are campaigning to keep girls in education. Pauline Black, lead singer of ska band The Selecter talks about her upbringing and the 2 Tone anti-racism message of the late 70s.Professor Basky Thilaganathan from St George’s Hospital talks about the rarely seen and often complex work being carried out inside the womb to save the lives of unborn babies. We also hear from Susie who developed Twin to Twin transfusion syndrome while pregnant with triplets.Christine Grosart is a key volunteer for the group Ghost Fishing UK. She is also an expert diver and environmental champion. She talks about the beauty of the seas and the damage humans have caused.Plus broadcaster Emily Dean on the trend for ‘pandemic puppies’ and the unique relationship that women have with their dogs.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Paula McFarlane Editor: Beverley Purcell

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour. On the programme today, Pauline Black tells us about her career as the lead singer of the two-tone ska revival band The Selector and Emily Dean talks about the unique relationship women have with their dogs. It's estimated that 129 million girls worldwide remain out of school and face multiple barriers to education. Julia Gillard is the former Prime Minister of Australia from 2010 to 2013.

Today, she's the chair of the Board of Directors of the Global Partnership for Education, an organisation working with governments around the world to help children in lower- income countries get a quality education. The UK has supported 8 million girls worldwide. And in 100 days from now, we'll be hosting the Global Education Summit with Kenya in July this year. Josephine Kamara and Selena Nkoile are youth leaders for the GPE. It's 2021, yet there are still girls not being educated globally. Julia Gillard started by giving an overview of the situation.

Yes, it's 2021 and even before the COVID pandemic, we had a crisis around the world when it came to girls' education. Progress was being made, but if you wanted to imagine the face of the most marginalised child in the world, it would be a female face. And the estimates were that around 250 million children were not in school at all, and hundreds of millions more were attending, but for short periods in potentially very low quality schools, and not even picking up the

basics of literacy and numeracy. And then of course, along comes COVID, which as well as creating the health crisis that has gripped our planet, has brought with it an education crisis. So it's estimated that at the height of the pandemic, 1.6 billion children were out of school and hundreds of millions more continue to face closed schools. And we know from earlier health crises like Ebola that when schools close, it is the most marginalised children, particularly the girls, who are at risk of not getting back to school. So at the Global Partnership for Education, we're very determined to change that picture.

We work in almost 90 countries around the world. We are seeking to recharge our finances so that we can make a difference for 175 million children in terms of quality education and add 90 million more children to those who are going to school with a focus every step of the way on girls. And how do you make that happen? How does the GPE work? We work with governments, but also with civil society and with others across the education spectrum. So the essence of our model is that we work with a developing country partner to make sure that there is a great plan for schooling. We do that in dialogue with communities, with civil society, and then through our own resources and the resources of others, we mobilise money to implement the plan. What that means is the essence of our model is, yes, the donors give GPE funds and we put

international aid money in, but we leverage that against increased expenditure by the government of the developing country. And because there's a great plan for schooling, it means that other donors can come along and not just do something random, they can do something really impactful because they know that it's part of the plan. And of course, education, as everybody knows, I'm sure listening is so fundamental to your life chances. But in particular, what can the consequences be of educating a girl? Educating a girl simply makes a difference to everything about her life. The evidence very clearly shows that an educated girl will go on to be an empowered woman.

She's more likely to participate in the economy. So that's more prosperity for her and for her family. She is more likely to choose when she marries. And when she does marry, she will choose to have fewer children. Her children are more likely to survive infanthood. They're more likely to be vaccinated, they're more likely to go to schools themselves. And so you get on this upward cycle where you've empowered an individual girl to become a woman who can shape her own life and make sure that there is a better life ahead for her children. We've got two very powerful and educated women joining us. Josephine, who's in Sierra Leone and Selena, who is in the Masai Mara in Kenya. Josephine, who's in Sierra Leone, and Selena, who is in the Masai

Mara in Kenya. Josephine, I'm going to come to you first. One of the biggest barriers to education was a policy in Sierra Leone that banned pregnant girls from carrying on in education. Tell me about this and tell me about how you became aware of it. Well, historically in Sierra Leone, pregnant girls were just not allowed to go to school, even before the policy was introduced in the country. In 2010, out of a cabinet conclusion in the country, there was now a policy about pregnant girls not going to school. But it became formalized in 2015. 2010, I was not really much aware about the ban because I was still in high school. What happened during my days in high school was 2019, I was 16, and I

was in my senior, second year in senior school, getting ready to take my exam to go to my final year so that I would do the West African senior secondary school education examination to go to university. Then something happened to me. I became pregnant. And whilst I was pregnant in that year at the age of 16, the strangest thing to share with the world is the person who impregnated me happened to be my extra lesson teacher. Your teacher? Yes, yes, my maths teacher. So this was a man who was offering me free classes for maths. My parents by then, my mom, I was raised by my mom and my grandmother. My parents by then could not be able to afford a full-time extra maths class lesson for me. So this man was offering me free classes and then he started touching me inappropriately. And then, you know, just as a young girl, I wanted to just, you know, get access to this maths free lesson.

So I thought, well, maybe it was normal. I thought maybe this was what I have to just, you know, get access to this math free lesson. So I thought, well, maybe it was normal. I thought maybe this was what I have to give back to, you know, just get the free classes. And then I ended up getting pregnant. And so it was just my word against his word. It was an older man. It was a man who's supposed to know better. And there's a law in my country that girls below the age of 18 cannot consent for sex. And I was clearly 16. And when

this happened to me, my fear was not even my parents knowing about the pregnancy. My fear was just not being able to go to school. I was afraid that the slightest opportunity I have to go to school and stay in school was going to be taken away from me because I've never seen a pregnant girl go to school in my country. So I was very me because I've never seen a pregnant girl go to school in my country. So I was very afraid about that. I did a lot of things to, you know, to get rid of that pregnancy. It was terrible. I had an unsafe abortion and in my country, abortion is still illegal. So all of those hustles I have to go through. So I really understood, I understand what girls in general, in every part of the world go through when they are really passionate about education. And then they see that that opportunity

at any point will be taken away from them. I was here mobilizing young pregnant girls who were kicked out of school after the Ebola outbreak. Mind you, this was a period when the foreign policy magazine reported that there was an Ebola rape crisis happening in Sierra Leone that no one is talking about. About 70,000 girls got pregnant. And the government was saying all of these girls should be kicked out of school. Where did your courage come from at 16 to fight this? My courage came from the fact that I was the only girl in my family to have reached that level in education.

So I was kind of like seeing myself that if I don't fight for education, the passport for my family out of poverty is going to be taken away from them. I'm going to bring in Selena, who is in the Maasai Mara right now. Selena, you were the first girl to bring in Selina who is in the Maasai Mara right now because Selina you were the first girl to get an education in your village in Kenya as a Maasai girl how did that change your life? For me also I really resonate with Josephine's story and also for me I was never to go to school and I know I grew up in a traditional Maasai setting. And Maasais, as you know, they're a special tribe and they have their own rules. And you grow up as a girl when your life is already pretty much decided for you.

So at the age of around 10 or 9, men will start showing up, booking you for marriage or negotiating with your parents to marry you. Like any other Maasai girl, that happened to me. And I was like reserved or booked for marriage. But then through external financing, the first ever girl's school was established in my village. So for us, we never knew that we would ever end up in school or we didn't know that it was our constitutional right to be in school. But somehow just school being brought next to us

and our dads being convinced to put us into school changed everything for us. How hard was it to convince your father? The project that started the school, they actually got a whole age group of the older men because the Maasai community has an age group system. It's easy to get a hold of them by convincing the heads of the age group. And they were told that if you agree to bring your girls to school,

because here's the school you've already built, we will provide full scholarship to these girls and we will have them sponsored so that they can complete the school. And we will change the narrative for these girls. Instead of you now booking them for marriage, had so that they can complete the school. And we will change the narrative for these girls. Instead of you now booking them for marriage, we will be booking them for education the moment they are born. Julia, both Selena and Josephine have the most inspiring stories. And I know Josephine went on and made a huge impact and got rid of the law in Sierra Leone that prevented pregnant girls from

going to school. What more can be done to convince governments to change this? What pressure can be put on them? Well, I think hearing these stories of courage is the thing that should change the attitudes and minds of everyone. I mean, if Josephine and Selina can show so much determination and courage to get an education, surely we can meet that with the extra resources necessary to create more and more opportunity

for girls just like them. And that's the thing that we are asking people to do right now in this transformative change moment as we move beyond the days of the pandemic. Let's make sure that we're offering every girl the kind of life chance that Selina and Josephine have reached for and in our way at the Global Partnership for Education that's exactly what we're trying to achieve. So we are asking you and all of your listeners to raise their hand for education, to be saying to the UK government and to everybody else, maximise the resources made available for girls' education at the Global Education Summit this July. They were absolutely inspiring to speak to, both Josephine and Selina. One was in Sierra

Leone and the other sitting in her village in the Masai Mara in Kenya. And you know what? The 4G was fantastic. Now, the original Rude Girl, Pauline Black, was working as a radiographer when she came to prominence in the late 1970s as the lead singer of the two-tone ska revival band, The Selector. Here's a clip. And yep, that got us all bopping in our seats. There we heard, on my radio, I asked Pauline to reminisce about going on tour with the Specials and Madness.

It was just a fantastic time. I mean, there I was. I'd never been in a band before and The Selector was always my first band and and my last actually now too but uh I was on tour in a bus and I mean it was a tour bus but it wasn't really it was like one of those buses that you had at school where everyone was sort of you know either facing what facing forward mainly and it seemed like a school day out for most of the time we just pile off pile onto stage and all three bands would go through their set and all pile onto the stage at the end all together

and do this wonderful rendition of Prince Buster's Madness at the time and sweat used to drip off the walls you would see boys girls black white modsks, you name it kind of thing. It was like a little tribe all came united by this movement, this new movement really called Two Turn, which basically was against racism, against sexism. And we wanted to bring that message to the young people of Britain. You've got to remember that at this time, 1979, when the two-tone tour started, Margaret Thatcher had just come to power with all that entailed. And so we felt very righteous about the message that we had.

And for young black people at that time, there were still sus laws, which meant that you could get picked up on the street by the police and taken down to the police station for no real reason other than you were walking down the road half of the time. Some listeners might be forgiven for thinking it hasn't changed that much. But anyway, in those days, it was something that was very pertinent to us. And did you think you were changing attitudes? Yes, absolutely, definitely. I mean, I could see no other reason for being in the band other than changing attitudes. I wanted to change, I believe, very, very passionately at that time in the messages that we were bringing,

that people had really to know about racism and know that it existed. I mean, we live in a different time now when we have the language for all of these things. We can talk about multiculturalism. We can talk about diversity. But back then you couldn't really. I mean, people still on the street called you coloured. I had to name myself black to make myself, you know, to make other people call me black. You called yourself black, wasn't it, in sort of reaction to your own family? You were adopted by a white family in Romford. What was that like? I was adopted by a white working class family in Romford and they'd had four sons.

They wanted a daughter. And my mother was too old to have a baby herself. So they chose me from one of those rather quaintly named mother and baby homes that they used to have at that time, which basically was young girls who had become pregnant and had a child. And they had to go somewhere because nobody wanted to talk about such things. I was very much reminded, listening to Selina and Josephine earlier, their stories of quite what my mother must have gone through. And I was brought up by them, but they were typical of families of that time, working class families of that time, not just confined to working class families obviously but you know a thread of racism ran through everyday language and in my own family yes And I was in a unique position, I suppose, to actually observe white people when they are at their most relaxed and talking openly about people who I felt I belonged to, particularly by the time I got to my teenage years and I could see the civil rights movement unfolding in America.

And what did that do for you? I very much identified, oh, well, I mean, goodness me. I mean, there we were. I was sitting watching nightly on the news, young black people being taken away from lunch counters because they couldn't sit at the lunch counters as white people hosed up against a wall because of protest and not being able to go to school because fellow students didn't want them there and their parents. The iconic, very cool and ever-chic Pauline Black there. Caroline emailed and say, I'm listening to Pauline Black from The Selector

and enjoying her views as much as I did back in the day. I was one of the Art and Design Division of Red Wedge, a broad-based youth arts organisation birthed during the Neil Kinnock Labour Party era. Such an exciting time to be young and motivated in London. We talked socialism, equal rights, music, culture, comedy. We supported anti-apartheid, workers' rights, youth education, freedom of speech, non-discrimination and more. Paul Weller, Billy Bragg, Madness, Dr Robert, Bronski B and The Selector were some of the interracial performers who headlined many gigs. Used to queue outside the venue smoking cigarettes until we were let in straight to the bar for a wobbly plastic pint of beer. Packed crowds,

everyone dancing, pushed up together, no cell phones, no special effects, sweaty, smoky, smelly stuff. The music was fantastic. We campaigned, demonstrated and marched to free Nelson Mandela, disarmed nuclear weapons, protest about increasing police powers, always having to run for the late bus home. Solidarity prevailed. Great memories and who would have imagined the world we live in now? I am now a 61-year-old with four adult children having emigrated to New Zealand in 2000.

It's good to hear Pauline Black and our contemporaries and also a little bit sad we still have to highlight these basic human rights 40 years on. Now filmed at one of the UK's leading fetal medicine units a new Channel 4 series Baby Surgeons Delivering Miracles shines a light on the rarely seen and often complex work being carried out inside the womb to save the lives of unborn babies. We hear from Baski Thalaganathan, who is Professor and Director of Fetal Medicine at St George's Hospital London, and Susie, who developed twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome while pregnant with triplets. I started by asking Professor Baski why he agreed to have cameras in surgery with him.

I don't think many people out there know or understand about the profession of fetal medicine. And I think this was a way to do. But more importantly, we really wanted to give a voice to the women and their experiences because that's not commonly known. And so then we would really increase the awareness of such conditions and the quite difficult decisions that parents have to make. Yeah, increasing our awareness and also an amazing showcase of what can be done nowadays if you are encountering a very complex pregnancy. Indeed. I mean, that wasn't the intention. It really was to make sure that people had some awareness of the journey.

But indeed, St George's is one of the specialist centres in the UK that undertake this kind of surgery, and it was an opportunity to showcase it. I mean we already have 24 hours in A&E which have been encamped in the hospital for many years and this is you know we so we receive lots of opportunities like this. Susie you were treated by Professor Baski in the film. You'd been trying for a baby for a long time and then you fell pregnant with triplets. Explain your story what happened? I think the moment we found out we were pregnant with triplets, we knew that the chances were possibly not a positive outcome. In fact, you know, really the entire pregnancy, your on tenterhooks worried of what the outcome's going to be because it's so high risk. And I think for us, that felt particularly ironic, I suppose,

given the journey that we'd had to get there over so many years you'd been through rounds of IVF hadn't you yeah yeah around five years um worth and I think this was our last shot at it and luckily it was a happy ending very lucky for us I think when you go through that process it's very difficult then to sort of remain positive I suppose anyway obviously you're naturally nervous. And I think when we were diagnosed with TTTS... Which is the twin-to-twin syndrome, yes. Yeah, exactly, that Basco identified. I think that, again, alarmed us to how dangerous it was

being pregnant with triplets or just high risk. And I think the team were amazing how they led us through that. And they were very clear from the outset. Any medical professional that we came across didn't sugarcoat it and were clear about the risks involved. The risk both to myself and to the triplets and how there would be a strong chance of them either not surviving or maybe one surviving or them having long term health issues. But we decided to close our eyes and jump, I suppose, and go with nature rather than intervene in the early days, because when an option is to have a reduction, I believe that's offered to many mothers of multiples. And we decided to go with nature. And then, of course, unfortunately, we were that 15% of people where the twin-to-twin transition syndrome was identified.

And I mean, Dr. Baski made it, even though it was possibly the hardest thing we've been through, he couldn't have been more empathetic and very clear. Let's find out from you, Professor Baski, what is twin-to-twin syndrome? What was Susie going through? So it's important to say that most twin pregnancies will have a, you know, an uncomplicated course, but where twins share a placenta and two of Susie's babies shared a placenta, there's a one in eight chance that they will share that placenta unequally. So one will get too much and one will get too little. And untreated, that results in the loss of the pregnancy 90% of the time.

Nine out of 10 chance that without treatment, Susie would have lost all three babies. But we are now able to, and we have been for 20 years, treating that condition now and with a 80 85 success rate you know as soon as we identified that tdts was occurring we undertook the treatment and it's so lovely to see suzy here without her triplets around suzy 90 chance i mean you really didn't have a choice did you you decided that you were going to go through with the operation yeah and i think it sounds strange to say but there was almost a slight relief with the fact that we didn't have a choice. I remember the day vividly when Dr. Baski said that, because we went

through a week of waiting to see whether the twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome had got any worse. And it really had rapidly over that week. And following the scan where, you know, it was quite clear even to our eyes that we had to do something. I think weeks leading up to that, we thought we were going to have to make a horrible decision that we didn't want to have to make. And I think once it was as simple as if we don't intervene, your babies won't survive, then no one can argue with that. And I think the problem is it goes against any mother's natural instinct. We naturally, as soon as we find out we're pregnant, we want to protect ourselves, protect our baby, wrap ourselves up in cotton wool. And I think the problem is it goes against any mother's natural instinct. We naturally, as soon as we find out we're pregnant, we want to protect ourselves, protect our baby,

wrap ourselves up in cotton wool. And I think when someone says they need to kind of intervene in that, you immediately, it goes against everything that you understand as a woman and as a parent. But then the case was this was going to save our, or hopefully save our babies. So it was a no-brainer in the end. And what was going through your mind? Because you're watching the operation, you can see your foetuses whilst Dr. Baski is doing this incredible operation.

I didn't really look at that much, to be honest. I think I, it's weird that, you know, one of the most sort of traumatic experiences probably in my life so far. And I, it is all a bit of a blur, which I'm ashamed to say, but it's kind of, kind of I guess it's you know fight or flight and it's the way the body coats but I remember certain things like the feeling of Dr Baski basically entering the abdomen with a telescope and then the only other thing that I really remember is that the feeling of the amniotic fluid literally dripping down my side which was again unbelievably surreal which is not what you want to feel because at that point you're thinking that's fluid that should be safely packed away around my baby right now so I think it was just just so unusual but again it was we had to do it and the quicker the quicker it was done in my opinion the better and I just wanted to get through the pregnancy as quickly

as possible after that. Professor Basker we we see, I think, you performing something for the very first time in this series as well. You're trying to insert a plastic tube through a baby's mouth and into the airway passage whilst it's still in the womb. Let's hear the clip and then you can explain what we're listening to afterwards. OK, so I'm just trying to find the nose. There is the top lip. There is the top lip. There's the bottom lip. We need to go inside there.

And when we go inside there, we need to go north. So that's the tongue in front of us. That's the roof of the mouth. We're just in front of the tongue. Why are we trying to. That's the roof of the mouth. We're just in front of the tongue. Why are we trying to just get to the roof of the mouth? Because of the angle of the head, we can go underneath the tongue, but what we're trying to do is flip the head up to go over the tongue. OK?

I mean, it is the most incredible thing to watch. You are performing the surgery there, and you sound incredibly calm. There's about 30 people in the room with you who are watching because it's happening for the first time, who you're talking it through to. Are you nervous when this is happening? It's a good point. I think I was a little bit more nervous in that particular operation than others. But most of the time we were nervous before and drained after.

And during the procedure, it needs a high level of focus because, you know, you can't afford to make mistakes. You can't afford to get it wrong. The consequences are quite drastic. And in that case, the procedure didn't work, did it? You can explain what happened. Yeah. So normally if a baby has a large neck tumour, then we do a very complex delivery, which involves certain risks to the mother where the baby's born just to the level of the face and where a specialist can put a tube down, a breathing tube down, and the baby can then breathe after it's born. What we were trying to do is to put it in before birth so that the mother could avoid a general anesthetic, could avoid a very complex type of caesarean section called an exit

procedure. We attempted it and we put telescopes down babies' passages for other reasons and for other complications. So we've done that before, but this was a very specific circumstance where the baby had a large neck tumour and the neck tumour unfortunately precluded it. But we learned two things. We learned very important lessons and I'm very confident we'll make it work next time so the mother can avoid some risks and other thing was too important that the both mum and the baby were very well because we just went back to our fallback option something we've done 20-30 times before to ensure that both mum and baby were well and they are you see that in the last episode. And your fallback option I mean that was remarkable to watch if you can explain. Yeah so that's why you need 30 people

in the room we have about three medical teams for the baby, three medical teams for the mother. We deliver the baby up to its face. So it's still connected to the placenta. So it's breathing through the placenta. And while it's breathing through the placenta, a specialist, a pediatric ear, nose and throat specialist will put a tube down the airway, a breathing tube like you would have when you have an operation, so that when the baby's born, the neck tumour doesn't choke the baby. So we can bypass the neck tumour to the breathing tube, make the baby breathe well, and then deal with the growth around the neck subsequently. So it's a rare procedure, but it's one that St George's has done more than any other hospital. It really is a very emotive watch. That's baby surgeons delivering miracles on Channel 4. And I was speaking to Baski, Dilagganathan and Susie.

Now, one of the few glimmers of light in this pandemic has been the chance to stop and appreciate the natural world. You might be one of the people who's taken up gardening or birdwatching or simply enjoying a walk with less traffic and air pollution. It was Earth Day on Thursday. There were events going on around the world, including President Biden's Global Climate Summit, and there's a special focus on fixing some of the damage we humans have caused. The problem is, it's not always easy to see the damage, and that's especially true when it's going on underwater. Christine Grossart, who's a key volunteer for the group Ghost Fishing UK, joined me to talk about the beauty of the seas. She's not only an expert diver and environmental champion, she was also named on the Woman's Hour Our Planet Power List at the end of last year.

Christine Grossart started by explaining how she mixes oil and gas and environmentalism. I've had quite a few career changes in my life. You know, I left school at 16 to work with horses, which is my main passion, and then wanted to get into diving, so trained as a paramedic. And that's taken me offshore.

It gives me a lot more money, a lot more time, and that gives me space to do the things that I really love, which is protecting the ocean and diving and seeing under the ocean. And it's an interesting job, you know. We don't just work for oil and gas industry, we work for wind farms. And in the main, our vessel is focused on fixing things. so if there's a gas leak or if there's a problem

if there's a risk of a break in containment with oil or anything like that we go out there and fix it and stop it happening so as a medic I'm there to look after the divers make sure they're fit and healthy and they will go down and do the engineering work and and fixing all the stuff and yeah they're working super deep you you know, sort of 100, 150 meters, something like that. So it's a really satisfying job. So I sort of wriggle around it by saying, well, I'm a medic. I don't pull any oil out the ground, which I don't. But actually what it's done is given me a very balanced view of the industry. I get to see things that not a lot of people see. And I get to see what really goes on out there. And I think it's safe to say it's not as bad as you think, that the industry is really, really on it right now,

very environmentally aware. And I would say it's pretty safe to say that I probably use less disposable plastics when I'm offshore than I do when I'm at home. I'm sure. So it's, yeah, it's a really interesting industry to work in and I love it. Quite a career change working with horses to diving. And it was your parents, they both dived as well, didn't they? Yeah, so it was funny. My mother and had a conversation um when I was about 14 she took me to the local diving club

on a Wednesday night up in Bristol and she said look you have chosen the two most expensive sports go in horses and diving you've got to pick one you know because she was a single parent she's like yeah this is costing me an arm and a leg and I said well I wanted to be a jockey that's what I always wanted to do and I ended up doing that but you've got to start young um so I thought well diving can go on the back burner you know so I didn't really start diving and actually cave diving is how I got into it when I was sort of 20 21 um so a bit of a late comer to diving proper but you know it's it's something that's always been there that I knew I would always want to do and yeah it's gone crazy now Christine you

might have to do a bit of a sales job here because we're very proud of our little island and we're happy to talk about our countryside and our trees and our plants and our flora and fauna but when we think about our sea we often say oh it's cold brown and murky what what are they wrong no okay that's that then no I mean I'm being a bit, so the problem with the UK is, you know, we're very tide dependent. We're very weather dependent. Everyone who does any kind of outdoor activity in the UK will know that it's all to do with the weather. We're an island. We get hit from all angles, you know, with currents and weather and wind. And we get weather from other countries that come over and hit us.

So it's like everything, you know, if you if you want to dive somewhere in Egypt or somewhere like that, you will get out every single day, guaranteed. That's just not the case in the UK. So you just have to pick your battles here. And when you do and when it goes well, it's stunning. Absolutely stunning. I came off my my vessel last last week, drove down from Aberdeen because flights, I mean, forget it, you know, what flights. Drove down from Aberdeen, stopped off with a friend of mine up near Imath, the England-Scotland border, and just jumped in the sea. I mean, eight, ten metres visibility, life everywhere. It was just beautiful. It was seven degrees. It was freezing, but I didn't want to get out. And it was absolutely stunning.

We have got huge, beautiful diversity around the uk coast and i just don't think people realize that it's there you know because you do you look out and you think oh that looks absolutely awful um but it's all there and um uk diving i say could be some of the best in the world you just have to pick pick your day and you've got a very beautiful picture of a seal behind you that's definitely something we have across the uk um i mean that was taken in the uk um by a friend of mine called kirstie andrews um award-winning photographer yeah i mean that was in the uk very shallow perfectly achievable dive we can't see what's under the sea because of the murkiness what we also don't know is the damage we're doing i mean we can see what's happening on land but

tell us what's happening what are the problems that are being caused by fishing nets in particular yeah i mean so that's what our charity is primarily invested in. We focus very tightly on lost fishing gear. And I emphasise lost. You know, fishing gear is expensive. Fishermen don't lose it deliberately, but it happens. It's an unfortunate consequence of the fishing industry that they do lose stuff.

Now, they will try and get it back, but if they can't, it'll often end up snagged on a wreck or snagged on a reef and they just can't get it back. And the problem is that fishing gear will stay there indefinitely and continue to catch indefinitely. And of course, nobody's able to pull the catch in. Nobody's able to monitor it. So so what we do as scuba divers is, first of all, we see it. And the most important thing is you say something. You know, I think sometimes we come a bit blind to it. You know, you see fishing gear on a wreck and you just accept that you see fishing gear on a wreck.

What we're trying to do is encourage divers to tell us, tell us where they saw it, tell us what they saw. If they've got a camera, great, take a picture of it. And what we can go out and do is survey it, see what it is and then make a plan to recover it. And we bring it back. We use big sort of balloons, lift bags to raise raise it to the surface. And we recycle it, you know. So we've gone from being a group of mates doing this because we love the ocean to a big charity. You know, we've got over 60 divers on our books and we've trained ourselves and we've got a great big long waiting list. And we're all volunteers, you know.

Is it dangerous? It can be. Yeah, yeah. We're extremely picky. We get a lot of people, a lot of divers wanting to join and help out. But we are very picky because without putting a finer point on it if if one of those lift bags goes rocketing to the surface you cannot stop it and if you're attached to it you can kill you so so you know it is dangerous and of course as soon as you touch these nets you know they've got silt and all sorts you know all over them the visibility goes to absolutely zero what does the fishing industry

make of what you're doing are they on side or do they feel like you're finger pointing a little bit? No, I mean, we've never pointed the finger and we've made that very clear. Some fishing vessels have stuck their neck out and come to us and said, we've lost a string of creel pots that we can't get back. Do you think you can? Absolutely. And we've gone out, pulled them back in. They've brought their boat out so they can haul the pots back in.

And they've been super happy. And the thing is, they've tried to give us money. And we're look you know we're not at work we're volunteers we can't do that you know um a pint maybe woman after my own heart yeah you can buy us a drink later we're always good for a pint no we're just happy to do it because those those pots would have continued to catch the fishermen couldn't get them back so for us it's a win-win situation and i think that's that's where it becomes most productive what can we do to make us feel like we have a bit of power in this? The problem is if you want to go to sort of shampoo, which I do, I mean, you go to shampoo bars and conditioner bars and make all these sort of fairly big changes, it hits you in the wallet.

Plastic is cheap. You know, it's cheap, it's disposable. There's infinite amounts of it. So as soon as you start to make changes, it is expensive so so what i've been thinking about is ways that you can make changes without it it hitting you in the wallet you know things like that um you know the obvious one i think it was mentioned earlier is the single-use carrier bags i mean that's a no-brainer once you've got a bag for life that's it you know that's all you need i've got loads of them um so that's a good one you know the good fish guide one. You know, the good fish guide, you know, the Marine Conservation Society good fish guide is a really good one. And it's a decent read as well. You look through it and you realise what you've been eating.

That's not caught very sustainably at all. So that's a good one. That's free. You can get that from the Marine Conservation Society, totally free. So you can make informed choices, carry your own fork, like to carry a little picnic load with you. You know, I think road food is the enemy. It all comes in plastic with plastic forks and you're not given any choice. And Diana says, I'd love to buy a cucumber not wrapped in plastic from the supermarket. I'd love it if the waste I conscientiously send to recycle actually was all recycled. What can I do? Individual efforts are

just a drop in the ocean. Environmental issues cannot be separated from economics or business interests and politics. We need politicians to put the planet first and economists and business to make commitments to the planet in the same way that in the Covid crisis, scientists advised, politicians took action and the public complied. Now, when the UK went into lockdown in March last year, a lot of us started working from home, sparking an interest in puppy purchases. A total of 3.2 million households in the UK have added a pet to their family since the start of the pandemic, me included. But 5% of those who had bought a pet during the pandemic have already given it up. With that being said, the vast majority said their pet had helped their mental health.

Emily Dean is a broadcaster, host of Walking the Dog with Emily Dean and author of Everybody Died So I Got a Dog. Emily explained to me why she got a dog. Well, I got a dog as a result of multiple losses, essentially, that I'd had in my family. So I really do kind of relate to people getting pandemic puppies in some ways, because during times of instability, you crave what a dog represents. A dog represents routine. Dogs also represent just structure and unconditional love, really. So I understand that. And he's utterly changed my life. But I genuinely find, you know, like a lot of people, it's been quite tough, I've found during the last year. You know, I wasn't able to see anyone on Christmas Day, I was spending Christmas Day alone. And that could have been a really difficult day.

I had the best day ever, because Raymond woke me up at a reasonable hour. But he woke me up by licking my face, leaping around on my bed. And his whole sort of demeanour was, there's leaves to be kicked around. There's food to be eaten. You know, dogs have such a happy heart and they start every day with a clean slate. They're mentally rebooted. And I think, particularly in times like this, I think that's really important. I can see Raymond, but obviously a lot of people can't. Just, oh, beautiful.

What breed is Raymond? Very well behaved. Well, it's a, oh, beautiful. What breed is Raymond? Very well behaved. Well, it's a good question, Anita. What breed is Raymond? I've been assured he's a Shih Tzu. I've been told he looks like an Ewok. I've had a mop. I've had a Muppet, a Tasmanian Devil.

Ed Miliband said he looked like a Toupet. Oh my God. So I have, I think he's a Shih Tzu. Very well, very well groomed T toupee. Do you think there is a special relationship between dogs and women? People talk about them being man's best friends, but I know I've got a very special bond with my little Rafi. What do you think? Do you have a Whippet? She's a Bedlington Whippet, a little lurcher cross. So she's a shaggy haired Whippet. I will be insisting on it's pictures or it didn't happen. I want those afterwards.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no. She's got a huge Instagram following and she's changed my life for the better. You know, absolutely incredible. But do you think there is a special bond? I think she's definitely got a different bond with me than she has with my husband. I'm really glad you raised that because I've always felt that women have really amazing relationships with dogs. And I think we've suffered a bit from representation, really, just in films and culturally in general. There's this idea of the sort of, it's the idea of the noble prairie cowboy with his faithful dog.

And what do we get stuck with? At the beginning of the rom-com, there's the establishing shot of the woman coming into the flat with a cat meowing to establish that she's single and desperate and needs saving. And I kind of think actually what that's possibly to do with is that we see dogs as action animals. They're activity based, they're extroverts, they're out there doing to the world, whereas we see cats as languishing

on pink satin couches at home. So I think it's really important. I love the idea. I think women do have incredible relationships with their dogs. And it's not a case of, you know, I've often had someone who's child free and I'm not married. I often get asked, is he a child substitute? To which I say, no, he's a dog. And then I sort of feel when people say that to me, I understand that. But I think it's because sometimes we see that relationship as a consolation prize. You woke up at 40, you didn't have a kid, you thought, oh, I better get a chihuahua. It's not really like that. And I think these tropes we have sometimes, if you own an animal and you're a woman, it can be a bit that you have two tropes to choose from. It's either

Kathy Bates in Misery or Legally Blonde. And I kind of think, no, it's possible to have a really functional, non-neurotic, non-codependent relationship with a dog. I'm saying that. There has been a surge of lockdown puppies, as we mentioned, and it's not working out for everybody. Why do you think that is? And what should people be careful about before getting a dog? Well, you know, Anita, as a dog owner, a fellow dog owner, I feel so smug saying that. What can happen when people get a dog is that you forget it's a toddler that never grows up. For the rest of its life, you're responsible for feeding it, cleaning up after it, arranging daycare, taking it to the vet, all this kind of stuff. And I think it's easy to forget that it's such a huge responsibility. But, you know, as I say, I do sympathise and I understand why people rushed

in to get dogs during the pandemic. I think what's really important is socialising, because obviously that's something that most dogs, you can do that on a gradual basis. And it's about taking dogs to meet other dogs and having visitors come to the home. And obviously that hasn't been happening during lockdown. So I know that's something that a lot of vets and dog trainers are recommending is to really introduce puppies incrementally to external stimuli. So they've recommended things like you should be playing all sorts of, play the radio, play Radio 4. If I have to leave the house, this is a nice plug for you, I put Radio 4 on because it's nice, calm voices for Raymond to listen to. That was me speaking to Emily Dean earlier in the week. And Liz emailed in to say, it's strange that today of all days you're running this piece about dogs. Today's the 13th anniversary of my husband's death.

When he died, I realised that I would spend weekends not speaking or even using my voice until I got to work. I missed saying his name as well. It was like an ache in my mouth, strange but true. He always said we could have a dog when he stopped working, so I decided to get a dog, a golden retriever. Against the better judgment of many of my friends and family who said it would be a tie but she's the best tie I've ever had her name is Lupin as in Monty Python your Lupins or your life well she is my life she has saved me my husband was called Laurie so saying Lupin and feeling the L in my mouth was a comfort but she has been a comfort in so many ways. She's nearly 13 now and a bit achy and wobbly, but she still loves life and people and sticks.

Anyway, as I write this, it's time to go and find more sticks and think of Laurie today. Liz, thank you so much for that lovely email. Woman's Hour and Emma is back on Monday, just after 10. Climate change is real, it's happening, but it's not the end of the world. I'm Tom Heap and in a new podcast from BBC Radio 4, I'll reveal 39 ways to save the planet. We've got a new material and a new way of putting solar cells together that produces much more power than traditional or existing photovoltaics. Our brightest brains are developing potent carbon-cutting ideas,

and I'll be meeting them from the paddy fields of the Punjab... The whole plant can flower in here, set seed, and we harvest the seed and do experiments. ...to the Siberian permafrost. There is a much deeper freeze of the permafrost when you're having a bunch of herbivores trampling on the snow. They trample on the snow by just being there and trying to find food. We made this mess, but we can clean it up.

My biggest dream is actually contributing significantly to stopping climate change. Subscribe to 39 Ways to Save the Planet on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. 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.