Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman’s Hour: Kinship carers, Ashley James, Mia Brookes’s mum, impact of Ian Paterson's crimes, Charles Dickens’s women

Episode Date: February 14, 2026

More than 141,000 children are in kinship care in England and Wales. According to new research from the charity Kinship, 40% of kinship carers are forced to claim benefits or increase their benefits when they step in to take on the care of a child from a family member. To explain why some kinship carers want the same parental rights as others in a parental role, like an adoptive parent, Clare McDonnell is joined by the CEO of Kinship, Lucy Peake and carer Nash, who took on the permanent care of her sister’s children after her sister died.Broadcaster, model and activist Ashley James says she’s always been underestimated and often written off as a ‘bimbo’. But now she’s reclaiming the word as the title of her new book, which explores many of the judgmental labels used to describe women and their life choices. From 'bossy' to 'mumsy' to 'silly girl', Ashley joined Clare to unpack the impact such words can have on women and girls and why she hopes opening up about her own experiences will inspire others to stop shrinking and shake them off.Team GB snowboarder Mia Brookes gave an amazing performance coming fourth in the women's snowboard big air final at the Winter Olympics in Italy. The 19-year-old had been hoping to become Great Britain's first gold medallist on snow. She went for a backside 1620 trick - featuring four-and-a-half rotations - and landed before she over-rotated and her heel edge caught in the snow. Mia's mum, Vicky Brookes, joined presenter Nuala McGovern on the line from her campervan in Livigno close to the Olympic venue.Deborah Douglas has written a memoir about her experience as a victim turned campaigner in one of the biggest scandals in British medical history. Her story sits at the centre of the case of disgraced breast surgeon Ian Paterson, jailed in 2017 for performing harmful and unnecessary operations on women who believed they were being treated for cancer. An inquiry in 2020 found both NHS and private hospitals missed repeated chances to stop him. Deborah joined Clare to discuss The Cost of Trust.A new exhibition at the Charles Dickens museum celebrates the women who influenced the great Victorian novelist's female characters, social commentary and campaigning to improve the lives of vulnerable women. But how does this sit alongside the other, darker narrative, that Dickens himself was a misogynist who mistreated his own wife? To sort the fact from the fiction, the exhibition curator Kirsty Parsons & the historian Professor Jenny Hartley joined Nuala to discuss.Presenter: Clare McDonnell Producer: Annette Wells

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. For years, I've sounded like a broken record. I do not want kids. I do not ever want to have kids. I don't want to have a kid. Don't want to have a kid. Don't want to have a kid. I'm in my 40s now. The door is almost closed. And suddenly, I'm not so sure. The story has always been, no.

I'm just wondering to what degree it's just a story. Definitely just a story. From CBC's personally, this is Creation Myth. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, this is Claire MacDonald, and you're listening to The Woman's Hour podcast. Hello, and welcome to the program. Today, broadcaster Ashley James, who's reclaiming the term Bimbo and other labels that are used to describe women in a pejorative way in her new book.

Kinship Carers, that's where a family member steps in to raise a child, when their parents are unable to. We'll also talk about the female characters in the novels of Charles Dickens and what they tell us about his relationships with the real women in his life. And Vicky Brooks, mum of Team G.B. Snowboarder, Mia Brooks, who narrowly missed out on a medal

at the Winter Olympics this week by risking it all with a trick shot she'd never attempted on the snow before. But first, more than 141,000 children are in kinship care in England, England and Wales. They are the children who are looked after by a family member when their parent is no longer able to take care of them. New research from the charity Kinship shows that 40% of those carers are finding themselves needing to claim benefits or increase their benefits to cover the costs of raising that child. Well, Kinship has launched a campaign asking for those carers to have the same parental leave rights as other working parents, including adoptive parents.

I was joined by Lucy Peake, their chief executive, Anne Nash, who took on the permanent care of her sister's children when her sister died in 2024. I began by asking Lucy what the term kinship carer means. So kinship carers are, could be grandparents, aunties, uncles, brothers, sisters, or close family relatives or friends who stepped up to raise children, as you said, when their parents are unable to. So it can be often in a time of crisis, so somebody may have died,

or they may have gone into prison, or somebody's just for whatever reason, not able to because of maybe drug and alcohol misuse. And it's a very important role, isn't it? Because you're stepping in to do something that otherwise, I guess, would cost the state a lot of money because those children would need to be taken care of. I think often kinship carers are getting a phone call

or a knock on the door. And the question is, will you take these children? If you can't, they will go into the care system or the baby would be adopted. So often people are going forward very quickly and saying, I will do this. They're doing what we would want in our own family. They're doing the right thing.

But kinship carers pay a very high price for doing that. As you said, often having to give up their jobs, pushed into the benefit system, and they don't get the same financial support as foster carers either. Nash, this is a good time to bring you in. Really, really, sorry, your sister died. Condolences. Heartfelt, what happened?

But she had three children, didn't she? She had four children. Four children? She had three under the age of 18. She was sadly and very suddenly diagnosed with bowel and liver cancer. That was a diagnosis in January, 2024, and immediately came to live with myself and my husband and our children because she needed chemo.

She needed treatment and help with her lovely children. So my sister sadly passed away in the May, so I had five months. of sickness. And it was a no-brainer. It was a case of her wanting the children to remain together and also in the care of myself, her sister. So I just found myself at that time navigating an area of my life that I had never been in before. I mean, as siblings, you do sort of communicate, oh, what would you do with, if this, if that, and, you know, talk about wheels. But when the reality actually hits, it's very, very difficult. And you know, you.

you go into this sort of lonely, isolating area of a new sort of life that you actually hadn't planned for. And you're dealing with your own grief as well while navigating the practicality and, I guess, the emotional support for these children who've lost their mother. Absolutely. As well as I get asked a lot about my own grief, but also I'm having to not only manage my own grief, but also that of my sister's. as children and my own children also. I feel that kinship carers are not recognised in as far as it's like Lucy said, we are sort of forced and we step up into a situation that isn't planned and it's always at a time of crisis and we are taking on already traumatised children and having to deal with sort of their emotions, their mental well-being as well as managing our own.

So it's huge. It's massive. So explain to us the real. range of ages you have in your house now? Oh goodness. So I, my younger children are 14 and 7 and my sister's children are 7. So I have to have two 7 year old girls together who are 7 months apart. Best friends, one moment and then Enem is the next. And then my nephew is nine and my niece is, she'll be 16 next Tuesday actually. So a very wide range range of children. So all needing different needs at different times and different emotional capabilities and mental abilities and needing different grief levels

also. So it's... And just to move on briefly, to the practical side of a life like that, do you have a big enough car to get them all around in? Right. No. So during my sister's diagnosis, she was afforded or she had, I think it's PIP, is it a PIP payment? She was, she had an assistant, assisted car, excuse me. And because of the range of... of the numbers in our family, we had to get a seven-seater car, but when she passed away, that car was removed. So then I had to finance a seven-seater car because there's seven members in our household. So that financial burden was placed on myself and my husband. We had to navigate bunk beds and bedroom space, which again, it's absolutely, this is not

coming from a place of sort of moaning, but it's coming from a place. of reality and my children having to now share me and their father and their bedrooms and their personal space and we want all children I want my niece and nephew to feel safe and I want them to feel like it's their home so it's a again I always use that phrase no brain now but I can't think of anything else like literally to say it's that's just in my nature to want to keep them very warm and safe well you're a wonderful woman you really are and I know lots of people listening to this will think exactly the same. What about financially? Did you have to stop work? I mean, how does it, what went on in your life with this massive change? Oh, I'm still actually asking

myself that question because it's only been two years, not even two years. So I have been a midwife for almost 17 years and my personal situation is slightly different. So you'll find once you sort of navigate the kinship structure, we are all different. I didn't suddenly have the children sort of being asked to live with me. It was a period. It was a process because they were living with me prior to my sister passing away. And then it was a case of applying for an order called a special guardianship order, which was granted last March. And it was then that I believe the whole situation hit me, if you like. I had what I felt like was an emotional breakdown and just physically and mentally. I just couldn't cope when I approached my employers.

with regards to what my options were with regards to paid time off. It was a just, no, this is our policy. You haven't adopted the children. You're not fostering. It's a private arrangement. There are no sort of policy documents with regards to paid parent leave. And I was flabbergasted. It was like, what difference am I doing?

I haven't adopted these children, but I will be looking after them as my own going forward. So the option was unpaid leave or goodbye? Oh, yeah, see you later. So, goodness me. Let's pick this up with Lucy. I mean, this is obviously Nash's story is very familiar. How many people are affected in this way? So 45% of kinship carers say they're forced out of work

when they step up like Nash did to take the children. And that is pushing them onto the benefit system, as you said, but also increasing stress, anxiety at that very time that they need to be concentrating on the children. So we know from our research that only 3% of kinship carers were able to take discretionary. paid leave. So there is this absurd gap in the law that needs to be closed. We're calling on the government in the parental leave review to introduce the right to statutory paid time off work

for kinship carers like parents get, like adoptive parents get. And that said she could have chosen to adopt these children. That wasn't the right path for her. It was a special guardianship order, but she was doing the same thing. She's committing to these children to love and care for them as long as they need that. She needed that time off work. So we think the government needs to act on this. You launched this campaign yesterday. I know there was a meeting at Parliament, and you, Lucy, have been campaigning a very long time on this.

24 years, which is a very long time. What kind of response did you get? Are we any closer to seeing a change? I think people can see that this is absurd. It's shocking. It is nonsensical to push people out of work like being midwives within the NHS. They are priority jobs.

We need people like Nash doing her job. We also need people like Nash to take on the children. So we need to make sure that we're supporting them effectively. We're calling for a well-supported kinship care system that makes sure that we support people throughout their journey. Right at the beginning, they need that immediate time off work to deal with that crisis for themselves and for the children. But they also need a longer period of leave

so they can make sure that they're focusing on the children, establishing those bonds, that stability the children need. We know enough about secure attachment to know how important it is when children have experienced trauma to have that love and support from somebody who is consistent and will care for them. What else do we need to look at?

So we want financial allowances for kinship carers like foster carers get. It costs money to raise a child and Nash has just talked about that. If you're suddenly, you've got less money coming in but you've got more children, you need to be able to care for them. And we don't want kinship carers

to have to go to food banks. That's what they're having to do. They are remortgaging their homes. They are spending all their savings. We have people who are grandparents who are drawing down their pensions and spending that on raising small children. So people have done everything they should have done. And then the family crisis happens and they do the right thing.

And this is where they are paying too high a price. Nash, I read also that you're entitled to counselling or the children are grief counselling. But it's very limited, isn't it? Absolutely. It's the generic six sessions, but in as far as that in itself, I've had to navigate that. There was no assistance and the charity, the hospice where my sister peacefully passed away, they've been amazing and they've offered the grief counselling to the children.

And again, it's at different stages. So it's very challenging. It's super challenging and sad. Well, listen, thank you so much for coming in and for telling us what's been going on in your life. I know it will resonate with so many people listening and laying out so brilliantly the changes you think we need to make. Nash just finally, how are the family doing? Amazing. I mean, it's chaos. It's such a chaos, but I wouldn't change it for the world. Can I just add about a statistic that. So in every 100 kinship child that is in the UK, we are saving

the government for, is it four million pounds? So for every hundred children in well-supported kinship care, the state will save four million pounds per year. So what we say, it makes sense to invest in well-supported kinship care. Children's outcomes are better and it saves the state money. So why wouldn't we put this right? Lucy Peake and Nash there, a spokesperson from the Department of Work and Pensions saying this, we recognise the important role that kinship care is play.

Our parental leave and pay review will consider whether support available for working families meets the needs and others who do not qualify for existing leave and pay entitlements such as kinship. Carers, just to say we did ask for a statement from the NHS, but they said they were unable to give us one at this particular moment. Now, we're going to talk about, amongst other things, the labels society puts on women and the damage they can do. Broadcaster, DJ and campaigner, Ashley James is reclaiming one of them. Her book is called Bimbo. And just a warning, some of the words in the discussion you are about to hear will include some terms.

Some of you may find offensive. Ashley joined me this week, and I began by asking her, Why the title Bimbo for the book? I think it's a word that has been thrown at me throughout my teens, 20s, when I'm on this morning. Often if people don't agree with me, they'll go online and say she's just a bimbo. And, you know, I do the show a lot with Nick Ferrari.

He would never have his intelligence insulted if people don't agree with his opinion. So I wanted to have obviously like a very punchy word, but it's not just bimbo. It's all the labels that I feel like women are, given whether that's bossy, frigid, tarty, and even into elderhood, you know, like Crone or Hag. So, yeah, I really just wanted to kind of explore how these labels shrink us and keep us small. What was the word then that you heard most, you were labelled with most growing up?

I think it's, I mean, in girlhood it's bossy, right? For most of us, we're called bossy. for teenage years I'm going to say it's probably either slut or frigid and this is often like the language that is used you can't win because you're one or the other and I'd say there's a lot of like shame

around sexuality for teenagers and now yeah I'd say probably bimbo is still the prevalent term that is thrown at me you went to boarding school didn't you I did and you developed quite early on but with that came these labels Yeah, so I was 14 when I had a double G chest. And, you know, I remember thinking I couldn't wait to have boobs.

It felt like of the very adult aspirational thing to have. And I speak a lot about the hypersexualisation of the female body and the kind of shame that is put on women who have big boobs. And as a child, because that's what you are when you're 14, being told that, you know, I couldn't wear certain clothes or being told that I had to act and behave a certain way so as not to attract unwanted attention. It's very much that the focus is on the women

to control themselves and to control male behaviour as opposed to potentially teaching men and boys not to objectify us. And those labels that you got from 14, did you believe you were that? I think you do. I just remember wanting to be good. I wanted to, you know, I was also told about,

you know, Ashley, you have to choose between beauty and brains. and I really wanted to be brains and I wanted to be taken seriously and I wanted to be respected. So I remember at one point my mum saying to me like actually even I don't wear these clothes and I'm 20 whatever years older than you so I think I really did adopt that level of shame

and I believe that my body was bad because actually I'd be told I couldn't wear certain tops but then my friends would put it on and there was no problem with them. So it was a very hard concept and I also felt shame because it did attract a lot of very much unwanted attention. And I feel like, you know, it wasn't just as a teenager.

It carried me through even as a 36, 37-year-old woman who was breastfeeding. There was still that hypersexualisation. Like you shouldn't do it in public. You're just doing it because you want attention. And it's like, no, we're literally just trying to exist in our bodies. And actually, I speak a lot about my experiences in motherhood. And for me, breastfeeding was like almost a chance to reclaim my body as something that wasn't just sexual. and yeah, I explore that throughout the whole journey of girlhood and womanhood.

To go back to when you were younger, did you shrink yourself when your mum had those conversations with you? Did you think, well, maybe I won't wear that? Absolutely. I think for me, like retrospectively, the shrinking starts in girlhood with labels like, don't be bossy. You know, you're being conditioned to behave a certain way. And the whole inspiration behind the book, my daughter's two years old. now and when I look at how she looks at herself in the mirror with love and wonder and she's so loud and I feel like we enter our teenage years and certainly by our 20s most of us feel that

we want to shrink ourselves whether that's trying to fit into the labels so we avoid shame or whether that's our physical bodies wanting to shrink and even feeling like we need to meet another half because we're not whole on our own so I think we always are trying to shrink and hopefully this book helps people kind of reclaim the confidence and find their voice You're very open in this book about a lot of topics, including sexual assault in the chapter called Silly Girl. Now that must have been a really hard decision to make to talk about it. Why did you decide to? That was something that I agonised over actually because I had several, I don't want to say minor experiences of sexual assault harassment because none of it's minor.

But then at university I was raped and I've never really talked about it. and it actually took me a long time to even accept that what happened wasn't my fault. And I thought I couldn't possibly write a book about shame and the fact that women often are made to feel the shame that isn't ours without including it. And actually, you know, I watched Giselle Pelico so bravely turn up at court every day with her head held high. And she said, the shame must change sides. And I wanted to include it, even though I had. still find it really difficult to talk about to, I suppose, show other people that they're not

alone, show how common it is, sadly, but also how so much of the narrative still is on silly girl, like, what was she wearing? What did she drink? Even in the court systems, you know, there's still stories of, like, people looking at someone's sexual history. Why would that matter? So I think as much as I really don't feel comfortable talking about it, I'm trying to show that the shame is not ours. Someone did that to me. And also it's something that I still think about every day. And it feels like a very big weight to carry with like by not telling people. So it's like, it's out there now. I'm really proud of how I handled it within the book. And I've had so many amazing messages already from, from people. And I think, you know, for me, because, you know, it was a

friend and I'd been at a nightclub so I was drunk and I was dressed a certain way. I carried that shame because we so often tell girls don't go out like that. You don't want to attract unwanted attention. Make sure you don't drink too much. And we're almost putting the onus on women and girls to keep themselves safe as opposed to telling men and boys not to rape us. So yeah, I think it's, I feel very nervous and very uncomfortable knowing that it's out there but also a massive sense of relief.

He was a friend at the time, and you stayed friends with him. Was this a way of trying to convince yourself that what happened wasn't what happened? I think because the labels and, you know, the tools that were used to control women around their sexuality, slut-shaming, and I was so worried about him thinking that I was a slut. I'm sorry for the language,

but that is the label of the book. and worried about him telling anyone else, you know, that I was promiscuous. I felt like if I could stay friends with him, then it was almost like reputational damage. And it only really was a few years later when I told a male friend what had happened. And he was like, you know, that's not your fault. And obviously I'm not in touch with him now. And since university, we haven't been in touch. But I think I just wanted to show that it isn't this like very black and white.

situation and it's not just strangers in alleyways. It's much more complex than that. And I think the narrative really needs to change. And it's interesting because we started off talking about labels. Do you think in some way the labels you heard up to that point in your life about yourself fed into your feeling of culpability in that situation? Yeah, absolutely. Because we are taught be a good girl. And these labels are a tool to control us and to keep us in line. But they also strip away our confidence and our sort of ownership in who we are at a time when we're, you know, we're becoming women, we're trying to figure out who we are. I remember as a teenager, it felt very unfair. The double standards placed on boys and girls, particularly within a very male

dominated boarding school. I was the first group of girls to start at that school. So there were over 500 boys and 37 girls. And it very much did feel like her boys will be boys. And so girls learn to adapt their behaviour around that. You say you think about that situation every day. How have you, I mean, it sounds like you've got another great male friend who put your head around the, yeah, exactly, put your head around the right way on it. But how have you managed to come to terms with that, or have you even? I haven't, I don't think, how can you come to terms with it?

It feels like, especially when I see news articles every day, it feels like the women are on trial and people are more afraid of a woman lying than of a man like assaulting us and yeah it's something that's really difficult to get your head around and I still feel shame and discomfort talking about it but I also know that it's not my secret anymore and I want to address this because if God forbid it happened to a friend or you know the next generation I'm raising two children I would want I would want them to be able to speak up and I would want to feel like they would be supported and I think you know, silence only protects the perpetrators, not the victims. This is a conversation that may resonate with a lot of people listening,

so I just want to say in a few moments' time, I'll be reading out an email address, sorry, a website address where you can get help and support, if anything we've been talking about here resonates with you and your life. Ashley, you now have a fantastic life partner, which you detail in the book, and you talk and you're fantastic two children that you've just talked about. You're very, very honest, which is so healthy about motherhood, your postnatal experience, and struggling with your sense of self. You've talked about this publicly experiencing incontinence after childbirth.

I mean, it's a taboo subject. You don't really hear women, high-profile women like you, talking about this. Why did you want to kind of go, this is the whole experience? I'm laying it all out. So I think, first of all, it is really important to recognise that so many people have amazing childbirth and don't experience any of this. but for me, I felt very fit and healthy. I was almost looking forward to childbirth

to kind of see what it was all about. And I felt like, you know, I've run marathons. I knew how to push my body. I'm very headstrong. I felt like I had a very high pain tolerance, not that I think it should matter what your pain tolerance is. You should be respected with pain. And then my recovery just wasn't straightforward

with my first birth. And I had not just incontinence, but also fecal incontinence, piles, prolapse. And I didn't even know that prolapse was something that especially young women could even have. And all the discussion around a postnatal body seems to be about your weight and whether you want to lose the baby weight and whether you want to bounce back. And again, it's this idea that the shame doesn't do any justice to women going through postnatal issues because we're not changing the system to look after us better.

You know, so many countries like even France across the sea, they have much better postnatal care and postnatal physio available for everyone and you shouldn't have to push. And that is, you know, it is something that so many of us experience and I just don't want it to be to be because I don't, I think it does a disservice to our health. And that whole thing about almost like pretending that it didn't happen, the only, the only kind of positive self is the self physically before you had children. Yeah. And why is it that I always say I didn't want to bounce back. I wanted to bounce back in. I wanted to feel like my, body worked again and it's very damaging this idea that we should look like we've not had a baby

in record time when actually you know if I'd have started running for example that would have made my prolapse even worse and I really want to shift the idea that having a baby is just about losing baby weight which I think is such a disgusting term in itself when your body has just done this amazing miraculous thing and I think I want the pressure to be off especially in a world where Dad bods seem to be, you know... Cute. Yeah, exactly. Oh, look, he's got dad bod.

But then, you know, the mother's body is sort of like, oh, she's ruined her body. Oh, she needs to bounce back. And yeah, I just want to change the narrative and push for better postnatal support. Ashley James there and her book, Bimbo, is out now. And if you have been affected by anything you've heard in this discussion, you can go to the BBC Action Line where you will find links to support. Now, the Winter Olympics is taking place in Italy at the moment and team G.B snowboarder Mia Brooks put in an amazing performance earlier this week.

She was fourth in the women's snowboard Big Air Final, but that doesn't describe her fearlessness and athleticism. The 19-year-old had been hoping to become Great Britain's first gold medalist on snow. She went for a backside 1620 trick featuring four and a half rotations and landed before she over-rotated and her heel edge caught in the snow. Mia's mum, Vicky Brooks, joined Nula on the line from her camper van close to the Olympic venue to find out how she was doing after seeing her daughter perform. Yeah, tired.

And excuse me if my voice is croaky from all the screaming and excitement. I think that's allowed. I mean, while I was watching your daughter spinning through the air, like a catapult, I was wondering, I wonder how a mum would feel. So tell me, what was it like? Terrifying. It was amazing. Yeah, I've just been out here watching her, you know, cheering her on.

It was incredible. The atmosphere was unbelievable and real. It was just amazing for myself and my husband, me as Dad, Nigel, to be stood there, seeing all the crowds going mad. And I'm sure the biggest crowd was for GB, the flags. And it was like, I just didn't. know what to film, what to look at. It was just incredible. And you

also have to think, Fickey, of people like me, up and down the country, that were also clutching onto their chests while watching her. I mean, we're in a bubble here at the moment, so we're not seen any news. Obviously, we're in the motorhome, so our Wi-Fi's

limited. We're not seeing anything on the TV. But people just keep messaging, obviously, and there's pictures here, and there's videos here. And, yeah, we're just in this bubble and not actually realising what's going on, I don't think. Did you have any idea that she was going to go for it at this 16, as we're calling it, a much more difficult manoeuvre?

Really, I suppose, that she didn't know how it might go. Yeah, I mean, the jump here, to people that don't really understand, the jump here actually isn't that big, it's huge, but in comparison to some of the jumps that they've been hitting with World Cups and things, it wasn't allowing people. Even the lads a few days ago, they weren't doing their biggest tricks, you know, the 20s. any ones and things. So we had a feeling that the girls weren't going to be able to push more than a 14, which Mia obviously had. And she came down after a run two and we were like, go again, go again and maybe polish up the 14 or, you know, and dad shouted, maybe try the 16.

She just went, no. There was glimpses. There's just something in her eyes. And she has good, such good rotation and rip on her spins. It was like, if anyone's going to have a swing at it, it was going to be Mia. And she did. It was unreal. But I was reading that she, you know, has the music blaring in her headphones. as she is heading down that slope. You are a snowboarder, I know, as well, as is Dad Nigel. What does it feel like? It's just incredible.

I mean, she just loves snowboarding. She loves music. The music's the big thing. She's mad on, you know, on rock bands, heavy metal. If the music's right, if she's feeling good, who knows what's going to happen. But we just love snowboarding as a family. And, you know, the fact that we're here now is just the icing on the top. But the main thing is that we just go snowboarding and have fun

and see what happens in the future. I mean, part of her fearlessness that I mentioned there as well, there's a real risk, right? At times she is upside down with the snow closer to her head, shall we say, than her feet. Do you talk about risk or how is that part of the conversation I'm just talking about as a family of snowboarders? No, we never really talk about that.

We try not to, obviously, we all know it's there and she's had a few moments in a time. But it's something we don't discuss. We just don't want to put that negativity there and that upset there. She's just so good and she knows what her limits are. She doesn't just throw things. She knows if she's doing something.

She's pretty confident. She's 99% sure that it's going to come to her feet. So we trust that now. We can see that in her. So it's not just a hook and hope. It's calculated. And we know that if she's going to go for something, and she's confident that it's going to land.

How lovely, that feeling of trust in her body. That's incredible. But I believe that, obviously, you don't become a so close gold medalist overnight, that this has been really something that you've been doing with me since she was a little girl. Yeah, obviously we've been on this journey since she was, well, because it's our passion also.

So from a baby, we introduced her to snowboarding. And to be able to do that, We've always travelled in our motor home. I've obviously travelled with Mia since a baby until turning 18 last year. So we've just always been involved in such a huge amount of her journey. This year's been a little more challenging. She turned 18 and then went on this other, you know, on her own programme, so to speak.

But we're always there. We're always in the background. And yeah, it's just amazing to be here and to share this experience with her this last few weeks. And what an experience, you know, watching as well that come round, between the women was really heartwarming as well. You know, they were right there. Even if they knew they had just been beaten,

for example, by somebody, by another woman, they would be the first to go forward and congratulate them. Can you explain that? That is not actually, according to me as well, about the medal, but sometimes about how far you can push yourself and further the sport. For sure.

I mean, over the years, when they're younger and they're trying to get to them, point of the career it's a little it's not as pleasant you know you get the the soccer parents and things we've experienced all of that but once they get to this level it's it's just beautiful the girls are so they're obviously doing such crazy things up there you know the big tricks they're just so supportive of one another and they're understanding each other and what they're all putting themselves through so if somebody lands something new or bigger or you know whatever the result they're just so happy for one another and

obviously disappointed themselves, but they never let that show. And if they do, it doesn't matter. Have a cry. Have a hug. Move on to the next and just support one another. It's incredible. What's it like being a girl or a woman within a snowboarding world? It's fine now.

I think obviously I've been riding for nearly 30 years. I was probably one of every hundred bloke. There was just never any women snowboarding in the 90s, really. But I'd say there's 50-50 now. And the boys are just so, well, the guys are just so lovely to the ladies and, yeah, so supportive. And then the gap's closing. It's so excited. Ladies now pushing to what the lads have got, you know, maybe a rotation or two less.

And the rails and things that they do are, they're unreal, unbelievable. I was wondering that because, of course, we are often physically smaller, not always, but can be. but I was wondering what our physicality means for the sport. For example, on a rotation, doesn't make a difference if you've got hips and a butt, for example, compared to a guy. Yeah, I don't think that really. I think as long as they're doing the gym work, their acro and things like that, and a lot of its mindset, I'm 100% I'm convinced if they believe and the people around them believe and put that in them and say, you know, this is possible, you've got this,

they've got it, anything's achievable. And we can see it in me, we can see. see from whether we're at the top of a course, whether over the years or whether we see it on a TV screen now, you see it in her eyes, you see it in her body language, and you're just like, she's on. You know it's going to happen? And I saw that last night.

I saw the hesitation on Run 3 as she stood there, and you're like, is she going to drop normal or is she going to drop cab, you know, the opposite direction? And we were all like, the fact that she hesitated, we were like, she's on. Ficky Brooks there, and you can see her daughter, Mia, in action again next week in the snowboarding slope side event. It's all on the BBC Eye Player. For years, I've sounded like a broken record.

I do not want kids. I do not ever want to have kids. I don't want to have a kid. Don't want to have a kid. Don't want to have a kid. I'm in my 40s now. The door is almost closed. And suddenly, I'm not so sure. The story has always been, no. I'm just wondering to what degree it's just a story. Definitely just a story.

From CBC's personally, this is creation myth. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts. Still to come on the program, the female characters in the novels of Charles Dickens in a new exhibition, Extraordinary Women. And remember, you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day. If you can't join us live at 10 a.m. during the week, just subscribe to the Daily Podcast for free via BBC Sounds.

Deborah Douglas has written a powerful memoir. It's called The Cost of Trust, and it's about her experience as a victim and campaigner for justice in a case described as one of the biggest scandals in British medical history affecting hundreds of women. The case centres on the disgraced breast surgeon Ian Patterson who was convicted in 2017 of wounding patients after carrying out botched and unnecessary operations.

Many of the women he treated believed they were receiving care for breast cancer from a surgeon regarded as a leading figure in his field. Patterson worked at the former heart of England NHS Trust, which covered Birmingham and Solihull, as well as at the private hospital Spire Little Aston. In 2020, an independent inquiry found that both the NHS and the private sector missed multiple opportunities to intervene and stop him. Deborah Douglas joined me in the Woman's Our studio, and I began by asking her why she decided to write the book. For me, it was about telling not just my story, but telling the story of all those. people affected and hopefully it will bring about change.

Cancer was something in you first hand and you detail in the book. Very movingly, both your parents very sadly died from different types of cancer. So that must have been something that was hanging over you. It absolutely was. And when I presented to Ian Patterson in 2003 after losing both parents to breast cancer, I totally believed in what he was saying to me. I mean, that's the reason I chose the title, the cost of trust. I mean, it is that cost that has affected so many.

And I just wanted to get that whole story out there, how he presented with this persona, how he really wasn't checked. I mean, if you looked at his history and you looked at his qualifications, he barely had qualifications. He was actually a vascular surgeon. It was a number of years before I understood what had actually happened to me. And just to go back to how you came to kind of meet him,

you detail. And you paint such a vivid picture of your mum's life and your dad's life and your life in, you know, working class Birmingham. You know, it's pretty tough growing up. But you went on, you got to self a decent career. And with that decent career, came private health insurance. And you talk about how you thought that made me feel a bit safer, didn't it? Yes, at the time, I remember going to my GP and saying, well, actually, and I never used it before, I've got private health cover with my job.

And her words were, if you've got it, use it. And I thought this was a Monday. On the Friday, I was seeing Patterson. The following Monday, so a week later, he sat me down and said, I hope I didn't mislead you when I said the lump has got to come out, but your breast has got to be removed. And he then advised I needed this radical surgery, which happened to be the most expensive surgery.

So, you know, I went through all of that process and also carrying the burden that I'd lost my mother. I'd watched her die in a horrific way. She lost oxygen and she was on a life support. And what I was doing when I came around from that operation, I'd got tubes, six drainage tubes, catheter, oxygen mask, morphine drip. And I was hooked up to a monitor. Every time I breathed out, my oxygen levels dropped.

When I breathed in, they came up. And I thought I was looking at my mum, you know, I'm going to die here. So it was really, really traumatic. And just to give detail on, you had a lump. Yes. And he, as you say, he recommended, this is what we've got to do, we've got to do a mastectomy, we've got to re. So tell us exactly what he did.

On the first meeting, he took me through to a room, a side room, and he said, we need to get a sample from this lump. He took out a huge needle. He jabbed it repeatedly into my breast. It was unguided. The pain was horrendous. It was like a red hot poker bean. stabbed into my breast.

And he said, this is where you're allowed to swear. And all I could think of was my parents, what they'd gone through. And I was in tears, not only because of the pain, but because I'm thinking, this is deja vu. I've got cancer and it's happening again. He left the room and my husband said, he said to him, oh, Deborah's been very brave.

You know, she's a brave girl. So it was this kind of attitude that, you know, well done. And took me back in then and said, come back Monday, we'll have your results. And at that point, I did not know that my results wouldn't be available. So this was just a sort of a rough gut test that said there's potential for cancer. But what he told me specifically was it is cancer. You're curable, but this is what you need to do.

We're going to remove your breast. And I said, well, what the shock was, well, you were talking about a lump? Why did you have to remove my breast? And he said, it's near all the connecting tissue. This is what needs to happen for you to survive. but you'll go into theatre with two boobs and come out with a nice flat stomach, two boobs and a nice flat stomach.

And, you know, looking back, it was a very misogynistic thing to say. But at the time, I thought, I'm going to be a good patient, I'm going to do whatever he says, because I need to survive. I had to have the conversation with my kids about having cancer.

They were teenagers at the time. And I said, look, it's not like nan and granddad. I'm going to be okay. You know, I'm not going to die. But I didn't know that, obviously, when I woke up in this surrender state with all these tubes, I literally thought, this is mum all over again, you know, and I could not wait to get out of that hospital.

When did you first have your own... I mean, it sounds like you already had your suspicions, but when did you hear the questions were being raised about his conduct? I mean, I was operated on in 2003, so it was quite some time afterwards. You know, I talk about in the book the support group that was available, and that was fantastic, because it was other breast cancer patients,

that were, you know, helping and giving me advice. When you look back in 2009, Patterson was made patron of that support group. This is breast friends. This is breast friends. And this was an enabling exercise, really, because I also fought for an inquiry, and it was the Bishop James inquiry. And what he said around that time is, you were being groomed, your whole group was being groomed,

and you think about what was happening there. We were building a wall around him, and thinking we've got the best consultant and we didn't see any harm in it. So I was one of the early ones that started to think when I'd read in a newspaper article about an unrecognised procedure which he tagged a cleavage-bearing mastectomy. So I started to ask questions initially about that.

Cleavage-bearing mastectomy, it doesn't exist. There's no such operation. So what he was doing, what he meant by that was he was leaving breast tissue if you look at what a mastectomy means, it's essentially removal of all the breast tissue and if you're not having reconstructive surgery immediately, you'll have a flat chest wall. So what he was doing, he was leaving tissue around the cleavage area

so that women, he said, could look nice in a low cut top. You know, he made comments about somebody wearing a bikini and seeing the bikini line. So there was also this misogynistic element to his behaviour. And also that's hugely risky. to leave certain breast tissue behind? Absolutely. The whole point of a mastectomy is that you clear out all of the breast tissue

so the cancer doesn't return. And I realised, looking at my own case, that even though I'd had reconstructive surgery, he'd actually left around 40% breast tissue. And I looked at, well, what would that risk be? And essentially, if you leave breast tissue when it's supposed to be cleared, the risk is your cancer's going to return.

You know, some women described it as a ticking time bomb. that's how they felt this breast tissue being there. They didn't want it there. They wanted to survive. And, you know, I was the same. It was never about the cosmetic side of it. But the fact that he offered it and made it seem so easy and actually said to me, we'll do this.

And I said, I'm a curable. And he said, clearly, you were curable. You know, we can cure you. So that was the whole reason. I thought, whatever he said, I'm going to do. The case went to court. I mean, you went from patient to campaigner you've just detailed, and the case went to court

and Paterson was sentenced to 15 and then subsequently 20 years. How did that moment feel? Did you feel like justice had been done, that it was over? I mean, it was such a relief because at the time, when he took the stand, it took five years to actually get him to the stand because he was saying he had mental health issues.

So it was a relief that finally, you know, justice was going to be done and he was going to be locked up. But I never felt it was over then. It was always all about, well, why did it get away? Who allowed him to operate on so many women for so long? And all those questions were at the forefront. And why are people dead? When you look at the stats, there was a 2012 report that came out in the NHS,

looking at Patterson's patients that had a mastectomy. Of the 1,206 mastectomy patients, 675 were already dead. Now, I knew that wasn't normal stats. I mean, my background is in aerospace. So I'm looking at data all the time and that just jumped out at me and one of the things I did when I spoke to the inquiry was present that data to him.

I also presented the names of six patients that had died, read out the names and I said they should still be here. But what came about from the inquiry, not only the recommendations, but the fact that there were going to be inquest then into those deaths. I want to ask you a little bit more about that, the 2020 Independent Inquiry, the Bishop of Norwich, 15 recommendations to ensure the harm of the disgrace surgeon caused couldn't be repeated.

Some of those recommendations included a public register detailing which types of operations surgeons are able to perform and that information must be communicated more effectively to patients on how to escalate a complaint. What do you think about the pace of change you're seeing? Are we there yet? We're absolutely not there. It's six years now. This month it's six years. And at the time the government said they would resolve this in a year. now they're talking about it being in a 10-year plan. It isn't good enough.

I think what people don't realize is when you go into a private hospital, the consultant still rents the room. If there's a criminal act, you won't get compensation. For us, as a campaign act, we had to fight for compensation. And that compensation was paid out straight away in the NHS. And that again took five years to fight for. But that only came because the private health system, in Spire, were threatened with court action.

and they decided to settle out of court. I just want to bring in a statement from SPIRE here. We have, and they say this, we have overhauled our leadership, culture and clinical governance to ensure patient safety. Is at the heart of everything we do. Spire Healthcare welcome the independent inquiry's recommendations. We've acted on all recommendations relevant to us

and strengthen our processes to further enhance quality and safety across all of our hospitals. Of course, you were Spire. Other women you're talking about. We're in the NHS. and the NHS, a spokesperson for university hospitals, Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, which merged with the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust in 2018, said this, we wholly condemn Ian Patterson's actions

and his appalling treatment of the many patients who put their trust in him. We will continue to fully support those affected and assist with the HM coroner's investigations. So the support is there, they say. I'd refute that if you look at the fact that in the private sector, there was never a care plan. So in the NHS, I saw the risk assessment for the NHS, and that showed that women should be followed up every year that had breast tissue left.

They should have regular scans. If you had immediate reconstructive surgery, then you should have an MRI scan every year for 15 years. Well, nobody in the private sector had that. I basically knew what the system was. I'd been to the NHS meetings, tried to communicate out to as many people as I could. So no, that's not happening. It hasn't happened. Deborah Douglas there. And her book, The Cost of Trust, is out now.

And the NHS suggests that if you or a member of your family were a patient of Ian Patterson and have any queries or concerns, that you contact their patient advice and liaison service, which is PALS, either by email or by telephone. The NHS gave us this statement, a spokesperson for University Hospitals, Birmingham NHS Foundation, Trust, which merged with Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust in 2018, said this. We wholly condemn Ian Patterson's actions and his appalling treatment of the many patients who put their trust in him. We will continue to fully support those affected and assist with H.M. Coroner's investigations.

Finally today, a new exhibition, Extraordinary Women at the Charles Dickens Museum, is celebrating the women in his life literature and literature. letters of the great Victorian novelist and social commentator. Next to the London home he shared with his wife, daughters and sisters-in-law, a collection of portraits, keepsakes, and letters are on display, some for the very first time, providing those missing links to his female characters. The exhibition also documents his work to improve the lives of vulnerable women,

including women who sold sex for a living and female prisoners. But how does this sit with the other darker narrative, about Dickens that have arisen from Dickens' mistreatment of his own wife. How do we sort the fact from the fiction? Well, Nula was joined by curator Kirsty Parsons and historian Professor Jenny Hartley OBE. She asked Professor Jenny Hartley, how were women viewed by the Victorian society

that Charles Dickens was born into? So some of the themes we explore in the exhibition, looking at some of the sort of Victorian stereotypes that really come through in, in Victorian literature in general, but that Dickens did sort of write to, but also kind of played with and explored as well. So thinking about the angel of the home narrative that, you know, the woman provides a stable home that her family can kind of retreat back to and take a break from the public sphere. And thinking about those women who sort of the moral young woman, who's kind of innocent and virtuous and holds up the moral standards of society. and society holds her up to very high moral standards as well

and it's that kind of symbiotic relationship that one has to kind of preserve the other. Let's talk about some of the characters and whether they resemble the women in his life. Some people listening will be very familiar with Dickens' work. Other, for example, might never have read a word. Who are some of the prime characters you think they should know? So I think one of the ones that is probably more kind of known about

is his sister-in-law, Mary Hogarth, who has been linked to Little Nell in the old curiosity shop. It's believed that she and another character, Rose Maley, in Oliver Twist, are inspired by Mary Hogarth because of Dickens' immense grief at her death. She died very young when she was just 17, and she died in his house, in the house that the museum's in at 48 Doughty Street. She was, you know, a young woman. She died before her time, and she was much loved by both. Charles and Catherine and was a member of their household. And Rose Maley was written a year after Mary died in all of a twist. But Little Nell was many years afterwards. But there's a letter where he writes to a friend that basically writing this death scene of Little Nell, it's like

Mary's died all over again. But perhaps a bit of a difference between the actual character and the real life. Yeah, absolutely. And that's the thing that we're exploring in the exhibition, that, you know, he used his personal experiences and the people in his life to kind of influence his characters, but they're not the fully formed version of these women. And that's what we're using the exhibition for to kind of bring those women to the forefront. So with Mary Hogarth, she was a teenager. She was lively. She enjoyed, you know, social conversation and travel and things. So she was very much a lively young woman. Which might be the picture we get sometimes indeed in Dickens' novels. I want to turn to Professor Hartley, the home for homeless women that he co-founded with banking eras,

Angela Burdett Coots. What impact did that have? And what do you think it tells us about Dickens and how he felt about women? Oh, I think it tells us a lot that he responded directly to the young women he saw on the streets. Angela Burdette Coots wanted to start this home

because she saw prostitutes on the streets on the steps of her home in Piccadilly. What can we do for these young women? And some of them were very young indeed. And we have to remember, when we first see Little Nell, she is on the streets at night. So she's in a very dangerous place. And the person who sees her, this old man,

he says, I feared the worst for her. So there's a real strong crossover there. With his feelings. Yeah. And he himself had been on the streets as a boy, you know, working. Because when his family were in prison, he had to be on the streets to get to work and so on. And what he wanted to do was to rescue these young women

who were coming, as you say, out of prison and so on. And he wanted them to have a new start. He thought it should be abroad because he thought if you just stay here, you'll fall back into your old ways. And so he and Angela Burdette Coots, they started this wonderful place called Urania Cottage, which was in Shepherd's Bush. It was on the site in Lyme Grove where BBC TV started. And they would stay for about a year. They would be trained, educated.

They would be, you know, how to run a house. He thought their reading and writing definitely, you know, so there's that kind of education. and then they would go abroad and start new lives. And that's interesting because it also he championed female writers and journalists. So we have this one picture of Charles Dickens. But I come back to you, Kirsty, because some people question about what sort of husband was he or father. His marriage to Catherine broke down.

Tell us a little bit more about how all that played out. Yeah, so Dickens and Catherine separated in 1858. So they didn't divorce that they could have. the matrimonial causes act came in the year before. So the mechanism of divorce did exist, but it was, you know, the husband had to prove adultery, the wife had to prove adultery and something else. So it was a very big deal to go through. And, you know, someone of his standing,

it would have been a very sort of public thing to go through. So they just went for a separation and built a war. Oh, yes. So leading up to the separation, yes, there were instances such as that where, yes, he asked his servants to discreetly kind of build a wall between the bedroom and the dressing room and to convert the dressing room into his room. And then the bedroom became Mrs. Dickens's room as he wrote. But they do talk about him preventing her from seeing his children, for example.

Yes, yeah. So the eldest son Charlie, he was an adult that time. So he decided to stay and live with Catherine. But all the other children, as was the legal mechanism at the time, were under the custodianship of the father. so they lived for Charles and yeah he limited her access to them absolutely. And also was very public. Almost seems very modern this.

He wrote, there's a copy of it at the house of so-called violated letter. He talked about his side of the story very much making sure that he didn't come out. The bad guy after this divorce. Do we know anything about Catherine's side of the story? We don't know a massive amount, unlike Dickens, she didn't publicly write, but she was very keen for her letters from Dickens when the couple were younger to be put into the collection of the British Museum

so that as she says, that people would know he did love me once. And she made sure that her daughter, Katie, did this for her. So even though his treatment of her was not, it was very much below par, she still held a flame for him, perhaps, in some ways. Jenny? Well, I think he was rewriting history.

I mean... With the letter, the violation? Yes, yes. Oh, we never got on. And he said at one point about his marriage, the page which was written on is now completely blank. So he's rewriting. People behave very badly when marriage is break down, you know.

And my father was a madman, Katie said. So it really, you know, he was really out of order. His daughter talked about that also having a teenage mistress. How do you, Jenny, reconcile the many contradictions of his character, the public and private person, trying to help women that were down on their look, but then within the house. In some ways in the house, he was a Victorian father, and he liked his daughters better than his sons, really.

He was like, you know, when I was your age and that sort of thing. But, you know, he was conflicted, obviously he did in the end, when the end of the marriage was terrible. I always think there's rather too much emphasis put on that. If we look at all that he did and all that he wrote, he's done wonderful things for women both in real life and in his books. Kirsty Parsons and Professor Jenny Hartley. And the exhibition, Extraordinary Women, is open now and runs until September at the Charles Dickens Museum in London.

That's it from me today. Thank you for your company. Join me again on Monday for Women's Hour, when I'll be talking to actor Kate Fleetwood about her latest role as the angry, vindictive witch in Stephen Sondheim's fairy tale musical Into the Woods. And also, I'll be chatting to Great British Bake. off winner turned presenter Nadia Hussain about her new cookbook and lots, lots more. Talk to you then. Have a lovely weekend. That's all from today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. For years, I've sounded like a broken record. I do not want kids. I do not ever want to have kids. I don't want to have a kid. Don't want to have a kid. Don't want to have a kid. I'm in my 40s now. The door is almost closed. And suddenly, I'm not so sure. The story has always been no.

I'm just wondering to what degree it's just a story. Definitely just a story. From CBC's personally, this is Creation Myth, available now wherever you get your podcasts.