Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour: Men and stopping sexist behaviour, Grenfell play, Date Stacking

Episode Date: July 29, 2023

What role should men play in stopping sexist behaviour? Several campaigns have aimed to tackle this, the most recent being the Mayor of London’s Maaate initiative. To discuss we're joined by Karen Whybro, a woman’s safety consultant and Graham Goulden, the former Chief Inspector at Police Scotland who now offers training to organisations to improve team culture.This year marks the sixth anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire where 72 people lost their lives. A new play created from interviews conducted with a group of survivors has opened at the National Theatre. Grenfell: in the words of survivors follows the lead up to the disaster, the night of the fire, and the Grenfell Inquiry which followed, and is still ongoing. We're joined by its writer Gillian Slovo and actor Pearl Mackie.‘Date stacking’ is the latest trend being tried by single people to find love, quickly. The concept, designed to save time by squeezing in several dates in the space of a few hours, went viral on TikTok earlier this year. But can you really decide if you like someone while preparing for the next date? We discuss the pros and cons with journalist Roisin Kelly and dating strategist Johnny Cassell.Anna Sewell was the author of Black Beauty, one of the bestselling novels of all time. Despite suffering ill health throughout her life, she managed to rouse the conscience of Victorian Britain and make her mark upon the world. Dr Celia Brayfield tells us about her life and the impact of the book on animal rights.How much time would it take to photograph every single item in your home? Photographer Barbara Iweins spent four years documenting the 12,795 objects she owns. She explains the inspiration behind the project.Presenter: Krupa Padhy Producer: Lucy Wai Editor: Sarah Crawley

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme. Peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour, where we bring you the best bits from the week just come. Coming up, a new play about the Grenfell Fire, created from the words of survivors, has opened at the National Theatre. We discuss with the actor Pearl Mackey and the play's writer, Gillian Slovo. Have you ever tried date stacking? That is the trend of going on back-to-back dates in a short space of time. One writer tells us why she has given it a go. To be honest, I was just a bit bored of spending my evenings going on these dates that came to nothing, that weren't particularly enjoyable. So I just saw that and thought, why not?

Let's see how it goes putting three in one day. And we speak to a woman who's taken photos of all 12,795 objects in her home? What does she learn about herself through the process? Stay with us to find out. But first, what role should men play in calling out and stopping sexist comments and actions? This has been the subject of many recent government campaigns. You might remember the Home Office Enough campaign from last year, which sought to shift the attitudes and behaviours underpinning abuse. In recent weeks, the Welsh Government launched the Sound campaign, which aims to initiate self-reflection by drawing attention to harmful behaviour and encouraging men to seek sound advice. The most recent campaign is the Mayor of London's Mate campaign, that's mate with three A's, encouraging men to call each other out.

Here's a clip which sees a group of men playing football on a games console. Is that a bird running the line? So what, now I've got women telling me I'm wrong about football as well? That's so true, bro. What do they know about a game, man? Did you not watch the Women's Euros? It's pretty decent. It's pretty decent. It's pretty good. Yeah, for a laugh. That stuff's a joke.

Mind you, some of them players are pretty fit, though. Mate. What the? What? Sorry, boys. We know men can also be victims of violence, but these campaigns all focus on men's behaviour towards women. Do these campaigns work? To discuss,

Nuala was joined by Karen Wybrow, a women's safety consultant and research associate at the University of Portsmouth, and Graham Goulden, former chief inspector with the Violence Reduction Unit, part of Police Scotland, who now offers training to organisations to improve team culture. She began by asking Graham whether the MATE campaign is a good one or not. It presents an opportunity for us to have a conversation, but it's oversimplified. You know, it sounds easy to say mate when someone says something, but I know from my work and all the research tells us that it's not as simple as

that. It's difficult. It's difficult for, you know, a young man to say something, especially in a peer group. And for me, you know, this campaign needs to go a little bit further. We need to really, really, you know, sort of create conversations with boys and men and help them overcome these inhibitors, these fears, the social fear that stops them saying the right thing, things that they want to say. This is an interesting point, Graeme, because we heard to inform that particular campaign,

the mayor commissioned a report and it found that two in three men want to intervene, but don't know what to say. Let me throw that back to you, Karen. I mean, what do you do instead then? You're talking about it being reductive and the conversations that we're seeing in that ad, perhaps simplified. But what do you do instead? The problem we have is that actually having no kind of law or rule in place around misogyny being a hate crime or any kind of defined understanding or agreement around what is and isn't acceptable in behaviour towards women actually makes it very difficult in this type of campaign.

You know, this is a morality piece, right? It's not like we can say, if you do this, this is going to happen to you. We're kind of using this nudge science of trying to affect behavioural change. But with this kind of topic, that's really, really difficult. So, people have kind of said, oh, you know, this needs to be the same as a drink driving campaign or something around public safety. But this topic is so nuanced and it's so difficult and complex to understand that we can't just rely on a really kind of simplified way of saying, oh, just say that word and that's going to have those, you know, crucial results. But does it not at least start the conversation or perhaps have somebody at least think about something

in a different way if they see the ad? Ironically, I think the previous campaign from the mayor actually was better, was more effective and has already done that. So the Have a Word campaign that came out previously, I think last year, showed a scenario where, you know, there's a group of lads hassling a girl at a bus stop, and one of them stepped in. And he took a moment, actually, it showed it quite clearly, took a moment to think about himself and his behaviour, looked in the mirror, and thought, this isn't right, and stepped in there with his friends. And that, to me, was a much more relatable, much more realistic scenario that was used. This kind of scenario that they've used this time

is quite a gender stereotypical scenario of these lads sitting around playing computer games as well, which I don't think really is sophisticated enough to lean into the male psychology of friendship. And let me turn back to you, Graham, then. What do you think and what have you found is effective in your work? And coming back to that MAKE campaign, is it not a way in for certain people?

It's always good to have an entry point with people. And, you know, I always quote their campaign in the US in the 1980s, friends don't let friends drive drunk. And that led to, you know, up to 70, 75% of American citizens. And to this day, it still does, you know, up to 70, 75% of American citizens. And to this day, it still does, you know, encouraging friends to take car keys off their friends. And, you know, friends don't let friends get arrested. Friends don't let friends, you know, be victims of whatever. If we can use, harness that part of responsibility, because all the evidence tells

us that the sense of responsibility is the biggest motivator. So if you're doing something for your friend, then that's a good thing and will motivate you. Right. But in this particular instance, you feel it's not as nuanced as it should be? For me, it's about, you know, I think that quote, that stat you gave earlier about two out of three men want to do something.

We need to focus a lot more on what men really want to do. And we actually know that men respect other men who to do something. We need to focus a lot more on what men really want to do. And we actually know that men respect other men who do challenge behavior. So these are the positives that we need to get into our classrooms, get into our locker rooms, get into our male cultures, and then start the conversation which provides men the reassurance that if I do say something, people are going to support me because that sense of support is another big motivator

for active bystandership, for men to be leaders in this work. Yeah. You're bringing up a lot of thoughts as I'm listening to your words, Graeme. Also, like within a group situation, let's talk about where something misogynistic may occur. Are those groups self-selecting in the sense, will they be of a certain mindset? Is there space within that group, for example,

for somebody to break away and be a leader in the way that you're outlining? What I find, you know, working in male cultures is that men and boys and men are grappling with things they're hearing. You know, think of that Andrew Tate conversation we've been having over the last few months. Boys individually are grappling with some of the messages that they're hearing. And because they're not really sure what their friends are thinking, they wrongly perceive what their friends are thinking. And that leads to them either being silent around behaviours or joining in with their behaviours. And that's why it's so

important that we don't talk at men and boys, we talk with them. We invite them into conversations, we don't indict them, as often happens. And I think using the bystander approach is a good way to do that because we don't speak to boys and men as the problem, the potential problem. We speak to them as a friend, the classmate. With that opportunity to shift culture, one person can signal this approval, but one person can also make it okay for other people. What you promote, you permit. And that's what we need to get to. Graham Goulden and Karen Wybrow talking to Nuala there. And we did approach the Mayor's office for a statement. They say the campaign was developed in close collaboration with those working on the front line to tackle violence against women and girls

and support victims using expert behavioural science research and is part of a wide range of action and investment by the Mayor that champions a public health approach to ending violence against women and girls. For the last few months, we've been talking about narcissistic mothers on Women's Hour. And earlier this week, we discussed the topic with two psychotherapists who work in this field, Dr. Jan McGregor-Hetburn and Helen Villers. Here's Helen defining some of the traits of narcissism. There's no self-reflection in narcissism.

There's a misconception that there's no self-awareness, which isn't true. It's an impaired self-awareness. But what there is, is no self-reflection. So it's not being able to look at behaviour and say, actually, I can see how why I did, when I did that thing, it impacted you that way, and I shouldn't have done it. It's, well, that's your problem if you don't like it, rather than, okay, I'm sorry. That was Helen Villers. And if you'd like to hear more, you can listen back to that discussion and all the episodes in the series on BBC Sounds. Details of where to find them and some articles

are on the BBC Women's Hour website. Now, how many dates have you planned this week? One, maybe two? Or how does three sound back to back on the same day? Date stacking is the latest trend being tried by single people to find love quickly. The concept designed to save time by squeezing in several dates in the space of a few hours went viral on TikTok earlier this year when a woman documented her busy dating schedule. It's not a totally original concept though. Those of you who were single in the 1990s

will remember when speed dating was extremely popular. Think of you who were single in the 1990s will remember when speed dating was extremely popular. Think of it as a slightly slowed down version. So can you really decide if you like someone whilst getting ready for the next date? A recent survey suggests it takes us 42 minutes and 29 seconds to decide if we want to see someone again. So is this a good use of dating time or does it, as some critics say, reduce people to commodities? To discuss, I was joined by the Sunday Times style writer Roisin Kelly, who decided to try out date stacking and has written a piece about it. And Johnny Cassell, a dating and lifestyle strategist who thinks this kind of dating

is a sign that something is wrong. I began by asking Roisin why she wanted to try out date stacking in the first place. So I saw it on TikTok and I thought it would be quite a fun experiment. But at the same time, I'm really busy. I have a lot of evening plans because of work, because of friends. And to be honest, I was just a bit bored of spending my evenings going on these dates that came to nothing that weren't particularly enjoyable. So I just saw that and thought, why not? Let's see how it goes putting three in one day. I'm getting asked questions about the practicalities of this. Vicky says, I'm a romantic at heart, but I've had to resort to online dating.

The experiences vary from the odd date with odd men. Pictures of genitals are sent unsolicited. And a highly developed detail scammer who left me devastated. But I'm still there plodding away. What other option is there for a middle-aged single woman? I want to know how Roisin gets enough dates to stack them. Good on her, though. I mean, look, I'm not a natural at apps either.

I don't ideally want to meet someone that way however as many women will say it's a numbers game and you have to dedicate time to it I think there was a stat in my piece that most of us spend like an hour a day on dating apps and it is draining but if you want to convert into real life dates you have to put a bit of time in it's not ideal but it's just how it works and how did it it work out for you? Let's just say I'm still single. Yeah, logistically, it's stressful. It's like when you're trying to arrange a meeting at work and you're organising other people's diaries. It was definitely a worthwhile experiment. Would I do it every week? Probably not. How many did you have in the day or the morning?

I did three in one day. So one in the morning, a gym class and a coffee, followed by a coffee and a walk and then for a drink. The problem is if one person wants to push you back by half an hour or so, it ruins your whole schedule for the day. I can imagine. I can imagine. Johnny, your thoughts on this? You know, I've got mixed views on it. I think it's a great way of desensitizing yourself to dating. You know,

I think there can be a lot of apprehension, anxiety around that. So, you know, in terms of the numbers game, I think that can really help. But the whole date stacking thing, like getting the free dates in before lunchtime or the afternoon, I think it's a bit crazy. We got to ask ourselves, where's that coming from? For me, I think it's coming from a place of desperation, anxiety. And I actually feel that when you do turn up to those dates, you may not be present, you know, you may not be presenting the true version of yourself. I feel there's three or four paths that can lead to meeting someone. One of them can be online. Another one could be at work.

Another one could be our social life. And then there's the spontaneous path as well where, you know, I mean, every time you leave your house, there's an opportunity to meet someone new. So I think we've got to be more mindful of like our everyday environments can actually give us an opportunity to meet someone also. I'm going to play devil's advocate, Johnny. There will be people listening saying, I've tried all of that, all of it, the whole list. It just doesn't work. And now it's turned into a process. And Mark's got in touch to say, date stacking is old. I used a dating website 14 years ago to date 14 women in seven days. I ended up marrying the first woman I met. Two kids later, we celebrate 15 years together and 10 years married next year. Thank you for that good news, Mark.

But Roshan, it is catching on. I mean, we've got Mark there. He tried it years ago. Why is it catching on? Because people are busy. And also, you know, talking to people on apps all the time is draining. Half of these conversations don't end up in a date for whatever reason. We end up with pen pals, someone who drops us a message when they feel like it.

And to be honest, I personally don't see the difference. If I'm going to go on three dates in one week, what is the difference in going on them in one day? I don't think it affected my opinion on any of the men I met. Question to you then, Johnny, what is the difference? I just feel that there should be more effort in how you spend your time, like in your social hours. I think we can all do an audit on our lifestyle and get a better return on our time. And I think that's just a better way of doing things. I mean, what sounds better? You met your partner on an app.

But does that matter, though, how you met your partner ultimately? Ultimately, no. But, I mean, it's quite motivational to get yourself out there and find that love story, you know, that movie moment. You could be romantic at heart. I mean, that sounds dreamy, but it doesn't happen. Roshin, how did you feel when you were on those dates? I mean, a sense of stress?

Yeah, look, I'm used to sort of running around everywhere, having things tightly scheduled. But yeah, it was slightly stressful. I mean, I put in the piece, I did tell one of the guys that I was going on to another date. It just sort of came out. Why did you do that? I know, it just sort of came out.

Did you like the guy um was there potential no no um so I did think might as well be honest um he didn't take it particularly well and I did feel a bit bad afterwards but then I mean you know there's there's stats on how many conversations people are having at once on these apps you're not telling me that I was that guy's one, you know, hope for love. And on that, is it different for men then the way, because you wrote your article and you received quite a bit of criticism, didn't you?

Yeah, I got some really awful criticism and abuse actually. And interestingly, you know, there was that side of things, but then there were some men saying, you know, what are you talking about? I do this all the time. Or I have a friend who goes on eight dates a week, you know. And I had men my age DMing me on Instagram saying they don't see the big deal and they'd happily, you know, be one of those three dates. So I think there's still that different standard for women that I, you know, people came at me acting like it was really promiscuous and I got called the town bike.

Like who even still says that? I mean, you know know whereas had a man done it I don't think they would have got those comments and who was the criticism from um honestly middle-aged men um and some women a lot of women as well actually but I think it's a generational thing not necessarily a man woman thing so people my own age thought it was a great idea to say they do that quite regularly, didn't see the problem. Older people took it really, really badly. I think they just don't realise that the dating landscape is seriously different now. Will you be trying date stacking again? I mean, never say never, but I won't be doing it on a weekly basis, let's just say that much. And that was Roisinan kelly and johnny cassell next do you ever discuss

a topic with your friends or your family and think i'd love to hear that on woman's hour well here's your chance to make that happen listener week begins on the 21st of august the week where all the items are chosen by you maybe you have a powerful personal story that you've always wanted to share or perhaps there's a, careers or technology question that you want to ask an expert. Or maybe there's a guest you've always wanted to hear on the programme, whether that's an author, environmentalist or someone you find inspiring in your community. And if you're involved with a unique club, team or hobby group of women, all the better. Send us an invite and you never know, we might come to you. You can text us on 84844, on social media, it's at BBC Women's Hour, or you can email us through our website.

This year marks the sixth anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire, where 72 people lost their lives. A new play created from interviews conducted with a group of survivors of the fire has opened this month at the National Theatre. Grenfell, in the words of survivors, follows the lead-up to the disaster, the night of the fire, and the inquiry which followed, and is still ongoing. The final report into the disaster is due to be published later this year. Calls for justice and accountability continue from those who survived. To discuss the play, Nuala was joined by its writer, Gillian Slovo, and actor, Pell Mackey, who plays survivor, Natasha Elcock.

She began by asking Gillian about the process of creating it. It was a mammoth task. I mean, it involved me in interviewing very, very many people before I decided how I was going to structure the play. But it was also one of the most wonderful tasks that I've ever done because I met such amazing people. And it is in many ways a play about that community, about the things that they went through, yes, that were unbearable, but also

about the way that they have helped each other and the way that they have survived. And, you know, those who lived, lived to campaign, to keep themselves together and to campaign that this shouldn't happen to anybody else. Yes, it is uplifting. I really want to get that across as well. And we get to know these people. I feel that maybe we would have caught a snippet of them on the news at a certain time or heard a little of their story. But then it's like as a fully rounded character. Pearl, you play Natasha Elcock. Tell us a little bit about her story. She is the chair of the Grenfell Survivors Collective. She is, yeah, the chair of Grenfell United. I mean, she's just an incredible woman. Her story is incredibly powerful. Obviously, you know, as Gillian's touched on, the night of the fire, her journey sort of down with her family is pretty harrowing.

But also, I think, as Gillian mentioned, one of the most amazing things about this play is it is about the community. And it's about the community as it was before the fire. And, you know, what an incredible place it was to live. sort of following that, the way in which the survivors and indeed the residents who lost their lives were portrayed in the media just after the fire was so inaccurate. I think that part of our job and part of the responsibility that we've undertaken is to rehumanise this community and to just sort of shine a light on the fact that they are just normal people, people like us, like you and me. Gillian, how difficult was it to have survivors

who were some also bereaved retell their stories? It was difficult for me to hear of them, but it was more difficult for them to tell me because they were, and certainly at the beginning when I was talking to them, extremely traumatized by what had happened to them. But they did it because they want an audience to hear what they've been through and to see how they survived in a way. I mean, I always ask people at the end of the interview, what would you want the play to do? And one person said, I want the audience to see themselves in us. And I think if we as an audience can see ourselves in them, we'll see ourselves as incredibly heroic, actually, as I would be

proud of myself if I was able to do what some of those people did on that night of the fire and also what they did before to try and prevent something like this happening. They are the most amazing people. And, you know, so that talking to them, there were tears, there were difficulties. Some people didn't want to talk about the night of the fire and gave me permission to use their witness statements in the inquiry. But talking to them left me with some of the pain of what they'd been through, but a lot of the wonder of what they had been capable of. And I think that's what we're trying to share with the audience.

In April this year, some survivors spoke out and said they believed the National Theatre was stealing their experiences by doing this play. They also called on the BBC to stop their upcoming production of Grenfell. What did you make of that opposition to it and did it give you pause? Well, of course, anything like that gives one pause. But I think the thing is we did not steal anybody's experiences because we actually have used the words of the people who experienced this. But one of the things I think about it is that it's not only the people in the tower

who were so brutalized by what had happened then. It was also the people of the community who had to watch this happening. It's very traumatizing. And I understand the anger that some people feel. And I just hope that those people can come and see what we've done in the play and change their minds about whether we have, you know, about the fact that we have given actually voice, not to everybody's experience, but to some people's experience. You at Points, Pearl, represent those giving evidence to the Grenfell Inquiry, which I

think also for the audience, you're like, oh, hang on, I'm sympathetic to that person. Am I sympathetic to this person? How did you find playing those different roles, people sometimes on opposite ends of the spectrum on accountability? I think for me, well, I actually, I play a QC as well. It's sort of in the inquiry. So I feel like positioning wise, I kind of come at it from a similar angle. But some of your co-stars don't. No, exactly. Yeah. And I think it's really interesting. And I think it does create quite

a dichotomy for an actor sort of giving voice to a survivor who's been through so much and then giving voice to, you know, maybe someone from a massive corporation that should's done so cleverly is weave the inquiry in with the survivors' stories. And it really helps to give a perspective of sort of the aim of the production, which is to, it's the kind of a call to be galvanised into getting justice for these people and indeed for people who live in these buildings that still have cladding on them and all sorts of things like that. You know, as I walked out, there were quite a few people that had tears in their eyes or were crying at the end of it. And there's lots of laughs in it as well, I should say. But Gillian, I'm curious what response you've had from those who've seen it who survived Grenfell. They've been incredibly supportive about it. I mean,

they didn't just see it at the end of this five and a half year process. We have been in touch with them throughout the process. We did the first reading of the play to them alone, and we've consulted them at every point. And so a lot of them, I mean, there was, you know, some of them have come and laughed and their kids have come as well and laughed at the portrayal of their parents on stage, which has lightened the atmosphere considerably. In general, people who are in the play have been incredibly supportive of it. How important was it to also include the run-up?

Because it begins actually a number of years before that night. It was important because this isn't a play about just what happened. It's about the why of what happened. That's why the inquiry is in there. And that's why the portrayal of what this Grenfell Tower was, what this community was, is incredibly important. Because the portrayal in the media immediately after the fire was as if these were the poorest people and they had become victims. They weren't victims, they were a very vibrant community who could see that things were going wrong and were trying to stop it and were not

listened to. So it was really part of what the story that we wanted to tell. That was Pearl Mackey and Gillian Slover there in conversation. Anna Saul wrote just one book, published in 1877, which went on to become one of the best-selling novels of all time. Its full title, Black Beauty, His Grooms and Companions, the autobiography of a horse translated from the original equine. Despite suffering ill health throughout her life and dying just five months after the book was published, Anna Saul managed to rouse the conscience of Victorian Britain and make her mark upon the world. Dr Celia Brayfield, a senior lecturer in

creative writing at Bath Spa University, has now written a book about Anna Saul, Writing Black Beauty, Anna Saul and the Story of Animal Rights. She joined me in the Woman's Hour studio yesterday and I began by asking her why it was considered groundbreaking. Well, it's recognised as the first anthropomorphic novel. The full subtitle was translated from the original Equine. So it's narrated by Beauty. Beauty is a horse and he tells you what his life is like. And he tells you what his life is like with good owners and bad owners, with conscientious grooms who look after him and unconscientious grooms who almost kill him and do bring about the end of his famous stable companion, Ginger.

It was written by Anna Sewell when she knew she was terminally ill. She had been disabled for most of her life. She had a fall running home from school when she was a young teenager. She was a very sporty, independent girl. And all that ended when she broke her ankle. Most of her life she couldn't walk and she was in constant pain and she was often probably psychologically very weak and ill in her 20s. But she rejected the life of a Victorian invalid and really horses saved her life because she could still ride. Riding side saddle you only need to use one foot um she could still ride and she could drive and she

because she was quite physically weak she relied on the empathy that she had with her horses yeah um and there are there are beautiful descriptions of her talking to them um she was a quaker so she used thee and thou instead of you. And that's really important to note because her faith was central to her compassion for animals. Absolutely. 19th century Quakers were very clear that God lived in all creation, men, women and animals. And Quakers were very active in the early animal welfare movement. You also talk a great deal in the book about her relationship with her mother, Mary, and that was so central to her growth as well.

It was a very beautiful relationship. They were very, very close. And the interesting thing, the great revelation in writing Black Beauty for me was that her mother was the best-selling author in the family. Her mother started writing when she was 60, properly, and started writing what Thackeray sneered at as low church verse novels. They were popular novels intended for a working class readership. They covered very much the same ground as Dickens, dealing with deprivation and triumph over adversity. But they were written for ordinary people. They were not written for an elite or a literary audience. And Anna worked really closely with her mother for 15 years before she decided to

write her own book. The other aspect that it's really important to bring up is the fact that animals were treated so badly by humans in the 19th century. In fact, you write in your book that by the time Anna was growing up in East London, the trade in animals in the city had attained an industrial scale. And the Industrial Revolution that people started to treat animals really as if they were machines. They did not care for their welfare at all. And the other thing to be concerned about really was that the people themselves were often no better treated. You were looking at starving, malnourished, brutalised people and the fact that they then didn't feed their animals properly and brutalise them in turn. They were simply passing on what they were suffering. And of course Anna was observing all of this around her. She was, as I said, informed by her faith as you've described in your book. But there's also

a chapter in your book where you said she actually studied to write Black Beauty. Explain that to us. Well, that was a description that one of her mother's writer friends gave. The family moved around quite a lot. It must be said her father was a fairly hopeless businessman and he had a pretty checkered career. At one point they were living outside Brighton, but he was working in Brighton and they were early commuters, early adopters of railway commuting. And she used to drive him to the station every day. And that was sort of in her late 20s, early 30s, when she had great trouble coming to terms with her disability. She found it very hard to accept. She lost faith. And it was really this period where she was useful and she could succeed in managing the pony and the trap, and contributing to the life of the family. That really turned her life around.

That was when her health improved and she realised that she could make a contribution to life. You write in the book that the story of Black Beauty is not only the story of one woman and one book, it is in fact the story of several women and a number of books. What did you mean by that? Well, women were very active in the early animal rights movement. And unfortunately, to its discredit, the RSPCA couldn't deal with them.

While it accepted the patronage of Angela Burdett-Coutts because she was massively wealthy, there were at least two other women activists who had to leave the movement because they couldn't find a home with the RSPCA. And one of them wrote a sort of precursor to Black Beauty called Mother's Tales of Kindness to Animals, which was also a very influential book. And it influenced the American animal rights movement as well. And then Black Beauty became an international bestseller, thanks to an absolutely extraordinary American activist called George Thorndike Angel, who 13 years after it was published, discovered the book and absolutely

weaponized it. He crowdfunded its American publication. He went on a 40-city lecture tour in the 19th century. It must have half killed him. And he used it to popularise his cause absolutely to the max. And that was really when the sales went from just under 100,000 to millions. And that was the success in the US. But prior to that, it had a great deal of success in the UK. And Anna was told she was terminally ill at the time, that she wouldn't have long to live. And it was at that point that she began to write Black Beauty.

But then she went on to live for another six years, died five months after the book's publication. I know, it's so poignant, isn't it? It became a word of mouth success immediately. It must be said, she never made any money out of it. The publisher bought the rights outright for £20. And in the beginning, I don't think they knew what they had. It was this weird little novel produced by the daughter of one of their big literary stars, her mother, and it was only really after Anna's death that her mother really funnelled her grief into promoting her daughter's work and used her influence with the publisher

to get it more widely published. And then it was really grassroots support that got it into bestseller status because reviewers in little provincial newspapers all over England were saying, why doesn't the RSPCA get on this book? Why don't people use this book? Everybody should read this book. So it was a slow burn and people didn't see its potential at the outset. And that leads me on to the question of lasting legacy, because the book has been reversioned multiple times. You know, it's drama, you name it. What do you think is the biggest impact of this book?

I think that the secret of its success is it's a terribly moving book I mean if you say to anybody have you read Black Beauty the usual answer is oh yes and oh poor Ginger I cried so much it's a very moving book it's very simply written she used the legacy of her mother's writing, which is why we think of it as a children's book. It wasn't written as a children's book. It's very accessible. It's very relatable. It really touches your heart. And it succeeded where intellectual argument and political pamphlets didn't. That was Dr Celia Brayfield there. Now, how long would it take you to photograph

every single item you own and classify them by colour, material and frequency of use? Photographer Barbara Yvonne spent four years documenting the 12,795 objects in her home. Not only did she discover unexpected possessions, but also a fair amount about herself and the emotional attachment we charge our belongings with. Nuala spoke to her earlier this week and began by asking her what inspired her to start this project. I was going through a divorce and I had moved a lot. I think in my life, 11 times. And I think I was moving from Amsterdam to Brussels with my three children. I was kind of exhausted, honestly, to pack all the time, all these objects.

And I'm not a hoarder. I don't have especially plenty of things. But come on, each time, I was fed up. And realistically, all our objects are always hidden in drawers or in boxes. And so they're not visible. So you continue, actually. You purchase all the time. So I was like, OK, I need to be honest there. We're all the time speaking about over consumption

but we're always speaking about the others but in a way we are all the others so I wanted to know what is it actually a woman with three children what is it so I was like well I want to see black on the ground which is of course impossible so I decided well I'm gonna photograph every single object I own and so that was and so you did um I mentioned there you have the indexing and classification system I mean that boggled my mind and this must have been painstaking work how long did it take actually actually it's very strange because it's a photographical work but i think i have been more in front of my excel sheet uh during this whole project and um i don't know at the beginning i didn't think of classifying these objects but i think uh in the beginning i thought

it was would be self-centered on over consumption but the the way of progressing in this project it was becoming more and more personal and so actually i was like okay i want to see all these statistics to know how i'm using these objects which which objects are painful uh for example i hate being in a kitchen. I can't cook at all. And for example, photographing all these objects, these specific objects was terrible, while others, more objects that are representing souvenirs or people,

these ones were very important. Yes, I have to say the end result is beautiful. I love the order of it, of each object lined up. Yes, I just I love the, I suppose, procedure and process that you've created out of that chaos of all the objects that all of us have. Can we talk about some of the items that you had strong memories about? There was a trench coat I read about. Do you want to tell me about that? Yes, indeed, because I decided also the fact that it became actually more a biography. I have taken 50 stories related to objects. And, for example, there is a trench coat. It was actually because my ex-boyfriend was in the hospital.

And so I was like, well, I'm going to throw a little risque surprise. It was the first time I decided to do that. I decided to wear a trench coat completely naked to the hospital. I was actually more giggling and I was like, but am I going to dare doing it? And so I went outside to go take the subway to go to the hospital. And I became more and more secure. And actually, I was like, well, it's actually quite funny.

But then suddenly I felt like a tickle of air on my thighs. So I touched my back and I was like, oh, my God. Actually, the trench was open there was a split actually completely open so actually I was walking for 10 minutes yes with my butt visible to everybody so that's actually a story of my life I think I'm gonna be sexy and I'm being ridiculous but voilà so that's these kind of stories and I I think they happen to all of us. You kept the trench? I do, of course.

Yes, because I did see that there was like 99% of the items at the end of the day you felt you didn't need to hold on to them. Of course not. That's the crazy thing is that actually there was only one percent uh but what's for me actually what what was actually quite interesting is that more an object has a utility do you say that yes the less i care about like a phone a compute all the objects that you can replace i don't care at all but all all the objects that you can replace, I don't care at all. But all the objects that are linked to the past, nostalgia, to people, these ones I really want to keep.

What would you say now about what you've learned about yourself from the possessions? Well, actually, that's a thing is that it's a little bit pathetic what i'm gonna say but um i think um it's such a chaos in my head and i believe life is in a way absurd and chaotic and i have no control in it you know like people can leave people can die but in a way with objects i've always had this sense of protection the stability like the inertia of objects you know in a way they're always going to be there it's a bit sad because i i believe i would love to be a traveler who doesn't care about things and who could you know leave in two seconds to a country and who would not care.

But I'm not like that. I, in a way, I have the sense of, yeah, sense of protection, I think. And that was Barbara Ebons there. That's all from me this afternoon. Thank you for your company. Next week on Woman's Hour, we will be looking at women and loneliness. These statistics show women are more likely to feel alone than men. We'll find out why. We'll also be speaking to women who describe how it feels for them, what impact loneliness has on our health and on broader society. Join Nuala from Monday at 10 for the start of that series. Until then, have a great weekend. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year,

I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who 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.