Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman’s Hour: Michelle Yoeh, Primary school suspensions, Katarina Johnson-Thompson

Episode Date: November 23, 2024

Oscar-winning Michelle Yeoh’s career has spanned four decades. Starting out as a martial arts actor, she became a key figure in the Hong Kong action scene. But it was her role in James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies that catapulted her into Hollywood. She's since starred in many hits including Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the multi-Oscar winning movie - including for her own performance - Everything Everywhere all At Once. Now, she’s in the film adaptation of the musical Wicked. She joined Nuala McGovern live in the studio to discuss it.BBC analysis suggests that the rate at which primary school pupils are being suspended from state schools in England has more than doubled in a decade. Permanent exclusion rates of primary-age pupils have also gone up, by almost 70% in the same period. Campaigners say children excluded from school at a young age experience long-term impacts. It's worth also stating that nearly 90% of those permanently excluded over the past five years also had special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The government has acknowledged the situation is at "crisis point", and says it is determined to "drive up standards" in schools. Anita Rani spoke to Lydia, whose son Eddie has been suspended from school 14 times this year.Twenty-four year old product design and technology graduate Olivia Humphreys is a Global Medical Winner of the James Dyson Award 2024. Her invention, Athena, is a portable hair-loss prevention device for chemotherapy patients. She talks to Nuala how the product works and how her mum inspired it.Katarina Johnson-Thompson is the double World and double Commonwealth Games heptathlon champion. This year she won the Olympic silver medal in Paris, her first ever Olympic medal. Katarina joined Anita to talk about her new book, Unbroken, in which she opens up about the pressures of representing Great Britain as a 19 year old at the London 2012 Olympics, her struggles with body image and the relentless resilience and determination she has shown in coming back from career-threatening injuries. Bethany Hutchison is one of eight female nurses who are taking their NHS Trust to an employment tribunal for allowing a trans woman to use their changing facilities at work. Bethany spoke to Nuala about why she feels she needed to bring this case, and how she hopes it will be resolved.The film Gladiator II stars Paul Mescal as Lucius and Connie Nielsen returns to her role as Lucilla. The sequel also includes a female gladiator for the first time, Yuval Gonen plays the role of Arishat. Anita is joined by classicist and author Dr Daisy Dunn and the film critic Larushka Ivan-zadeh to discuss how accurate this portrayal is and the role women play in the film.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Annette Wells Editor: Rebecca Myatt

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Hello and welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour with me, Anita Rani. In the next hour, the Olympian heptathlete Katerina Johnson-Thompson on the highs of medals and victories and the lows of injury. I was the tallest in the class, so naturally they put me into the high jump and that was something that I was able to do naturally. My mum makes claim that she was the one who sort of, when you do ballet,

you do all the jumps and you can kind of call it plyometric training to engage, but she says I developed my springs from there, so she takes claim for my high jump for my hygiene also in the program we'll be hearing from one of the nurses who are taking their NHS trust to an employment tribunal for allowing a trans woman to use their changing facilities and Olivia Humphries who's just won an award for inventing a newer cheaper portable scalp cooling device for chemotherapy patients will tell us how it helps prevent hair loss, and female gladiators. Were there any in ancient Rome? We'll find out. Lots to get through, so grab a cup of whatever you fancy

and settle in for the next hour. First, Oscar-winning Michelle Yeoh's career has spanned four decades. Starting out as a martial arts actor, she became a key figure in the Hong Kong action scene. But it was her role in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies that catapulted her into Hollywood. She's since starred in many hits, including Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Memoirs of a Geisha, and the multi-Oscar winning movie, including for her own performance, Everything Everywhere All at Once. Now she's in

the brand new, highly anticipated film adaptation of the musical Wicked, titled Wicked Part One. There is, of course, part two coming, playing the character of Madame Morrible, the headmistress and high witch of Shiz University. Nuala was joined by Michelle on Monday, and she started by asking her how she came by this role. Well, first of all, I was very privileged and honoured that John Chu, who I had worked with and Crazy Rich Asians, called me and said, please read the script. I would love for you to play the character Madame Morrible. And at that point, like you, I had not seen the musical on in Broadway or anywhere. Yes. So then I read it and I called him back and say, John, darling, it's a musical, right? And you know, I don't sing, right? And he's like, nah, don't worry about it. You'll be fine. And I,

he could have thrown a phone book at me. and I would have said yes to him because he's truly such a talent. He's such an amazing storyteller. And so I went off to New York and saw it in New York, came to London, saw it in London. And I guess I could understand why it's gone on for 20 years and still going strong. And why from different ages, they keep going back to see this story, because it is very relatable on many different levels. And you think, well, it's a land of ours. It's Munchkin land. How do you relate to that? But if you listen to the lyrics in Defying Gravity, it talks about not allowing someone to limit you and what you can do and defy and find who you are. So that whole journey of discovery and acceptance, not just by other people around

you, you know how you always seek for approval or love, but most important by yourself initially to find that journey and then to be able to choose for yourself what is the right path for you. You know, the way you speak about that, it resonates for me about what I've heard about your life. True, I guess. Because you've had this amazing path and martial arts was a spin-off, right? Let's talk about the beginning because you were destined to become a ballerina. You came to London to study ballet. I did, I did. I had aspirations of having my own ballet school back in Malaysia

because my love was for the dance, the joy of expression on a dance floor and being able to teach that same kind of passion and love to little kids, little girls and boys to be able to feel what I did. And so I came here to England. I went to the Hammond School of Dance in Chester because at that point, I think my dad was like, maybe you're a little young to be in London. So it would be much better. And I think that was a great choice. But the fact that you've moved into acting and films came because you had what you called a shattered mirror moment, this huge disappointment when an injury meant that you would not be a ballerina. And you got that news as a young woman. And I'm wondering, we talk about that path and finding yourself.

How did you regroup and find that path that took you to becoming the first Asian woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role? I think I'm very blessed in my life that important key people come into my way and open doors and, you know, help you figure out. It's when one door shuts, a window or another door can be open, but you have to be open to it yourself. And I had that shattering glass moment. last moment, it was like literally the mirror just go because the specialist basically said to me, you can't do this kind of dancing from nine till five because your back will just not be able to take it. And but I was very blessed because Mrs. Hammond, the principal of the school, and I remember her so clearly in my head, she goes like, darling, it's okay. It's all right. Because, you know, there's so many paths to dance, to ballet.

There's choreography, there's history, there's this, there's that. And she really helped me to find the Kruen Alsager College of Higher Education where they did a degree in dance. So I was, my horizon was not, no longer just ballet, but into other things that could help. But was that difficult to make that transition? Yes and no. Difficult was because I loved being in the dance the whole time. Difficult because I had to, that was relegated to a more minor part of it. And then now it came back to history, to more books and studying and being,

you know, finding the balance between the two. But choreography was something very interesting that I managed to learn because when I was doing ballet, we were the students. We were the little minions. We learn, we ballet, we were the students. We were the little minions. We learned, we watched, we followed. But here you were taught to be the leader, to be creative and not to be afraid to have a voice.

So I learned about contemporary dance and all that. You know, with ballet, it's very structured. Everything is precise. But with contemporary, there's very structured. Everything is precise. But with contemporary, there's no limits or boundaries. And then how did martial arts come into your life? When I started my second film in Hong Kong, martial arts came, well, I was given the opportunity to go to Hong Kong to do a commercial. And in that commercial, my first person that I ever worked with was Jackie Chan. You know, start at the top, Michelle, right?

I don't know how it happened. And then I was very fortunate because the company, the production company, D&B, they were fairly new in the business in Hong Kong and so they signed me up as an actress. And in the first movie, it was in Hong Kong in the heydays, in the 80s, action movies, comedies were the box office, you know, the blockbusters. And so I was in an action film, but I was doing the damsel in distress. You know, we were the women that needed to be rescued. And it was really the men's world because they were the protectors. They were the gallant heroes.

I looked at the whole action sequences and I thought, that's very similar to dance. It's all choreography. You know, you choreograph it and then you perform, execute it. And it's very much like dancing. It's to a rhythm with a partner or a few partners. And that's how you make this whole

thing work. So I bravely asked if, you know, it's possible that I could. And fortunately, one of the wives of the producers was like, and she was a great editor in her own right, says, yeah, you know, you bring Michelle. She's not a local girl, yet you fit her in the local box and do the same things. Why don't you open the box and let her try? Give it a go. Yeah. And it fails. Put her back in the box again. But you wouldn't go back in the box. No, I wouldn't.

I know. I guess it's just something that my parents always taught me. It's like believe in who you want to be, you know, be bold and take risks. Right. Because if you don't try, you've already failed. That's the thing, I think, that the risk taking is wonderful. And sometimes this is women's era. They talk about women being risk averse at times compared to men. That's not you. That's not you. That's not me.

But life is about new beginnings, new adventures. You could call it a risk, but you can minimize the dangers or the risk factors. I think that's where you discover things about yourself and give yourself new opportunities. I mentioned one of your shattered mirror moments about ballet and having that injury, which of course you went on to do great things. You don't have children. That was not by choice. You called it another shattered mirror moment,

which I think is so descriptive. And I think it's important we hear your voice and your experience after that particular door closed. And I say that as we often hear about infertility struggles and what that entailed, but often with a miracle baby at the end. But that's not your story. No, that was not my story. I wasn't, honestly, not for the lack of trying, because I have always and still do love babies. And I'm very blessed.

I have six got children. I have nephews and nieces around the world. But I don't know. You know that maternal instinct is something that's very blessed. I have six godchildren. I have nephews and nieces around the world. But I don't know. You know that maternal instinct is something that's very you. I believe that it's a woman's choice. It's your choice whether you want to have children. And it shouldn't be imposed on you. Just because you're a woman, you should have a child.

That should not be the case. But as a very personal thing was I wanted, I always wanted to have children. And when I was married the first time, that was very clear in our path that, you know, this was a marriage about having children, next generation and all that. And when the first time it happened, it didn't happen. So I went and did fertility to aid in the process. And I think that that's the worst moment to go through is every month you feel like such a failure because that's… There comes the blood. So it means it hasn't happened yet.

And then you go like, why? You know, what did, why is this? And I think at some point you stop blaming yourself and go, it is, you know, there are certain things in your body that doesn't function in a certain way. That's how it is. You just have to let go and move on. And I think you come to a point where you have to stop blaming you.

I think getting to that point of letting go or acceptance, I'm really interested how you reconciled that and how long that took. Sometimes, honestly, I still think about it. Sure. Yeah. You know, I'm 62. Of course, I'm not going to have a baby right now. But we've done some stories on women. But the thing is, you know, we just had a grandchild. I saw that. Congratulations. Thank you. So, you know, that makes the miracles. Then you feel you're still very, very blessed because you do have a baby in your life. I think it took a long time because that also maybe would be the main factor that broke up my first marriage.

That is heartbreaking. Yeah. But you also have to understand, I think these are conversations that you really have to have with yourself and be able to look ahead and think, yes, we love each other very much now. But in 10 years or 20 years, I still can't give him the family that he craves for. And you have to be fair. You know, that's why these dialogue between a couple is so important. Yes. Like if one wants and the other doesn't, this is something you have to face right at the beginning

because along the way there will be a lot of, you know, hurt. Difficult times. Yes. And so I think it was very brave on our path to admit. Definitely. To say, okay, let's not drag this out because that's what we are doing. Because, you know, we tried for. He went on to have children. Oh, yeah. And I believe you're a godmother to. Godmother to his eldest. Yes. My beautiful D. That was the awesome Michelle Yeoh

talking to Nuala. And Wicked is in cinemas across the UK. Now, BBC analysis suggests that the rate at which primary school pupils are being suspended from state schools in England has more than doubled in a decade. Permanent exclusion rates of primary age pupils has also gone up by almost 70% in the same time frame. Campaigners say children excluded from school at a young age experience long-term impacts. It's worth also stating that nearly 90% of those permanently excluded over the past five years had special educational needs and disabilities. The government has acknowledged the situation is at crisis point and says it is determined to drive up standards in schools.

Well, on Thursday, I was joined by Lydia, whose son Eddie has been suspended from school 14 times this year. She began by telling me about Eddie. My son Eddie has had sort of behavioural issues since he was about three. Obviously, there was a lot of things going on in the world. There was COVID and we'd moved house. We were renovating. And at the time, we kind of thought, thought well he's going through a lot of change he started to have issues at school with kind of struggling with relationships and regulation and sort of throwing things and hitting people and at the time you know you put it down to things at

home and it continued and we kind of pushed to start investigating for autism and ADHD. And then as he progressed through to reception, he started getting regularly excluded. So there's sort of fixed term exclusions, but they'd happen kind of one on top of another. And at the time, we were so desperate for change, but the exclusions were just exasperating behaviour because he was so dysregulated. We managed to get some support, we got play therapy and the school managed to get some external support

in but there was just so much more underlying. So we got accepted on the NHS for a diagnosis in around January time. Can I ask what that diagnosis is? Autism. So the waiting list for that is over sort of 30 months so we have to look at another kind of route to get the diagnosis but at the time you're in limbo because you don't have a diagnosis, the behaviour keeps happening, the exclusions keep happening. So he got diagnosed with autism in August and we felt like it was going to be a real turning point for us and we'd be able to get more support. But he went back in September and within a couple of weeks he got excluded again.

So how old is Eddie now? So he's just turned six. So he's only six. Okay. Yeah. So these all happened when he was five. And so in his short time in education, could you give us a figure of how many times he's been sent home or excluded, suspended?

Yeah, he's had 14 fixed term exclusions. And what happens then, if you don't mind, Lydia, talk us through the process, because you work? Yeah, so I was working full time at the time. So you get a phone call? Get a phone call saying you need to come to school um and most times you know I turned up and he'd be surrounded by chairs and he was it was like he was a caged animal he was in such a terrible place and I'd have to kind of try and get him out of the, be handed a letter and he'd be at home. But for him, he just felt like he just didn't even understand

what was going on and why he was being punished because he didn't understand the behaviour, didn't understand why it happened. And what did the school say to you? You know, sometimes it was... ..just felt blamed that there was no cause for his behaviour, that he had chosen to act out that way. And I'm not excusing his behaviour, but to me, you know, I know my child.

I live with him and I know that when he acts out that way, it never got that bad at home. There would always be a cause to it. Something would have happened. There would have been an array of things that had got him to that point. And that's why I was so desperate to try and make things change. It's a vicious cycle. Yeah. 14 times is a lot, isn't it?

I mean, did you get, what kind of conversations were you having with the school about his behaviour and how they could support you and him? So they were putting strategies in place as much as they could, but at the time he was at a large school with 30 children in a class with normally only a couple of members of staff. So his triggers just, they couldn't pick them up in time. And obviously, I know it's spoken about widely, but to get an EHCP you need evidence.

Exclusions sometimes are part of that evidence, trying to get things in place to contribute to the evidence, like getting external support, behaviour support in. But all of that takes time. So you're desperately trying to stop exclusions from happening because they're having such an impact on your child. I mean, for Eddie, it's impacted his mental health hugely. So his self-esteem his you know he doesn't want to go to school he's got a lot of separation anxiety um and so what does all of this do for you what does it do to you oh it's absolutely traumatic it's so traumatic you feel you know before his diagnosis I just was constantly on courses trying to figure out, you know, do I need to quit my job?

I was, you know, hanging on a string with my job anyway, and they were incredible. But how long can you carry on saying to your boss, sorry, I can't do this meeting. I can't do this. I have to have a day off. You're just desperate for things to change and to get support so we have recently after the last exclusion I took him out of school because he just was completely refusing and I just knew how much it was impacting him and I knew that you know he's susceptible to mental health issues more because he has autism anyway so I needed to protect him and he is now in a smaller school a much smaller school with better to start people ratio and there has been a huge change but because of everything that's happened

every day is a battle to get him into school we have to create new strategies every single day it's exhausting how do you feel about the future? Are you worried? Yeah, very worried. You know, I feel like is he ever going to be able to cope in an education setting? Do I need to home educate him? Because at least he'd be more regulated and able to learn. I do, you know, I feel much more hope him being in the new setting. But I don't know. Everything he did, especially, you know, feel much more hope him being in the new setting but I don't know everything you do especially you know he's my first child you have to learn all of this along the way no

one gives you a guidebook to say okay in this situation this is what support your child can get or what they need or this is a type of school that would benefit them. No one tells you that. Everyone sort of says, oh, well, maybe that would be better or, you know, little snippets of suggestions or people feel like they can't say anything because they feel like if they do, they're pushing you out of a school. Does that make sense? So you're just constantly second guessing, trying to figure out what the right thing to do is.

That was Lydia there and she mentioned an EHCP that's an Education Health and Care Plan in England. It's a legal document following a formal assessment. This means that legally your local authority must provide the provision agreed in your child's plan and the Education Minister Stephen Morgan told the BBC the government is already investing £1 billion in SEND and providing access to specialist mental health professionals in every school. He said, we know there is more to do and are looking closely at how we can go further to support teachers and drive up standards for all our children. Now, 24-year-old product designer and technology graduate Olivia Humphries is a global medical winner of the James Dyson Award 2024. The awards celebrate the next generation of design engineers.

Olivia is the first Irish winner of the global competition. Her invention, Athena, is a portable thermoelectric hair loss prevention device for chemotherapy patients that uses scalp cooling. Well, Olivia joined Nuala this week and Nuala started by asking her how her project works. In simple terms, Athena is a cooling case that cycles water up and around a headpiece and it's lightweight, it's portable, it's low cost and it means that a patient can manage this side of the treatment themselves and take control over a time of very little control during a chemotherapy infusion day. So what's the difference with your project compared to what's available right now?

What currently is available is quite large stationary refrigeration technology. I saw this from when my mum went through this treatment in 2019. She underwent treatment for breast cancer and the whole project is inspired from her experience and from looking at what she received Athena's response to that and trying to make it easier and more accessible for patients to get their hands on this kind of treatment. Do we know how much it can help prevent hair loss? Yeah yeah like for mum it was it was huge for mum she managed to retain about 60% of her hair and you didn't know the difference, which was incredible for her. And it meant that she was stronger going through the treatment itself. So success is considered if you can retain 50% of your hair and up. And statistics currently show

that 50% of people are keeping 50% of their hair and up. But with new technology and trying to make this easier to use and that people have more time to set it up and things like that efficacy rates could potentially go up which is really exciting and of course it can be a hugely emotional part of a cancer diagnosis going through chemotherapy that very visible part of losing your hair absolutely like it doesn't just affect us physically it affects us mentally and it's not just us as a selfish thing, you know, to look good, but it's to protect the people around us. A lot of people I spoke to when I was researching this project mentioned that they have kids or people that they wanted to protect or

that they have jobs and things like that. So it's trying to keep that sense of normality throughout the treatment and improving quality of life through the treatment rather than trying to improve it afterwards. Let's talk money. Yours is going to be much cheaper if all goes to plan. Explain that to me, the differences of the price point. Yes, it's really exciting. Current technology is refrigeration technology, as I mentioned. So that means that it's very expensive.

The machines are costing upwards of 20,000 to 30,000 to 40,000 for the machine alone. And then on top of that, the implementation is in the hundreds of thousands so that's that's what makes it so difficult to get your hands on it for mum she was one of 30 that received treatment in her infusion ward so trying to make something that was low cost to get into the hands of people was was the key thing and the key goal for me so Athena uses very, very low cost components. It uses semiconductors, which are euros, cents, pounds. And the battery itself is the most expensive part, which is 115 euros. So in terms of what's inside of it, it's very limited. But, you know, in terms of R&D and stuff, it could cost inwards of around 1000 euros, which I would love for it to be along the lines of buying a wig and even at that you know it would cost a thousand euros or aim to be but it could be out on a rental scheme you know patients shouldn't have to pay for this kind of treatment. So a couple of thousand to let's say one two three as opposed to thirty thousand perhaps as it is currently. It sounds wonderful do you have a timeline or when something like this might be rolled out after winning the Dyson Award? What happens? and we're amalgamating and getting it out as quickly as possible. We're working on testing, we're working on developing the prototype

and the clinical trial is booked for the end of this year, which is really exciting. So we're getting it out as quickly as possible with the hopes that it could be on the market in the next year or two. What does your mum think about all of this? She's delighted. We're dragging out the celebrations every week. We go to a new place and have a new celebratory dinner

it's great The ingenious Olivia Humphries speaking to Nuala Well done Olivia Still to come on the programme ahead of the new Gladiator 2 film female gladiators were there even any in ancient Rome?

We'll find out and remember you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day. If you can't join us live at 10am during the week, just subscribe to The Daily Podcast. It's free on BBC Sounds. Now, Great Britain's Katerina Johnson-Thompson is the double world champion

and double Commonwealth Games heptathlon champion and this year won the Olympic silver medal in Paris, her first ever Olympic medal. In her new book, Unbroken, My Journey from Despair to Glory, the athlete opens up about the pressures of representing Great Britain as a 19-year-old at the London 2012 Olympics, her struggles with body image and the relentless resilience and determination she has showed to come back from career-threatening injuries. Well, I spoke to her this week and began by asking her how it felt to win her first Olympic medal.

It felt like such a, I think, like coming-of-age moment for me. You know, I have four attempts at an Olympics. I've been to the Olympic Games four times now, so it feels like a long time coming for me, and I was so happy to come away with that medal, you know, after so many times of trying well it was an amazing moment Katerina and a very proud moment for all of us watching um I want to take it back you were born in Liverpool tell us a bit about growing up there and your love of the

city and football yeah no I'm born in Liverpool um my my mum and my whole family lived there I'm half Bahamian but I was brought up in Liverpool, you know, in the absolute cold. I know it's freezing today and sometimes I wish I was living in the Bahamas with my other side of the family. But yeah, Liverpool is my home. It still is my home to this day. I love the city. And yeah, I started out doing dancing at first and then joined the Liverpool Harriers, just going into senior school. So leaving year six

and didn't really look back there. And you started dancing because your mum was a dancer, right? And that's how your parents met. Can you tell us that story? Yeah, so she was a sort of, yes, she was a dancer and she travelled the world with a group called the Bluebells and she was like a sort of showgirl where they did the can-can and they did shows and it was all extravagant and there was feathers. And she would do that show in all different countries and that show got taken to the Bahamas.

And yeah, that's how she met my dad, who was a doorman at one of the events that she was performing in. And she wanted you to be a dancer? At the start of my life, she wanted me to be a dancer. Ultimately, she put me in ballet shoes from the moment I could start walking and I was out to nappies and then I did modern tap and ballet I did that for as long as she could bribe me to do it until I finally like grew up and said listen I'm not enjoying it I want to run on the field and just like get muddy and stuff so she said okay you need a hobby basically you can't just do education without

something something else going for you so we went through a number of different things like football keyboard lessons and eventually I found athletics. What was it about athletics in particular? I think it was just I was just good at it I think I was the tallest in the class so naturally they put me into the high jump and that was something that I was able to do naturally my mum makes claim that she was the one who sort of when you do ballet you you know do all the the jumps and like you can kind of call it plyometric training so she engaged but she says I developed my springs from there so she takes claim for my high jump ability. Do you give her the climb as well does she get the credit? I think so. I think I have got half, you know, half her genetics too. So I think she gets credit for any ability I do.

You said you're tall, six foot tall and you won the school champs aged 11. Yeah, it was Catholic school champs and then the champion of champions. I always remember that was like all the champions from all over Liverpool used to come and claim the major title. And that was one of the biggest titles I won. And that gave me the flavour. Yeah, the taste of success at such a young age. Yeah, I remember it was a one, I don't know if this means anything to anyone, but it was a one metre 32 high jump, which with no training is,

sometimes I look at it now and think, how did I get over that when I was only in year six? Amazing. times I look at it now and think how did I get over that when I was only in year six. Amazing so when did the heptathlon come along and why did you decide to focus on that? So I did that competition and then I wanted to join the Harriers and once I was there me and my mum used to have to travel to to get there so we used to have to travel by bus and then we used to have to walk through a park and by the time we got there and she used to meet me off school meet me off the bus off school with all my kit it was like oh well why not not waste our time here just doing high jump like let's join the run the running club as well and then we just started adding more and more events on and I just loved loved just being at the track down there racing just like being competitive um and yeah

and then eventually you you don't compete for the school you compete for the club and then eventually you compete for your county and then eventually you compete for your country and then eventually you you know you just work your way up you're winning you're winning medals in paris um you you've been incredibly honest and vulnerable in this book um it makes it a really fascinating read. You describe how body image became a real challenge for you. Explain how that started. That's something that, you know, I struggled with growing up on in two in two folds. Like one is like the exterior of like how you look to other people or how you look to performance or even when you're growing up in those teenage

years, how you look to boys. But then I struggled with my body through the second half of my career, through, you know, just like being injured and hating, not being able to do what I wanted to do in terms of performance. Which is incredible to read about, because for those of us mere mortals who watch you, you are so strong and sort of epitomise, you know, an incredible female body, if you like, because of what you do oh no thank you it's um it's something that yeah I struggled with at the start so in that 2012 Olympic Games that I

went to I was only 19 years old and you know I was still growing into my body I was still really self-conscious and and you realize that you know you're you're out there in in almost underwear in front of 80,000 people in the stadium and there are millions of people at home. And it was sort of, I don't know how you call it, is it shock therapy or inversion therapy where it's just like once you do that, then it's just like, well, what else is there to do?

I'm thrown in the deep end. But yeah, it was really anxiety-inducing in the lead up to those games, knowing that so many eyes would be on you. You also talk about the many struggles you've had with serious injury, often very publicly, at major championships, most recently at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. And the bit that struck me about that was how you talk about

it sort of destroyed your relationship with the sport a bit, but also people's reaction to that. And you say people kept saying how brave you were it sort of destroyed your relationship with the sport a bit, but also people's reaction to that. And you say people kept saying how brave you were to get up and sort of refuse the wheelchair, but you said it's the bit before and the bit after that's the courageous bit. Will you explain a bit more about that? Yeah, for sure.

I think in the lead up to the, it was 2021. I wish it was 2020 Olympic Games because everything would have been so much easier if the Games happened when they were meant to be, if COVID didn't happen. And unfortunately, in the lead up to that, I ruptured my Achilles in December 2020. And that's when I was kind of like sort of in the shape of my life. It was my first world championship win in 2019. And then coming away from that, it was just meant to sort of roll right through and have a fair shot at an Olympic medal.

But unfortunately, I ruptured my Achilles, which is one of the most serious injuries that you can have as an athlete. And it was on my takeoff leg for someone who was based as a presumably jumper in my heptathlon. It was such a big, you know, sucker punch to have. I fought so hard to get back to that start line and in those eight months it was it was really a rough time to to hold all of these like um anxieties about like oh so many questions sorry about like what's going to happen and can I do it and is it possible um so to get there and have all those questions then reversed on the other leg that ended up didn't the other leg in the games unfortunately I ended up injuring

so um yeah it was like something like I was in that sort of mentality where life isn't fair and I think I didn't like sports because it didn't feel like hard work equals success which is why you know always thought like if I keep honest in my training and work hard then I'm going to get something out of it and then nothing really made sense to me after those games. So how do you come back from that? I think I needed that in a way to and I know it sounds really cliche but I needed that in a way I needed to step out of that mentality that my life is just athletics and I think to fall out of love with the sport and realize that that's not your personality like I've been doing athletics since like year six so I think in order for me to be like I'm done with

this I don't like athletics that's not me I found myself as a person as opposed to me just being an athlete who's just trying to win and chase the high of of that Olympic Games that I had in 2012 and you know I had to break a lot of things down in terms of like my personality I've had a lot of help but I think ultimately the team who I surrounded myself with in the last couple of years have given me that second wind and and and yeah found found who I truly am and uh I mean it's incredible what you've had to go through I mean did you have a lot of psychological support you must have just had to take it right back to basics yeah you know in in my career like like I said it's it was Katharina the athlete so if I had a therapist it was a sports therapist and it was just about

performance so I was fortunate enough to you know find a therapist away from and and start therapy and and find that sort of side to me where it's like why do I react like this and asking questions that I needed to answer instead of just relating it to sports um my whole life has just been about sports sports sports so I'm so lucky to be able to you know have a lot of the questions on identity and who I am kind of like answered and just understand how my brain works a lot better. And that's through the help of my therapist. Therapist and maybe your friends as well, because you talk about your close group of friends who you've known since school, which I love because I've still got my crew of friends who I've known since I was at school. And one of them is the actor Jodie Comer how important are they to you and also can is it fair that you can have two such hugely successful

amazing women who maybe maybe there's something because you're two mates do you encourage each other I just want an insight into this brilliant relationship and also can we all just come and hang out with you no my friends my friends have been, I'm so fortunate to have a group of friends that I've had since, you know, that year seven and year eight in secondary school. And I know that that's quite rare. So I've been quite protective of that friendship. And, yeah, we still, you know, go on group holidays together. We've just recently been on a getaway like last month. And it feels so nice to just connect to the people who

know you from you know that such young age and and Jodie is someone who inspires me sort of every single day like with what she's done with her career and she's someone who has shone bright you know since for as long as I've known her and I'm so happy that the world is now getting to see her shine as bright as we've always you know seen her shine. The absolute champ Katerina Johnson-Thompson. Now Bethany Hutchinson is one of eight women all nurses who are taking their NHS trust to an employment tribunal for allowing a trans woman to use their changing facilities at work. Bethany works at the Darlington Memorial Hospital in County Durham and when Nuala spoke to her this week she asked her when she first became aware that a colleague who is trans was using the women's changing room. Yeah so this this kind of kicked

off in July 2023 so without any sort of warning or consultation from senior management, we became aware of a male changing in the female changing room. And this has led to nurses having panic attacks before the shifts. It's led to international nurses wearing clothing underneath their uniform, because obviously culturally, they can't be exposed in the state of undress in front of any other male other than their husband. And generally just a feeling of anxiety amongst many female members of staff, you know, looking over the shoulder, worried that this person is going to walk in and see them in a state of undress. You use the word male, but what you mean is a trans woman colleague. This person self-identifies as female.

This person has hadidentifies as female. This person has had no surgery, does not take hormones, is having sexual intercourse with a female, as far as I'm aware. So I would say a male. And the person you are referring to would use she, her pronouns, as far as we know.

But you don't agree to using that? I don't agree to using that, no. And why? Because they're a male. They are acting like a male. They have all their male parts in place. And I believe that sex is a biological fact. It's not interchangeable.

There's kind of two parts to that in a way bethany if the person dressed more traditionally as a female for example would that make a difference not necessarily no if this person had surgically transitioned would that be something you would accept when it comes to the changing room? I mean, it's not for me to make these decisions, actually. You know, personally, I think that you shouldn't really allow anybody in with XY chromosomes because, you know, where do you draw the line? But this is not for me to make the decision. But you are making the decision to take it to an employment tribunal for letting this person use those changing facilities at work. So you are taking a stand, making a decision.

Yeah, I mean, I am making a decision because the trust have put us at risk, not because of this particular person. I have never alleged that this person is a predator, but the policy that the trust have in place it puts women at risk because it states that men can self-identify as women and access the female changing room all they have to do is is go to a senior member of staff and say look i identify as a woman and that's it they're allowed in you talk about being at risk if not from this person, but from that policy specifically, what is the risk? Harassment, rape, sexual assault, voyeurism, you know, those types of things. What response have you heard from your trust? They've been extremely unsupportive.

When we eventually had a meeting with HR, because this rumbled on for a year, it was sort of dismissed. But HR told us that we needed to be more inclusive, that we needed to broaden our mindset, that we needed to compromise and we needed to be educated. And, you know, I'm dealing with nurses who have had, you know, sexual abuse as a child, nurses who have been in relationships that have been violent at the hands of males. And, you know, I would defy anyone to sit across from these nurses and say, you need to broaden your mindset.

Wes Street, when we went to meet with him, we explained this to him. He said, you know, that's not a healthy perspective. That's not healthy to say that to somebody. I agree, it's not healthy, but it's also extremely insensitive. It's appalling. So, and Wes Street and the health secretary,

just to put it in context, but have you spoken with the person in question at all who's at the centre of this, that you object to their presence in your changing room? No, no. Have you tried to? No, I don't think that would be wise at the moment. What is the situation right now

when it comes to the changing rooms? You mentioned some of your colleagues that are uncomfortable or do not want to use the original changing room as it stands. So what's happening? We walked into work one day and we were confronted with a poster on the female changing room door, which I must state now has been removed. We're not sure who has removed it or who put it up there. But there was a poster on the changing room door which stated that it was an inclusive changing room and that we were not to remove the sign. And the same day we were told that we had to be moved to a tiny office that had been cleared out of all things. It was to be called the locker room. And when we walked in there, there were no there were no lockers in there.

We had to put our belongings on the floor, which obviously is an infection control risk and a security risk. And I believe the trust think that they've done it to appease us. But my argument is that that changing room, that locker room, it still falls under the same policy. There is not another policy in place. So if a transgender individual or a self-ID person wanted to access that changing room, they can. When it comes to the hospital yeah if a trans woman for

example came as a patient uh she will not be put on a single sex women's ward that's correct yeah so the patient policy is different to the staff policy as you as a correct have explained it yeah do you know why that is well Well, the answer we got from HR because we did ask that question is just that public law is different to employment law. You're taking the trust to Employment Tribunal.

Your legal case has been funded by the Christian Legal Centre, which is part of the organisation Christian Concern. Why did you decide to take that route? Yeah, so I'll just kind of rewind our story a little bit. So obviously we were all concerned.

We didn't expect to ever have to deal with this sort of thing. And I think for me and for many people, when you're in a sort of state of not sure what to do with things in life, you turn to your family, don't you, for advice. And I'm unapologetically a Christian. My parents are unapologetically Christians. And they advised me to go and contact Christian Concern and I was extremely nervous about this you know I cautiously approached them just because I didn't know what their response would be I didn't

really know of Christian Concern before this but what I would say is that they have been extremely supportive of not just me but the other nurses who don't have a Christian background. Some of them don't have any faith at all. And this is not a Christian campaign. This is for all women. This is for women of different religions, different cultures, different backgrounds. And that's what we're fighting for. But you will know, of course, as they cover the costs of your legal case,

that they also represent, for example, individuals who want to challenge buffer zones outside abortion clinics or people who are fighting, being sacked for holding what they would call a biblical view on LGBT issues. Does it concern you at all to align yourself in that way? No, it doesn't concern me. My fight is for women's safe spaces. And that is the fight that we we're on. How do your Christian beliefs Bethany come into this? Yeah so I believe that sex is a biological fact and that it isn't interchangeable at all. And is that a Christian belief? I think it's a Christian belief and also a scientific fact yes

has there been division within the nurses within your colleagues on this issue I'm just wondering what it's like for you on a day-to-day basis? Yeah originally it was quite hostile I think that some nurses just kind of felt sorry for their friend and then realised that there was actually a bigger picture. I would like to point out that this isn't a campaign against this one person. I don't hold anything against this one person. Unfortunately, this person has been the catalyst and has raised awareness about something. And actually, I do feel like this policy has put this person at risk as well. And the trusts are responsible for that person also.

But yes, originally, it did feel slightly hostile. But I think that the more that we talk about it, and the more that the nurses become aware, and I'm saying this as a minority of nurses, I'm not saying that the majority of the hospital are against us. Actually, I think we have a vast amount of support from the nurses, male and female. But I think that as they become more aware of the policy and the loophole in it, they support us. How do you view trans people's rights? Trans people have rights. Yeah. Just like women have rights and men have rights,

you know, but one particular group's rights can't trample somebody else's rights. And I'm not saying that trans people or self-ID people should be ostracised to a tiny cupboard like we have. I'm advocating for them to have similar facility that, you know, the same facilities as us, private facilities where they can get change, dignity and respect. And I do want to read from a spokesperson for County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust. They say the trust is committed to providing a safe, secure and respectful environment for all colleagues and patients operating within the law and adhering to national policies. Additional alternative changing facilities have been put in place. These include a private individual lockable changing room. An office has been converted into a locker room for the storage of belongings.

The trust has processes in place for listening to and responding to concerns raised by any of our colleagues. We take all concerns raised seriously and investigate them thoroughly. An internal investigation continues to take place

while the legal proceedings also continue. Considering we were talking about risk here and, you know, the NHS is full of risk assessments. As soon as a patient hits the ward, they are risk assessed. You know, we do falls risks, we get a wristband on them, we assess their allergies, all that sort of stuff.

The fact that a group of nurses raised a risk and it was sort of brushed off for a year. I mean, I think that speaks volumes, doesn't it? Bethany Hutchinson there speaking to Nuala. She's one of a group of nurses taking their NHS Trust to Employment Tribunal over their transitioning in the workplace policy. And I should say, we did, of a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care has said to us that the Secretary of State met with five nurses from the Darlington Nursing Union last month to hear about their concerns concerning single-sex spaces in NHS hospitals.

The health secretary is clear that everybody deserves to feel safe and treated with respect at their workplace. Now, are you planning on heading to the cinema this weekend? Well, one of the films on offer will be Gladiator 2. Ridley Scott's sequel is hotly anticipated by many, but it has received mixed reviews. The film follows Lucius, played by Paul Mescal, as an enslaved but noble warrior.

Connie Nielsen returns to her role as Lucilla, his mother. What makes this sequel different, however, is there is a powerful woman alongside Lucius, Arishat, played by Yuval Gonan. And while she isn't exactly a gladiator, she's an archer, her role of female warrior can be seen as progression from the passive wife of Russell Crowe's Maximus in the first gladiator film.

So how common were female gladiators and warriors in ancient Rome and how accurate are the female characters in this blockbuster film? To discuss this, I was joined by author and classicist Dr Daisy Dunn and film critic Larushka Ivanzadeh. I began by asking Larushka, it's 24 years since the first one. Has there been progress? Well, fans of the first one won't be disappointed in that the second one is very much a carbon copy of the first one, but with more stampeding rhinos and mad baboons and more

spectacle. And you were alluding there to the new character in it. I did feel that perhaps we had moved on in this one because there's a spectacular opening sequence which sees the Roman army mounting a naval siege on Numidia, which is on the North African coast. So we start off, like Gladiator does, in fact, with a spectacular battle scene where we see Paul Mescal, who is the new Russell Crowe character, strapping on his wife's body armour, straps on a kind of chest plate,

and you see her getting her bow and she's fighting alongside him on the ramparts. This has got Team Woman's Hour very excited. We're there. There's a woman alongside him. Brilliant. Tick. Yes, exactly. And I was like, oh my goodness.

Almost I wasn't even noticing the naval scene. I was like, my goodness, we've moved on. I'm so excited that there's this woman walking outside him. And within five minutes, and I know this is a spoiler, but it is in the trailer, she is dead. Oh no. And within five minutes, and I know this is a spoiler, but it is in the trailer, she is dead. Oh, no.

And I was like, oh, maybe we haven't moved on so much after all because in the first film, Russell Crowe's wife is only seen in flashback and she's highly silent. So this one at least got to strap on some body armour. I think she has a few lines before she is also dead and has exactly the same role as Russell Crowe's wife in the first film and that she's mainly a motivation for vengeance for the gladiator character to carry through and exact his revenge on Rome. Well at least she was powerful for the five minutes that

she was in the film. I'm going to bring you in Daisy, were there really were there gladiators in ancient Rome, female gladiators? There were female gladiators. And this is why it's such a pity to actually like to see a lot more of those in the film rather than men riding on rhinos. I think that would have been a much better scene. I mean, they were not common, but that was the point of them. Romans were always interested in what was novel and exciting and different. And that's why you have emperors putting women into the arena,

because it just wasn't what they did on a daily basis. Women were very sort of cloistered, typically. They were living quite sedate, sedentary lives. But then you get these amazing women coming out, having to fight each other. A lot of the bad Roman emperors are the ones who actually put the women on display. What would they be doing? How does it compare to the men? They were doing a range of different things. Some of these women were actually fighting beasts. In other cases, they were fighting by torchlight.

The Emperor Domitian put women in the arena under torchlight, fighting each other. They were performing in games, and they generally got quite a bad rep for taking part. It was seen to be, one of the historians, Tastus, said that these women absolutely disgraced themselves by taking part in these games. I want to discuss one of the other female characters in the film,

Larushka. Can we bring in, is it Lucia, the mother? Now, when you say some of the other female characters in the film, there is literally one female character in this film, and she's exactly the same as she was in the first film. She is Lucilla, who is played by Connie Nielsen, who they brought back. I mean, I'm not exaggerating here.

She's literally really the only woman after the wife has been killed off that is in this film. But given she is the one woman in this film, it is terrific that she is Lucilla, played by Connie Nielsen, who is, I mean, she is defined by, in the first film, being the daughter of Marcus Aurelius, who's the emperor at the time. She's the sister of Commodus in the first film, who's played by Joachim Phoenix. Here she's the mother of Lucius, who is the new hero played by Paul Mescal, and the husband the wife of Pedro Pascal, who was the new Roman

general. We're very happy about the male casting though, I must say. Yes, exactly. I'll just put that in there, very good. You won't be disappointed. But she's also smart, she's wily, she's intelligent, she's a survivor, she's in the middle of Rome, she's also she's smart. She's wily. She's intelligent. She's a survivor. She's in the middle of Rome. She's trying to machinate a political uprising in Rome to reinstate the Republic.

So she has got a proper role and, you know, proper screen time and is shown respect by the film. But there is no getting away from the fact that she really is the only woman in the movie. Yeah, we've spotted it, Ridley. We can see. Daisy, what role did most women have during this period in history? What were their lives like? Well, it was a different sort of time. It's interesting. Women are starting to get a little bit more, alpha is probably too strong a word, but I think historically they've been so limited in what they can do. There's no vote, there's no political position for women. And that's still very much the case. But with women like Lucilla, who was a historical

figure, you see her actually pulling a lot of strings behind the scenes. She was one of the people who was trying to overthrow the emperor, Commodus. And all the way through, actually, if you look behind the scenes, the emperor's wives, emperor's daughters. They are there and they're a lot more powerful than we actually think. Often their roles aren't really accurately recorded by the men who are describing the historical times. So it was quite sort of mixed. I think it's elite women particularly who seem to have a lot more freedom to be able to do things.

Forgotten women in history, men taking all the glory. How unusual. Different historians, Daisy, feel differently about this. Do you like films to be true to the historical time they're reflecting or do you allow a bit of artistic licence? I think there's a danger of being too po-faced about this and being a bit curmudgeonly and being a bit dull and sort of overanalyzing everything.

It just takes the fun out of these films. On the other hand, I know a lot of people watch films, and it might be their only exposure to that particular historical period. So I think it actually can be very, very dangerous to push the story too far away from the facts. So maybe I sound like I'm going a little bit down the middle, but I think, you know, on balance, I like something to be historically accurate. I like people to actually make an effort and actually read some history books before they actually make a film. Dr Daisy Dunn and Larushka Ivanzadeh. That's all from me,

but don't forget to join Nuala from 10am on Monday. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth.

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