Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman’s Hour – Music artist Raye, COPA 71 and Imelda May on the Yeats sisters

Episode Date: March 9, 2024

The South London singer-songwriter Raye joins Emma Barnett following her record-breaking six wins at the Brit awards last weekend. Raye tells us about her grandma Agatha who joined her on stage after winning Best Album for My 21st Century Blues. She also talks about being a woman in the music industry and the strength she has found from fellow female musician Charli XCX.A new documentary, Copa 71, follows the trailblazing women who headed to Mexico for an unofficial Women's World Cup in 1971. Woman's football had been banned in many countries including the UK for 50 years. Unperturbed 6 teams gathered and played in front of crowds of 100,000 fans. One of those players, Chris Lockwood joins Anita Rani alongside co-director of the film Rachel Ramsay.On the 3rd March 2021, Sarah Everard was murdered by Wayne Couzens, an off-duty police officer. The incident sparked national outrage and a surge in fighting violence against women and girls. Three years on, how much has changed? Emma Barnett speaks to the Detective Inspector who interviewed Wayne Couzens, Nick Harvey.Imelda May talks about her new documentary Lily and Lolly: The Forgotten Yeats Sisters, on Sky Arts. Elizabeth and Susan Yeats (also known as Lolly and Lily) founded a women-only arts and crafts guild to promote women’s economic and cultural independence. Overshadowed by their famous brothers, W.B Yeats and Jack Butler Yeats…until now.The author Liz Jensen’s son Raphael was a wildlife biologist, an environmental activist, and a prominent member of Extinction Rebellion. In 2020, at the age of 25, he unexpectedly collapsed and died due to an unknown heart condition. Liz speaks to Emma about her new memoir, Your Wild and Previous Life, about her process of grief, hope and rebellion.

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. Just to say that for rights reasons, the music in the original radio broadcast has been removed for this podcast. Welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour. Put the kettle on, grab a cuppa and settle in for this week's highlights. Coming up, have you ever felt that you had some sense or premonition of things to come? We speak to author Liz Jensen about her experience. Nick Harvey, the former detective inspector who led the arrest of Wayne Cousins,

the off-duty police officer who murdered Sarah Everard, joins us to discuss the case. And do you know much about the Yates sisters, Elizabeth and Susan? Irish singer-songwriter and poet Imelda May tells us more. But first, the woman of the moment, Ray. If you hadn't heard her name before last weekend, you've probably heard it several times since then. The South London singer-songwriter is the hottest star in music right now, winning six Brit Awards in one night,

she beat the records of David Bowie and Adele in the process. Ray, however, is far from an overnight success and her journey to the top has not been easy. Stuck in a record label contract, unable to release her music, she went public with her frustrations in a viral social media video. She left the label and became an independent artist. She went public with her frustrations in a viral social media video. She left the label and became an independent artist. Her subsequent album, the soulful pop-infused My 21st Century Blues,

reached number two in the charts and has sold over 60,000 copies in the UK. She's since played Glastonbury's Pyramid Stage, won an Ivor Novello Award for her single Escapism, and wrapped up her tour with a massive televised gig at the Royal Albert Hall. Emma spoke to Ray following her unprecedented Brits Hall and began by asking her about her grandma, Agatha, who joined her on stage as she accepted one of her awards. Oh, my gosh.

I mean, that woman has literally sacrificed so much for our family. She moved from Ghana when I was born to raise us. My parents both worked full time. Like she sacrificed basically her entire life to take care of me and my sisters. She picked me up from school every single day and carried my cello. I carry my flute. She is just an absolute superwoman who laid down her years to take care of us. And I will, that sacrifice is, you know, money can't buy that.

An absolute superwoman. Well, as so many women are. I mean, I know you're close to your whole family, but also carrying a cello is no mean feat. So well done to her. It's not. Carrying a cello and pushing my little sister. My grandma was... She was strong.

It must have been the craziest few days for you. And I imagine you've had some amazing messages from some people that you couldn't have dreamt of. Who's been the craziest? What's been the craziest message? Who's got in touch with you who you couldn't have imagined? Just so many people and people I love and respect. I got a letter from Elton John like I

can't wait to tell you what your music means to me I'm like what is Lewis Lewis Hamilton I'm so proud of you that just just people I've looked up to my whole life a lot of people because they're aware of this big change for you in such a short space of time after that really powerful video you put out on social media talking about your need to be free of your original label deal and have your music out there and now you're in this position I mean for you putting out that message what was that experience like it it seemed like a cry for freedom in some ways yeah I think at that point in my life I was really at a breaking point to be I think an artist you really have to

be resilient and you have to keep going and you have to just push through and push on you know but at that point I think I just hit kind of a thing you know so none of that was really planned it really was as desperate as it looked. You've talked a bit about the importance of faith and being able to get through. How did that help you and other things? I mean, you write about alcohol, going out, taking drugs, trying to not feel, but what was it that got you to the other side and what was it about faith, do you think? Having my faith and being able to just pray it away. I think everyone in this world has to find their own, you know, coping mechanisms.

Some people meditate, some people go to the mosque. For me, it's just praying and that is just being able to like give me peace. I don't honestly know how I would have made it without finding that inner healing. You know, I also had a lot of things that I needed to forgive and let go. A lot of things that could have made me really bitter and really ugly and really at one point really lose myself. You know, so I'm just really grateful that I have that, you know. It must be just an amazing feeling being proven right. You were right about your music. You were right in the face of those record label executives who said, this isn't what

you should be doing. This isn't the music. It won't sell. What's that feel like to be vindicated? You know, I just feel extremely grateful and very lucky. I feel like this can only be described as a miracle. I came back when I was releasing music again, shrinking my expectations to the bare minimum of my goals being to build a fan base of people who cared and would want to come to a show and listen to an album or care about my perspective as an artist or what I would have to say. So everything that has happened has just been quadruple, triple, times a trillion, anything I could have ever imagined. I'm ridiculously overwhelmed and grateful and it's a miracle. I think it's a miracle. Like, what?

Let's talk about Ice Cream Man because it's a really powerful song. You're talking to me on Woman's Hour, and I'm really mindful of that. And for those who don't know that song, you do detail sexual assault in the music industry, including your own experiences. And you talk about this happening to women in studios and those moments of power imbalances. And I suppose I wonder now, speaking as a woman who's won a lot of awards, a lot of like seeing vulnerability and and and taking it um for granted it's or take exploiting it I don't know even what the words are it's you know you look everywhere in life and there's corruption and there's things that are wrong and there are things there are injustices and things that need remedying and and i don't even know to be honest what the solutions are

and i think it it even comes from a place where your voice is too or you feel too small to be heard or if you speak up you could jeopardize everything you've worked so hard for which is also that issue when you've got you know It's complicated when you're in that space. Yeah, it's a really difficult, it's a really sad, tricky thing, you know. That song, like, it's still really tough to sing and talk about. I think one in three shows I'm still a mess. The last show, Two Days Before the Brits, I just couldn't even hold it together. But I sing that song because it allows me to be loud about something I was so silent about for so many years of my life. Do you know what I mean? So I don't know what the answers are, but I do know the way I'm so not alone in that feeling

and how many of us suffer with these things that are so awkward and uncomfortable to talk about it shouldn't be that way anyway and it and it shouldn't be something to be embarrassed of or something that we're silent about do you know what I mean that's suffering on our own yeah it's deep it is deep and I think your music can take people and music generally can be medicine. It can help people. It can get you to a different place. You also have a lot of euphoria in your songs and joy and attitude. We need a bit of attitude. Yes.

All the different emotions. You're really close to your family as you started our conversation talking about. And I understand that both your parents quit their jobs to manage you and look after your career is that right that's that's amazing do you get on as a family come on tell me the truth now oh completely joking I adore my family some people find it hard though working with their family don't they they couldn't imagine being managed by their parents and I just wanted to hear how that really was. No I and I get that you know I got really lucky my dad is the sweetest guy he has like no ego he's like a nerd he loves spreadsheets you know he spent all of his life working in insurance his work before kind of

gave him the experience or like the ability to be able to really be good at this job for me he's so passionate and like come on we can do this optimistic and lovely like i've really got blessed and then my mum worked in mental health for 30 years at the nhs so that is like a godsend yeah so it's it's a it's a dream it's a dream well it's been lovely talking to you and and just finally if i can we asked our listeners this week who their fairy godmothers have been in their life, the women or men who have guided them. We had fellow musician C-Mat on the programme

who said for her it was Charlie XCX. I understand you also have had a relationship in that way with her and you got some guidance. I wanted to give you the opportunity to talk about that as well because of how women can come to each other's sides no I completely adore that woman I think when I started in the music industry like all the men in my life or around me or in control of my stuff was very it was very like there's one seat be paranoid of her be paranoid of her find your own sound you know it was this whole I'm like 17 years old like feeling exceptionally insecure and especially about other women and Charlie was the breaker of that for me she poured so much love and

time into me she took time out of her busy life to direct one of my first music videos and she invited me to her house she was like okay here's what you're gonna do take this hairbrush we're gonna look in the mirror here's a song that you can find your angle okay and I was so moved by that experience I will never ever ever forget what that girl brought into me and I'm so proud of her also I don't know if you've seen her new music video for her song Von Dutch but don't play with that girl she is an artist a-r-t-i-s-t. Ray huge congratulations I can see it means the absolute world to you and it means so much to your fans as well. Oh thank you so much thanks for taking the time. The brilliant Ray there and

if you would like to watch that gig at the Royal Albert Hall, it's available on iPlayer. Now, the inside story of the 1971 Women's World Cup largely lost to history until now. A new documentary, Copper 71, follows the trailblazing women who headed to Mexico for a tournament that wasn't backed by FIFA. In fact, women's football had been banned in many countries, including the UK, for 50 years. Unperturbed, six teams were gathered and played in front of crowds of 100,000 people. One of those players, Chris Lockwood, who played for England in the World Cup, aged just 15, joined me along with the co-director of the film,

Rachel Ramsey. And I started by asking Rachel how she found this story. The idea came from the fact that the England team themselves had been reuniting about four years ago. For the first time in 47 years, they hadn't spoken to each other. They reunited and the BBC picked up part of that story and there was a snippet of an interview with Chris, was heard by our producer, Victoria's husband,

who listened to this and thought, right, I've got to get back and talk to Vic immediately and see if she knows about this story. Because it's the kind of story that, you know, we as a team had been looking for for a long time. And Victoria looked into it and said, no, I've never heard about this. She contacted me and said, have you heard about this? I said, no. And along with the people that have made up this team, And Victoria looked into it and said, no, I've never heard about this. She contacted me and said, have you heard about this? I said, no.

And along with the people that have made up this team, we've made sports documentaries for a long time. And the fact that we'd never heard of this, one thing it says that there's a lot of other stories out there as well, we hope, about women. Yes, we know. Just hidden away. And it's answered quite a few questions we've had about the place of women in football particularly.

And this idea that a sport that is so universal and that crosses languages and race and class and so long as you're not a woman. And is that and how can that really be true? So, yeah, that's what we started digging into and finding the footage. I mean, it does. It still gives. I mean, I've seen it hundreds of times, it still gives me goosebumps. I mean, the whole event gives you goosebumps. The fact that this huge World Cup took place in front of that packed stadium in Mexico. But what really stands out is, Chris, is the women. It's the story of all of you. And it's an international story because you've interviewed the women from the Danish team, the Italian team, the French team, Mexican team, and of course, the English team. Let's go back to the 60s and 70s, if we can, for a minute, Chris.

What was it like being a girl who loved football? Yeah, a lot of us have said we thought we were the only girls that played because we were alienated from each other. And so a lot of us grew up playing football with the boys who were very acceptable of us. You know, we had a good relationship with anybody that liked football. And it wasn't really till senior school that I wasn't allowed to kick a ball at all.

And I know it sounds strange now, but in games and that, I was discouraged. It was all netball. And if I did kick a ball, I got sent back to the dressing room. And it made me feel like I was quite naughty and rebellious which I suppose well yeah that's what you're made to feel yeah you want to do something that's that you're the outlier so you're rebellious for wanting to play football I mean that's is that a nice feeling though being a bit rebellious yeah it's nice looking back now yeah definitely um so then Harry Harry knocked on your door put together a team yeah and uh what was it like arriving in had you ever been on a

plane before none of us none and two of the girls were in the RAF so I assumed they had been on the plane but when we reunited and I've spoke to them even they hadn't been on a plane before so did you have any idea what you were about to not whatsoever I mean, I'm quoted now quite often saying that when we got there late and all the flashlights went off, I actually thought there was someone famous on our plane, not realising it was us and none of us did. I guess it was like being the Beatles. Yeah.

Because, you know, everywhere we go we had to have police escorts and just because the fans wanted autographs and give you gifts and yeah where did this tournament idea come from because FIFA didn't back it no the um it was it was created by a group of very entrepreneurial Mexican businessmen who had been responsible for part of the organization of 1970 men's world cup which was the year before and they had all this infrastructure set up and there was a huge appetite for it and they said right let's just do this again but we'll do it with women because and because they were outside of the football establishment they weren't bound by the same the same mad idea that no one would

want to turn up and watch women and women wouldn't want to play so they put it on and it's this idea of you know we said it a few times but you know build it and they will come and it's this idea of, you know, we said it a few times, but, you know, build it and they will come. And it was this whole, it was this whole parallel universe. Imagine this world in which women are not laughed at for wanting to play football, in which it wasn't a strange idea to put up 100,000 tickets for sale. And these tickets were sold and they were sold. We've got all the original, we've seen the original ticket stubs. They were for the same price as the Men's World Cup the year before. And the sponsorship was there. There was a mascot and there was merchandise how did they advertise it everywhere in and everything i mean that's how we started all of the research actually is there

a quote that says soccer's gone sexy there was quite a few of those things soccer's gone sexy south of the border was one of them yeah um and there's so there was this sort of you know the world that these women were in at the time was still pretty tough and still very sexist. But at the same time, there was an acceptance over 50 years ago that a lot of people, even today, can't get their heads around. Well, that's even when you're watching it, you can't quite believe what you're witnessing, because when you've grown up in our time, of course, women's football is having its moment quite rightly and is here to stay. But, you know, when you've grown up in an era where you're told, well, no-one's interested, and then you watch this documentary and there's 100,000 people screaming fans, cheering 15-year-old England players,

well, what was that experience like, being in that stadium? Even when we were training early in the morning, we had 300 or 400 children come in. Well, we'd only had one man and his dog before you know so that was just exciting for us and then we'd be signing autographs all the time it was truly amazing and we thought when we would come home it would raise the level of women's football in our country but it got shut down again it's such a beautiful documentary and you really get a sense of the excitement and the buzz and also the camaraderie between the teams i think there's a

moment where there's a few moments where the danish team's bus breaks down and the italian team pick them up yeah there's this real sense of sisterhood in this collective experience throughout all of the teams and that was one of the things that was most enjoyable going around the world to meet all of these women and to you know spend a really good amount of time getting to know them before you even bring out a camera and a lot of the similarities that they had a lot of their experiences were yeah work were collective and a huge amount of support and that's why you know it's quite an unusual sports documentary and that one people don't know what the outcome is because no one knows what the tournament is yeah but also you're not really rooting for one team and so when you structure it like that and you say actually

the winners from this are the women all together yes and anyone that feels that they've had their right to self-expression taken away whether that's where they wanted to play football or anything else not that i want to give any spoilers away but i have to i was rooting for england yeah sorry about yeah it's all right we don't have to say anything it's all good don't worry about it um another moment that really stood out for me was um when the team had to carry some they carried their own teammate off no stretcher came on it's like the team carried their own teammate off and the punch up yeah well well i mean i found i mean it's a great it's edited brilliantly so let's just say there's a very feisty Italian team.

There are. And they work, but they're expressing themselves through, you know, there's this element of the passion and there's this element of rage. You know, that moment comes about because of someone else sticking their nose in the game. And because of, funnily enough, enough you know when a male referee gets involved makes a decision but between the women themselves you know yes there's a bit of no love lost I mean there was so much passion and there's so much like the level of competition and athleticism and desire to win this wasn't a sort of a casual tournament and trust me the women that as we interviewed them they remembered all of...

We didn't show them the footage before we did the interviews. So all of those memories are crystal clear from over 50 years ago, and they know exactly who tackled who when. You found team members from Italy, France, Argentina, Denmark and Mexico. Yeah. How did you track everyone down? Well, that's all part of the investigation, part of having a really brilliant team from around the world.

Yeah, I mean, I did know one or two still, strangely, but only through WhatsApp. What was it like watching it? I mean, it was spine tingling for me watching it and hearing you tell your stories. Did you feel like you were part of something really special, that you were fighting for something? Looking back now, probably, but at the time, we were like female gladiators, I suppose you could say, because we'd never played in sort of that kind of arena. So the first time I saw the film in its entirety was at the South Bank in October, and I was so shocked, I couldn't remember anything of it.

You know, people were talking about it. How did it make you feel, watching it? Very pleased, very pleased that we'd chosen to go ahead with it because we were quite reticent at first, you know, will we be ridiculed? We've got to put a leap of faith into this film. Is there a reason for you to think that? Sorry to interrupt you a bit.

Yeah, sure. Yeah, because people listening might think, well, why would you be ridiculed? But there is a reason why you to think that sorry to interrupt you yeah because you know because people listening might think well why would you be ridiculed but there is a reason why you thought yeah because we were banned and we hadn't seen each other for 47 years and so we didn't know that each of us until we met up hadn't spoken about it because we felt ashamed yeah it's just a psychological thing because if someone bans you you think you've done wrong and that's how it was in those days so yeah which is the heartbreaking twist on this that you just done something so extraordinary had the most room you're 15 years old you've

gone to mexico you've played in front of a hundred thousand people you've had this magical experience and you come back and you feel ashamed yeah i know it's but you know like i said personally i had it in my heart it was always there but it was just in my heart because there was no way of telling the story or expressing it because it was like buried in history but not anymore not anymore and not only is it out there for everyone to see, it's time for you to be celebrated. I want people to be happy. Well, you're a pioneer, Chris.

Yeah, but people say they cry, but I don't want that. I want them to be happy, happy for the next generation and that people can do what they want now. So how do you feel now seeing England winning major trophies? Oh, so proud of them. Yeah, and they're real athletes, you know. They've got all the facilities and I just hope it just keeps growing and they're making a pathway now for the next generation.

Former player Chris Lockwood there and co-director of the film Rachel Ramsey and Copper 71 is out in cinemas now. Take your daughters, but more importantly, take your sons. Still to come on the programme, Elizabeth and Susan Yates, sisters of the famous WB Yates and Jack Butler Yates. A new documentary hopes to shine a light on these forgotten sisters. And we speak to author Liz Jensen about her memoir following the loss of her son, Raphael, in 2020.

And remember that you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day. If you can't join us live at 10am during the week, all you need to do is subscribe to the daily podcast for free via BBC Sounds. Now three years ago, Sarah Everard was abducted, raped and murdered by Wayne Cousins, an off-duty police officer with the Metropolitan Police. What followed was national outrage, protests by women and a dramatic fall in public trust of the police. Baroness Louise Casey conducted a review into the Metropolitan Police, concluding that it was, among other things, institutionally racist and

misogynistic. An independent review led by Lady Eilish Angelini and released last week found that Wayne Cousins should never have been a police officer and that opportunities were missed to stop him. Emma was joined by the man who led the arrest for Wayne Cousins. Nick Harvey, a former detective inspector for the Met, was responsible for finding Cousins at his home and conducting the urgent interview. Nick features in the new BBC One documentary, Sarah Everard, The Fight for Justice, which aired this week.

Emma began by asking him to take us back to when he was looking into Sarah's case. I was at the time running a specialist crime unit and was essentially assisting DCI Goodwin with the missing persons investigation. So we were looking at her call data and looking to see whether or not there were any changes, why she would have gone missing. And by being part of that, obviously when the bus came in and we led to the identification of the subject,

I had an operational team, so deployed my team down to go and conduct the arrest. And tell us about your role how does that sort of thing go down what do you do do you knock on the door what happens? A lot of planning actually does go into something like that because with Sarah at that point still you know potentially alive and the only person who knows her whereabouts you know is him you only have one opportunity to get that right. If he wasn't at home or if we'd sort of tried and failed at an attempt, that could have put her in a severe amount of danger. So a lot of planning and research does have to go in to make sure that you get that right and get it right first time. And what happened when you did make that approach?

He, we knocked on the door. I confirmed he was inside. We were happy he was inside. So he knocked on the door and he answered it. The moment he opened the door, I identified myself and he just went grey. All the colour just sort of fell out of him. And for you in this situation,

how did you know or did you know that you had the right person? Where are you at that point when you're making those initial approaches and doing that planning? At that point, I was fairly satisfied that certainly, you know, there were a lot of indications that he was involved. The moment he went grey, I think that really just confirmed to me that he absolutely was, you know, was directly involved. And in that situation, do you ask questions? What do you say? What can you say about the exchange? Yeah, so urgent interviews really are actually, you know, incredibly rare. Very few are ever done.

I personally don't know anybody who's done one. I hadn't done one previously until that day. There's a lot of strict rules around what you can and cannot do. Actually, you can say the wrong thing and it could become inadmissible because if you breach those rules,

that's it. It's done. So there's a lot of pressure. There's a lot at stake when you do them. And I mean, I actually still learning, you know, as a citizen, never mind a journalist, as how the police work and how it works with catching people and trying to bring justice, but also policing the police as well. I've learned a lot about that, certainly in the last few years, especially in this job at Woman's Hour. What is an urgent interview? So an urgent interview is when certain criteria apply. Traditionally, it's around immediate risk to life.

There are other criteria around property and severe damage and the likes. But effectively, if there's an immediate risk to life, then the person who's being interviewed isn't entitled to the traditional rights that one would normally get when they're arrested. So they're not entitled to legal advice. That interview would be conducted without it. So obviously obviously because of those rights being taken away, and they're important, very important rights, but to have them taken away means that there are very strict rules around what you can and cannot do during such an interview. When did you realise he was a police officer in the Met where you worked? A couple of minutes before we knocked on the door. Really? Yes. So initially, I tasked my team with a series of research to make sure we could

actually locate him. DCI Goodwin was conducting her investigative research as well separately. I'd arrived in deal to brief my team around what we were going to be doing and how we were going to go about it. And as I pulled up, no sooner as I literally turned off the engine of my car, did DCI Goodwin ring me and break the news to me. What was that like? Awful. The sort of pit on my stomach just sort of fell out. I mean, it was immediately and abundantly clear how much this was going to change policing

and what a huge moment in history it actually was going to be. Something that was, I mean, sadly, you know, murder is something that's all too common in our society. But to have such an event like this, you could see the difference and what it was what it was going to mean for the UK. It must have been very destabilizing in a way just just to have that ahead of such an important thing to get right as well. Yeah absolutely and and certainly you know with that it wasn't lost on me that you know those sorts of interviews are so rare and the rules are so rigid and rightly so they're rigid.

But if I'd have made a mistake and then what he said wasn't admissible at court, I do think there would be sections of society that would have viewed me as a corrupt officer that was just out to try and help one of their own. It couldn't have been further from the truth. And so that possibility of just making an honest and genuine mistake was a huge amount of pressure as well. So stakes were very high? Yeah, across the board. I mean, that was probably the only, and it turned out it was, the only opportunity he ever spoke. And you've got that one opportunity to try and get to that information, to try and find Sarah. And you've got to one opportunity to try and get to that information, to try and find Sarah. And you've got to do everything you can to get that right. And there's a lot at stake there. Her life is at stake there.

But of course, it wasn't to be in terms of any ability to save Sarah. No, certainly not. How have you processed that information since as someone working in the police? And there are many who are trying to do the right thing far from the Met throughout the country. But in your situation, being in the Met and knowing that this had happened, what is that like for you? It's challenging, really challenging. I mean, you know, I put a lot of my identity into being a detective you know i i have a lot of pride in what i've achieved and the work that

i've done i've always tried to do the very best i could do and to know that that's actively undermined by a section of policing is is an or is awful but, I mean, it's a fraction of what unfortunately Sarah's family ever had to go through as a result. You know, it pales into insignificance really. Being in the Met, I believe for 17 years yourself, is that right? I was, yes. Yeah. And now you're saying was, past tense, no longer in the Met? No, I left last year. What was the reason for that? A combination of things.

Certainly with a lot of the changes that have taken place over the last decade or so have essentially meant I was working 70-plus hours a week and also worrying about paying my mortgage. And there's no scope for me to get a second job to try and cover that gap. And the funding has not been where it should be. And it left me with a very difficult situation to sort of stop a job that I love doing to do what's best for my family.

Yes. And I suppose then in that respect, I'm talking about how much your identity was bound up with it. Now, as we discuss the Met Police and we discuss changes and how it is, I recognise you are outside of the force. But do you have a view on if things have got better within the last three years along the lines we're talking or if you think there are some things that we should know about that should improve, especially when it comes to the safety of women and having public trust in the police? I don't think it would be right or appropriate to talk about whether or not the changes are working, because not being physically present every day is very hard. I don't think that's fair. As far as changes, you know, I think that investment in leadership is so incredibly important. And I think that a lot of these sort of the stories that you hear essentially come from a lack of empowerment of leaders. They're not being trained on how to confront situations head on.

And sadly, you know, you do therefore get some leaders that will take that easy route. And that's why you end up with these scenarios taking place. Not this scenario, obviously, but just sort of other sort of, you know, other issues that arise. And I think that that training and then not only that training then, but the expectations of the leaders and to hold them to account once they are in power to deal with it, I think are incredibly important things we should be talking about. Former Detective Inspector Nick Harvey there and the BBC One documentary Sarah Everard, The Fight for Justice, is available on iPlayer now. A government spokesperson said, the murder of Sarah Everard shocked our country to its core and we're determined to ensure women and girls feel safe on our streets. Progress has been made and continues to be made to strengthen the way officers are vetted, scrutinised, managed and disciplined.

And laws are being introduced to ensure those charged with serious offences are automatically suspended from service. We're committed to tackling violence against women and improving the police response to how these vile crimes are dealt with. The Angelini inquiry has looked into issues around police culture and the government will continue to work with police partners to ensure that proper standards are upheld at all times. Now, when I say the name Yates, who springs to mind? Well, if you were me listening along to the radio this week, you'd have thought of Yates the Wine Bar or Yatesies, as we called it. Or if you were much more cultured, like the vast majority of you,

you might think of the poet W.B. Yeats or painter Jack Butler Yeats. But these talented brothers also had two industrious and inspiring sisters. Elizabeth Yeats, also known as Lolly, was a printer and a teacher, and Susan Yeats, also known as Lily, was an embroiderer. Together, they founded a women-only arts and crafts guild to promote women's economic and cultural independence. They were the backbone of the Irish cultural and literary revival of the 1920s, but their legacy has since been overshadowed by their brothers.

Well, a new documentary called Lily and Lolly, the Forgotten Yates Sisters on Sky Arts, hopes to change that. Fronted by the Irish singer-songwriter and poet Imelda May, Emma began by asking Imelda how she found out about the sisters. I was doing a gig in Three Arena in Dublin and I was wanting to project names of inspiring women behind me while I was singing this particular song all about strength and stoicism. And I started investigating all the different people that I loved and should put up there.

And as I was looking through, I came upon the Yates sisters and I had no idea, I'd never heard of them. And I'm a WB Yates fan and a Jack Yates fan since I was a teenager. And I thought, this is crazy. I'd seen their portraits painted by their father, but I didn't know anything about them. And the more I researched, the more I was gobsmacked.

And I kind of told everybody about them constantly. My cousins and my friends and sisters all got... There was only two books I could find about them. Small snippets of information around and I just sent them to everybody all the time. And then I met a wonderful woman called Maggie Branagh, that I, myself and herself did a wonderful documentary for Sky Arts called Voices of Ireland. I'm saying it's wonderful because I'm delighted, we were delighted with it. And then she said,

what do you want to work on next? And I said, I totally know. And she'd heard me going on about them and said, let's do this. We really need to tell their story. And the story is a remarkable one, isn't it? I mean, I also have now educated myself and let's share it with our listeners because the route at that time

for these women would have been to marry, have children, go down that. But they go down a completely different route. How did they come to their arts and crafts work? Well, they were they thought they were going to they were middle class, upper to middle class women. Their mother was from a really well-off family in Sligo. But their father, who was supposed to be a barrister, decided one day, do you know what, I'm not going to be a barrister, I'm going to be an artist. And then off he went.

And the mother got ill. She had a stroke really early and was very ill for a long time. And their brothers went off and did their things. Now, Susan had gone off to study embroidery with William Morris and Elizabeth was a brilliant artist and she was an art teacher. But when this happened, there were no funds coming into the house. There was nothing. And they were still trying to keep up with the family

and certainly the father was trying to keep up the appearance of having something and being somebody. At one point he moved them to London. They moved back and forth and they even had a maid and the maid documented that when she opened the cupboards there was no food inside, they had nothing. So Susan and Elizabeth basically had to fund the family and roll their sleeves up, as women often do, and decided to make this work.

But what I love about them is they didn't just, you know, go out and work and make money for the family. They were true artists and they used their, everything they did was very thoughtful and they consciously did everything they thought about everything the way they employed only women at that time it was really women weren't allowed to be printers so they started up an embroidery company they worked like i said with william morris then they were involved in the celtic revival they worked with

evelyn gleason so they were embroiderers they were involved in the Celtic Revival. They worked with Evelyn Gleeson. So they were embroiderers. They started up a publishing company. They were printers. They employed only women, which you could have been arrested for at that time. You certainly would have been brought to court for employing one woman, and they employed only women.

They employed young women, older women, widows, and they really invested in the education of the women and in their lives after they left working for them. So they were totally invested in the women that were there and improved their lives. And were they a success with these endeavours? Massively, yes. They were massively successful.

But at one point they almost went bankrupt because with the books, they decided to make these books beautiful, not just to make money. They were trying to source local linens, things that we look to do now, they were doing then, local paper, hand binding. And then they took off. They got, let me explain to you, with printing at that time, it was only men that were employed in printing and they had to serve for seven years and they were not allowed to get married or to drink or it was like a vocation for seven years. Elizabeth decided they were going to print. She went and studied printing for four weeks, bought a printing press and then became the teacher. And that's how...

That's how they began. That's how they began. And it was pretty heavy labour, wasn't it? Very heavy labour. I've lifted... I believe you do for the programme. I could hardly lift them up and they're all lead and everything was hand done.

All the press. All the press. And these women were flinging them around. And the other thing that they did, they could have signed well-known writers that were already published and that would have guaranteed them success within publishing, but they decided they were mostly going to sign new and upcoming writers. So they signed J.M. Singh, Patrick Kavanagh, and loads of other people. My mind's gone blank.

But in terms of just writers and how they were then perceived, because that's what's fascinating, there was a pretty horrible reference to them by James Joyce, wasn't there? A reference to them as the weird sisters, is that right? Yeah, and they were kind of seen as irritating, you know, and they were talked about in the difficult. Certainly Elizabeth was known as the difficult sister and she was the more business headed of the two. So she was getting things done. And from all the letters that I've read of her

she wasn't difficult at all she was just, as Sinead O'Connor said I'm not bossy, I'm the boss and people didn't like that but she was really pushing ahead We should also say that they did never marry they lived, they worked together they carried on with their work

They never married. The father went off, John went off to America to paint. And he said, could you send me some money? And they sent him money for 11 years. They funded him. So they funded their dad, who wanted to be an artist, and went off to do that, leaving the law. And the relationship with the brothers,

the much more famous brothers that we know the name for. Jack and them, they got along and Jack did some artwork. He painted and did some beautiful drawings for them that they then turned into embroidery. So they worked together as a family on that because they were artists too. But William, he, I mean, it was a fractured relationship

as siblings often have, you know. He was back and forth but he had to come in and sign things and Elizabeth had to, she was trying to get him to sign things over to her that she would also be able to run the company without his signature basically. Well, it's fascinating.

Thank you so much for telling us what you've learned. I talked really fast because there's so much about them and we tried to squeeze it into one hour of a programme, but there's way, way, way much more. Well, I squeeze everything into one hour of a programme every day and multiple things. I fell in love with them. I can hear that.

They're wonderful women. We owe them a lot. So thank you for giving me the time to talk about them. No, no, and it sounds very beautiful as well especially and being commissioned by by all sorts not least the vatican with them with their creations and having that that focus on beauty and the aesthetic oh they were so talented it's it's incredible their talent was and their vision was amazing amelda may there there. And Jenny got in touch about our discussion and said, So lovely to hear your feature about the Yates sisters.

My 90-year-old mum lived next door to them in Dublin and has always spoken very fondly of them. Now, the author Liz Jensen's son, Raphael, was a wildlife biologist, an environmental activist and a prominent member of Extinction Rebellion. In February 2020, at the age of 25, while he was out for a run in South Africa, he unexpectedly collapsed and died due to a heart condition he didn't know he had. Set against the backdrop of climate and ecological catastrophe, Liz's memoir, Your Wild and Precious Life, is a story of grief, hope and rebellion. Liz began by telling Emma what Raphael was like. He was an extraordinary child who grew into an extraordinary young man.

He was quite unusual, even as a baby. You know, he didn't really behave like other babies. He was very contemplative. He would get a bit lost in space. He was eccentric, I would He would get a bit lost in space. He was eccentric, I would say, as a child. He very much knew his own mind. He was fascinated by wildlife from when he was tiny. And it was no surprise to me when he went on to study zoology. Because I think, you know, that sense you have when you're a child, the boundaries are different. You don't have the same sense of who you are, maybe because you don't look in the mirror and you're out outside and you're watching other animals.

And there's a sense that you too are an animal. He had that very strongly. And I know I had it as a child. I didn't have that sense that I belonged to a particular species, I think. And I think we really lose that as we grow older. I certainly lost it. But he never lost that sense of being part of something much bigger and huge and organic and beautiful. Talk to me about this sense that you had of that you might lose a child. What was that? How did that come to you? It came to me when I was pregnant, I think, with my first son, or maybe shortly after he was born.

I didn't know if I was going to have just him or whether there would be another child. But by the time I was pregnant with my second son, Raphael, it was unbearable because I couldn't tell anyone. It's not the kind of thing you can say to anyone. I think I'm going to lose one of my children. And also, I had that superstitious feeling that if I said it aloud, it would come to pass. So it was lonely. It was a shameful secret, awful secret. It just weighed on me so heavily. So in the end, I, you know, in another era, I would have gone to a, you know, a wise village elder or a shaman or something. But I went to see a therapist,

because this was the modern world. And the therapist, I'm actually very grateful to him, because when I told him this, he said, he didn't just talk about magical thinking. He said, yes, it is magical thinking, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't take it seriously. And so we worked on it together and I sort of investigated it and I went on a little pilgrimage, a very private little pilgrimage. And when I came back, it had lifted. And so I was able to put it aside. That doesn't mean I forgot it because it was always at the back of my mind, but it was at the back of my mind as something that I once believed, I once thought. And it would occasionally rear its head and I would just stamp it down.

And then I got the phone call. And did you have a sense of anything before you picked up the phone? No, but when I picked up the phone, it was my ex-husband and he could barely speak. He was crying. And my first thought was, which child? Which boy? It must have been, I don't know how you would even describe that moment especially because you you try to lay to rest that fear well i'm glad i laid it to rest because what could i have done about it it turned out that the thing he died from was the thing that was probably you know if you'd ask me what's if your son's going to die what's it going to be of i'd have said snake bite maybe you know he worked in some very dangerous places. You know, he was handling venomous snakes. He was working in environments

and in places that were highly risky. And I always knew that. And I could have spent my time worrying. And at some point, I thought, this is not going to do my mental health any good. And I don't want to be that kind of mother. I don't want to be that kind of mother. I don't want to be a mother who is constantly worrying about her child and conveying that worry to him and making him feel guilty. He loved his life. He absolutely loved his life. He filled his life. And I'm really, really glad he did.

And I'm really, really glad I didn't stop him. There's a message here, very striking, which says, I too had a strong sense that my son would die young. Sadly, he did die in his sleep soon after turning 20. I stepped out of myself from that day onwards and have lived the six years after his death as if I'm watching my life from a distance.

Sadly, the sense that I would lose him one day didn't prepare me in any way. Yes. I met a young woman just the other night at an event I did and she said to me she had a very strong sense her father would die. Now her father was relatively young and there was nothing wrong with him but she told people you know it it hit her so hard that she told people and then he did die. He died very suddenly, very unexpectedly. And she asked me, did it help to have had that premonition? And I'd never thought about that

before. And actually, I think in my case, it probably did help because I think you find all sorts of resilience inside yourself that you didn't know you had. But I think just that being an option had always been there. So I think in some way it had prepared me and I'm glad of that. You talk about the moment that you heard of your son's death as your Kairos moment. What does that mean? Well, the ancient Greeks had two words for time. There was chronos, which is the time we know, chronological time, which you measure in seconds and days and weeks and months and millennia. It's calendar time. It's clock time.

But there's another kind of time called kairos, which is the kind of time, it's a moment that just cuts through. If you see chronological time as linear on a vertical line, think of Kairos as a horizontal line. Think of Kairos as the vertical line that just breaks everything up and changes paradigms. And that's the moment, that was my Kairos moment when my son died. It changed everything.

You're keen, I know, with your writing and what you're doing now and talking about your book to try to also say to those who outlive their children that there is still life for you. How have you found that? Well, I found it in many ways, actually. And I think the first step of it was surrendering to my grief not trying to push it away not trying to stop it not trying to stop the pain just giving into it and for the first nine months that involved among other things crying every day it just came to me around about five o'clock in the afternoon my body body needed to cry. And I think there are physiological reasons why crying can help because you do feel better afterwards, the way you feel different after a

storm has passed. So I just didn't deny it in any way. The other thing was I met other women and other parents who'd lost children longer ago than I had. And they were a huge source of comfort to me because, you know, I asked one of them quite early on, do you have a good life? She'd lost her son 15 years before. She said, yes, I have a very good life. I have a fulfilled life. And that word fulfilled really stayed with me.

And I also felt right from the start, I owed it to Raphael to live well. I owed it to him since he'd been denied that future he might have had. I owed it to him and I still do owe it to him. And I feel him very much with me in spirit. Just to live the best life I can. He always, and it can feel overwhelming sometimes, because, you know, what can we do in the face of this gigantic climate and ecological emergency? But he always said to me something which I think is very wise, which is, do what you can, where you are with what you've got. And to that, I would add to anyone who's grieving,

you know, when you can, and as much as you can and how you can you also I know and you just started to allude to it there feel like you're able to to communicate with him or have signs certainly that there is that connection which is a very private thing but really helps I suppose if somebody can talk about it and and share because there will be those listening who have lost people many people you know who've who've been in this situation but still have ways that they they feel connected I assure you there will be so many people and I I think yeah you say it's very private but I've decided I don't want to keep it private because no no and I I applaud you for that but what I meant was people just are so in it with themselves sometimes

that they feel perhaps they can't share. But sharing it, which is the joy of live radio, I always think, is you never know who's listening. And the wonderful thing is that when you do start to share, you hear so many stories of other people who get signs from their loved ones and who carry on speaking to them and feel that they're answering back. What was it for you? How does that manifest? Well, it manifests in the fact that Raphael and I were very close.

We had a very sort of clean, loving, wonderful relationship. And so I always know what he's likely to say. So you could say it's just my imagination and maybe partly it is. But very often it's a feeling of oh he wants me to do this and and that's really beautiful and it does it does keep me allow me to enjoy my life as well because I feel I'm not alone he's not totally gone he's still around I think when we die you know our energy our life energy doesn't disappear energy doesn't disappear. Energy doesn't disappear. It just changes. It just transforms into something else. So I've come to believe there are other dimensions

and there is another dimension in which, you know, the people who have died actually aren't really dead, which is why death isn't really the end having very powerful messages coming in um there's one here that says my son died age six three years ago from a brain tumor when he was a newborn i looked at him and said out loud without thinking how long will i get to keep you for i'm crying listening to this conversation yes you, you step outside of life. You live in the most surreal place, somewhere between worlds, between life and death, never to return. One day I'll be with James again. That thought is beautiful. It is beautiful.

It is absolutely beautiful. Incredibly beautiful. And I think that there are so many people who feel like that, who feel, yes, I will see them again. And, you know, believe me, I was someone who before my son's death didn't believe any of that. Absolutely not. I, you know, had a very sort of, I was very interested in science. I still am. But, you know, I had this feeling that, well, if science hasn't proved it, it can't be true. And now I think, well, science hasn't proved it yet, because this is

something that's quite difficult to measure. But that doesn't mean it's not true. Author Liz Jensen there. That's all from me on Weekend Woman's Hour. Emma will be back as usual on Monday at 10. She'll be speaking to actor Sharon Small, who's playing Jenny Lee MP, wife of Nye Bevan, in Nye at the National Theatre with Michael Sheen as Nye. And political historian Dr Lindsay Jenkins from the University of Oxford will also be joining. Until then, have a wonderful weekend. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hello, I'm David Yelland. And I'm Simon Lewis. We're the hosts of Radio 4's When It Hits The Fan, the podcast which looks at how big names and big companies manage their PR. But what about your own personal PR? How do you better manage your own reputation

at work? We're here to help. With a series of special bonus episodes, we'll bring a little wisdom and share some tips to hopefully make you better at that job. Quick Wins is a series of short and snappy episodes with lots of advice aimed at improving your working life. If that sounds useful, then please listen and subscribe on BBC Sounds. Just search for When It Hits The Fan. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody.

Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in.

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