Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour: Naga Munchetty, Women designing for women, How we learn from our mistakes, Bristol sex workers doc

Episode Date: May 10, 2025

Four years ago the broadcaster Naga Munchetty spoke out on air about her own awful experience of getting a coil fitted, and received a huge response from listeners. It led to her talking about her debilitating periods and an eventual diagnosis with adenomyosis aged 47. She’s written about this and included the experiences of other women. Naga spoke to Anita Rani to discuss her book ‘It’s Probably Nothing’.A wave of female designers have been appointed to some leading high street brands - including Jacqui Markham at Whistles, Maddy Evans at M&S, and Clare Waight Keller, the former Givenchy designer, to Uniqlo. So how much of a difference does it make for consumers that women are at the helm? Nuala McGovern spoke to Jacqui Markham, creative director at Whistles and Catherine Shuttleworth, CEO and founder of Savvy Marketing.A BBC documentary The Sex Detectives: Keeping Kids Safe follows a ground-breaking project in Bristol which engages the help of street sex workers to protect children and young people at risk of sexual exploitation. Avon & Somerset Police have teamed up with charity Barnardo’s and partnered with Bristol’s street sex workers to gather intelligence about dangerous offenders and paedophiles. Nuala was joined by social worker Jo Ritchie, at Barnardo’s, and sex work liaison officer Rose Brown.In a special programme exploring 'mistakes' and our relationship with the word, Nuala McGovern speaks to journalist Nicole Mowbray who tells about the mistake she made at The Observer newspaper which caused an 'international incident'.A new report by HSBC looks at the obstacles and opportunities facing midlife women entrepreneurs. With more midlife women starting businesses than any other demographic, what is it like to be a female founder at 50+? Author of the report, Eleanor Mills, owner of her own company Noon and Helen Lord, co-founder of Rehome, a UK-based business specialising in the resale of used and ex-display kitchens, join Kylie Pentelow to discuss.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Annette Wells Editor: Emma Pearce

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Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Hello and welcome. Over the next hour, you're going to hear a few choice highlights from the week. Coming up, broadcaster Naga Muncheti on her new book, It's Probably Nothing. Naga examines what's been called a crisis in women's healthcare and talks about her own experience of getting a diagnosis for something she'd suffered with her entire adult life at the age of 47. We'll hear about an initiative in Bristol where female sex workers are working closely with the police to help safeguard children at risk of sexual exploitation and we look at a report

showing that more middle-aged women are starting businesses than any other demographic. Why is this and how easy is it? Somebody said to me when I was about 40, other people do this so why can't we? It kind of just switched a light bulb on in my head, you know, the fact that I'm female shouldn't matter. The fact that I'm older shouldn't matter. In fact, it's a badge of honour. Plus, the mistakes we make and the impact they have on our lives. We hear from one woman whose faux pas was even made into a Hollywood movie. Lots to discuss, so let's get started.

Writer and broadcaster Naga Munchetti is usually found interviewing other people on BBC Breakfast or Five Live, but she joined me this week here on Woman's Hour. Four years ago, she spoke out on air about her own awful experience of getting a coil fitted and received a huge response from listeners, happy that she'd spoken out about such a personal and sensitive subject. It led her to talking about her experience with debilitating periods and eventual diagnosis with adenomyosis aged 47. She's written about her experiences and that of other women and medical professionals in her new book, It's Probably Nothing, critical conversations on

the women's health crisis. I started by asking Naga why she chose to write the book. I'm sick of women not being listened to. I'll give you a longer answer but I really am sick of it. In July 2024 there was a stat that more than 750,000 women were on NHS waiting lists for gynaecology services. Now that is an issue with the NHS and staffing and funding. Fine, we can't control that. But then if you look at any of the testimonies that I've found and put in this book, women are being dismissed, they're being left undiagnosed, they're left to doubt themselves, and they're not able to live their best lives. They are being crippled by illnesses that they're left to doubt themselves, and they're not able to live their best lives.

They are being crippled by illnesses that they're being told is probably nothing, or that it's just part of being a woman put up with it, which is what I was told. And that's why he called it is probably nothing, because that's what we all do. We just tell ourselves just don't worry about to get on with it. I find that whenever I talk to people about their books, there's always a journey within their own lives that has got them to that point. So I want to talk to you about when you decided to share your experience of having a coil fitted on Five Live on your program in 2021. That was the first time you spoke out about it. Why did you do that? I'd read this article by this piece by Kathleen Moran, brilliant journal, brilliant, absolutely brilliant woman and

she had described her coalfitting and you know what it's like Anita, we have morning meetings don't we? The team gets together, we discuss ideas and I said has anyone seen this? And then I started ranting about my experience which was horrific. It involved me screaming to the point that my partner was running around the doctor's surgery trying to find out where I was, passing out on the bed twice. I was in my gym gear, Anita, because I thought it would be fine and I could go to the gym after. I've been told to take a couple of paracetamol before.

And during the procedure, and I will say, the Mirena coil is fantastic. It is a great piece of contraception. This is not against the Marenic oil and it's not against anyone in the NHS but during that procedure I was told are you sure you want to go through with this and I said we've got this far we are finishing it and it was also a contraceptive contraceptive that I didn't really want. I hadn't felt I had no other choice because other things had been denied even though I didn't really want. I felt I had no other choice because other things had been denied, even though I didn't fit these tick boxes. So there were all these

issues and I told my team in the morning meeting, and you know usually you get them saying back to you, oh yeah that's interesting, there was silence and I thought, oh no, I've gone too far. I've just told them all the ins and outs of my contraceptive. You're talking about gynecological issues in the morning meeting. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Yeah, exactly. No, and Ask on 5 Live, we do that time of the month as well, you know. And I was persuaded in, we're not the story.

We are facilitators as journalists. We get people to tell their stories in the best way. And so I was a very reluctant storyteller when it came to my own personal experience. But I did. And we made sure we did it so that it was educational. And then we opened up the lines for people to get in touch. And we were overwhelmed by the response by other women who'd been told it will be fine. No, you're the problem. If it's not, if it's painful, no, no, you're the unusual one. And they're not. So we took we got the guidelines changed when it came to pain relief. Tell us what happened.

Well, we screamed and shouted about it and then the guidelines were changed so that outpatient procedures you can be offered, you can also be offered significant pain relief and it bled out to other procedures as well. I remember getting a text from one of my friends saying, I've had this procedure and I've never been offered gas and air and I was and I feel absolutely brilliant and it was the best thing and I know it was good for my health and I'm not traumatized by it. It's just one of those small things that when the change happens and this happens time and time again within women's health where you think how on earth have we got this far and nobody thought to offer us gas and air for something that could be that painful?

Because we're made for pain. We're made for pain. You've known a bit about pain your whole life, haven't you? Because you experienced very painful, heavy periods. Yeah, and you know when you say, oh, I have painful, heavy periods? And you and I are similar ages. And when we were younger, everyone would go, yeah, they're awful, aren't they? But you never went that step further and described what was happening and I will

take some responsibility for being that person as well when I raised it with my doctor at various points in my life with doctors in various points in my life but my periods basically involved flooding which meant that I would also have to set an alarm through the night to change my period products. I'd sleep on a towel. I was in so much pain that I would sometimes sleep on the floor so that it would be painful that way so I wouldn't have to think about the other pain. I would pass out. I would vomit. I would have diarrhoea. And I would still be going to work. I would pack, I would wear two pairs of knickers and I would always pack a spare pair of tights.

I'd never wear white on my bottom half. And you know, I am not uncommon. And just because it's not uncommon doesn't mean it's normal. But no one ever asked me or investigated why are they so heavy. I was told, you'll grow out of it. What nonsense. It'll be better when you have a baby.

So I've got to have a baby to stop being in pain. And then when it was finally diagnosed, and everyone says, oh, weren't you relieved? Well, yeah, I can put a name to it, but there's no cure. Because then you look into it, and there's not enough research, not enough money put into research into women's reproductive issues. And if you compare that to some of the male issues, erectile dysfunction for example, you see a stark difference. There was a piece just in the

press this week and the more I went into this and I was offered a hysterectomy, the hysterectomy was not going to cure adenomyosis. It's the uterine lining growing outside the uterus. So it's in my pelvis, it's in my lower back. Explain what it is because because you got your diagnosis after suffering horrendously. Yes. I'm actually listening to you describe the pain and I can't quite believe that you still were able

to function and do the job that you do and having to deal with all of that. But I guess there are many women who can relate. We just have to get on with it. You were 47 when you got your diagnosis. Yeah. What did they tell you, what was it? Well, I went in because I was having extreme pain I had a cyst on my ovary and I thought it was that and I was having extreme pain and then I had bled

But not spotting but proper bleeding for like something like 30 days 35 days and I had put off going to the doctor Thinking oh, it's just a long period. You know, know I'm that age I'm perimenopausal and then when I had a transvaginal ultrasound again Anita there are whole issues with how accurate ultrasound is and the ultrasounds you're given and when you're given them the timing etc. What they saw was there were stripes so imagine you've got your pelvis and there were stripes in the muscle and those stripes are where the muscles have been torn because the endometrium grows outside, the endometrium being the lining of the womb, grows outside, embeds itself in the muscle and then when your hormonal cycle happens, so you release estrogen, they

flare and so they tear the muscle. So that all contributes to other pain as well. And it contributes to heavy periods, but there's no cure. You were offered a hysterectomy, which you refused. Yes. Go on, sorry. Well, I didn't want to go into early menopause. And then I could have kept my ovaries. But actually, because it's spread,

and if you keep your ovaries, you're still producing estrogen. We actually produce estrogen in our brain as well. And so I'd still get the flares, flare-ups and the pain. So it wasn't going to help. But it was, again, it's another, like, why is cutting a lump out of us the answer? What did you opt for? What treatment? I ended up having, I have hormonal treatment to quell the bleeding. But basically I'm suppressing my hormones in my body to survive, to get on really.

It's not life-limiting, it is life-debilitating. And it limits me. I cannot be the best I can be, and I haven't been able to be. And I, look, don't get me wrong, I present two brilliant shows. I have a great job. I have a good life, but the pain and the Dismissal throughout my life which made me feel I was less than other women who were cracking on and doing really well Yeah did I hear you talk or Read that you talked about how women in your family were just able to get on with it and you thought there was something In you that just couldn't cope as well

And it wasn't so much in my family family but it was just looking at other women and thinking I'd been told it was normal. So in my head all these women are bleeding a lot and are not sleeping well and are exhausted and throwing up and worried about fainting and they're all cracking on because I was told that was normal. Well isn't that just one of the other sort of tricks that's been pulled that by telling us that we should just be getting on with it we don't discuss it because everyone's looking at each other going oh well she's getting on with it so I just have to get on with it. And you don't want to be seen weak we know in society we don't

want to be seen weak anyway let alone in the workplace or amongst our friends especially when you're in your early 20s and 30s and trying to carve out a career. We discussed on the program yesterday about new research showing that the lack of women-only clinical trials I mean that must be a huge part of the problem. Massive. I mean, you know, painkillers. Painkillers are traditionally tested on men. I was talking about my book the other day and I brought up on stage this man who was like 5'11", and I'm 5'4", and I said, the medical trials have been tested so that you can take a painkiller and it works and yet when I take it and there was an example of this with a drug in the United States where women were being given this drug and

passing out at the wheel sleeping through Not being able to care for their children's falling asleep at work losing their jobs because they were being given the wrong dosage because we've just Been assumed to be the adjunct to men. It's wild to think about, absolutely wild. It's infuriating. Yeah, it's infuriating. Also, there's lots of case studies of other women's experiences. And men's. And men's experience.

Testimonial injustice. When you talk about, really importantly, because we talk about it, women's hour all the time, the background, color of skin, and how that impacts whether a woman is believed in that. Social class, education, how you look. You know, I spoke to one GP, one doctor, whose mother was a GP, Asian. And even now her mother, something like in her 70s, still dresses more smartly than she would, say, to go to the supermarket when she goes to see a GP, because she knows that if she didn't, she would be considered, I don't know, less educated, less capable, and wouldn't be heard as well. And that, when you speak to women through the generations, or you speak to women across all walks of life, you know they have

all felt they have to work that bit harder to prove themselves and we know our own bodies. Naga Munchetty there. Her book, It's Probably Nothing, Critical Conversations on the Women's Health Crisis and How to Thrive Despite It is out now. Women designing for women. As a wave, female designers have been appointed to some of the leading high street brands. Most recently, Jackie Markham at Whistles, Maddie Evans at M&S earlier this year and Claire Waite Keller, the former Givenchy designer who joined Uniqlo last year. How much of a difference does it make for consumers that women are at the helm?

Newler was joined this week by Catherine Shuttleworth, retail commentator, CEO and founder of Savvy Marketing and Jackie Markham, who's just become the creative director at the high-end high street brand Whistles. She started by asking Katherine, who are the women at the helm of these high street brands? We're seeing some fantastic women who are becoming design directors of some of the high street brands that we know and love. Across Marks and Spencer's, we've got designers and fashion directors who are designing lingerie clothes for women.

And we're seeing women come to the top of whistles today. We've got Claire Wright Keller, who is now running the design area of Uniqlo, or she famously designed Meghan Markle's dress for her wedding when she was at Givenchy. So we're seeing some of the top women in UK fashion who are now designing for all of us. And that's interesting. And we'll talk about that designer versus High Street in a moment.

But what do you think some of these women on the High Street are doing differently? Well, I think what's fantastic, Mila, is that these women have come through businesses, they've, you know, gone gone off to design degrees and courses, and they've come up and they've learnt their craft through Rita's and they really understand how women think about fashion and about how women live their lives. So all of us have complicated lives,

we don't have a work life, a home life, a social life, and what these women do is they reflect the way that they live their lives in creating clothes that we want to wear at those different occasions. And I think we get much more into our psyche about how we feel about ourselves at different ages too, you know, not just in our teens, but right through to our 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s. So do you feel that's working, that concept that you're talking about there, that kind of wearable or different demographics? Yeah, I think so. I think the big difference is now is that, you know, when I was younger, that you, clothes for women who were 40 was sort of, you know, your mum wore and they

looked like old ladies clothes, didn't they? You know, they were very, very old fashioned. Whereas now you look at the clothes that are available, my daughters and I might wear the same things. You know, I'm in the fifts, they're in the late teens, and we might share things, we might go to the same stores. And I think there has been a real sort of democratisation of fashion, the way that we wear clothes, and women understanding how they want to feel is a massive part of that. And instead of that being just for the few, now it's for everybody. I think the difference of having so many great women in fashion retail in the UK is it proves it a really thriving and exciting industry. How difficult is it to succeed on the high street? We do know that

online global competition for that same consumer is fierce. Oh, it's unbelievably difficult. I mean, how do you come up with a outfit, a dress that has the right fit, the right colour, is on trend, and then sells to hundreds of thousands of women in the UK? It's a really difficult thing to do, and to do that at a price point that we can afford. And you know, what's happened a lot in UK fashion on the high street is it's sort of split up a bit.

So we've got at the bottom end, we've got fast fashion, quite cheap fashion, sort of thing you might buy at the supermarket or online. You've then got mid-market, the sort of Next, Marks and Spencers, John Lewis's. And then I'd say you've got higher market, not mid-market, so maybe Mint Velvet, Hobbs and those sort of places before you get to designer.

So it's very difficult as a retailer and a designer for a retailer to get that right. But when you meet these women, my goodness me, they absolutely know their customer, they know who she is, where she lives, what she does, what she eats, and they buy for her. And when you get that right, it's really successful. And when you see retailers going wrong in fashion, it's usually because they don't understand that woman. I find that so interesting that it's like the full picture of the woman, what time she gets up at her, what she eats, or what she does, instead of thinking like the big event that she might be going to. Yes, and I think it's really important to understand that one. So if it is about big events, it's about what you want to do.

So, you know, you might want to go to the races with your friend, and you might want a fantastic outfit, or you might want to go to a wedding. But most of us want some value out of that outfit. Gone are the days where we'd take one outfit, and that would be it, we'd never wear it again. So I think, you know, that kind of construction of collections, how do things work together is really important. And a lot of these women that work in the retailers are a kind of reflection of us too.

They're working women who've got challenges, who've got different things they need to wear. And I think they bring something different to it. What's the difference between High Street and Designer now, do you think? Because some of those upper levels of High Street the prices can be eye watering how do you see it well I think you're right I mean you look at the top end of the high street it can be really expensive can't I was I'm going to the races soon I'm looking for an outfit to buy I went to have a look at for a dress and some of the ones in what I would have called a mid-market chains and now 350 400 pounds I think to have a look at for a dress and some of the ones in what I would have called a mid-market chains are now £350, £400. I think that's a lot of money for a

dress. Other people listening might not agree. So I think, you know, one of the things is how much are we prepared to pay for the fashion that we want, but a lot of the high street retailers now are giving us accessibility into higher end designer. Do you think it's possible to make the high street profitable? I think it's hard work, but I think a lot of these fashion brands now are doing pretty well because they've got that mixture of online and in-store. But we do know that there is a big return to stores, particularly for things like fashion, where sometimes you look at things online, you buy them, but then when you go into store, you get more excited and you buy more pieces and you look for things that perhaps you wouldn't have tried otherwise.

Honestly, it's difficult on the high street, but it's certainly not impossible if you get your offer right. That's Catherine Shuttleworth, retail commentator, CEO and founder of Savvy Marketing. Thanks very much to her. I want to bring you now Jackie Markham, the newly appointed creative director of the high street brand Whistles. I started by asking Jackie what her new role will entail. So my remit, which I'm really excited about is to reignite the spark that Whistles

has always held in my heart. I've kind of grown up, I remember being at college in the 90s and I used to come to London to go to the whistle store in St Christopher's Place. So it was a real kind of destination store of its time. So I'd love to go some way to servicing what women want today. We're having this conversation about women designing for women on the high street. We were hearing a little bit from Catherine there that the philosophy has changed, that is the whole woman so to speak and I'd be curious about how

you're approaching it. Yeah I mean throughout my career I've never wanted to create this mythical person that I'm designing for or creating a visual proposition for. They're real women and they're all of us that we were, I've always been surrounded by amazing women. The teams I'm in are generally female dominated. So we are designing for ourselves at all different life stages, with all different pressures. I've never wanted to pigeonhole her. I've never wanted to put her in a box.

I've never want to put an age to her. It's just women that are really into style and want those kind of style solutions in their wardrobe to enhance their lives and keep it as simple as that. It's so interesting the age thing because Catherine spoke about that, that she might wear the same clothes as some of her teenage daughters. But I would have thought going in as creative director, instead there would be demographics of age for that woman. There is definitely a sweet spot, but you know, I would say it's probably the mid 30s is the sweet spot. But I do, I really do believe that if you're creating stylish clothes in beautiful fabrics with really flattering fits,

they will appeal to everybody. That's my kind of mission is to create really contemporary stylish clothes that enhance women and their figures and be really inclusive like that and not try and stick too rigidly to an age demographic. Do you think there's a difference between women designing and men designing for women? Well, I suppose I can only speak from lived experience. So, I mean, I would say a visionary part creative is visionary, whatever their gender. When I was thinking about this question, I was thinking, oh, it doesn't really matter. But then when I hear stats, like, I think it's 12% of women are at that creative director level in fashion,

I find that quite upsetting, you know? You know, 12% just doesn't seem seem enough really. And I do think of those kind of visionary designers that I look to and that I'm inspired by and, and they all do tend to be women. It's a very crowded marketplace now. And then and that's why everyone has to kind of bring their A game. And it is that sharpening of the lens. That's what I really, really want to do, is sharpening the lens and really elevate that whole brand proposition and to give women what they really want.

Cause I do believe there is a gap. There is a need there. Jackie Markham and Catherine Shuttleworth. Still to come on the programme, a new report that shows more middle-aged women are starting businesses than any other demographic. And remember that you can enjoy Women'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. It's free via BBC Sounds. Now a new BBC news documentary, The Sex Detectives, Keeping Kids Safe, has been released on BBC iPlayer this

week. It follows a groundbreaking project in Bristol which engages the help of street sex workers to protect children and young people at risk of sexual exploitation. Avon and Somerset Police have teamed up with children's charity, Barnardo's, and partnered with Bristol's street sex workers to gather intelligence about dangerous offenders and paedophiles. Nuala was joined by social worker Joe Ritchie, who is employed by Barnardo's and by sex work liaison officer Rose Brown. We're going to hear about sex work and child sexual exploitation, so some of this conversation may be upsetting. Nuala started by asking Joe Ritchie about the project called the Nightlife Partnership and how she would describe it. So it's an innovative approach to safeguarding some of our most vulnerable children in the city.

It's, as you described, a partnership program. So I co-lead it from Barnardo's with the wonderful Rose Brown from Avon and Somerset Police. And perhaps most uniquely, we work, we partner with the women, with the street sex workers. We very much see them as the experts. They are the eyes and ears when it comes to tackling nighttime exploitation of children and young people. So they help us in our aim of identifying children but also in identifying really dangerous men who are looking to harm both the children and the women as well. We'll get into some of, I suppose suppose the details, the instances that you did uncover, but my first question Rose really comes to, how does this partnership come about?

You're from the police, I would imagine it's usually an antagonistic relationship at times between street sex workers and the police. Yeah it can be, I mean in Avon and Somerset though we've been working with the on-street sex workers in a safeguarding capacity for about 20 years and sort of nationally are seen as best practice in this area and so we already had work that was undergoing where we went out engaging with the sex workers around sort of adult sexual exploitation, so assaults that are happening to them and disrupting curb callers and looking for dangerous sex offenders who are attending the area. However, Jo came

up with the idea of talking to the sex workers about what was happening with child sexual exploitation in that area and Jo found me within the police and then we started the sort of project. It'd been running for about a year, I came on board and then we've been running it now for about three years together and had some amazing outcomes when it comes to the information that the women have been giving us around sort of paedophiles, men that are attending the area looking for children, trying to access children but also children who've been identified out in the red light area who are at risk of that sort of serious exploitation. And it is not illegal to

buy sex but it is to curb crawl? Yes. Because you mentioned that term there. Yeah that's right so no it's not illegal to buy sex and it's not illegal to sell sex and the actual offences are the soliciting and curb-crawling. We don't enforce against the women and we take a harm reduction approach as we know they're incredibly vulnerable. Most of the women are homeless, they have severe mental health problems, Class A drug addictions, they're also repeated victims of sexual violence so we recognize that they are incredibly vulnerable they need that safety especially with on-street sex workers. We don't even say they're sex working we call it survival sex because

they don't really have sort of the same freedom of choice that say some more impaired off-street sex workers would have. Off-street. Yeah, so the level of exploitation with the on-street sex workers is off the chart. Most of them do have pimps or they would call boyfriends who are sort of forcing them into sex work. I want to play a clip from the documentary. This is a sex worker known as Anna, not her real name, and she is describing to Rachel Stonehouse from the BBC West investigations team that made this documentary what she did when a man who was paying her for sex revealed a disturbing sexual interest in his own child.

And the only way I could get more information was to pretend I wasn't at all shocked. Once you were sure you then thought you've got to report this to... Oh yeah, that was the only reason I was carrying on with it. I wouldn't have even been there if it really was nasty. I mean, it's a horrible thing to go through but if you think there's a chance that you're walking away and leaving a child in that position, you've got to stay, you've got to find out. And if you're wrong and then you report it too soon

and you are wrong, then you've not only ripped his life apart, his whole family's life apart. I mean, he's got a wife, he's got a job, he's got, you know. Do you know what's happened to him now? Oh, he's in prison. He has gone to prison. Mm, I went to court on that one. I think that is such a revealing clip, Jo. On so many aspects. One, what you're up against

when it comes to child exploitation. This man, I believe, it was his eight-year-old daughter, that Anna was trying to protect. I mean, people might wonder why do sex workers talk to you? Why do they trust you? That's a really good question. I think they are the most passionate when it comes to night light. They are really big advocates and really sadly that's because the majority of them have experienced child sexual abuse themselves. I have lost count of the amount of women that have said to me or Rose, I wish this was here when I was a kid because perhaps I wouldn't be where I am now. So I think they're really passionate about trying to prevent children from living the reality that

they sadly have to lead. But yeah, I mean Anna is one of many phenomenal women who have had such an impact in safeguarding many children. And I guess it's really difficult to quantify the impact. There's a lot of preventative work that's done through the work that we've done with the women. One thing I just want to be really clear, we don't task the women, we don't want to put them at more risk, they are incredibly vulnerable in what they do. But so how do you quantify that part? Because I'm thinking, Anna for example, we don't know all the details, but she did go with this man a number of times trying to verify the

information that in fact he was abusing his daughter. And we would never ask the women to do that. I think that was very much her approach. I think what we do is provide them with opportunities to speak to us with confidence that they're going to be safeguarded. I think a lot of the women are really nervous about what implications might be on them if they share information and so they're very much kept anonymous. So that's one thing we're really clear on. I mean Rose, do you worry about them feeling under pressure, particularly if they're as passionate as Jo says because perhaps they've had horrendous experiences themselves in the

past as a child. Yeah absolutely, what we do is when Jo and I are out on a plane car we carry sort of just food, drink, bags of clothing. Women can get in the car and be rummaging through the clothing because they generally have nothing, just what they're wearing. And it's a bit of a cover really for why they're in the car with us. And then there is absolutely no pressure. We talk to them about how they are, what's going on for them. So I'm obviously really interested in any offences against them as well, any adult sexual exploitation. And we've had a huge increase in that actually, as time's gone on, alongside an increase in the reports around concerns for children. I think as women, as the women have built

confidence and trust in the programme, they've actually spoken to us a lot more about the sexual exploitation that they're experiencing as adults. You know, exploited children and women involved in street sex work really rarely experience justice. And one of our main aims within Nightlight is to kind of help them have better access to the criminal justice programme and that's something that hopefully has really improved and we've seen that in the figures. But we know these women by your description as well are incredibly vulnerable at times and have been through horrendous experiences, maybe been on the street for many years. Do you feel you can trust them and what they say?

Oh absolutely and the information that they give us has resulted in some amazing outcomes. Like what? So a group of women were telling us that there was a particular male that had been raping the on-street sex workers, so we had a number of them telling us that this was happening. One in particular then gave us some information that he'd been stopped for no insurance. So we were able to do some checks and locate where that had happened and sort of ascertain who'd been driving the car. The particular male who'd been driving was wanted for a rape of a child in another forest area. We were then able to go and arrest him at the address.

Three of them said to us, kind of looked us in the eye and said, if you don't find him, one of us is going to be killed. So they were spot on. They absolutely knew the level of risk that this man posed. And I guess by them sharing that information he's in prison now and you can't even begin to imagine the amount of harm they've prevented from taking place, not just to themselves but to children as well. And when you tell them that? Oh they are so proud of themselves, rightly so, and I think that's what we really celebrate them, this project would not work without them. We look to them as the experts, like

I said they're the eyes, they're the ears, they're the ones with the knowledge and sadly the insight and they're absolutely phenomenal. But it has been wonderful. We've received a couple of national social work and police awards for the work, which we very much say are shared with the women. And talking to them about those awards has just been really wonderful. I think they're really proud of what they're achieving. Yeah, I'm feeding that back to some of the women. Like in the documentary, there's Megan who gave us information that led to safeguarding of two young children. When we fed that back to her, she was so proud of what she'd done and said, I've done something good today because

it had been so long since she's felt that way. Jo Ritchie and Rose Brown, The Sex Detectives, Keeping Kids Safe is available on BBC iPlayer. And if you've been affected by anything you've heard today, then you can go to the BBC Action Line website where you can find links to help and support. Our bank holiday programme on Monday was about the mistakes we make and the impact they have on our lives. Why do we often cringe when we make a mistake and what can we do to make sure we learn from them instead of letting them drag us down? Well, Nula spoke to one woman whose story of her mistake or faux pas was made into a Hollywood movie. I want to take you back to March 2003.

News is swirling about an imminent invasion of Iraq. Politicians are making the case for and against, and people around the world have taken to the streets to protest. Journalists are feverishly reporting on the story. Nicole Mowbray was working on the foreign desk at the Observer newspaper, where what could be considered a clerical error turned into an international incident. The film was called Official Secrets and starred Keira Knightley, and Nicole told Nuala how the event unfolded. It was 2003 and I just got a job as the foreign desk assistant at the Observer newspaper,

which was my kind of dream job because I grew up wanting to be like Kate Adie or somebody like that and when I got a job on a newspaper I was kind of like quite overwhelmed and I felt slightly out of my depth and I'd only I've been working in women's magazines before that so I kind of didn't think I had a hope really of getting the job. And so when I did, I was really put myself under quite a lot of pressure to do it well, and double check everything. And a few weeks into the role, I was given a piece of paper, which I think might have just come from like, behind a filing cabinet or something. And I didn't have any clue what it was. I was just told to type it was a Saturday and I was just told to type this piece of paper

into like the word processing system type thing that we had back in 2000. Yeah, and not to make any mistakes. And not knowing what it was, I typed it in and then I spell checked it because I didn't want to make any mistakes. And ultimately I anglicized the Americanisms in there. All the Zs to Ss, you know, that kind of thing. Yes, yeah. Adding a U maybe to favor it. Yeah.

Things like that. Bring us through then the trajectory of events after you have diligently typed in this memo, spell checked it. Yeah, come on. In my mind, I'd sorted out the mistakes that were in the document, you see, because I was working for a British paper. So I just, anyway, I filed it and I sent it through and I just didn't really think anything of it. I didn't know it was going to be a front page story and I certainly didn't know it was going to be about the case for going to war in Iraq. I didn't realize that until Sunday morning when I went to the shop and got a paper.

So when you got that paper though, you're like, huh, that's the memo I typed up. I realized it was a memo, but I still didn't quig that it was an American memo and I'd anglicized it. I still didn't quig that it was an American memo and I'd anglicized it. But when did it surface that in fact your diligence in spell checking and anglicizing actually was creating quite the international incident as some might call it? I was phoned on Monday to be alerted to the fact that had I done something to the memo, had I changed anything? And I think I'd said, I don't really think so. And then they sort of said, basically they sort of said, oh, this was a leaked American memo, you didn't emphasize it and the penny dropped.

And I sort of thought I actually, yeah, I did. What impact did it have on the story and on your colleagues? Yeah, that was why I felt so terrible about it, because I realized immediately what a massive impact it had. They'd all been sort of showered in disbelief, really, about the veracity of the memo. Very few people believed that it was real. So they firstly felt that the Observer

had printed a fraudulent or fake email and had been palmed off with a fake. And so before the papers spoke to me, they'd already done quite a few investigations as to, is this the real memo? You know, where did it come from? And obviously there's a duty to protect the person that gave the memo. So it was quite a difficult thing for them to have to go through. And it had already cleared lots of legal hurdles before they published the memo. So they had to go back on across all of that, and then they realised, you know, what had actually happened was just like a clerical error on my side.

But I think for a lot of them, it was like one of, really, by the fact that there was all this kind of confusion about whether it was actually real. And so we now know it was Katherine Gunn who'd given this memo to the Observer. Let me give a little bit of background on Katherine Gunn. So she was the British intelligence specialist working at the government's communication headquarters, known as GCHQ, risking everything to blow the whistle. And she had passed on this top secret memo that shows the US was collaborating with the UK to collect sensitive information on the UN Security Council members in order to pressure them, the UN members, into supporting the Iraq invasion of 2003. And so the clerical error has ripples.

Yeah, yeah, I mean it was a tiny mistake, it was just spelling mistakes, but it discredited for a short time their story. They were very disappointed in the fact that their story didn't get the rightful play in the media that it should have done because of this doubt about it. And because they all had to, some of them had to go on and defend the story without exposing who, how it came to pass. And it was very complicated. It overshadowed some of the, the points that were being made. And Catherine Gunn, did it affect her directly? I don't, I don't really know too much about, because I was really junior. But I'm sure that she had a long and protracted process about who she would trust to give this paperwork to in the

first place. And I'm sure, you know, if she could see the future, she would have. I'm sure that wasn't the outcry that she was hoping for. I think the outcry would have been better focused purely on what she was trying to expose rather than whether, you know, it was a propaganda war, which is what kind of came out of it. It certainly in the short term, in the long term, obviously things panned out differently. And we know what we know about the case for going to invade Iraq in 2003.

How were you in those days, those weeks? I just felt really ashamed. in those days, those weeks? I just felt really ashamed. I felt like I ruined this big story and I just sort of felt like I didn't, couldn't really live it down. And a lot of those days afterwards, I really didn't want to go to work. And I, my old editor and asked if my other job was available and it wasn't. So I was only 24 at the time. I think if I did that now, I would probably go through a lot more hand wringing then than then because I think I didn't really realize that you might only get one of those story spots in your career, I guess I didn't really understand

the seriousness of it. And also they didn't make me feel like somebody took me to one side and was like, it's just a mistake, try to just move forward. I think because it was quite a supportive work environment in that way, I didn't feel like on my own really. But obviously when someone takes you to one side and says you've created an international incident, unlike your first few weeks in a job, it's just devastating. Did it stay with you? It sounds like you obviously look at it differently now, you know, further

on your career than you did at the very beginning. I think it made me feel quite forgiving of other people's mistakes, because it is a horrible feeling to have when you've done something accidentally and not realised. And also we all do it, some of them are on a public stage and some of them are in private. But even if you like send an email to the wrong person, you know, you've all had that sinking feeling of done something really bad. And the only thing that really makes it better is time. And the other thing is because it didn't actually affect my career in the long term. I think if I had been let go or something, not that there was any suggestion of that, but if something like that had happened, then I'm sure I would be telling a different story

because I probably would have left journalism. So interesting. But then, you know, life progresses, years go on. But 16 years after that particular mistake, you're living your life and then you find out that a film has been made about Catherine Gunn's whistleblowing. How did you find out? What was your reaction? I found out because a colleague who's a journalist sent me a message on Facebook saying, a friend of mine is playing you in a movie. I take it you know about this. I was like, oh, what?

I don't know anything about this. So I was pretty mortified, to be honest, because also I felt like it was a long time ago and it wasn't something I thought of very often. My role was tiny in the film, and that was what I was told at the time. But because it's a key kind of story moment, for all the reasons I said, you know, it's a big turning point in the film when they realize that

this person's gone to all these risks to get this document out and then it's not believed. They were adamant that I would have, that someone was going to be me in it. So interesting. But also, Keira Knightley is also in the film. I should let people know it was a big film. But also, isn't it interesting that all those years later, it's still smart? Yeah, I actually, when I was invited to the screening with the people who are in the film, as in people who are played in the film, I actually cried when they showed my, yeah, the part of the film, because actually even people who knew what was going to happen sort of gasped. I don't know whether watching the film helped you process that mistake in any way or

whether you came out from the theatre feeling differently about it. Actually, what made me process it slightly differently was that I wrote a piece about it for The Guardian. I read that, yeah. And I was sort of dreading it because of the comments and I thought, oh, I hope they don't have comments on. And when they did have comments on, I was sort of, I didn't really want to read them. But actually all of the comments were really supportive and not all of them, but the majority

of them. And it made me think, oh, you know, I was just like a young kid really, who didn't, I didn't know, obviously it wasn't a malevolent mistake. And people were super supportive and being like, this isn't your fault. And I don't know, I guess I think I hadn't, I hadn't really carried it around with me,

but probably, I guess I did deep down think it was my fault for a really long time, but I just kind of learned to live with it and move on. And actually it was really nice to hear other people, especially people who'd read the piece or seen the film, say, oh, it's not your fault. Nicole Mowbray there, and you can hear the full programme about the mistakes we make and their impact by going to BBC Sounds and selecting the episode from Monday, the 5th of May. Now, a report this week from HSBC Bank looks at the obstacles and

opportunities facing midlife female entrepreneurs. Middle-aged women are starting businesses more than any other demographic, peaking between the ages of 45 to 55. But what's it really like to be a female founder in midlife? Eleanor Mills partnered with HSBC to write the report. She set up her own company Noon at 50. Helen Lord is the co-founder of ReHome, a UK-based business specialising in the resale of used and ex-display kitchens. She started the business when she was in her late 40s and won the Queen's Award for Enterprise in 2022. They joined Kylie Pentelow this week

to discuss the realities of starting and running a business. Well, what comes across incredibly clearly is the enthusiasm for starting businesses. Nearly 70% of women say they want to start a business, but only about 19% of UK businesses are actually run by women. And the big discrepancy here is around funding. So our report found that 8% of women have got a government grant to help them fund their business, while only 2% have got venture capital funding and only 3% have got a loan from the bank. And 69% have started their business on their own savings or by remortgaging. And so there's a real problem with the ecosystem providing finance to female entrepreneurs.

And there's a problem here because actually women entrepreneurs have a 35% higher return on investment, i.e. the capital that's put into their businesses, than men. So actually we're very good at running businesses, but we don't get the money that's required to help us thrive. And the other thing is there's an enormous opportunity in the whole market of midlife women, because we're behind over 75% of all discretionary spending, and yet we appear in less than 10% of advertising. So there's a huge gendered ageism piece here going on that market that marketers don't want to target older women directly and companies don't think

about our needs. So there's actually a massive opportunity here for midlife women to not just start businesses which serve everybody but to serve this particular cohort. When I interviewed Cheryl Sandberg a few years ago she said to me that these women I call them Queen Agers are the most lucrative and underserved cohort in the whole of the marketing firmament. So there's a massive opportunity here but too often the people handing out the money are men on the other side of the table and there was a very interesting study done by Harvard Business Review which showed that if you had a man presenting

exactly the same presentation about a business as a woman, they were 70% less likely to choose it if it had a woman's name on it. So there's a huge bias here in the system which is stopping loads of incredible female entrepreneurs, many of whom we profile in this report, from getting the kind of funding and the expansion that they need. So there's an opportunity here because this government is all about growth. We could add 250 billion to the UK economy if we funded female-owned businesses and help them scale in the same way that men do. But because of a kind of, I think, a kind of gendered-ageous lag in the system, that's a polite way of putting it,

women aren't getting the money that they that they should do in order to for their businesses to thrive. Yeah and just to back up what you're saying there, research commissioned by the Invest in Women Task Force and Barclays Bank showed that in 2024 2% of UK equity investment went to all female founder teams. Yeah and that's not kind of taking into account how much harder it is if you're an older woman. When I set up my company noon.org.uk which is a community of women in midlife and we're really interested in doing everything for women at this point, I was in a lift, I was at a media breakfast and I came downstairs and I was talking with some younger men, and they said to me,

how amazing that a woman of your age is setting up her own media company. And I thought, well, nobody says that to James Harding, my direct contemporary when I worked at the Times. So there's a real kind of problem in the way that we think about female business founders. And even ones who've been incredibly successful, like Trini, she had huge problems getting

founded because she was getting funded because she kept going into meetings full of men on the other side of the table, the investors who just couldn't understand that there was a massive opportunity in older women's skincare. That's Trini Woodall you're talking about. Trini Woodall, yeah, you know, the amazing Trini Woodall. Even she couldn't get funded. She had to sell her clothes. She did a massive auction to get the money and put a new that her house and rented it out

to get enough money to start Trini London. There's a huge problem here and an opportunity. Let's bring in Helen here. So Helen, you started your business Re Home in your late 40s. You're now in your late 50s. So what was it like for you becoming an entrepreneur at that point? I mean, first of all all I love the positivity here and it's great to hear that we're being recognised as a real opportunity to help the UK economy but my experience has been slightly different to lean into what Eleanor says, we funded our business through retained earnings.

And that was a decision we made very early on. We saw development of Rehome and we knew the possibilities for it. But from my perspective, I've always seen being a female entrepreneur and older as a kind of badge of honor and a backstage pass, if you like. And that may be because I come from a sales background and I'm always looking for the better if. But actually feeling that and letting that give me confidence. I've got one example, I mean we have received funding but

we've received it for services so we've worked with an MKTP programme and also a scale-up programme through Innovate UK and I have to say you, the badges of honor and the backstage passes really worked there. And I was able to drive that as part of the narrative and the reason for supporting our business with it being a sustainable business and also being headed by an older female. You said retained earnings there. You mean basically the kind of savings? Yeah, we didn't spend anything. So anything we made in the business, any profit, we've we squirreled away basically, which, which, you know, might because I'm female, and I didn't feel the need to go out and spend lots of

money or take lots of money out of the business, you know, I've been very frugal, I suppose is the best way. But one thing I did do that I thought might be useful is just bring to the table that we can challenge these decisions. We had an issue where a national organization, a B2C domestic organization said no to taking Rehome on board. domestic organization said no to taking Rehome on board. And I literally drove it through to the board of directors and had a meeting with them and said, this is not acceptable. You know, just because of one nuance or something, you won't accept us. You should be, you should be supporting female entrepreneurs.

You should be supporting sustainability and ageism is just not allowed. And, and it worked. And they actually changed their decision. So that would be my main advice. Don't don't take no as a no. Yeah. And I think, you know, as women, we're, we don't like no, and we might go off them, but we don't challenge it and that can be about us potentially being a little bit more risk adverse. But age has given me that level of determination and perspective where I can actually say well actually I don't like this, I don't think this is right. Well we've had some comments from our listeners about this and one that reflects what you're just saying there, this person says I'm 58 and I've just finished five years at university

training to be a vet and intend to start my own probably mobile veterinary business. I knew what I wanted to do from a very early age and have finally realized my childhood dream despite being told in school by careers advice to become a secretary. She says, if you want to do something, you've just got to find a way to do it and not listen to people that try to tell you otherwise. Do you think that is something, Eleanor, that you might hear this, whether it's reality or a voice in your head saying, oh, I can't do this, I can't do this at my age or because I'm a woman?

Well, that's exactly what my organization is here to remedy. We're all about women starting new chapters at 50. 50 is only halfway through. It's lunchtime. We're all going to have to work till we're nearly 70 before we get a pension and lots of women are also being exited from the corporate world at around 50. So it makes sense to set up a business. It helps you have the lifestyle that you want. For many women it's what they've always wanted to do so it's the realization of that incredible ambition. And I love your correspondence saying she's going back to Chalmers' event. We see lots of that in what we call our Queen Ages, and many of them are going back to study or they're doing the things that they really wanted to do, say when they were in their

20s, life got in the way. We've been like raising families, you know, say when they were in their 20s, life got in the way, we've been like raising families, you know, earning a living. And actually at 50, for lots of us, there's an opportunity to go back and find those dreams, to start again. And starting a business is really part of that. And it's really important that there's an ecosystem of funding which allows women to do this. Men are not bootstrapping their businesses on their own savings. They're getting investment allowing them to scale quicker. I mean, I absolutely love what Helen's talking about, but it's really important that we actually allow women to be ambitious, to go for their

dreams and we elongate thinking about women's careers and their possibility over 50. Helen, obviously you've been successful in your business, but did you think you faced that? That people were asking you why you were doing this as a woman of a certain age, if you like. Somebody said to me when I was about 40, other people do this, so why can't we? And that was my personal friend and it really resonated with me. But if that person hadn't have said that to me, I don't think I would have done what I've done. It kind of just switched a light bulb on in my head, you know, the fact that I'm female shouldn't matter. The fact that I'm older shouldn't matter.

In fact, it's a badge of honour and it's a backstage pass. Eleanor Mills and Helen Lord with Kylie there. That's it from me. On Monday's Woman's Hour, Nuala will be joined by the Beverly Knight, whose latest theatre role sees her transforming into the godmother of rock and roll, Sister Rosetta Tharp in Marie and Rosetta. Join us at 10 on Monday. Dear daughter, the lesson that I want you to take from this is simple. Visit 10 on Monday. Shared so many moments of laughter and tears. Words of wisdom. Never be afraid to take risks. Education is your greatest weapon. And letters to their daughters.

Dear daughter. Dear daughter. Dear daughter from the BBC World Service. Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts.