Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour - Pottering, BAME Eating Disorders & Ditching Shame

Episode Date: October 31, 2020

Pottering can be described as keeping busy without a plan or purpose. We hear from a self-confessed potterer. She's life coach Sarah Longfield, and we also have Anna McGovern, who's written a book called Pottering: A Cure for Modern Life.Statistics pulled together by NHS digital tell us that more people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities are being admitted to hospital because of eating disorders. We hear from a parent whose daughter was recently diagnosed with an eating disorder and from Professor Sandeep Ranote who's a psychiatrist and expert on eating disorders. Concern over the state of our planet is at a record high but who holds the real power? We hear from Karen Shackleton the Founder of the Ilkley Clean River Campaign and Emma Howard Boyd, Chair of The Environment Agency.How do we ditch our shame? Comedian Grace Campbell has written a book called Amazing Disgrace. It's about growing up feeling shameful about sex. It's also about mental health and being jealous. She joins the psychotherapist Gabrielle Rifkind to discuss how we can get rid of our shame. We hear from Emma and Ashlee who left care just before they were 18 and how they adapted to adult life. Mark Riddell, the National Implementation Advisor for Care Leavers, discusses what initiatives are working. And after going viral in a YouTube video, singer Charlotte Awbery tells about her journey from waitressing to being a guest on The Ellen Show.Presenter: Jane Garvey Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed Editor: Siobhann Tighe

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.

This is the Woman's Hour podcast. Hi, good afternoon. A warm welcome to the weekend edition of Woman's Hour. Today, why more people from black, Asian and minority ethnic communities are being admitted to hospital for eating disorders. We'll also talk to more women doing their bit to make our environment better and what it's really like to go out in the world after you've left care. It was a very busy home. I was always doing something and something was always happening and there was always a lot of adults around, I guess. Seeing about six adults in a day to seeing

no one, I think that was kind of the terrifying part. Like you just didn't have my support and I just fell apart. More on that later we'll also have the singer Charlotte Aubrey on going viral and then getting to the Ellen show and are you any good at pottering it's the art of doing important but let's be honest quite dull jobs quite slowly. The draw with the keys and the batteries and the elastic bands and things like that you know just taking that time to just pick one drawer. Don't give yourself the challenge of, right, I need to overhaul all of that stuff. You just go, right, I'm just going to sort out this one quite slowly.

Yes, in lockdown, many of us have got even better at the unsung art of pottering. Much more on that issue, and it's an important one, let's face it, later in this edition of Weekend Woman's Hour. First, though, statistics from NHS Digital say that more people from black, Asian and minority ethnic communities are being admitted to hospital with eating disorders. This week, Paulette Edwards spoke to a mother who's a GP. Her daughter has just started treatment for an eating disorder. The family's Indian and came to England from South Africa many years ago. My daughter's age 15 and currently undertaking her GCSEs. During lockdown, she became more isolative, more irritable, which we thought

was part and parcel of her being a 15-year-old. However, from being a really well-rounded, healthy young lady, she started avoiding mealtimes, and we noticed a pattern emerging, and she became more and more anxious. She eventually broke down one day and said she's really struggling with her eating and her weight. She's been throwing away food, preoccupied with thinking about how much she's eaten, how little she should eat, and she couldn't cope with it any longer. We were so grateful that she did come forward with what she was experiencing. And we spoke to our GP and we have referred her to the eating

disorder clinic and we are waiting an appointment as it stands. So thankfully your daughter didn't need to get to the stage of having to go into hospital but data does say that hospital admissions are rising in black and minority ethnic communities. Why do you think that is? My feeling is that there is a lot of embarrassment, shame, guilt around anything to do with mental illness. And particularly when it comes to our children, we don't want to feel as failures as parents and we do not want our community to see us as failures. So there's a lot of secrecy around mental illness.

And eating disorders among young people would rank quite highly amongst the hierarchy of secrecy. And perhaps that's why the symptoms go out of control and young people end up in hospital more ill than we would like. And you did say that there is some embarrassment with some families when it comes to dealing with mental health issues, dealing with eating disorders. Why do you think that you in particular, your family in particular, has not come under that umbrella? Within our family, we have struggled, of course, to see our daughter go through such anguish just to face a single Weetabix in the morning. So yes, we have struggled from a personal point of view. But I think the fact that she spoke to us openly and we immediately created an environment at home whereby I said, no, we need to speak about this within the family, with her younger brother, with her dad, with her close friends, with our close family. That made it a bit easier for us and i think in terms of communities and i'm from an

african caribbean community there can be some you know people can look outside the family at your family and and and make judgment so we know about that for you that that's not been an issue is that why would you say that was um perhaps to do with my profession, perhaps to do with the... Well, I think perhaps to do with the fact that we're an immigrant family, so we do not have as much of our family here in our country. Our communication with our family is via, you know, internet and so forth. So we don't have, we're not faced with that every day. Amongst our ethnic minority communities, similar to yours, food is a big part of our culture. We take pride in feeding our family, we take pride in feeding our friends. So I would find it quite

hard to face a social situation where I know my daughter is struggling, but we would persevere with that. COVID, of course, has resulted in us not meeting our close friends and family socially. So we've not had to face that difficulty as yet. Professor Sandeep Ranaut is a psychiatrist and expert in eating disorders. Why do you think then that more people from black and minority ethnic groups are being admitted to hospitals with eating disorders? One of the things I just want to start by saying is what an amazing mother, what a great story. Thank you for sharing that story because actually

she's put it all there so beautifully and eloquently. And it's that power of story that is our key to breaking the stigma, increasing understanding and making sure that everyone gets access to treatment because it is there and we can help. So why do I think it's complicated? There isn't one reason. You've said you're from a black African family. I'm South Asian, Indian, Punjabi. There isn't one reason. There's such diversity within the BAME population as well, culturally, socioculturally. This data you're referring to is across the last three years. I would say it goes back about five years that we've been seeing an increase. Important to note that there's been an increase in all ages and in all communities, white Caucasian as well, on the backdrop of an increase in all mental health presentations. So I think that's really important as a starting point to understand this data. But it is steeper in the BAME community. And that I think is really important for us to analyse more. We need further research in this area. Actually the UK is one of the leading countries in mental health research

and eating disorder research but we need to invest and we must not stop investing in that research. When we talk about eating disorders as well there are many of them so that's important. What would be important to look at in this data is what kinds of eating disorders we talk about anorexia bulimia and binge eating disorder mainly and we see the height steepest rise in the black African community but is it the same as in the Indian is it the same as in the white communities could we actually be seeing a mixture of illnesses making therefore the presentations more severe requiring requiring hospital admission, presenting later?

So that could be one of the reasons. I think the mother that spoke, spoke very eloquently about one of the other really important areas, and that's cultural. I come from an Indian Punjabi family. Everything about our culture is focused on food, family, festivals, festivities, eating, drinking, getting together. It is absolutely vital that families and parents are seen to feed their children, to feed each other. And to not would be almost an insult or a disrespect or, as you said very rightly, bad parenting potentially. So there's a lot of blame.

Mental health in general, we still struggle with the stigma in BAME communities and actually the belief that they're real illnesses. Research tells us these are real illnesses, neurobiological illnesses. We know genetic factors are important. We don't have all the answers. Could there be cultural, race or gender factors? One thing the research to date tells us is eating disorders affects all cultures, all races, both genders, although more females, and all socioeconomic groups.

Can we talk to you a little bit about, if you don't mind Sandeep, we're just asking you about your particular experience of treating black people with eating disorders. So when I first started out, I'm getting old now, 20 years ago, particularly 15 years ago, services were patchy at best and really variable and some areas in our country didn't have any specialist services. It was difficult to actually reach out or get to see many people until they were very unwell. Over the last five or six years we've had additional investment for young people's services and across the whole of the UK services for young people are vastly improved and we are now going to be seeing that happen very importantly

across all ages and in our adults but specifically in the BAME community ten years ago I wasn't seeing in my clinics people from BAME backgrounds that doesn't mean it didn't exist and it wasn't there but we weren't seeing them at the specialist service end and that's that was really worrying over the last five years we are seeing them I see that as more positive than previously. But when we do see them, I think like the case study today, it is difficult for them. They find it really challenging. It's hard for them to accept, to understand it sometimes as an illness. It's hard for them to share with others in their community. So that peer support that's so vital isn't necessarily there for them. Paulette Edwards talking to Professor Sandeep Ranote

and to a mother with a daughter starting treatment for an eating disorder, and we wish her well. Jackie emailed to say, I listened to your conversation with real interest as the mother of a mixed-race girl diagnosed with anorexia in March. One of the biggest hurdles has been the why us feeling. With anorexia, my daughter never lied, never hid food and was never overly body critical. What we've discovered since the diagnosis is that she is autistic, something again that BAME

girls very rarely get diagnosed with because they are so good at masking it. She had a chronic bowel condition and her answer to the pain was not to eat. The message from government, media and school is a constant battle against obesity. The battle we now have is to convince her that yes, mango is a healthy alternative to chocolate, but you need the calories. Her school has been wonderful, but that message is still a constant. Yes, our sympathy to that listener, Jackie. And of course, you can email the programme whenever you like via the website, bbc.co.uk forward slash Women's Hour. You are welcome to suggest ideas for the programme as well.

I think it's really important that you keep in contact with us. Let us know what you're thinking about, what you and your friends are talking about, particularly right now when so many of us are challenged in all sorts of different ways. Let us know what this programme can do for you in terms of covering what worries you right now. We do know that public concern over the state of our planet is at a record high. There are all sorts of targets, international and national. There are strikes, the state of our planet is at a record high. There are all sorts of targets, international and national. There are strikes, the talk of banning plastic straws, but it does sometimes feel that change, real change, can be a bit slow. So why isn't real change happening

faster? You'll know by now that the Woman's Hour Power List for 2020 is about our planet. And thank you to the hundreds of you who suggested women you want on that list. Women from your street, from your town, who are doing something to improve the environment, either locally or nationally. On Monday, we devoted the programme to answering that question about the pace of change. And our guests included Emma Howard-Boyd, Chair of the Environment Agency, and Karen Shackleton, who is a local campaigner, the founder of the Ilkley Clean River Campaign

and somebody who was suggested as a person who ought to make the Women's Hour Power List this year. Here's Karen on what got her going in terms of her local river. I was approached by a local fisherman who was discovering that instead of catching fish on his line, he was catching sanitary towels, condoms and these so-called flushable wipes. And he'd found out that every time it rained, there was raw untreated sewage being discharged into the river

by the Yorkshire Water Company, the water company. So I thought, I'd better go down and have a look and see what's happening. The force of the raw sewage entering the river was going so fast that it reached right across to the other end of the bank and as far down as the eye could see and it was just a grey cloudy river which was basically an open sewer and this went on for a whole week I thought well what can I do about it but I'm as vice president of the Wharfdale Naturalist Society I thought well I'll bring this up at the committee meeting so I sat there in the meeting in a room full of committee members and was told, well, we're not a campaign group,

we're a wildlife group, which is quite correct. And it's allowed by permits issued by the regulatory body, the Environment Agency. So what can we really do about it? There's not a lot we can do about it. And I remember looking around the room thinking, oh, well, it's up to me then. Let me bring in Emma because she's obviously with me and heard all that. Why would that ever happen, Emma? Can you explain that?

When we see extreme rainfall, the sewage works have the permission to, instead of the flooding, the water backing up into people's homes, to emit the sewage into the water. And that is set out in regulation. It is set out in our permitting. What we're now doing... What does that mean? So that is allowed... That's allowed. That is allowed because of the rainfall events that we are increasingly seeing from climate change. One of the things that we're now working with closely with communities, but also with the water that we see from the streets are going

into combined sewers. So they get overwhelmed. Where we have seen that happen in London and with the Thames, we now have a major, major infrastructure project called the Thames Tideway, which is dealing with that surface water to allow the surface water to be separated from sewage. Effectively, our systems were built many, many, many years ago. Just to interrupt you a little bit, I'm just thinking of people listening out of London who will immediately have spotted that it looks as though on the face of it, the Thames and London has been prioritised over places like Ilkley. Is that fair? We're working up and down the country to make sure that we are doing things right for the environment. Where we have bathing water status for our coastal areas around the country we have been separating out our surface water from going into our sewage outfalls so that is around the entire country

and if you look at where we have got to after many years of investment, many beaches up and down the country are now safer for swimming. Yes, but you seem to be saying at the beginning that the situation in Ilkley, which I know has improved, thanks in part to the, more than in part to the efforts of the Environment Agency, but situations like that will have to be lived with because of climate change unless we invest more in this so it's partly about investing but it's also about how we create more space in the pipes so that is just by making them bigger it's as simple as that changing but also making sure that we're not flushing down into the sewage systems things that create and block the sewers. Right, just light wet wipes, light sanitary.

All of the things that Karen has observed going into the river are the sorts of things that we, as members of the community, should not be putting into the sewers. Let's bring Karen back in. Karen, how much have you changed thanks to your groundwork? Yorkshire Water have been actually brilliant really because they've taken on our concerns, reacted to it and have promised to investigate and look at solving the problem and invest in Ilkley sewage treatment works. The problem that we came up against was actually the permits that Emma's just described.

And we were saying the permit is set too low, that it's not happening under exceptional periods of heavy and extreme rainfall. It's happening under everyday normal rainfall conditions. We were finding it was happening in under half an hour of rain and we're in Yorkshire. It rains in Yorkshire, believe me. Yes. So let's ask Emma about that. So we have put in increased monitoring across the country. We have set up a storm overflow task force led by DEFRA with other regulators, Ofwat, which is the financial regulator for the water companies,

ourselves, the Consumer Council for Water, alongside Water UK, we are working actively to come up with a plan to deal with combined sewage outfalls. And one of the things that we want to do in the early months of this new task force is look at the trigger levels for when the wastewater treatment plants are looked at, including the permits. Just very briefly, Karen, you can answer this. Is there any such thing as

a flushable wipe? There's no such thing as a flushable wipe. The situation is so bad now that these combined sewage overflows are discharged so regularly that there are places in the Thames where the banks are so full of these flushable wipes, condoms, sanitary towels, that it's actually altering the course of the Thames. Is that true, Emma, that the course of the river is being changed by sanitary towels and so-called wet wipes and flushable wipes being put into the system? I think in certain parts of rivers you

see such a build-up and I have seen firsthand from visiting sewage treatment works the volume of wet wipes etc that are going into the drains. Whether it's really changing the course, I haven't heard of that, but I know that the volumes that we're dealing with, we need to create more space in our sewers, and that is one way that we could make a real difference. Other initiatives that I know that Karen and her group have been working on is also how you keep rainwater out of the system. So encouraging members of the public in Ilkley to put in water butts that stop small amounts of water going into

the system. We're also working with the water companies on sustainable drainage systems. So where water, again, doesn't go into the combined sewage network, but goes into, for example, parks. So again, this is water that is, I'm not talking about sewage, I'm talking about the rainfall that goes onto our streets, so that it can be observed elsewhere. This is again, where we need to work with developers to make sure that these sinks for water become something that is absolutely the norm, rather than as tarmacking over greater parts of the landscape. And what teeth do you have? So we have enforcement and penalties. Financial penalties.

Financial penalties. Financial penalties. But if I put them in the context of financial services and penalties there, the size of fines are incredibly small. Even our largest fine for a water company, 20 million pounds, is only 10 days of operating profit for that company. So again, I come back to this point about we get the environment that we pay for. One of the things that gives me huge courage is the amount of businesses who are stepping up and calling for greater powers, greater regulation, because they understand that a healthy environment is absolutely vital to a healthy and prosperous economy. So we're beginning to see that come to the fore. We're beginning to see that from the investment community as well. We have the government's 25-year environment plan. We have an incredibly important environment bill, which will be making its way through Parliament. But we need to make sure that the

targets that it's set are the right ambitious level that will allow change to take place. And a fundamental part of the 25-year environment plan is that this is about government as a whole. And I think we will see power change when environment becomes an issue for everybody, all departments, rather than a smaller department within government. Emma Howard-Boyd, who is the chair of the Environment Agency, also involved in that discussion. Karen Shackleton, the who is the chair of the Environment Agency, also involved in that discussion. Karen Shackleton, the founder of the Ilkley Clean River campaign.

And don't forget the Women's Hour Powerless 2020 to be unveiled on a programme from Kew Gardens on the 16th of November. Hope you can catch that one. Now, shame is something we've talked about in the past on Women's Hour, and it tends to be an emotion associated with women and what you might loosely call the female experience. Grace Campbell is a comedian and the author of Amazing Disgrace. It's about growing up with

feelings of shame around sex and rejection and mental health and feelings of jealousy as well. She was involved in Friday's programme in a conversation with the psychotherapist Gabrielle Rifkind, who started by defining shame for us. It's probably one of the most least talked about and yet one of the most powerful emotions. And it's like an overwhelming sense of self-consciousness, of badness, of feeling unworthy.

You could almost say it's as if our body's blushing with embarrassment or disgrace. It's the deepest of feelings. We've done something we shouldn't have done and we feel a mixture of regret, a need to cover up, to hide. It becomes so secret, too shameful to talk about. So what we then do is we withdraw deep into ourselves and it turns in on us and it can lead to self-abuse,

drug abuse, panic attacks, even suicidal thoughts. And this terrible sense of being left alone with feelings that in our mind we're no longer lovable. Where and when does it start? Well, I think it starts around two years old. And when we, with the advent of language, and of course this is very deeply culturally bound. And so, for example, we'll see in the Middle East

that homosexuality is an area of terrible shame and a source of punishment. You take Iran, which is really interesting. People can legally actually change sex, but sexual activity between members of the same sex is illegal and can be punished by death. And so what happens, people start feeling like pariahs in their own culture. Right. I think we actually learn the shame in our own families and where we feel that we're not lovable and behaving in a way that they want us to. That's very serious. And I don't want to immediately take the conversation hideously down market,

but I think it is worth acknowledging that, Grace Campbell, the cover of your book, Amazing Disgrace, features a young woman who I think could well be you riding on a cloud in the shape of a penis. Let's be absolutely honest about it. And this is a book you say about shame. So Grace, where did yours start? Well, it's a book about and shame is in quotation marks, because what it is, it's a book about things that I was taught to feel ashamed of, but I don't think I should feel ashamed of shame that doesn't belong in me, shame that doesn't belong in young women

of my generation. So I'm 26. and I feel when we were growing up there was a lot of shame thrust upon us and I I mean listening to Gabrielle sort of define it in that way it gave me goosebumps because I was like that's exactly how I felt my entire life okay exactly how you felt or were made to feel well made to feel I don't think so for example I'm going to talk about masturbation there you've just described the cover of my book. I'm not going to hold back. When I was a quite young child, I started masturbating and I was so deeply ashamed of that because nobody had told me it was a normal thing for a girl to do. Not a single person until I was 21 years old legitimised this thing that I've been doing on my own. So I was deeply ashamed of that. What about your friends? They must have talked about it. No, because we all projected that shame onto each other.

So while we were all doing it, because no one at school, no one in our families, no one in sort of culture had said to us, that's a normal thing that girls do as well. We knew boys did it. Everyone knew boys did it because boys spoke about it all the time you know you you actually make a good point what about masturbation and women gabrielle well i love what grace is saying because what she's talking about is this is all in the realm of the ordinary and she wants to normalize it so it doesn't actually go underground and become shameful that you know that it becomes an area that's pleasurable, that you befriend, that's part of who you are, that's not humiliating and all of that. We have to, I think, mention, Grace, I know you won't mind because a large chunk of the book is devoted to your parents,

who are Fiona Miller and Alistair Campbell, names that many of our listeners will know. You say that a lot of your insecurity comes from your childhood and Tony Blair, and I love this, Tony Blair stealing your father. Tell us about that. Oh, totally. I mean, I was competing with Tony Blair from when I was baby because the month after I was born, my dad started working for Tony Blair. On my third birthday, Tony Blair won his first election. Both of my parents worked full time at Downing Street for the first sort of decade of my life was dominated by politics. So in the same way that, you know, when you don't have your parents enough, particularly my dad, because he was completely consumed by his job, I was so jealous of this person it wasn't

necessarily that he was the prime minister he was the person who had my dad's devotion so of course I was jealous of that because I idolized my dad and then it gave me a really weird complex because growing up I was both very arrogant because I was like well I'm as good as the prime minister because when I'm with my dad he's obsessed with me so I must be as good as the prime minister because when I'm with my dad, he's obsessed with me. So I must be as powerful as the prime minister. But at the same time, I'm not the prime minister and I wasn't getting that devoted attention from my father. So it gave me this really sort of deep arrogance and insecurity, which I still live with today. Do you think how, if at all, does that impact on a sense of shame? Well, I think some shames, like, so for example,

one of the things I talk about in the book is my shame in how awful I feel when I experience rejection. And now this is something that, again, I don't think I should feel ashamed of because rejection is something that we go through in life. Like it's just a really normal part of life, rejection in work, rejection in relationships, rejection in friendship.

It happens and it's just a really normal part of life rejection in work rejection in relationships rejection and friendship it happens and it's never a nice experience but it used to make me feel like a complete and utter failure and like Gabrielle said earlier shame can make you feel unlovable and that's I was so ashamed of how much I would get rejected by men in particular that it made me feel completely unlovable and like no one would ever love me. And as a result, I used drugs and substances and drank too much to sort of numb some of that shame that I was feeling. That's why Gabrielle's definition really sort of made me feel so much. OK, let me put that to Gabrielle. Is what Grace went through, I think it's fair to say, an extraordinary adolescence? And I guess you can't go through that kind of childhood without it having an impact on the way you see yourself, Gabrielle. Yes, but everybody does different things with it.

And I think what's so wonderful about what Grace is doing in her book, it's very ballsy, it's very direct. It's actually speaking to all the stuff that goes underground um but but people have different reactions to experiences and and what's that happening and you know this idea that she was in competition with Tony Blair and and what that did and then she describes the kind of hubris and the huge insecurity that that brings at the same time. And I think that's just beautifully put. Your parents have read the book, haven't they, Grace?

They love the book. They really do. And it is very ballsy because I overshare in the hope that other young women in particular, I want everyone to read this book. But I hope young women will read this book. And then they just like Gabrielle said, they bring a lot of this stuff from the underground and talk about it in a completely normal dinner time conversation way. Yeah, I mean, I enjoyed the book, too. I suppose if I was going to ask you a challenging question, Grace, it would be, is there a young heterosexual male equivalent, someone of your age, but a young straight man writing a similar book and owning their mistakes and their shame? I cannot think of one. I must say, and the book, look, I don't at all hate men. I love men and I've got so many incredible men in my life. But one of the things I do talk about in the book is that I feel young men of my generation

were sort of given the wrong kinds of education, particularly around sex. And as a result, we were kind of a lost generation in terms of consent and really sort of like damaging things because of the internet and everything that was happening then. So do I think there is a man equivalent? I'm not sure I can think of one. I'm not sure that men are quite there yet. But I do think the conversation with men and shame is opening up now in a good, healthy way. Grace Campbell and Gabrielle Rifkind. An email here from Katie, who says, I'm a songwriter.

My most recent single, Where Does It Hurt, is all about shame and the embodiment of shame when we don't deal with it. I realised more recently it's very much about the shame I felt coming out in the early 2000s. I am very happily gay now, but that shame runs deep and the internal homophobia learnt from a young age is as hard to deal with as the homophobia of others. I recommend at least two years of therapy for everyone, says Katie. Monday morning's programme, I think I already know that the highlight is going to be a conversation with Jane MacDonald. She very much is the queen of Channel 5 and the queen of cruising, of course, although you can't go on a cruise at the moment. I very much have a fantasy about perhaps one day doing a duet with Jane MacDonald.

I fear it won't happen, but the song, if I were allowed to pick one, it would be Charlene's I've Never Been To Me. I think we could really, really do that well together, actually. Now, we know that leaving home can be incredibly hard for just about anyone. But if you're a young person leaving care, foster care or residential care, then it's exceptionally tough to go out into the world on your own without any kind of level of personal support. Paula Edwards this week spoke to Mark Riddell,

the National Implementation Advisor for Care Leavers, to Ashley, who left the care system at 17 and is now 18, and to Emma, who left care when she was also 17. She is now 22. Emma told Paulette what it was like. It was quite terrifying, I guess, like just being kind of shoved in the big wide world by myself. Yeah, I guess I sort of had work and other things to kind of focus on.

So, yeah, I didn't really work and other things to kind of focus on. So, yeah, I didn't really kind of feel the full effects of it for like the first year, I think. I kind of just blocked it out because I didn't want to think about it. Let's talk about the terrifying. That's a pretty big word to use about leaving home, which, you know, I was scared when I left home. When you say terrifying, what were the things you were worried about? I think being by myself, kind of of because we went from a house it was a very busy home I was always doing something because something was always happening and there was always a lot of adults around I guess and then kind of going from yeah seeing about six adults in a day to seeing no one I think that was kind of the terrifying part like you just didn't have yeah all this kind of your support network just fell apart.

My support network just fell apart. Ashley, for you then, were you actually looking forward to leaving? Once I had actually left, it did start to feel quite lonely because you don't actually realise how different it's going to be. But yeah, to begin with, I was really looking forward to getting my own place, getting my own place getting my own independence. And what was set up for you then Ashley what was already there for you? So they had planned for me to move in to a place which was close to my family and I had support from the SCSC

within break give me support for when I did leave. Right can I just go back to you Emma because you said that you enjoyed living independently at first you used the word terrified you kind of got yourself used to it but then things changed that went quite bad for you but the charity break knocked on your door how do they offer you support? I guess they just reminded me that yeah they just relayed what they said to me as a teenager and as a young person is, but that we're always there for you and you are a kind of part of the family. And I think, yeah, kind of knowing that kind of, yeah, they actually come, like, you know, we'll turn up at our door if they need to, to make sure that we're okay. I'm going to introduce Mark Riddell to the conversation now.

He is an international implementation advisor for Care Leavers. So how do you help then? My job is the National Implementation Advisor for Care Leavers in the Department for Education. So my job is to go out to local authorities, talk to them about the new pieces of legislation that were introduced a couple of years ago around extending their

corporate parenting duties around ensuring they've got a local offer in place which is essentially about rights and entitlements that young people know exactly what they're going to get from their local authority as they begin to transition from either foster care residential care in towards more independent living and crucial to that bit is listening to the two young people that you've got on the show today to talk to them about their stories and for them to tell us the things that we get right in local authorities so I'll talk to local authorities about making sure that young people are financially ready to move on they've got a good independence package they've got the levels of support that continues to follow them all the way to 25.

So essentially that's my role from a local authority point of view. And the second part of my role is to talk to government about policies, about having a better offer so that it makes the job in local authorities a little bit easier to support young people who are becoming care leavers.

And Mark, you've got your own experience of living in care, haven't you? I have, yes. I mean, I grew up in the northeast of Scotland and, you know, it was a difficult experience. I mean, I grew up in quite a nice family to begin with. And, you know, I watched, you know, levels of domestic violence in my family between my mum and my dad. My dad was a chronic alcoholic and eventually my mum died of levels of abuse that had gone on for years and years and years and we ended up living with my dad and become very neglected and ended up in care when just after I was just after my 10th birthday and stayed there till I was 16 so leaving care at 16 going to 1984, which seems a long time ago.

But being in care, it's our history. We never really forget what it's like to grow up in care and leave care. And I left care with some of the stories that I still hear today, which is a bit disheartening. But we have made significant strides. Not saying that it's the best. I think we've still got a lot of work to do but I think we're in a better place than when I was and I think to hear one of your young people talking about it was terrifying and when I left care it was absolutely terrifying because you're moving

from a children's home into a one-bedroom flat and in those days there was no legislation there was no support workers so having someone like break or you know a personal advisor who can support you is the absolute crucial bit because when I left care we didn't have that relationship and you know when I talk to young people throughout the country they talk about this is about having a good safe honest relationship with someone not always a social worker or your personal advisor but it could be someone from break. It could be a mentor. It could be, you know, a charity or something. So that menu would have certainly helped me out when I was 16 and 17. I'm hoping that that's the support that young people get today. And Mark, we're looking at the basics

here, aren't we really? Better housing, healthcare, employment opportunities. Is it a challenge to talk to the government about the real changes that need to happen for young people like Emma and Ashley? I mean, it can be a challenge. And again, we've seen significant challenges during the pandemic. And, you know, when I talk to ministers, certainly our minister, Vicky Ford,

when I talk to her and I talk about some of the issues that have been around, you know, certainly before COVID and we're trying to get, you know, far better policies in place so that local authorities have rain fenced housing for care le of the biggest employers in the country if we combine 151 local authorities. So we can try and get local authorities to employ young people in the family business like you would do with your own kids if you had your own family business at home and ring-fencing that so that we pay them a decent wage or we offer them an apprenticeship

or we support them to get the best results from GCSE so they can get to the colleges and to get to universities. So I think we're getting there with it. And it's certainly in a better place than where I was when I left care. But it is a challenge and we will see some more challenges coming our way during this pandemic. Can I just go back to Ashley for a moment? Because Ashley, I got a little bit of a sense of what it was like for you. Who offered you support then? Because you said that one of the things, I read that one of the things that you struggled with

was building relationships. How are you now with that? I think for anyone that has previously been in the care system struggled to form relationships with people and it's mainly because they've been let down so many times that they build up a defence mechanism. But there were like a load of people, like I said before, in the SCSE team,

trying and being very persistent, who eventually got me to kind of open up a bit and to kind of talk about what was going on after I'd left. And do you mind telling us what SCST is, Ashley? Staying close, staying connected. And that helped? Yeah, it's basically like a leaving care thing within break. Right. Can I just go back to you, Mark?

You were talking about Children's Minister Vicky Ford and this week the government announced new guidance for councils. So this new guidance, from what Vicky Ford has said, will directly support care leavers to live independently and prevent them being homeless, building on the excellent work many councils are already doing for young people in care. She says that everyone has a responsibility,

government, businesses, universities and local authorities alike, to support care leavers at this crucial time in their life do you think that that's going to be enough to make a difference to young people like emma and ashley yeah and i think it's it's building on what we've got in place already and you know we're seeing some really innovative work within the sector, certainly in the Greater Manchester area, where the guidance that's come out this week will support the GM view that actually what you have to do is try to work across the whole system.

So, for example, in the housing sector, in the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, which is led in relation to the Care Leavers Trust, is that they've brought 26 housing associations or housing providers together to make sure that when young people do come to leave care, they get to pick a tenancy in one of the 10 local authorities. If they make a mistake and they don't feel ready,

you know, maybe after a month or six weeks and they feel as though they're not ready for that level of independence they can be stepped down to maybe a taster flat or a training flat so we're not making these young young people homeless because they've made a mistake in social housing so i think the spirit of the guidance is really not so much just about that model but the spirit of the guidance is to say actually we've got to do a lot of that early intervention a lot of that preparation work to get young people ready. And it's OK to make a mistake. You know, we have to do what we do with our kids.

If they made a mistake living in my house, that we give them another opportunity to do something differently. But we still support them. So the guidance is building on what we've got already in place. And I think the biggest challenge, but like, you know, know, is the amount of housing stock that we've got. And, you know, we just have to work with our private providers, voluntary and charity and social housing to get the best deal that we can. Mark Riddell, Emma and Ashley talking to Paulette Edwards on Women's Hour this week. Now, here's a really good story that hopefully you'll find life enhancing. We'll put a little bit of a spring in your step. It's about a woman who went

on an underground journey. A man stuck a microphone under her nose. She got spotted basically and eventually ended up on The Ellen Show. Charlotte Aubrey, here she is. happy in this modern world or do you need more is there something else you're searching for i'm falling how does it feel to hear that oh it, it's lovely, really, really lovely. I mean, it's mad.

Well, it was all happening and then obviously the pandemic hit. But I've been working on an album at the minute, so hopefully next year everyone will be able to hear my own material, which is all good, it's exciting. Wonderful. So take us back to what happened then on the underground. So I was literally on my way to meet a friend and then this crazy guy ran up in front of me

and asked me to finish the lyrics. And I'm a singer anyway, so I did. I didn't really think much of it. Luckily it was Shallow, which was already in my set that I'd been doing for sort of different parties and stuff like that. And yeah, I just sung, really. What did happen next then? The guy that actually came up to me,

he put the video onto his own Instagram and somebody had taken it from his Instagram and put it onto Twitter, which I was unaware of at the time because I didn't actually have a Twitter. My friends were phoning me saying that it was going viral. And then at the time, I was on the way to fly out to New York for a quick five-day trip with my friends. And when I landed in New York, it was viral and people were recognising me.

So it was, I was mad. It was unbelievable. It was good, though, but it was scary at the same time. So how did you feel then? It was surreal. I bet. How did you feel then? It was surreal. I bet. How did you feel when you were invited onto the Ellen DeGeneres show in America? That must have been pretty spectacular for you.

It was. I just couldn't believe it. I just could not believe what was going on. It sounds mad, but it just felt like it was a dream. I couldn't believe it was happening to me. And then the next thing i'm on and then i'm singing shallow and oh it's just it was mad it was it was absolutely brilliant all of it but you seem to me as if you'd rehearse that moment had you had you thought i am going to be famous someday i am going to be standing where people can see me singing, a bigger audience. Have you thought about that ever happening?

Yes, yes, definitely. I believe in universe and I put it out there what I want. But, you know, I'd always dreamed of being somebody and being an artist and doing my own music because I've always done covers and I've always been doing weddings and parties and stuff like that. But you always think, oh, will it happen? But in my mind, I wanted it to happen and I could sort of envision it. But then when everything started sort of going viral

and then I was on Ellen and then it just seemed, it seemed unbelievable that it was happening. And then the pandemic and things changed. So how were you then? Quite a few performers came to a complete standstill, didn't they, then the pandemic and things changed so how were you then quite a few performers came to a complete standstill didn't they during the pandemic how was it for you then charlotte well me along with loads of singers musicians artists everyone it's a really it's been a tough time for everyone and i've not worked since um because obviously you can't at the minute. I've just used this time to do my own writing and just be creative really with working towards my own songs and my album.

But yeah, it's not been a great time, but I think the whole world, we're all in it, Everyone's in it together. So I'm just being positive and just, you know, as I say, just being creative and doing lots of writing. And I'm also trying to learn the piano. So I have a guitar, but the guitar I've given up with for a second. But yeah, the piano is next on my list. That's Charlotte Aubrey talking to Paulette. And it does cheer you up, doesn't it, to know that stuff like that still happens.

It's still going on for some people. Now, there has been, I think it's fair to say, a spate of really quite phenomenal pottering over the last six months in Britain. Well, everywhere, let's be honest, as we all just try to do something with the amount of time we have to spare. And I appreciate that some of you who are carers with young children at the moment haven't got all that much spare time. But come with me on this journey. Some of us have got more time on our hands right now. And pottering can be hugely beneficial if you learn how to do it right. Sarah Longfield is a good potter. She's also a life coach. Anna McGovern is the author of Pottering, A Cure for Modern Life.

Here's Sarah first. I used to be kind of like a once a week potterer, but I think lockdown has enabled quite regular pottering in my life. OK, and just define pottering for you. I think pottering is different for everybody, but for me, it's about doing the things that I need to get done, but doing them a bit slower.

So it might involve some beadwork. It might involve a bit of pottering around the garden. I'm a terrible gardener, but I like to try a bit of cooking, you know, just doing things like that, but without a deadline. Yeah, OK. I mean, it's not doing nothing, is it? To be precise, your pottering sounds very constructive. It is constructive, but I think, you know, time's so precious. You know, I'm a self-employed single mum. I'm constantly feeling like I should be achieving everything in the time that I've got. But when you actually focus on pottering, you can slow down a bit and still get that stuff done, but just do it a bit in a bit more of a gentle way. Anna I'm surprised you've written a book about pottering I mean honestly how did you

get round to it? Well that's a very good question it's quite short I mean it is actually a bit of a struggle to write 18,000 words about doing not very much. But I really tried to pin it down and think, I think Sarah's already said a lot of the really important things, that it's slow, it's gentle, you're going at your own pace, you're doing things that you really like to do. Yeah, the phone is the real 21st century curse here, isn't it? You can't potter with a flaming phone in your hand, can you, Anna? No, no, no.

I mean, I try and keep away from my phone and I kind of consciously put it to one side. I personally think you need to take away the reasons for checking your phone because I find that once I'm on it, I'm sort of stuck on it. And so I sort of made a list of all of the the analog things that you can do to keep yourself away from the phone so you know make a list with a pen and a paper instead of writing a note on your phone or the one I really like is is getting a

watch so that you check your time you check your time the traditional way rather than your phone and, you know, write things down on a calendar. So you're kind of minimising your interactions with your phone. I'm not saying that it's not important to have one. It's just that just take a break from it. I'm interested in the fact that you, on your pottering day, you started to find a community, didn't you? Well, your community, in fact.

Yes. I mean, because I was out and about in my local area, you know, it was great because, you know, for one thing, I saw my friends and my neighbours more. You know, we had cups of tea. I waved a hello. But as I was wandering down to the shops you know every time I sort of regularly saw people so I always said hello to the lady in the

supermarket got chatting to the guy in the deli uh caught up with a butcher on the high road and you know you're you're the more that you you do have these kind of interactions you know the more you get to know people. And, you know, I love passing the time of day with anybody that I come across. You know, you're not in the car, you're going slower, so you're walking or you're taking public transport. And it's just a really kind of gentle way

to drift through your day. Listening to you, I'm really conscious that when I go out now, and I do love, I'm always going to the shops, even if it is literally for a lettuce and um some a sprout you know maybe more than one sprout um i've got my flipping ear but i've got my earbuds in and that's because i'm podcast mad as well as radio mad that's anna that's probably not helpful is it really well you know i have to say i think listening to the radio and having that kind of verbal in the in the background is is absolutely a pottering activity um i do like to to not have a headset on when i'm um having a walk um i think you're taking the the sounds of your local

environment and you're a bit more alert to the things that are going on around you you're not absorbed in sort of listening to a podcast in the same way the thing is that actually there are no prescriptive ways of doing pottering if that's the way you choose to do it then you be you yes i can't believe i mentioned sprouts i don't think i've bought sprouts in living memory so why i reference them i've no idea um sarah there is there is a domestic chore that you do that i've certainly done um the is it a cutlery draw getting that stuff out of the cutlery draw yeah well it's just you know picking one draw it could be you know i've got several draws that would be potentially described as a

man draw a man now hang on this is woman's hour what do you mean by sweeping generalization alert yeah a little bit there but you know the draw with the keys and the batteries and the elastic bands and things like that, you know, just taking that time to just pick one draw. Don't give yourself the challenge of, right, I need to overhaul all of that stuff. You just go, right, I'm just going to sort out this one quite slowly. Anna McGovern and Sarah Longfield. Sue says a couple

of months ago, I moved from a to-do list, which at times would quite overwhelm me, to a did list, where I made a list of what I'd done, even if it was taking the things at the bottom of the stairs up to the appropriate room. If I put them away, I counted it as two things. I found that this made me feel better and I welcomed the pottering lifestyle rather than the task-goal approach as I actually managed to get more done while not experiencing the stress. Bit of sound advice there.

Join us live for Woman's Hour just after the news at 10 on Monday morning. I'm Sarah Treleaven and for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake.

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

Settle in. Available now.