Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour: Rachel Stevens, Woman's Hour Election Debate, Jill Halfpenny, Interracial Marriage in the US

Episode Date: June 24, 2024

Rachel Stevens was one of the founding members of S Club 7, the pop band that took the world by storm in the early 2000s. She joins Anita to talk about her memoir Finding my Voice: A story of strength, belief and S Club, which covers her time in the hit-making band, her solo career and what it's been like being in the public eye.In a special extended 90 minute programme, Nuala McGovern hosted the Woman's Hour Election Debate. Senior women from the main political parties of Great Britain outlined their priorities for women and answered your questions.Taking part were: Scottish National Party spokesperson for Consular Affairs and International Engagement Hannah Bardell; Reform UK candidate Maria Bowtell; Green Party spokesperson for Housing and Communities Ellie Chowns; Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats Daisy Cooper; Conservative Minister of State for Disabled People, Health and Work Mims Davies; Labour's Shadow Minister for Industry and Decarbonisation Sarah Jones and Plaid Cymru’s Westminster Leader Liz Saville Roberts.Actor Jill Halfpenny has starred in popular TV series such as Byker Grove, Coronation Street, EastEnders and The Cuckoo. She won an Olivier Award for her role in the musical Legally Blonde and she won the second series of BBC 1's Strictly Come Dancing. But, two tragic events have framed Jill’s life story; when she was four years old her dad died suddenly of a heart attack. Then in 2017, in similarly tragic circumstances, her partner Matt died. Jill talks to Clare about confronting her grief head-on, something she examines in her new book, A Life Reimagined.For over a century, many Americans believed that interracial marriage was illegitimate and until the late 1960s, the American legal system supported that belief. Wedding Band: A Love/Hate Story in Black and White is a play written in the 1960s that explores the impact of these laws. Anita is joined by Monique Touko, the director of a new production of the play, and American historian Dr Leni Sorensen who had a black father and white mother in 1940s California.Can you ever really be just best friends with the love of your life? Laura Dockrill talks to Nuala about the thrills and awful heartache of first love, the inspiration for her first adult novel, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’Presenter Clare McDonnell Producer: Annette Wells Editor: Louise Corley

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Clare Macdonald and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour with me, Clare Macdonald. There is a sprinkling of stardust today as Rachel Stevens, one of the founding members of S Club 7, is here to talk about her life, her time in the band and what it was like being in the public eye. The author Laura Dockrell tells us about her latest book, some of it based on her own story of first love and falling for her best friend. I just thought love really wasn't for me. I was so, as a teenager, I was always friend zoning myself, could never find the boy zone

and then annoyed when I met this really lovely guy. What age were you? I was 14 and we made mixtapes for each other, love letters, mixtapes and letters that I would spray with white mask body shop in the hope that that would entrance him. We'll be hearing about a new production of the play Wedding Band, a love-hate story in black and white that explores the impact of laws that stated interracial marriage was unnatural known as the anti-miscegenation laws plus the actor jill halfpenny on love loss and facing her grief head-on in her new memoir so no disruptions for the next hour just

you me the radio and a cup of what you fancy. S Club 7 were a British pop band that took the world by storm in the early 2000s. Kids and adults alike learned the dances to their songs, joined their club and even watched the band on their own TV show. One of those members is Rachel Stevens. She went on to have her own successful solo career and has graced our TV screens in shows such as Strictly Come Dancing and more recently Dancing With The Stars.

Now she has a book out, Finding My Voice, A Story Of Strength, Belief and S Club. It's Rachel's debut memoir about her life, her time in the hit making band, her solo career and what it's been like being in the public eye. Rachel joined Anita earlier this week and she began by asking her,

why publish a memoir now? Why now? I mean, the opportunity came up and yeah, I had to really think long and hard about doing it because if I'm going to write it, I was like, I have to be really honest, really open and tell my truth. And that's something that honestly I've, through my career, through life, found really difficult to just let my, I've always had this sort of protection up. And I was scared of that because I wanted to really, you know, be honest. Well, writing this book then is facing a fear.

It is. Opening up. I mean, honestly, sometimes, well, a lot before, especially interviews, I would feel my heart would race and I would think to myself I'm just having a conversation I'm just talking but for me going through my career interviews have felt like a very exposing thing for me um so I always found it really really hard because I would self-censor I I would feel like my words would get stuck in my throat um trying to articulate everything I felt you know I was very I'm someone who sort of would think a lot. I'm a very deep thinker and would feel a lot

and couldn't access the thoughts with the feelings and just be myself and just be in the moment. So it's been a real sort of process to unravel everything and put the pieces back together. So when you look back at you starting out in the S Club, young you because you're only a teenager, having to do those interviews, like what was going on? Why were you self-censored? I grew up in a home where I felt like a lot of emphasis was put on looks and how we looked and the outside. Yeah, you say that you're seen and not heard, that kind of...

You had to be well turned out well turned out um and I felt like I just had to be a certain way and I just felt like I wasn't seen and wasn't heard um growing up and and that sort of carried through my life and and interestingly um really carried through into S Club because that was very much about how I looked and it became a real emphasis on that and everything was just inside and I kept just kind of pushing it all down pushing it all down and it's all there isn't it doesn't go anywhere but it manifests in other ways so it would manifest in anxiety worry um real low self-esteem I mean gosh it could go on and on but yeah it was a lot to unravel yeah yeah and also I guess your position in the band I mean you're so ridiculously beautiful and you and I suppose everyone was especially in the 90s especially a woman in the pop industry at the 90s they see you as a certain way and maybe you were the you

know the gorgeous one and you maybe you weren't expected to say anything well yeah it was it you know it was it was a concoction of so many different things. I mean, being in a pop group at that time, everyone saw the sort of final, polished, glossy finish. And everything that I... I came into the band at a very sort of shaky time in my life. My family had just sort of fallen apart. My parents had separated. We'd lost our home. I was very, like...

I didn't have that strong sense of self or a foundation of family, which was everything to me growing up. So I kind of went into the band and was like, I was always very driven, very career driven. And I just threw myself into it 100%, but became this version of what I thought others expected me to be. And yeah, you know, like you said, being a teenager,

you're still finding yourself. And I did, I found it very hard to sort of I've very got very lost in it yeah but it came to you as a real gift I mean you were working in the canteen at Sony and in the background somewhere hundreds thousands of young people were auditioning to be in this new super group that they were putting together a real sliding doors moment sliding doors moment in your life because two record execs just saw you and said, do you fancy being a pop star? I mean, obviously I'm paraphrasing.

You tell the story. Yeah, well, no, exactly. I mean, it really was such an, from then on, it was a real whirlwind. I mean, they approached me to, they said, literally said, can you sing? I mean, it was a pipe dream, obviously. You know, I remember like, I was so passionate about music,

always singing, but I'd never been was so passionate about music, always singing. But I'd never been that kid who'd auditioned for things. If I was going to be in a school play, I'd be the tree. You know what I mean? I wasn't like. What were you singing in your bedroom or who were you singing? Oh, God. I was.

Oh, God. Well, I grew up with a lot of like the greats, obviously Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna, Elvis. Elvis. My brother was a big Elvis fan. So he was always playing my dad loved soul music so a lot of like Teddy Pentegrast and Dusty Springfield, oh my god I could go on and on

and on and then I loved my pop as well but Rick Astley Kylie Minogue, Rick Astley it's crazy how I thought of him first. Well he's got an amazing voice that's why on great pop songs. He just came to me straight away Kylie, Jason, that whole thing and Madonna you know so I just loved to me straight away. Kylie, Jason, that whole thing, and Madonna, you know. So I just loved music.

But I never thought, I'd never been to drama school or auditioned or thought I could sing. I didn't, you know, I just, but I was like very career driven and I was always like if an opportunity presents, I'm going to go for it. So I was a real contradiction in a way. So yeah, I just was like, yeah. And I just kind of

went along and it was for a solo artist that they were putting together this real manufactured pop artist called Lolly and I fit the bill I looked like you know who they thought she would look like and I went into the studio started recording and unbeknownst to me S Club was being put together and auditionings auditions were happening and it all went from there and so with that do you feel them I mean I think this comes out in your memoir a bit a bit of imposter syndrome oh my gosh yeah absolutely massively and of course I didn't really know what that was then. I mean, we talk about it a lot now. We talk about it now, yeah. You know, we all say it. Mental health wasn't a thing then. No one talked, really, or talked about it.

So everything was just going on inside. But what I feel very grateful for is I've always been passionate ever since I was young about mental health and growth and self-development. I've always been so curious about why I struggled so much with anxiety as I got a little bit older why I felt it's so hard to just be vulnerable and allow myself to be myself I didn't know who myself was at that point but yeah just to um questioning really questioning and how did you navigate it how did you cope and it's the 90s it's pop music in the 90s 2000s I should say it wasn't 90s it was 2000s FHM loaded and you were

on the cover you were you know one of the key pin-up girls of that time yeah I think I coped with just pushing it all away and putting the smile on and putting the show on and just sort of being who I thought people expected to me but then behind the scenes I was therapy I was I've been in therapy since I was really young and I needed an outlet I needed someone to I was always searching basically for answers and understanding as why I found it hard so hard to connect and sort of be open and what was going on there was a lot of confusion that I was carrying and I think a lot of shame and a lot of so much was going on. So I was always searching. And so that was my coping mechanism was to put that protection up.

But it really started to do the opposite, obviously, and not serve me in any way because it would hold me back from so many things of being present, of human connection. And you make choices of more, I don't know if this is the right thing to say, but more sort of surface choices in a way of your life when you're not fully connected to what you really need, want, deserve. You don't know how to set boundaries, all of those things.

I mean, as I've gotten older, we're all learning on the go, aren't we? And we're just muddling through. The best, you know, life is messy and it's a constant working on ourselves. What was it like having the other band members around you? Oh God, we had so many incredible times. I mean, but we were all kids really and we were all finding our own way.

We all had our own stuff going on like we all do. And we worked so hard um which for me was I mean it taught me such a strong work ethic and like I've said I've always been so driven um and career driven um and always known that you've got to put the work in to get the the results so and we did I mean we had an incredible time we worked with some of the best in the business um and our music really does stand the test of time you know so absolutely but we had fun we did we did have fun and you're back but obviously um we must mention because we know that in april 2023 um you as a band learned the

about the passing of paul catamount i mean what was that time like for you all oh it was just heartbreaking i mean we'd all come back together everyone was really excited he was so excited about it um and it was really special um getting to know him again as grown-ups and sort of we'd have we had a couple of really lovely chats and he was just such a beautiful soul um but yeah it was really heartbreaking and we took time to just obviously the tour was in motion at that point but we took time to just process and um but there was no talk of the tour not happening it just kind of stopped and then we were like it all it took on a whole another uh beautiful thing of a tribute to him and a celebration of everything i mean 25 years in

itself is such an incredible thing. It's huge. And we really got to celebrate him, which felt like a really special thing to do. And it's a very special thing to be able to do. When you say 25 years though, Rachel, there will be people sitting up going, that has dated all of us.

To think that S Club has reformed. It's just to tell me we're like 10. Is it one of those things? Do you feel, I mean, obviously you're an adult female now, but you know when you know someone from a certain period in your life and they will forever be that person? You'll forever be a teenager. That's no bad thing.

I thought that when I was listening to that. I'm like, oh my God, it takes me back to being 19 again, for sure. Rachel Stephens there and her memoir, Finding My Voice, is out now. On Tuesday this week, Nuala presented an extended edition of woman's hour our election debate we heard from senior women representing the seven main political parties of great britain who answered questions on issues that you have told us matter to you in this general election the participants were not told the issues or questions in advance. The politicians taking part were in the studio, Reform UK candidate Maria Botel,

the Green Party of England and Wales' spokesperson for housing and communities, Ellie Chowns, Daisy Cooper, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats. And on video link, we had the Conservative Party's Mims Davies, Minister of State for Disabled People, Health and Work. Hannah Bardell, Spokesperson for Consular Affairs and International Engagement for the SNP, the Scottish National Party. Labour's Shadow Minister for Industry and Decarbonisation, Sarah Jones.

And Plaid Cymru's Westminster leader, Liz Saville-Roberts. One of the topics you wanted us to discuss was how safe you feel, whether you're in your own home, on the street or online. Listener Kate asked, what will your party do to tackle the growing violence against women and girls, from prevention to culturally appropriate support for victims. First to answer the question on keeping you safe was Conservative Party's Mims Davies. Well, first off, domestic violence is criminality in the home and it absolutely should be treated as so. We have also obviously passed the Stalking Protection Act in 2019

to protect women with those stalking protection orders and the landmark Domestic Abuse Act in 2020, which also importantly brought children in as victims as well. And we've made it very clear in our manifesto that protecting women and girls,

women's safety is at the heart of what we do and just talking about the football our local police and crime commissioner katie bourne and many others are doing work around this to make sure that this is not an extra time that women are vulnerable as well and we've also conservatives have been in power for 14 years. These issues, we've seen them so recently, as I mentioned, Sarah Everard and others. Why do you think that the Conservatives have not been able to get to a level of safety that women who are getting in touch with us feel is appropriate?

Yeah, as I say, we brought in the offence of stalking in 2012, the Modern Slavery Act in 2015, again, focused around human trafficking and protection for the victims and for the women. And absolutely, I think we have had a focus on this

and it continually needs to have a focus, whatever government is in place, in my view, hence the work that we've done around the Domestic Abuse Act. And I think it's something that's brought us across the house together in terms of listening and learning and working together. And I think trust in police in particular is very important in terms of helping us to all feel safe. But, you know, I did a call in, Mims Davies, I did a call in not that long ago on Woman's Hour and there were many stories of people not feeling safe when it came to the police. Let me hold it there because I do want to get answers as well from our other participants. The Safe Streets Fund has gone out to local authorities, police and crime commissioners. Mim Davies, we have to leave it there. Let me turn to Daisy

Cooper. Sorry, please don't speak over me. Daisy Cooper from the Liberal Democrats. Thank you. Well, I mean, in the last parliament, one of our MPs actually pushed through the Worker Protection Action Act, which would give a legal duty on employers to protect their employees from sexual harassment. We brought the upskirting offence into law and we also led for the ban on revenge porn. So we've got a good strong track record in this area. In terms of things that we would like to see, the first is that we'd like to make misogyny a hate crime.

But, you know, the Law Commission review did say that that risked creating hierarchies of victim and it may prove more harmful than helpful. Making misogyny a hate crime? Correct. Absolutely. There are lotsny a hate crime? Correct. Absolutely. There are lots of other hate crimes that already exist. And what you would do is you're not creating a new offence.

You're actually saying that it would become a more existing offence would become an aggravating offence and it'd be taken into account in sentencing. So there is broad support for making misogyny a hate crime and Liberal Democrats are committed to doing that. But there are many other things that we can do. So let me keep that with you because I'm going to have to go around everybody quite quickly. And I want to make sure that everybody gets at least their take across. Sarah Jones for Labour, maybe you want to pick up on that, whether misogyny should be a hate crime.

Yes, it should. I mean, our country on the broader issue faces a tidal wave of violence against women and girls, and there is total impunity for the vast majority of those responsible. So we will set a target to half violence against women and girls, which is incredibly ambitious and will take a raft of measures to do. I mean, the first thing is to put specialists into our court systems on race and domestic abuse victims. The second is to have specialist domestic abuse workers in all our 999 call centres. We want to tackle misogyny. As I've said, we want to give domestic abusers no place to hide by introducing a new domestic abuse register.

We want to tackle the causes by talking about misogyny in schools. We need to have a strategy on incels in terms of our online harms. We want minimum sentencings on race, rape. We've got a whole raft of measures because this is a... So Sarah Jones, you have from Labour, you've laid out some of the issues you are looking at or hoping to implement if Labour comes into power. Maria Botel for Reform. Yes, I think it comes back to policing as well in terms of the people feeling safe and whether I feel safe or not.

And do you mean policing about the police being trusting the police or do you mean more policing in areas? Both. So we've said 40,000 extra police officers and also more stringent... Funded how? So that's... We've laid out our manifesto, our contract yesterday and that states there's lots of different areas that we wouldn't want to pull funding in from. Do you want me to go through them all?

Do you want me to talk about the plans? Give me one specific of how you'd fund it. So stop paying interest to the banks. Sorry? So the money that was printed, Richard Tice has said about not paying interest on it voluntarily, especially at the current interest rates.

And that, I want to continue going round the table, so that is your main issue. Well, for me now, I would say grooming gangs as well and making sure that if they have dual citizenship and they commit a crime such as rape or the part of a grooming gang, they are departed because that's not spoken about enough. Thank you very much Maria Botel. Let me turn to Ellie Chance, Green Party. For the Greens it's absolutely a priority to end domestic violence and violence against women and girls. We would make misogyny a hate crime across

the UK. We want to develop and implement a UK-wide strategy to tackle domestic abuse and violence against women and girls. We want more investment in the police. We want to make sure that they recognise domestic abuse and gender-based violence as key indicators on which their performance is assessed and that they're trained to recognise and tackle domestic abuse. And crucially, we want to fund local authorities so that they can support the rape crisis centres, the organisations that support women and girls facing domestic violence, because too often those organisations are facing a hand-to-mouth struggle.

I'm sorry, did you say, would you make misogyny a hate crime? Yes, we would. Yes, very clear there. Let me turn to Liz Saville-Roberts for Applied Comrie. How are you keeping, what would your party do to keep women safe? I would like to pay respect to Rhiannon Bragg, who I believe has appeared on this programme, Rhiannon Bragg of Roskattvan,

talking as the victim of stalking, a serious stalking offence. And she makes how evident we need to increase the sentencing for stalking. We need to improve training for police. We need to actually look at the licence orders of when stalkers are released. So we need to look at restraining orders as well, because the reality of what victims experience,

even though these actions will go through courts, but the offenders will be released and the control over them, looking at the way that probation has had cuts made to it, looking at actually the way that victims experience justice in the England and Wales legal system, as things stand, has to be changed for women to feel safe. In a wider view, I have worked on domestic abuse since I became a member of Parliament. I push for a domestic abuse register when both Labour and Tories push back against it. It is now being talked about as being brought in with the most recent legislation. You want a separate Victims Commissioner for Wales?

We very much want a separate Victims Commissioner for Wales? We very much want a separate Victims Commissioner for Wales because what we see with the daggy ditch of how people experience any of the services... Liz Saville-Roberts, forgive me, let me leave it there because I want to make sure to get in Hannah Bardell from the SNP before we go to the news. On the question of making misogyny a hate crime, we obviously commissioned Helena Kennedy, the Labour peer,

who did fantastic work. Yes, I think we should do that. We have an equally safe strategy in Scotland, which has done a lot to tackle domestic abuse and world-leading domestic abuse legislation. But also it's important to remember that our MP, Aileen Whiteford, who's no longer in Parliament,

she had a private member's bill to ratify the Istanbul Convention. We have to work more with police. I mean, Police Scotland did a brilliant campaign on Don't Be That Guy. We also have to engage men in the conversation as well. They're a huge part of this, but protecting women and girls in online spaces as well

and having a really serious conversation about the culture in Parliament too, because you've got to remember we have had some abhorrent behavior um in parliament and some terrible cases is that in your manifesto well i'll i'll um repeat that it was released about half an hour ago i um so i don't want to jump the gun on that but but yes make i mean in terms of much of this being devolved and and also we want to get rid of corroboration and that's something that that's been looked at by our Lord Advocate, Dorothy Bain,

which has been a major barrier in terms of rape cases. But we have to recognise that in Scotland, England, Wales, across the UK, that the rate of conviction of rape cases and even them coming to court is woefully low. And we all need to do more. And I just want to turn to Sarah Jones in Labour for 30 seconds, Sarah, if you don't mind. When it comes to prevention, there's talk about going into schools, for example, teaching children.

But what about men that are already grown that are to stop them carrying out these acts in the first place? It's all very well to talk about victims, but before a woman becomes a victim? 30 seconds. Yeah, no, I think the way well to talk about victims, but before a woman becomes a victim. 30 seconds. Yeah, no, I think the way that we talk about these issues in schools is incredibly important to teach men what it is to be a man, what's appropriate, what consent is and how that works. And there are some good practice in terms of schools and how they are doing that.

But not schools. I'm talking about when they're fully grown men. There are also projects, I can remember when I was shadow policing minister, that in South Wales they were doing some really good work, working with perpetrators. And in London, what they've done is they are identifying who the kind of most at-risk men are. Okay, so profiling in one way. Sarah Jones, thank you very much. Nuala was talking to Hannah Bardell from the Scottish National Party,

Reform UK's Maria Botel, the Green Party's Ellie Chowns, Daisy Cooper from the Liberal Democrats, the Conservative Party's Mims Davies, Labour's Sarah Jones and Plaid Cymru's Liz Saville Roberts. You can hear the whole 90-minute debate by going to BBC Sounds for Tuesday 18th June. There will be more election coverage right here on Woman's Hour as our series of leader interviews continue as we head towards polling day.

And do visit the BBC News election webpages for every possible twist, turn and detail on the general election campaign, including a full list of candidates standing in all constituencies. Actor Jill Halfpenny is best known for her roles on TV in iconic series such as Biker Grove, Coronation Street, EastEnders and most recently The Cuckoo. And on stage where she won an Olivier Award for her role in the musical Legally Blonde. She's also won the second series of Strictly Come Dancing.

But when Jill was just four years old, her dad died suddenly of a heart attack. Then in 2017, in similarly tragic circumstances, her partner Matt died. These two tragic events have framed Jill's life story. And in her new book, A Life Reimagined, My Journey of Hope in the Midst of Loss, she explains how as an adult she decided to confront her grief head on, which she'd been unable to do as a child. Jill joined me this week and I began by asking her what she remembered about the day her dad died. I don't actually remember a lot about that day. I was told about it by my sisters and my mum, but basically my dad went out to play a game of football, a friendly match, and he had a heart attack on the pitch and he died. So as far as I was aware, my dad left the house and never came back. And, it was 1979 we're in the northeast of england

we're not in therapy we're not talking about our feelings and i just um went to school in the september and i guess my mam bless her went into survival mode and we just got on and then what happened i think is really grief grief became my driver in many ways. You know, the sort of suppressed, unprocessed feelings became a driver for me to do things, to get out of my own head. So in some ways it drove my ambition for a long time because I just wanted to run away from any uncomfortable feelings I had. And it made you very successful. Yeah. I think, you know, you know, trauma as a driver works for a certain amount of time. And then unfortunately, it catches up with you and it says, hey, like you're running on the wrong

engine here. Like you really need to work out what is good for you and what isn't. And you need to really start processing things because that's not going because the the frightening aspect is if I process this pain if I really turn towards my feelings will I lose part of myself and no you won't for anybody listening you you absolutely don't what you do is you can just live alongside your pain and your grief in a way that's far more comfortable um that's that's what I've found anyway to go back to your mother for a second, as you say, it was the 1970s. People weren't talking about mental health openly, processing their feelings. Children were certainly not front and centre. They had to sort of look to the adults and take their lead. What do you think about what your mum was going through now, looking back, and how she handled it?

I think she must have been terrified absolutely terrified and she must have just thought I have to get out of bed every day I have to give my children breakfast and I have to send them to school and somehow I have to do that every single day from now until they're adults and I think what happens is as a child you don't have the vocabulary and you don't have the the words to be able to say are you all right because you don't look all right you know I don't I feel a bit anxious and sidemapped you know we don't have this kind of word so I think what happens is you know I grew up with a mum who was obviously in a huge amount of pain and was really scared and was

grieving but she because she wasn't telling me that that that was how she was feeling it it what happened was I became quite an anxious child because what I was saying and what I was feeling were in contradiction with each other so yeah and there was one moment in the book which is very um cuts through really that only once did she you recall her letting her emotions out when you heard her in this guttural cry and you just didn't know what it was you ran in to see what was going on yeah I was out I was playing out in the street and um and I ran into the house and I I heard what I thought was my mom laughing really really hard I thought how strange like what was she it sounded like

quite scary though the laugh and I came in and I I peeked around like what was she it sounded like quite scary though the laugh and I came in and I peeked around the corner and she wasn't laughing she was she was crying but she was wailing crying and she was hugging my then uncle and he just looked at me and he sort of just shooed me away with his hand and I guess you know from maybe that moment on, I realised that maybe I wasn't welcome in my mum's grief. And it's such a small moment, but we take those cues so vividly when we're kids. And we put them in a box somewhere inside of us and, you know, never to be spoken of again. And you say you're then uncle. Your mum went on to marry marry to marry my dad's brother yes and how was that well at the time again I was very young so as far as I could see it was um oh how lovely this man has stepped in

to look after our family and any and it was lovely and he is lovely and I've nothing but love for him but obviously there were people who maybe thought differently and had some judgment upon that and again it wasn't talked about so there was just a lot of undercurrent in my family of things that we didn't talk about and we just got on and I think it's just important for me to say as well that I think you know my childhood you know I was I had lots of happy times and I think it's just important for me to say as well that I think, you know, my childhood, you know, I was I had lots of happy times. And I think those can live alongside the anxious times and the sad times as well. I mean, you say when you kind of suppressed all these feelings and it came out, your medication was alcohol, wasn't it? Yes, it was.

When you left home. Tell us a little bit about that. So I think I always had this feeling that I didn't belong. I always had this, like, everybody else seemed to know the secret to life. Everybody else, like, knew how to live. And I didn't. And I never said that to anyone because I thought, well, people will think I've gone mad. And alcohol just quiet, just made the voices inside my head just a bit quieter. So I would dampen those voices down with alcohol.

And after a while, you know, it was in my sort of late 30s, I realised that I felt like I used alcohol in a way that maybe other people didn't. And I wasn't, you know, I want to make this really clear because I think addiction is fairly misunderstood. I had not got to the point in my life where I was destroying things or I wasn't able to hold down jobs or I wasn't able to hold down relationships. I was what you would call a very, very high function and alcoholic. But what I saw was a future for myself that I didn't want. I saw a future for myself, this relationship that I had with alcohol.

I thought, I don't think it's going to get better I think it's going to get worse so when I went into recovery it was for me trying to say no this I want more for myself and and and what can I do to change and the only thing I had to do was just stop drinking the alcohol and suddenly once I stopped doing that I was able to face and talk about so many things. It gave me the space to confront all of the things that I hadn't been confronting. And that was very, very useful, because I'm sorry to have to ask you about this next chapter in your life, but your partner, Matt, died in a very similar way to your dad. If it's not too difficult,

can you talk to us about what happened to Matt? Yeah, Matt was also very keen on exercise and he went to a spin class one morning and he died in the class. So it was very, very shocking and it was very unexpected and um once that had happened I just knew very very deep down inside of me I just knew that I was going to have to go on this journey and I was going to have to walk straight through it there was going to be no avoidance

there was going to be no over or under or around. I was going to have to walk through it. And I knew ultimately as well that all the feelings of grief that had been unprocessed from my dad, they were going to have to be dealt with as well in sobriety. That is so tough. So, so tough. And you, I mean, you detail it in the book. You know, you don't shy away from all the issues that that brought up in your life. By this point, you had a young son, Harvey.

How did that help? Because obviously you have a chance to kind of almost do your life over. So in your childhood, the adults around you said, we're not talking about that. You didn't take that path with your own son, did you? Yeah, I just remember thinking, OK, I've got to be as honest as I can with my son. And basically the approach I took was that I was going to be honest about how I felt, but I was always going to follow that up with, but I will be OK and I will get through it because we can.

Like, as human beings, beings we're amazing we're brilliant so I would often you know he'd come home from school and he's a he was a very eloquent sort of emotionally eloquent little boy anyway but he'd say how are you how was your day and often I'd say honestly Harvey it was it was pretty awful today I've spent most of it crying I'm really glad to see you though I'm glad you're home um do you mind tonight if we just watch our favorite program and cuddle on the sofa because that's about all I've got in me today and he'd be like yeah that's okay and I would just try and do it in that way because I just thought I cannot I do not want my son to look into my eyes and see this crumpled, pained face

and for me to go, everything's fine, it's okay, let's go to the park, it'll all be okay. I thought, no, I can't bear the idea that he's going to grow up and think, why is mum lying to me, you know? Jill Halfpenny and Jill's memoir, A Life Reimagined, is out now. For more than a century, many Americans believed that interracial marriage was unnatural. From the late 1860s through to the late 1960s, the American legal system supported the belief that they were illegitimate and deemed them illegal. Wedding Band, a love-hate story in black and white, is a play by Alice Childress that explores the impact of these laws

known as anti-miscegenation laws. Set in the deep south of the USA in 1918, Julia, a black seamstress, and Herman, a white baker, are defying the odds and objections with their secret love. The play is currently on stage at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith in London. Earlier this week, Anita was joined in the studio by Monique Toucone, who has directed the play, and also by Dr Lenny Sorensen, who specialises in African-American history and culture, who joined us from Charlottesville, Virginia, where it was only 5am. And Anita began by asking Monique why the play, although written in 1962 during the heat of the civil rights era, wasn't shown on Broadway until 10 years later. Alice wrote the play and in terms of her activism and in people within the industry just saying how hard-hitting it was

and how the themes were really resonant but also just quite radical for the time. So it took a while for the play to come on and be put on Broadway. So who are Julia and Herman, the central characters? Tell us about them. So Julia and Herman have been in a relationship for 10 years. It has been a relationship that has um it's been hard for them because both families both sides of the families have not been supportive of the relationship due to the time and the context um because of their relationship um our central female character julia has been moving and moving

and moving because of the risk of the relationship um she's a seamstress he's a baker he actually comes from a family where um the father was had some attachment to the Ku Klux Klan so um he's come from quite a racist context so the fact that they're together um is a big deal is a big deal but love conquers all as they say. And by the second half of the play the pressures from the outside of their relationship have set them up against each other. How do the people around the two of them respond to the relationship? So initially, Julia moves into this community in South Carolina. And she's only been there a day or so. And they find out about this relationship.

And initially, the women are quite um they're quite honest about how they are against black people and white people being together um so she's met with I suppose confrontation and also just judgment which she's been experiencing for many years and then on Herman's side of the family it's the same if not worse because it's his actual family so people are not wanting them to be together and also the context doesn't allow them to be together either. I'm going to bring Lenny in on this to give us the context but before you do Lenny, you are our expert and you're here as a historian but it actually is your own experience as well because your parents were an interracial couple.

If you don't mind me mentioning, you were born in the 1940s in California. So what was the reaction to your mixed family like growing up? Well, my mother's family, white family, So what was the reaction to your mixed family like growing up? My dad's family were very accepting and I knew them well and interacted with them whenever it was, you know, we visited. California, as you know, is a pretty big place. So we visited sometimes frequently and sometimes not so frequently. But I did. I knew my grandparents and my cousins. But your parents couldn't get married legally in California. So they had to marry in Mexico. Yeah, and they just handled it. They just did what they did. They were kids,

you know, they were young and impressionable, and they decided, well, they were going to get married, and they did. He went off to the war, so I was born in 42, and he ended up in Europe and as many marriages in that particular time didn't last theirs did not last but it wasn't necessarily because of racial issues it was just because of distance and time and they didn't know each other that well California was odd in that people who might have reactions kind of kept them to themselves, I have a feeling. Is that because it's more of a liberal state? I have a feeling, yes, especially after 1948 when the law changed. A black soldier brought home a German war bride.

And in order to have his marriage recognized legally, the case was taken to the California Supreme Court. And in that setting, the anti-mixed race laws were struck. And as someone had said earlier, being one of your posts, it wasn't just a question of blacks and whites marrying, it was a question of Mexicans and whites or Chinese. A lot of different people were considered mixed. Yeah. So when did these laws come into play, this miscegenation law? When were they introduced?

Well, before 1860, when that word miscegenation was coined. Tell us what the word means means i think people might have forgotten well it means and it's a very specific term that means anti-race mixing but it's actually a made up word by a couple of newspaper editors who were trying to write scurrilous material about abraham lincoln during his second uh run for office so it's a really odd term, but it was something about it caught the racist notion of having this very specific term. Before that, and I will just be very quick, it was that the interracial relationships were called amalgamation. It still was not acceptable, and in many cases, of course,

was illegal. So, like, suddenly things became illegal. It had always been illegal for people to formally marry, but the term was amalgamation, and was more concerned about fears of white women being attracted to black men, black being, you know, whatever. Those were the fears that went along with that. Monique, this play is having its first outing in London. Why did you want to direct it? What attracted you to this story? Rachel O'Riordan, the artistic director,

called me and said, I've got this play, I've been sitting on this play. It's an African-American classic. And if I'm being honest, when I initially read it, I was scared. It was a challenge. What scared you? The text scared me. The idea of doing something that is, you know, part of the canon, part of history.

The idea of depicting quite a specific community. And just the language. The language is raw and it's true and she's not hiding. So for me, it was quite confronting, the language. The language is raw and it's true and she's not hiding. So for me, it was quite confronting, the material. And I saw myself in Julia. I saw myself in that central character. It was a challenge. In what sense? Go on. I'd been in an interracial relationship before, so I understood that dynamic.

I understood the strength of that love and what it means. And just the responsibility of doing a UK premiere of such massive work this woman doesn't get enough flowers I think she's done incredible work over the years so yeah that was the reason why and there's a news there's a centering around the women yes on stage as well 100% the opening scene yes a stage full of black women completely and what was it important for you to tell the stories of the characters surrounding the two main characters as well yeah I think what I loved about them most is that they were ordinary it could be your neighbor um and that relatability meant that I felt that audiences would be able to genuinely connect with these characters also they're full and a lot of the discussions that they have are not in relation to men. They're funny. They're bold.

And it's their community. They take full ownership of it. She's really put them and really celebrated what they can offer. The reaction from the audience is immense as well. Yeah. I don't think I've heard anything like it. The booing and the jeering and the intakes of breath because the language is raw and cutting. Completely.

But then, you know, language doing what it's meant to do. Completely. Lenny, can you tell us a bit more about these miscegenation laws, though, in the United States? And tell us about the most famous case in 1967 that actually ended the anti-miscegenation laws. Well, there had always been, you know, a discouragement of these kinds of relationships. In the North, they weren't necessarily the law, but they certainly were the ordinary social expectation that these things were very discouraged. The Lovings, by 67, had been living as a couple, considered that they had married, I believe, in Washington, D.C., which had different laws. And they came back to Virginia and were living where it was illegal and were finally brought to court over it. And luckily had the kind of, I believe, the NAACP and other advocates who helped the process reach the Supreme Court. And luckily, of course,

at that time, our Supreme Court had a much more liberal view of the private rights of people. And that's basically how they found was that it is unconstitutional to limit who or what an individual may do in their private marital choices. And it certainly helped in the remaining southern states where it had been struck down. But it also freed up many, many interracial marriages of all kinds, white women and black men and black men and black women and white men. All ethnicities. To come out and be themselves and be much friends. And June the 12th, the date of the Supreme Court decision, I like this detail a lot, is still remembered as Loving Day. What an appropriate surname the two of them had.

It couldn't be poetic. And yes, it is a very important date. That's Dr. Lenny Sorensen and Monique Toucault and Wedding Band, A Love Hate Story in Black and White is on at the Lyric Hammersmith in London until June the 29th. Finally, do you remember your first love? Is that feeling unforgettable or maybe regrettable? Was the love reciprocated? Did you fall for your best friend by chance? How did that work out? Or maybe your best friend fell for you. Earlier this week, Nuala was joined by the author Laura Dockrell,

who has written her first novel for adults. She's previously written young adult and children's books. Her memoir, What Have I Done, dealt with her postpartum psychosis. But the new book goes back to girlhood. I Love You, I Love You, I Love You is about a girl, Ella, who loves a boy, Lo. Here's Laura reading the bit where Ella sees Lo for the very first time.

And that's when the world around me drowns out and all I hear are the rising power chords of Lenny Kravitz's Fly Away and the boy better run for his life. I am on. of roots and shoots that tangle and connect with a force strong enough to light up a city with full power. Ping, ping, ping! My walls, with a wrecking ball of a look from him, pound down to a grit and I am lost in the thunderous dust inhaling only this new person, this starburst galaxy, this riptide, this hurricane and yet as sweet and as delicious as crisp cherry aid.

He is so fit. Everybody around me is talking, but I'm in my head because, see, he is there now, waiting, chill as hell, like he was there all along with an icebox of snacks and beer, camping out in the canyons of my mind. And, obviously, is Laura Dockrell listening to yourself That was Ella falling for low and this is fiction

but was it like that for you when you first met your husband and I will give full disclosure for our listeners your partner is Hugo White formerly of the indie rock band The Maccabees Yes

embarrassingly yes I think you know this is partly why I wanted to write the book was that I just thought love really wasn't for me. I was so, as a teenager, I was always friend-zoning myself, could never find the boy zone. And I guess with crushing insecurity and all those things,

just didn't think that would be on my radar. And then annoyed when I met this really lovely guy. What age were you? I was 14 in Wandsworth, South London. We made mixtapes for each other, love letters, mixtapes and letters that I would spray with white mask,

body shop. Don't worry about it. No expense spared. In the hope that that would entrance him. Did it work? Well, I would set him up with my friends. I would do all those things. It's just basically self-sabotage.

Cut to age 19. I'm standing in a shower, wearing a bikini for the first time in my life. Drunk, unfortunately. I tell him that I love him and he says nothing back. And we do not see each other for 10 years. 10 years. And now we're married with a baby.

What? What? I know. I know. Now we're married. Yeah. So when we actually did hook up at age 30 and see each other after all this time, you know, he'd been on tour and had had success with his band and everything.

And I just felt like my life had stood still, you know, in the same house, doing the same job. Why would he find me and my miniature life interesting? But he'd kept everything, every little ring pull from a Coke can and letter. And I had nothing to show him, so I thought, I better write a book about this. So why didn't it happen back then? You obviously, you know, held a candle for him or a flame for him, however you want to describe it.

Oh, there was a candle. Maybe it was a Roman candle. Exactly. But he didn't reciprocate at that point when you were in the shower, drunk in the bikini. No. Which you would think that might have been a moment. That might have been the moment.

For anybody that knows Hugo, you know, he really is the most kindest, gentlest person. And I genuinely think he was shocked. You know, we'd been very close for a good five years at this point. And I think he was like, you hid that well sort of thing. Maybe didn't take me seriously. Certainly didn't want to take advantage or anything like that and um so he was he said nothing I just remember him saying nothing but then you know there were very famous bands touring you'd hear their music no doubt as you went about life and so yeah there was a billboard in my house where he you know we

weren't speaking and it would be his music would be in the cool down to my like workout classes or I'd be at a friend's party and his song would come on. And, you know, that is such a nuanced thing where they're everywhere. And with fame, you know, I've had a few friends that have done well in acting or music or whatever, various things. And that that feeling of them being everywhere and everyone feeling connected to them like they know them and they're nowhere to be seen in your life and you have this intimacy with them that you know what they're truly like but they you know you're not in their address book you're not in their phone book and that feeling is is something I wanted to try and put into well you did I mean reading it oh god the love struck teenager how painful it's so painful it's almost like an illness for your character Ella yes it is like an illness you know I having written a lot for children's books you know I when I visit schools

and the feelings they feel that time is so huge you know and I never want to be that person when you know when a kid you know my little boy six and a half someone just told him yesterday they loved him there's an instruction that they're getting married tomorrow and he has to dress handsome it's like for me to just demolish that and say that's not real oh it won't last you know actually these relationships they're what shape us they're what teach us how to love how to feel empathy and kindness and really it's a friendship book and it doesn't go away you know the response from the book has almost been as strong as the post-partum psychosis book in the sense that people as you've just been you know gorgeous hearing these stories have been going I felt that as well I had that um though you know be careful when you're reaching out to the people from your past you know. Was that

difficult for you in the sense obviously you had to get you go on board I imagine yeah and you're obviously incredibly honest and frank and we can talk about postpartum psychosis. The memoir you had on that as well. What have I done? But you're kind of putting yourself out there or how much of you is in it? I mean, I'm thinking it's you when I'm reading Ella. I don't know whether I'm right about that. Yeah, a lot of me is in there. And I think that is the journey of a writer is that is our job.

We communicate our lived experience. We're the ones that eat the poisonous berries to tell you what the path ahead is like you know in return and say yeah I got sick don't eat those berries love sick love sick got love sick boy but um she's there but I I was really hard on myself as a teenager which has been surprising so many of my friends felt the same way oh I'm not good enough I can't do this and it comes up a lot in my children's work and work for young adults and I suppose I wanted to come full circle really being in the guilt and shame the heartache of writing about the postpartum psychosis was such a harsh brutal place to live in and write in for so many years and I do see these books as sisters this is sort of the light you know there's light

and shade with the two I don't write about the psychosis in the book but you know Hugo is a real reminder that life for all of its injustices can be a really good place you know he we've been through a lot together as teenagers as well and he's taught me a lot about compassion and kindness and our friendship is really what was the medicine that fixed me when I was sick too. And you know we have touched on their postpartum psychosis. You know, I read some of what you went through. Absolutely shocking. It's something you've shared widely. You've written a book about it to try and help others, I suppose,

that might be eating the poison berries, to use some of your words. How are you doing now? I mean, you look amazing. You look like a vision of joy. Yeah, I'm well. Thank you for asking. So six and a half years on since being ill and writing this book really does feel like, you know, it's nice. It's so nice to be in a sweet spot now where we're talking about lovely things because I was in the hard stuff for a while. Do you mind giving people just a brief? Sure. So in 2018, after my little boy Jet was born and following on from a traumatic labour,

I was hit with a debilitating mental illness known as postpartum psychosis. I'd never experienced any mental illness before, so I couldn't qualify it, couldn't quantify it. And yeah, three weeks, when my little boy was just three weeks, I woke up on my first mother's day in a psychiatric ward separated from him um and spent well I had to begin my life again spent

the next two weeks doing group therapy in a general psych ward and rebuilding from there but you know um I'm so grateful you know I've learned so much from that experience I feel so much more plugged into life and um in my 30s I think that's a really cool thing to learn. I can teach my son about mental illness, teach him to ask for help if he needs it. This would never have been things that were in my language. You went into a different world. The shame was still probably the worst symptom of all. You know, it's like, oh, does that mean I'm a bad mom? Does that mean I don't care? Am I not kind? Am I unable to love? Am I broken? How am I going to come back from this?

How am I going to write books? And I can't even go to Tesco's again, let alone hold my little boy. But as I said, you know, trusting Hugo and the people around me that have been there. And the book, it really is about Hugo, but it's fiction as well. It's about the friends that have, I'm still best mates with my friends since I was three, my friends since school. That sense of identity that I'd spent

all of that time building, it wasn't for waste. So basically, fill those diaries because you're in there, you know, that is your inner self, those teenage diaries. And in what many of our listeners might consider an unusual twist in this story, not just that your husband is from the Maccabees, but the friend who spoke to Hugo saying, you know, maybe something is the sofa. It does count for something because when you're sick, someone can know in a flicker of your eye that, OK, this person, this person is unwell. It's our bond. I think our sister bond is what got us there.

So, yeah, it's so important to ask for help and say how you're feeling in the best ways you can. Laura Dockrell talking to Nuala and her latest book, I Love You, I Love You, I Love You, is out now. And that is it from Weekend Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your company. On Monday, Nuala will be joined by Helen Hecate, who will be discussing her new novel, which is about dealing with life-changing events.

But for now, from me, have a lovely weekend. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy.

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