Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman’s Hour: Rhianon Bragg, Businesswoman and entrepreneur Emma Grede, Amelia Earhart’s legacy

Episode Date: February 10, 2024

Rhianon Bragg was held hostage at gunpoint by her ex-boyfriend, Gareth Wyn Jones, for eight hours. He was sentenced in 2020 for stalking, false imprisonment, making threats to kill and possession of a firearm. Now, despite a parole board panel saying they are not satisfied it would be safe, he is being released from prison. Rhianon tells us about how her relationship with Wyn Jones developed, what happened at the end, and how she feels about him coming out of prison.Ambika Mod stars as Emma in the new Netflix adaptation of David Nicholls’ much-loved novel One Day. She acts opposite Leo Woodall as Dex, and their comedic romance plays out over 14 episodes and 20 years. You may have seen Ambika as Shruti, the junior doctor with a pivotal plot line in the BBC labour ward drama This is Going to Hurt. She tells us about taking on this lead role.On Thursday Kate Garraway returned to Good Morning Britain following the death of her husband, Derek. She spoke about her reaction to being called a widow for the first time, by a delivery man, apologising for her loss. We hear from Poorna Bell, a journalist and author who lost her husband in 2015, and Karen Sutton, host of The Widow Podcast, who became a trained grief coach after her husband died in 2016.New sonar images from deep in the Pacific Ocean might have located the wreckage of Amelia Earhart’s missing plane. Has Earhart’s disappearance finally been solved, or has the obsession with this mystery distracted us from the pioneering woman herself? Pilot Katherine Moloney and historian Dr Darren Reid discuss Amelia Earhart, her legacy, and women in aviation today.Emma Grede, a native East Londoner, now a thriving businesswoman in the US, is known for her entrepreneurial prowess and successful collaborations with the Kardashian sisters. Emma is a driving force behind iconic brands like Good American and Skims. She will soon be making her mark as a guest investor on an upcoming episode of BBC’s Dragon's Den.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Hello and welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour with me, Anita Rani, where we bring you the highlights of the week just gone. On the programme today, we'll hear one woman's story of being stalked, threatened and held at gunpoint by an ex-boyfriend when she ended their relationship in 2019. Rhiannon Bragg explains why she's telling her story now. Also, unbecome odd on taking on the lead role of Emma in the new Netflix adaptation of David Nichols' much-loved novel One Day.

And why she nearly turned down the role. Because she was feeling tired i was tired this could have come out like that was a very overwhelming experience for me no one ever really prepares you for especially when people really take to a show and take to your character and i was like sitting on the couch in my living room just feeling like wiped and i saw the notification come up on my phone self-tape emma one day and immediately i was like no i'm not doing that we discuss why new sonar images could be of the wreckage of Amelia Earhart's missing plane and may finally solve the mystery

of Earhart's disappearance in 1937 and the new dragon on BBC One's Dragon's Den Emma Greed tells us why she believes thinking we should be happy all the time is holding women back. If you're doing something difficult or you're chasing a dream or you're going outside the norm to push yourself, you're going to be happy about a third of the time. To wake up every day and feel like everything's fantastic and you're killing it and you're being the best wife and the best at work and the best mother is just not realistic. Emma Greed coming up shortly. But first, an insight you don't often get. Rhiannon Bragg came on the programme to speak out ahead of her ex-boyfriend being released from prison in a week's time. This is despite a parole board panel finding in November that such a move would not be

safe. Rhiannon, a woman living with her children in rural North Wales, is in a situation where she's placing her safety, her life really, in the hands of the authorities, all of them, but namely the probation service and her local police force. She's trying to trust them to keep her safe from him. On Tuesday, Rhiannon spoke to Emma a week before the release from prison of her ex, Gareth Wynne-Jones, after stalking and threatening her when she ended their relationship. Rhiannon reported him to the police and he was arrested for harassment and menacing behaviour.

In fact, he was arrested three times but no further action was taken. Then, a few months later, he returned to her home in rural North Wales and held her hostage at gunpoint for eight hours. Finally, he was arrested. In February 2020, Gareth Wynne-Jones was given an extended determinate sentence of four and a half years in prison, with an extended licence period of five years for the crimes of stalking, false imprisonment, making threats to kill and possession of a firearm, having pleaded guilty. Worried about his imminent release, Rhiannon's situation was raised with the Justice Secretary in Parliament by her local MP. She also met with Edward Argar, Minister for Prisons, Parole and Probation, to address her safety concerns, including how

licensing conditions will be managed living rurally in North Wales. She started off by describing to Emma how their five-year relationship developed. I was incredibly vulnerable at the time, and I feel very much now I was targeted. He'd have been able to assess very quickly, I think this is how this sort of perpetrator tends to operate, how vulnerable I was. And the more vulnerable you are, the easier the target you become. And to start off with, I honestly thought it was just friendship. I thought he was being supportive, just wanting to help out for all the right reasons. And it was only after several months that I realized that he was interested romantically, which for me, with incredibly low self-esteem, was really flattering. So if I tell you that part of my decision to leave the

children's father, my ex-husband, was that it was a case of I'll be on my own for the rest of my life bringing up the children. I honestly thought no one would ever be interested in war-torn mother of four. So as things developed, it just seemed to be an almost ideal scenario. He was very kind, very helpful. After several months things became romantic and be careful using the phrase too good to be true because that's exactly what it turned out to be. Why did you decide to end it or what gave you that insight that something wasn't okay? Things had got really bad. I'd got used to his violence. I'd got used to his massive mood swings. I'd got used to the threats.

What brought it to a head for me, he'd got into the habit of ending the relationship and then starting it the next day, ending it with an explosion and then starting the next day. So telling me how awful I was, how terrible everything was, he didn't need the stress.

It was never his fault, never takes responsibility for any of the behavior. And then the next day coming back and saying, you know, you can't survive without me. You absolutely need me. So you get this really massive, confusing situation. I remember thinking, well, if he doesn't want to be in this relationship, why does he keep coming back? You know, I wasn't stopping him from leaving at any point. And it got to the point where that on-off situation was happening so frequently. And I was beginning to ever so slowly, the penny drop, realize that he was lying wildly to me and about me and also about my children.

And I just thought, right, enough is enough. And what the final thing that made me able to draw the line completely was he absolutely lost his temper in front of other people. And he'd come up here and smashed a sheet of Perspex whilst he was kicking off over a child's football goal. And he then stormed off across the field. And I remember turning to my friend who was with me at the time and she's went that was awful Rhiannon and without thinking I just asked nothing I'm used to it and it was when that she said no this has got to stop you've got children to protect because I'd become so used to the abuse within the relationship I've become so used to the level of violence that really him

coming and screaming in my face and shouting at me and blaming me for everything and then smashing things in front of me was absolutely nothing. My honest reaction was to look down at the ground and think, I really must pick those shards up because the children will cut their feet. So having had that friend say that made me think this has got to stop now. It didn't stop. He kept going. And what prompted you to report him to the police? About two to three weeks after I'd ended the relationship,

the children were away and I'd been out for the night, just in the local town, got back late, I got a taxi home. I'd been drinking, but I wasn't inebriated. Walked up the track, we're on a small holding surrounded by fields on Open Mountain. When I put my foot on the cattle grid that's the entry into here, he vaulted out from behind a stone wall on our place. So for me, being ambushed at home was the trigger. I'd asked him for weeks to leave me alone.

I'd asked him to not come up, and I was just being continuously ignored. And I can remember thinking, he got a hip-level, three-quarter-length coat on and on and thinking oh he could have the shotgun the poacher's shotgun folded and hidden in there and so I felt incredibly threatened incredibly threatened incredibly frightened and decided to then go to the police and just sort of as an example of how much you're worked in these situations and how isolated he'd made me feel. I didn't tell anyone else I was going to the police. I didn't tell my friends locally I was going to the police. I didn't tell people in the village I was doing it because I'd been made to feel that, oh, he was so integrated, so popular. And I felt if people know I'm going to the police, they're going to

turn their backs on me and be angry that I'm reporting this. And that's all because of how he had worked and manipulated me. Because in actual fact, what happened when I went to the police was quite the opposite. I mean, you've made numerous complaints about the way North Wales Police handled your case. They did arrest him for harassment. He was, I believe, you've made numerous complaints about the way North Wales police handled your case. They did arrest him for harassment. He was, I believe, arrested three times. It went to the CPS, but it failed to charge him in May 2019. They told us in a statement the decision in May 2019 not to charge Gareth Wynne-Jones of the harassment was wrong. We've apologised to the victim for the profound stress this has caused.

What impact did that decision have on you at the time? The impact's massive. I think there are two main issues. One is that even if it was only harassment, then he could have been sentenced for it. But I think my main thing to raise there is, it's down as harassment. It was blatantly stalking.

When I look back now, some of the email i've sent in during the period of me going to the police before he was arrested the first time it's absolute text but stalking red flags throughout it and yet this wasn't picked up on it wasn't alerted and it there's so much pressure so much more knowledge now about how lethal stalking is and where it ends up. Because, no, no, no, please don't apologise. I was going to say, because the stalking did continue, as you're mentioning there, and a few months later, he returned to your house and held you at gunpoint.

It's just awful. He never stopped. I knew he was getting worse. I kept reporting he was getting worse. And the bottom line is, I didn't know what he was going to do, but I knew he was going to do something. I had come home late, I'd been at a neighbor's and I pulled up in my car, got out and was just walking down towards the house when he jumped out in front of me, full camouflage gear, shotgun, a shotgun I've used for clays before, up at my chest. And I screamed. I remember saying, Gareth, put the gun down. And he just said, he just said, saying, Gareth, put the gun down. And he just said, he just said, I'm not putting the gun down.

He absolutely knew what he was doing from the outset. And as I said, it was a shock, but it wasn't a surprise. I knew he was getting worse and something would happen. How did that particular episode end? So I had absolutely no control in the situation. His finger was on the trigger. I know he's bigger than me, he's stronger than me, and I cannot outrun what comes out of the end of a gun.

I was held hostage, obviously against my will, threats to kill for eight hours, and trying to survive minute by minute what I could do to literally to stay alive, to try and appease him and get through it. Towards the end of that eight hours, and this is just mind blowing, it became apparent that he had decided we were back on. Despite five years of abuse, despite stalking me, never respecting my wanting to end the relationship, despite the fact that he just held me at gunpoint for eight hours and threatened to kill me on numerous occasions, he decided that we're back on. You're not going to be with anybody else. So during the

night, it had come up that I had an appointment at the doctor's the next day, and he allowed me to go to that. And I can remember walking away at that time and thinking he's going to shoot me in my back he's going to shoot me in my back um and I I was trying to what could I do and I knew that I couldn't I couldn't stop to phone the police because the signal here is not reliable enough um and I thought I'm sure he'll be following me. And if he knows I've done that, I'm done for. I can't drive down to the town to the police station. I know by then I knew it wasn't open at that time anyway. It's about eight in the morning. And I thought he'll know if he's following me, he'll know that I've gone the wrong way and will stop me and I'm done in. So I went to the

doctors, to the surgery. And when I went in, I asked if I could see my GP. The surgery were amazing. I went in and sat down with her and disclosed what had happened. And this is a real reflection of my experience to that point with the police and how the police had chosen to act then. So I can remember sitting with her and saying, I don't know what to do, because if I go back to the police and they don't do enough again, I'm dead. But if I don't go to the police, I've got to lead this weird twisted lie life and I can't see how I can protect my children. So even having gone through all of that, because of how the police had acted with him up until that point, I honestly thought it was a serious risk to engage with them. And at that point, she was the absolute professional and said it was totally out of my hands. She had a duty of care. The surgery was locked down and she called the police.

When they arrived, he was arrested in the car park. You know, I'd been right. He had followed me down. And that was then the beginning of involvement with the police from the middle of August, yeah. Rhiannon, I'm so sorry on every level. I mean, I can't hear a story like that and not have that sort of reaction because of how terrifying and then, as you say,

your response and how you'd become trained to to not respond in some ways or to be scared to respond and and I should say we're talking as as he's due to be released from prison in just over a week's time yet the parole board in November stated the panel was not satisfied that release at that point would be safe for protection of the public. How are you dealing with that? What impact has that had on you since hearing that? For me, it's actually been really validating because I've been saying since the outset, this is a really dangerous man. He's going to do this again. He doesn't think he's done anything wrong. He doesn't accept responsibility

for what he's done. And I honestly feel that for the majority of the time, I have not been listened to. I've been dismissed, brushed off. Professionals know what they're doing. So when the parole hearing went ahead in November, and the outcome was what it was, saying he doesn't accept culpability, he's minimizing the offending behavior still, he cannot be safely managed, for the sake of public protection, he mustn't be released. It was really validating. I'm fully aware that because of the sentence structure, legally, nothing can be done to stop his release in the middle of February. Of course, there's there's fear, fear of the unknown. You know, I know there'll be he'll be released with licence conditions for five years. But will they actually prevent his offending? Will they actually stop him? Whatever the licence conditions are, will it enable my children and I to live in our home, fear free, and actually to have some chance of our own recovery from his abuse? They're massive questions. They're important questions.

I know politically your case has been put on the agenda. Your local MP, Liz Saville-Roberts, brought your case up in Parliament a few weeks ago with the Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor, Alex Chalk. He said there's no legal power, like you've just said, for him to be held longer than at the end of the custodial sentence. But he faces years of strict supervision by the probation service, as you mentioned, strict licence conditions, and will be returned to prison if he breaches them.

I know you've also spoken to the Minister for Probation, Edward Argar, and explained your worries about living in a rural area and your concerns about the licensing conditions actually being monitored and adhered to. It'd be good to hear his response, but also if any of that has done anything to allay your concerns. One thing I'd like to flag up is we're told strict license conditions. He's going to have to adhere to these.

And if he doesn't, there are severe consequences for him. But my point's always been the consequences for the victim are so much worse. So it does feel slightly like, not just me, but any victim in this circumstance is a guinea pig. I do have concerns about how probation will manage him. The more you learn about how overstretched they are, how underfunded they are, realistically, what level of checks there may be on him. And this ties in with what, in my opinion, mental health issues, where he doesn't think he's done anything wrong. And if he doesn't think he's done anything wrong and feels he's been locked up incorrectly for four and a half years and doesn't take responsibility, I suspect it's much more likely to reoffend.

And you're quite right, I had a very useful and constructive meeting with Ed Agar last week, and Liz Saville-Roberts, who's been the most incredibly supportive and is a really hardworking MP. And it meant I was able to raise the issues of morality, raise the issues of mobile signal coverage, how long it will take for somebody to actually get here, how easily they will be able to actually monitor him. And it's all sorts of things. It's the, you know, the roads, the networks, the infrastructure, as far as it looks beautiful. I think it's really beautiful place to live. But actually, there are challenges that come with living rurally, that won't necessarily be faced by people in other environments.

And, you know, you've also got the complexity, I suppose, of the police not being happy about how it's been handled as your case over his access to firearms. Complaints have been investigated and understand by the Police Standards Department and the Independent Office of Police Conduct. We have a statement from North Wales Police. Chief Constable Amanda Blateman said, since I became Chief Constable, I've had regular discussions with Rhiannon and listened carefully to her comments. We have thoroughly reviewed the case and understand her experiences are ones we do not want anyone else to go through. We fully appreciate the distress Rhiannon has suffered and have undertaken a full review and independent scrutiny of our firearms licensing procedures.

The force has invested in a dedicated stalking and harassment officer and we provide domestic abuse training to all frontline officers. I have made tackling violence against women and girls a force priority and we will continue to strive to give the best possible service to anyone who reports such incidents to us. I suppose taking a step back from that and the big question, having been so engaged doing this interview, having spoken to who you've spoken to, do you feel safe? I, and this in many ways is wrong, I feel safer because of everything that

I've done than I would have done before. And I fully appreciate what the Chief Constable said. She and I are working together on these issues. And I strongly feel that her arrival in North Wales has brought with it a correct change of attitude. But the reality is when it comes down to it, as and when he breaks licence conditions, which I fully expect him to do, how quickly will there be a response? How quickly will he be picked up? And just living with that uncertainty is incredibly hard. Incredibly hard. Rhiannon Bragg was talking to Emma.

For help and resources on any of the issues discussed in that interview, just head to the Woman's Hour website. Now, Unbecome Mod takes on the role of Emma in the new Netflix adaptation of David Nichols' much-loved novel One Day. She stars opposite Leo Woodall as Dex, and their funny and moving romance plays out over 14 episodes and 20 years. You may have seen Ambika previously as Shruti, the junior doctor with a pivotal plotline in the BBC Labour Award drama This Is Going To Hurt. I started by asking her how much that role changed her life when she'd done no professional acting before. I hadn't acted sort of professionally in that manner. You know, I've got a comedy background.

I've been doing live comedy since I was 18, 19 and like writing and performing all my own stuff. And, you know, I know I you know I got an agent I was auditioning for sort of like one-line things I did a couple of those and this is gonna hurt came out of absolutely nowhere in like lockdown and I think I was the last person they saw for it I think they'd seen like every South Asian girl in the country before they'd see me and then my tape came in at like the 11th hour um and yeah I ended up getting it and it yeah changed everything for me for sure it's like massively changed like the trajectory of my life in a way that I didn't anticipate happening and then the opportunity came to audition for Emma in one day

and initially you said no yeah why um I was just like really tired um I was tired this is gonna come out that was a very overwhelming experience for me no one ever really prepares you for that moment especially when people really take to a show and take to your character and I was feeling a bit emotionally my cup overfloweth if you will and I remember I saw I was like sitting on the couch in my living room just feeling like wiped and I saw the notification come up on my phone like and all I saw I was like sitting on the couch in my living room just feeling like wiped and I saw the notification come up on my phone like and all I saw was like self-tape Emma one day and immediately I was like no I'm not doing that I'm not doing that because you loved the book I loved the book I loved the book I loved the character and I just honestly just didn't see myself playing the role

tell us for people who don't know the story give us a very brief overview so uh the series in the book starts on 15th of july 1988 um and it is the first time that two characters called emma and dexter meet it's the night of their graduation from edinburgh university and it's the very first time they meet they sort of spend the night together and it sort of follows both their lives over the next 20 years on that exact same day 15th of July for the next 20 years and it follows their lives and relationships and their relationship with each other um because it's set it was we begin in 1988 the soundtrack is excellent also that dress you wear at the graduation such a special place in my heart for that dress it's amazing and like the way that our costume

designer marie's like styled it with like the leather belt and the 501s and the like amazing 80s fashion just excellent 80s but it just feels very current as well they've done a really excellent job at styling it and like i said the soundtrack is incredible why did you think it wasn't for you though a lot of reasons i honestly just didn't see myself playing a romantic lead that's not something I really like identified myself with um especially being a comedian like I've always sort of been like the self-deprecating type and it just didn't kind of sit with me that I would be the girl that the guy or I would play the girl that the guy fell in love with. You know, you don't see a lot of brown women on screen being the romantic lead.

You never see women like that in that position. And it's happening more and more now, for sure. But I definitely realise, like, how sort of unique this is. And it took well until, well, well into the process and into filming for me to sort of be like oh yeah I am this character and I identify with her in so many ways like I reread the book when I was auditioning and I was like we're so similar there's no reason he couldn't be me so um yeah but it definitely took a while and it wasn't until I watched it I was like oh yeah

this sort of this sort of makes sense yeah when I watched it I had a huge moment of taking it in because I thought this is the first time I'm seeing a South Asian woman playing the romantic lead and maybe if I'd seen this as a child I might have believed that you know my space in society is different or that the guy could even fancy you I think the like the value of being see of seeing yourself on screen is not one to be underestimated I think it informs so much about how we look at ourselves how we think about ourselves what we think we deserve especially for like young women of color i think seeing someone like emma and you know this is this isn't a story that just revolves around her relationship with dexter you know it's about her and her ambitions and her working really hard and

following her dreams and failing and um because he's from anything he's from an incredibly privileged background like the opposition is like he's from an incredibly incredibly privileged background he has everything given to him on a silver platter and he sort of wastes that opportunity whereas emma has all the capabilities in the world but just doesn't have the access to do much with that at the beginning anyway and um you know we see her working terrible jobs and could you relate to any of that oh absolutely yeah for sure I mean when I graduated from uni I was like working full-time jobs and then gigging in the evenings and writing on the weekends and like doing fringe every year and you know because you need to make money a

girl's got to eat so um yeah it was I was you know waking up at like 7am and then going to work and then going to a gig and coming back at like 11pm and then doing it all the next day and most of the day I was in jobs that I didn't like that didn't fulfill me um thinking about one day hopefully doing this full time and um yeah it feels very do you know what's really weird is we filmed some of this in edinburgh and we did spent a couple of days at the top of arthur's sea and i've done a lot of edinburgh fringes yeah and um every year when i do fringe like whoever's up there my friends we always like climb arthur's sea on the very last day so edinburgh and arthur's sea especially has a very

special place in my heart and the last time i was there was 2019. I wasn't feeling good about life. I was feeling really lost. And then literally three years later, almost exactly, I'm at the top of Arthur's Seat filming The Lead in One Day. And it was just like this incredible full circle moment. And I just think if you believe in magic, it will happen. And these synchronicities, if you look for them, they're there. But I really love the phrase, luck favours the brave. the brave it does yeah so you've obviously worked very hard and thank goodness you

decided to take the audition yeah for sure I there wasn't like a reason why I changed my I just remember like sitting up in bed one night and thinking of that I made a terrible mistake and then as the process the audition process went on was like, I want this so much. Also because it was by far and away the best, most interesting role that I was being offered after This Is Gonna Hurt. Because there aren't a lot of interesting roles for brown women out there.

And I read, and I think this is, you can tell me if it's true, that you have actually actively turned down roles where you're playing the sort of sidekick to the white female lead. But that takes confidence as someone who's just starting out because actually most of us just think well just take the work yeah any work for sure but I think I don't know I've always had a belief that like if you do something you should always try to do the same or better and this is going to hurt like that was such a superlative show in so many ways especially with the role that I played um and I just didn't feel that a lot of the roles I was seeing being seen for after that were living up to that and you know the three-dimensional humanity

that we achieved with that character and her experiences I didn't want to be like like you say a sidekick I didn't want to be there to like you say, a sidekick. I didn't want to be there to facilitate the plot. I wanted to play it. For me, it was all character based. It's all character driven the way that I, you know, gravitate towards things and gravitate towards projects. And I think that's what you probably why one day stuck out to me. Yeah, stick to your guns. The character is also from Leeds. Yeah, you're not. I'm not from Leeds. so uh I mean I'm from Bradford but we could do the rest of the interview in a West Yorkshire accent we could try how was it mastering the accent um you know it was uh it was like for me that was maybe one of the biggest things of me being like

I can't do this part I can't do a Leeds accent can't do a Yorkshire accent and if you watch my audition tapes I just can't do it I can't do what you're doing oh just a bad Yorkshire accent I don't I was sort of speaking like this all the time it was just wasn't very good and then I remember like it was I was waiting to hear if I'd got got it and my agent called me being like they really love you but obviously there's like concern about the accent and I was like well obviously like it's not a good accent um so they're like they want you to meet the dialect coach and she's going to sign you off and so I met with the dialect coach on a Saturday evening and I spent the whole day watching Educate in Yorkshire and I spent like an hour with her and she was like to be honest I don't really know what they want from me like you

could obviously learn this accent like it's going to be fine and then I got a couple days later but then as soon as I got it like I I went into like full on sessions with her. She was so amazing. Her name's Natalie Grady. And we did like three days a week. And then we were just like militant throughout the whole process. Not just trying to figure out the accent, but then figuring out an accent that works for Emma. Yeah. And then tapering it as the series went on.

I was talking to Ambika Mod and all episodes of One Day are available now on Netflix. Still to come on the programme, could new sonar images reveal what happened to aviator Amelia Earhart when she vanished in 1937? And we hear from the newest dragon in Dragon's Den, Emma Greed. Now on Thursday, Kate Garroway returned to work to Good Morning Britain following the death of her husband, Derek. She spoke about her reaction to being called a widow for the first time by a deliveryman apologising for her loss. Did you have a moment where you realised everything had changed? Perhaps this term started being used to refer to you

or you had to shift your language to refer to someone you've lost from is to was. Well, Karen Sutton is the host of The Widow podcast. She set it up and became a trained grief coach after her husband passed away in 2016. I also talked to Purnabel, a journalist and author who lost her husband, Rob, in 2015 when she was only 34 years old. It was very, very unexpected. He died by suicide and I was 34 when he died. So as a word, the word widow is something that I very much associated with much older women. It just felt like a word that didn't fit me. And also because of the circumstances and how I felt around losing him, I had no other words that defined me,

but it seemed to be this very specific word that someone would sum up everything that I had been through into this one word that felt very disorientating, I think. What was it like being a widow so young? Do you remember the first time, like Kate, when someone used that word? Yeah, I would venture to say most people will remember that moment when it was first used. I was in the bank and I had to cancel our joint account. And obviously, when you cancel a joint account, normally you would have to get both parties right to cancel that account. And the woman at the bank wanted briefly, she just looked absolutely shocked. And she said, oh, my God, but you're so young to be a widow. And my heart just dropped. You know, I just in sort of in one fell swoop, I realized that that was a word that was now applicable to me. I already knew the fundamental truth of it, that that's what I was. But it was also the look on her face.

And, you know, it's something that I think widows and widowers have to deal with a lot and it's and it is very difficult especially in those early years when you're you're already feeling so raw from grief but where you're then having to caretake someone else's reaction and also the amount of like pity that is on the other person's face that you just don't have the emotional equipment to deal with. Karen I'm going to bring you in do you remember the first time the word was used for you? For me it was something I realised myself I was in the car it was only a day after my husband died in 2016 and I was just sat in the front of the car and it just suddenly occurred to me,

you know, oh my God, I'm a widow. I'm a widow. I'm 39 years old and I'm a widow. And I didn't really know what that meant. We have a preconceived idea, I think, of what widowhood is and what it looks like. And, you know, it's older people dressed in black and you think, I don't want to be that person. Am I going to become miserable and bitter and resentful and angry at the world? And are my best days behind me? Is the rest of it going to be dark and heavy and sad? And am I still married? Am I a miss? Am I a missus? Like, legally, where do I stand? What is a widow? And where does that fit in society? I mean, Karen mentioned, you know, the sort of dressed in black, bitter, resentful, I mean, these stereotypes that we think of. And for Prerna, you get coming from an Indian background, you know, there's a whole other side of the cultural connotations of being a widow. It sounds ridiculous. But at the beginning, I didn't really even take that on as a thought, because I think there was just so much going on. And then I

decided to go traveling, I quit my job, and I went did a bit of traveling around India and Nepal. But in those countries, there is a massive distinction between someone, for example, who is a widow, and you are relegated to one of the lowest rungs of society, you're ostracized, you're, you're asked to live in a different section of the house. There's these massive differences over there. And I remember sort of when I was going around, I was doing a tour in Calcutta, and their guy pointed out this historical house and said, that's the wing where the widows used to live. And I said, so okay, so let's say it's a widower, what do they have to do? And surprise, surprise, they don't have to do anything different. They just like, you know, remarry and go about and live their lives and that Anita was the spark of something very very angry I think

with me of just like oh so you've gone through one of the worst experiences and your prize at the end of it or your support is being ostracized and I think I just realized that I don't know that society understands grief in general it sure as hell doesn't really understand what widowhood is like, particularly if you are a younger widow. And that is something that made me realise I have to kind of carve my own path and figure out what those things are that matter to me because it wasn't going to come from society. And what about the language around it? Because you're right, we don't know how to deal with grief. So what would you say to people? The language is difficult and, you know, it's something that comes up a lot. And I think one of the biggest things that people find hard is when people say, you know, have you moved on?

It's about time you moved on now. And I think in that there's a sense that by moving on from something, you're moving away from it, you're leaving it behind. Actually, if we rephrase that to moving forward, it allows space to carry the grief forward with you and the love that you have for your person. And grief evolves over time, it softens, it becomes easier to carry for sure. But it's always there, it doesn't go away and we move forward with it and we learn to integrate it into our lives in a more peaceful way and we can create something beautiful again like I say it doesn't happen overnight it takes a long time it takes a lot of support um and and it and a lot is is very different but different doesn't mean bad and and I think you know it's it the words are important to people

because they they are very easily triggered but having said that what feels good to one widow won't feel good to another and this is it's so difficult because you can say something on one day and it will feel positive and uplifting and another day it will feel really triggering and and challenging. Ampona you have spoken very honestly, devastatingly, beautifully about your experience and the process of grief. And we've had you on Woman's Hour before talking about powerlifting. So I just wonder what life was like then versus now, how far you've come and that defiance after your trip to India and Nepal, how that spurred you on? Yeah, I mean, at the beginning, people will tell you that it gets easier,

and it's really hard to believe. And I tried to hold on to that as much as possible. And I think the beginning was very much about control and safety and just trying to keep my world as small as possible. And then something shifted kind of on its axis in terms of I didn't just want to kind of survive with my grief. I wanted a life that was really full. And, you know, to what Karen was saying, I think the reason why for some of us the word widow feels so hard is because it encapsulates all of our loss when actually there's so much love there. Like if you were in a loving relationship,

you hold that love like really close to you. You know, it's been nine years since I lost my husband and that love hasn't diminished or wavered or decreased in any shape or form it's part of me and it's part of who I am and would he want me to be sequestered away you know with a shrine to him no he would want me to live my life he'd want me to be happy and to enjoy as much of it as possible and I think that's why also connecting with a community of people who've been through something similar is also really important because life for me now looks completely different

to how it did at the beginning. That was Bournabel and Karen Sutton, and we were inundated with your messages on this subject. Here's one that says, Widowed at 34 with a three and seven-year-old, I lost not just my husband, but also half my social circle and family. Here's one that says... Thanks so much for this item. Really appreciated. And another one saying... with small children 29 years ago. I was appalled at the term widow, but as I've grown through it, I class myself as a merry widow.

Time can alter perspective. Now, could a grainy sonar image of something 16,000 feet deep in the Pacific Ocean have solved one of the most enduring mysteries of the last century? Such images have emerged from a recent deep-sea search for clues about the disappearance of pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart and her fellow navigator Fred Noonan, which some believe might have finally located the wreckage of her plane. Earhart vanished in 1937 during a bid to become the first female pilot to circumnavigate the globe.

News reports at the time called her the first girl to fly across the Atlantic and another referred to her as an aviatrix. At the time, the skies were dominated by men. Returning to these new images, though, what could finding her plane mean? Or do some people's obsession with solving the mystery stop us paying attention to the pioneering woman herself? Well, Catherine Maloney, pilot and founder of Elevator, a network for young female pilots, spoke to Emma, along with Dr Darren Reid, an associate professor of history from Coventry University. She started by asking what we know about what happened in 1937. We actually don't know an awful lot at all about what happened or what didn't.

We know that she disappeared. We know that she was getting near Howland Island. We know that she made radio contact with the US Navy vessel in the South Pacific. We know that they could hear her, but she couldn't hear them. They weren't able, therefore she wasn't able to get a bearing on her location. And in all likelihood, she probably ran out of fuel and ditched in the Pacific Ocean somewhere. Where? We don't know. What do you make of these new images then? I mean, they're really exciting and perhaps the most exciting thing

is to put Amelia Earhart back on our radar. She was the most amazing early aviator you could imagine. And I think for any young woman now who's thinking about a career in aviation, which is still very male-dominated, what a role model to go on. This is a woman who kept her own surname after she got married. She was an associate editor of Cosmopolitan and used all that money to fuel her adventures in flying. She set numerous records, numerous records, not just as the first woman to do something in an aircraft, but as the first person. So whatever they've found doesn't

matter to me. What matters is that we're having this conversation now i mean women in aviation today we stand on the shoulders of these giants who you know did it all before us and really blazed that trail and were absolute pioneers and adventurers and it's incredibly inspiring and yeah absolutely i think the conversation with women in aviation today has changed quite a lot um but it's still very much a male dominated industry. Even in the UK, only 4.7% of pilots are female. So I think it's really lovely in a way to have these images now and to reignite that conversation and talk about where are we today and where is it heading? Why do you think women aren't drawn to it?

You know what? This is a really interesting question. And it's something I've thought about a lot because myself, I didn't actually get into aviation until I was 18, even though I come from quite an aviation family. But I never thought it was for me. And I find that really interesting. So it wasn't until I actually had a go at flying myself that I actually thought, where has this been all my life? Why did I not consider this before? And what stopped me from doing doing it and I think it boils down to a couple of things but I think one of the most key aspects is visible role models today so I think there is a lack of visual role models within the industry really strong female role models who are doing those roles today

I think this is something that I've really focused on with Elevate Her, especially utilising social media to actively promote these role models. And hopefully this will have a great impact in the future. Go on, sell it to us. Why should we be a pilot? I might need to retrain at some point, so come on. No, no, there's a lot of reasons. But do you know what? I'm just going to talk about my own personal experience. And when I was 18, I probably wasn't the most confident person in the world and flying has completely changed that for me there is nothing like that feeling of going solo for the first time looking around you're all by yourself and I just remember distinctly looking at all the instruments and

going I know what every single one of these do it made me feel capable I knew that I could absolutely handle myself and the aircraft and that has done so much for my self-confidence and self-sufficiency and I think as a young woman that's a really powerful feeling and just freedom there is nothing like flying it gives you a completely different perspective on the world plus you have a microphone if you are flying commercial and you can talk to people. So I'm always in. No, but seriously, that's fascinating. And I think as an elevator pitch to people,

if they haven't ever considered it, what a way to think about that in a different way. Darren, to come back to Amelia, she did want to encourage other women. That was part of her MO in in some ways but she was also someone trying to push all the boundaries never mind as a woman just what there was in aviation right absolutely and actually it's worth thinking about some of the other women aviators who inspired her like netta snook for example so amelia ahart for all of her fame wasn't the first for many

things netta snook for example her instructor was the first woman to own a commercial airfield and so on and so forth. And one of the things that Amelia Earhart did is when she was a young woman, she started to become a pilot, she cropped her hair to look like all the other women aviators of the time. And she got a brand new leather flight jacket and all the other ladies took the mick out of her because it was so new and shiny. It showed how inexperienced she was. So she used to sleep in it and cover it in aircraft oil to age it up as quickly as possible. So she wanted to push as many boundaries as possible.

She was possibly one of the first major spokesperson as well. So after that first trip across the Atlantic when she was a passenger, so the first woman to cross the Atlantic as a passenger. She gets all these endorsement deals for cigarettes, for luggage, suitcases and things like this. She was sort of like the Taylor Swift of her day. And in exactly the same way, she was looked up to by so many men and women at the time. And thanks to maybe discoveries like we found now, looked up to now. Just a final word to you, Catherine. You've done your work to try and sell this as a potential life for some of our listeners. Are you feeling hopeful that this will get, you know, more women will come in?

Are we going in that direction? Yeah, absolutely. I'm very hopeful. I think there's a real tide change at the moment in aviation. I think there's a lot of changing of perceptions. There's a lot of really great programs, cadet schemes and other communities that help include and encourage more women to join the aviation industry. And I think it's got a really bright future ahead. You know, the aviation industry is going to face a lot of challenges in the coming years when having great pushes towards becoming more sustainable and other areas like that.

And we can only tackle these challenges if we can access the full breadth of talent within the UK and across the world globally. Emma was talking to Catherine Maloney and Dr Darren Reid there. Now, Emma Greed is an East Londoner, born and bred, but it's in America where she's made her name and fortune. Ranking in Forbes' list of wealthiest self-made women, she's the driving force behind women's clothing brands

such as Good American with Khloe Kardashian. The company sold a million dollars of denim merchandise on opening day. She's also a founding partner of Skims, alongside Kim Kardashian, offering a brand of underwear loungewear and shapewear. Well Emma made her debut as a guest investor on this week's BBC One's Dragon's Den but first she took Emma back to how it all began. I started my business working with fashion designers and artists and pairing them with brands so anyone who was coming out of St Martins and had

a show and needed some sponsorship I'd be the girl that you call to get your show paid for. And then I essentially took that, you know, those relationships with all of the big brands and the idea that I was pretty good at negotiating contracts and moved into celebrity branding. And that's where I really got my start. It was before influencers were called influencers, you know, they were bloggers at the time. Nobody had an agent or a manager. It was like you're negotiating with their mom or their boyfriend. And so I was, I guess, like a pioneer in influencer marketing. And I made a name for myself around that, leveraged it into talent. And then after building an agency from scratch and eventually selling that agency 10 years after, I decided that, you know, I was kind of done making money for everybody else and I'd start a brand myself. And that kind of level of naivety led me to meet in Christiana because I knew every agent, manager and publicist in Hollywood. I was at the kind of forefront of that partnership landscape. And yeah, that's where it all began. And that's where I decided that I would try to do something that belonged to me and that I could take ownership in. And when you go into that sort of meeting, you have that sort of call.

What's that like with somebody like that? Well, you know, for me, if you go back to that time, it wasn't it wasn't like meeting, you know, Brad Pitt. It was like taking a meeting that I would usually take with any major manager or talent agent or anyone else. And so I don't think I've ever come from that school of thought. And when you work in entertainment, you know, you don't really think about it like that. I was trying to get a deal done. I'm always trying to get a deal done. And so again, my eyes were on the prize. It's innovative, though, isn't it? What you were proposing? I really think so. And I think with somebody like that, you're very aware that if

somebody's getting a lot of opportunities and a lot of offers, you've got to take something that's truly compelling. But I thought in my head that I had an amazing idea. And with Good American, I'd spent 10 years working in the fashion industry. So I really knew my stuff and I knew the way there was a white space and a gap. And I think more than anything, what was attractive about what I presented was the idea of the brand, this thing that was about not about making more jeans or creating new white T-shirts, but actually servicing women in a different way. And I just thought it would be good to start a company

where women could choose, regardless of their size, regardless of who they are, where they come from, they'd be able to see themselves in that brand and they'd be able to find clothes that work for their bodies. And it was no more complicated than that, but I think it chimed with a lot of people and luckily a couple of those people were you know the Kardashian family what's it like to work with them as a family because that level of it's no different from working with any other business partners you know I feel like come on

I mean they're on another level of fame well yeah I wondered if anything about that had surprised you I'm not asking for the intimate details of your business meetings more like when you get get exposed to that and you're part of that, is it different to how you thought? Because you only relatively recently moved to America yourself. Absolutely. I moved when we started Good American. And that was really interesting for me. But you have to remember, you know, I've been working in that business for 10 years. I've been, you know, I've done some of the biggest celebrity partnerships that were on the planet. And it's not to say that I wasn't impressed. I'm impressed by any smart, intelligent, brilliant people that I meet.

But, you know, I met a lot of people. And without sounding arrogant, it's like, you know, I'd worked with Angelina Jolie and Natalie Portman and Gwyneth Paltrow. And so, again, it was like another moment. And I was much more interested in thinking, like, how am I getting a business off the ground? Were you involved with Vaginal Eggs with Gwyneth Paltrow absolutely not maybe I wish I was but you you also work hard play hard with your husband you know you both work in the same field and that I don't believe you actually met through work which also when people are listening to how other people live their lives, they're interested how their family fits into that.

How do you find that? You know, I've worked with my husband like since before he was my husband. So we had a very predefined working relationship. So it wasn't hard to figure out how we were going to work together after we got married because we'd been working together for years. And for full transparency, my husband and his business partner were my first investors in my first company when I was 24 and so it wasn't um it wasn't something we had to figure out like how do we do this together and you know I married a Swedish man

and Swedish men are you know it's true they're just like you know the whole relationship is set on the basis of equality and my ambition my wants wants, my needs being as important as his. So it wasn't like I was going to have to sit there and negotiate like, hey, I'm super ambitious and I'm going to need to get on with my stuff and our marriage will have to work around that. It was already in his mind from his own upbringing and from his own parents' marriage. And so it's been it's been pretty easy. I think what's harder is you know fast forward 16 years now we have four children and you know a lot of businesses and we live very far away from our family and that brings an entirely new dynamic to things my my mother-in-law

is Swedish so I can vouch for the equality that comes through her three boys right it's just baked in there from the beginning it really is it really is. I love something that you've said about being happy all the time. Or rather not. Or rather not. So you talked to me about thirds, dividing your life into thirds, because you've also said very clearly, I'm not the mum that picks up the children from school. I'm not that mum. I'm a different kind of mum.

Yeah. You know, I think that there's so much pressure on women today. And I think it's unique because of how social media portrays like people like me or people that are in the public eye, or just like in your feed. And this idea that we're supposed to be consistently content and happy or put that idea of ourselves forward, to me really, really holds women back. And I always talk and think about my life in that idea of ourselves forward, to me, really, really holds women back. And I always talk and think about my life in this idea of thirds, because my viewpoint is, if you're doing something difficult, or you're chasing a dream, or you're going outside the norm to push yourself, you're going to be happy about a third of the time. And the other third

of the time, you're going to be all right. And the last third of the time, you're going to be all right. And the last third of the time, you're going to feel pretty crappy. And that's all right. Because to wake up every day and feel like everything's fantastic, and you're killing it, and you're being the best wife and the best at work and the best mother is just not realistic. And you're setting yourself up for a fail. And so I like to be really honest that I have really difficult days. Like not everything is easy. And I actually use that rule of thirds as a bit of a barometer for how I'm doing. Like I always think if things are too good, I'm probably not trying hard enough.

I'm probably missing something. If things are too difficult, then I've probably got the balance a little bit out of whack and I need to kind of dial it back a little bit. But I do honestly think that it's important for people to understand that you're as like part of the human condition is that you're going to have like bad days and it's okay. You have to learn to deal with that. And I think the rule of thirds has really helped me think about that. Dragon's Den on BBC One. Let's talk about that. People get very nervous before they go in there and see people like yourself. Why did you want to do it? You know

what? It's so interesting because the more successful I've got, you have to remember, you know, I grew up in East London in Palasto. I don't even think I knew anyone who owned their own business. Like genuinely that was being an entrepreneur wasn't even language I understood when I was younger and so as I've become more successful you start to realize that it's not just small at the top it is minuscule like absolutely minuscule it's the same people doing the same deals with the same people that they went to school with and all exchanging money and finances and so I started to question a lot like what does it mean to be an entrepreneur? Like who gets to take part? And especially because I live in America. And so there is such,

there's so much conversation around race, which wasn't, you know, the same as how I grew up in England, because I grew up in East London. So I was like surrounded by people from all different backgrounds. And when I moved to America, there is such a conversation not only around women in business, but black women in business, the lack of funding, the lack of opportunities. And so you find yourself as a black woman being talked to about that in a way that you weren't in the UK. Absolutely. And quite honestly, as part of an experience that I hadn't experienced because I came from the UK. And so it was interesting to me because I do Shark Tank, which is the American version of Dragon's Den. And I got in there and I thought,

wow, what an opportunity to almost like unlock this curse of who gets to start their own business. Because, you know, you get people come through that are from, you know, all different walks of life. And everybody wants the opportunity to further themselves further them fat their families and you have to remember it wasn't so long ago that I was out there having to like raise finance for my own business and so you get to a certain point where you're like wow if I could be part of somebody else's success and unlock that for them like why wouldn't you do it and then to do it on home turf right where my nan in Canvey Island can actually tune in and watch it I was like I'm in I'm all about that I've got to do it on home turf, right, where my nan in Canvey Island can actually tune in and watch it. I was like, I'm in. I'm all about that. I've got to do it.

Is she a harsh critic or is she a big supporter? Oh, she is so sweet, my grandma. I mean, there's nothing I could do wrong. I could like fall in that show, say nothing, swear and leave. And she'd be like, darling, you are amazing. Absolutely. Best thing I've ever seen. Does she settle into the LA life? Does she come and see you?

Do you know what? She actually, she hasn't been to see me because I come home so much and she's very old and that's a very long journey. But, you know, I get to canvy as much as I possibly can and we do a lot of FaceTimes. Now she's learned to get on the old FaceTime. It's perfect.

Have you got a catchphrase you're going into this with? You know, and for that reason, I'm out. What's yours? I'm imagining you Deborah Meaden. I do not. I do not. It's so funny you know because your voice like as soon as I got in there I got so East London. I was like wow listen to me. It's like I'm like back down the market. Do you know what I mean?

I loved it. Emma Greed and you can see Emma on Dragon's Den on iPlayer now. That's all from me but Emma will be back on Monday when she'll be joined by Bryony Gordon, the bestselling author of The Wrong Knickers, You Got This and Mad Girl. She'll be discussing binge eating, OCD, menopause and marathons, all the subject of her new book, Mad Woman. Do join her then. Enjoy the rest of your 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.