Woman's Hour - What are the parties offering women in the general election? Plus a celebration of Nancy Astor.

Episode Date: November 27, 2019

Now the manifestos have almost all been published by the political parties we look at what they are offering women in this general election. We hear from Danielle Sheridan, political correspondent at the Telegraph, Ash Sarkar, contributing editor at Novara Media and Rachel Sylvester Times columnist and political interviewer. A statue of Nancy Astor, the first woman MP to take her seat in Parliament will be unveiled in Plymouth on Thursday, the centenary of her election. Mari Takaynagi Senior Archivist , Parliamentary Archives at the Houses of Parliament and Dr Jacqui Turner an Associate professor at Reading University tell us about her legacy and the importance of having the statue in the City she represented for 26 years.And author Mikhal Dekel talks to Jane about the extraordinary true story of one thousand Polish-Jewish child refugees - among them her father - who escaped the Nazis and found refuge in Iran. Presenter Jane Garvey Producer Beverley PurcellGuest; Danielle Sheridan Guest; Ash Sarkar Guest; Rachel Sylvester Guest; Mikhal Dekel Guest; Dr Jacqui Turner Guest; Mari Takaynagi

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. This is the Woman's Hour podcast. Welcome to Woman's Hour. On the programme today, well, you heard in the news, the manifestos are out. The SNP launched theirs today. So we're asking this morning, what are the parties offering female voters?

And how about this? Nancy Astor was the first female MP to take her seat at Westminster. A statue of her is going to be unveiled in Plymouth tomorrow. Here she is on Woman's Hour talking about what drove her on. What really kept me going, I was an ardent feminist. I always knew women had more, well, shall I say moral strength? And yet, I might say this, it was amazing how well the men treated me, considering how few of them wanted me.

How few of them wanted her. Nancy Astor, Britain's first female MP to take her seat, and we'll celebrate her life and talk about that statue on the programme today. And the Holocaust story you may never have heard. The Polish Jews who went east to escape the Nazis, and some of them found sanctuary in Iran. We'll talk about that on Woman's Hour this morning. Now, the manifestos are all published, SNP's out this morning. And I should say that the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, will be with us on

Woman's Hour on Friday morning. So let's catch up with what the parties are offering women. Danielle Sheridan is here, political correspondent at The Telegraph. Welcome, Danielle. Good morning. Thanks for having me. She's in the company of Ash Sarkar, who's a contributing editor at Navarra Media. Welcome, Ash. Thanks for having me. And on the phone, we've got Rachel Sylvester, Times columnist

and noted interviewer, formidable interviewer of top politicians. Rachel, good morning to you. Hello. Now, we'll start with WASPI, the WAS. Rachel, good morning to you. Hello. Now, we'll start with WASPI, the WASPI women, the women affected financially by that change in the pension age. Jeremy Corbyn is all over the front pages of the newspapers and dominating the websites this morning because of the interview with Andrew Neil. Ash, it didn't make comfortable viewing when he was asked about how Labour were going to afford to compensate the WASPI women. I mean, one thing I would say is that I've been on with

Andrew Neil before and it is like a live vivisection. There is nothing more terrifying on this earth than Andrew Neil looking at you in the eye and asking you a question. But on this matter of the WASPI women, so what Labour have proposed is a one-off compensation package because the increase in the state pension age, which, let's be clear here, is a raid on the deferred wages of workers, has affected disproportionately women. Well, it's about evening out. It wasn't fair on men that women were retiring early and women want equality and men, quite rightly, would say, well, you've got it. Well, the thing is about women is that we also have to deal with smaller pay packets in the workplace because of the gender pay gap.

We have to take career breaks to look after children to look after elderly relatives so if we're thinking about the amount of work that women do which is unpaid compared to men I actually think it's fair enough. Well I mean that's very familiar territory to many of our listeners and something we will move on to talk about this morning in this conversation. But on the point of how Labour were going to pay for this compensation scheme, he didn't do well, did he? Well, so it seems to me from having watched back the clip is that it will be a combination of things.

So the majority of this one-off compensation payout will be through general taxation, the same way that one-off payments from the government, whether they lose a court case or go to war, is covered by general taxation. And some of it will be a spread cost through borrowing. And what Labour's argument is, because of interest rates being what they are, is not going to be a terrible burden on younger taxpayers as time goes on. And I think the thing to remember about every time there's an increase in the state pension age, whether it's for women or for men, is that it disproportionately disadvantages poorer people. We've still got a huge gap in life expectancy between rich and poor in this country.

In Kensington alone, the gap between rich and poor is up to 20 years. So every time you increase the state pension age, it means that the state pension is disproportionately going to benefit richer people. You've got poor people paying in their working lives and not benefiting from it. So this is redressing an injustice. Right. And whatever the costing, Rachel Sylvester, for a start, we should point out that Jeremy Corbyn has appeared with Andrew Neill. We're not certain when other party leaders will appear. We certainly don't know about Boris Johnson's confirmed date in that slot yet. But he, Boris Johnson, was asked directly in a debate on television the other day about what the Conservatives would offer the WASPI women. And frankly, he said pretty much nothing, Rachel. Yes, and in the manifesto,

they've just got a review of this issue in there. And the Conservative manifesto has much less specifically offered to women. There's a billion pounds extra for childcare and there's some increase in flexibility in the workplace to leave for unpaid carers. But I do think there is another sort of wider issue here that I don't think women, all men actually, but if we're talking about women, are going to be voting only on individual retail policies, if you like, in the manifestos.

They're going to be looking at the leaders, Boris Johnson versus Jeremy Corbyn. And they're also going to be thinking about Brexit. Women are much more nervous about a sort of more reckless, no-deal Brexit of the sort that might end up happening if the Conservatives get in. Right. I mean, can I just pin you down on that? Why might women be more concerned about that? Well, the polling shows that women are now more nervous about a harder Brexit. Women, I mean, I don't want to stereotype this doesn't apply to everyone, obviously,

but women are more cautious in general about policies, about revolutions. They're more hostile to a no-deal Brexit. They're moving more towards the remain position. And so I think the idea of a sort of reckless no-deal Brexit will be more worrying to women. And I think that's going to be as much in people's minds as whatever the parties are going to do on pensions or childcare. And also the character of the leaders. So last night, Jeremy Corbyn really refused to apologise to the Jewish community over the problem of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. But also, Boris Johnson has a sort of whiff of toxic masculinity, as one senior Tory put it to me, around him.

He talks about, as an insult, a big girl's blouse, or he says, man up. Being a woman is a sign of weakness. Well, we should also point out, of course, that the Conservatives have been accused, rightly many would say, of Islamophobia, and I'm looking at a headline here from The Guardian today. Javid, that's Sajid Javid, refuses seven times to condemn Johnson's rhetoric on women who wear burqas.

So neither of the two major parties come out of the racism angle, especially positively, it has to be said. Quick word on the Lib Dems and the WASPI women. What do you know about their offering? They offer proper compensation, they say, or they will, in line with the parliamentary ombudsman. We don't appear to have costings for that either. So let's bring you in, Danielle. Let's move on to women in the workplace. What do the Conservatives offer women in the workplace? Just going back to Rachel's point, though, one thing I would say is my mum is a waspy

and she herself can't bring herself to vote for Jeremy Corbyn despite his pledges because she doesn't genuinely believe he has the integrity with the funding to bring it to fruition. So I think Rachel's point of this is a lot more about Brexit than it is about individual policies is really important to this election. Regarding women in the workplace by the Tories, you know, they're saying they're going to do more for female entrepreneurs, look at raising small business rates, looking at how women who tend to be, apparently a lot more women tend to go freelance, looking at how they can help women working from the home. And also they've promised to level up paternity leave,

which would be hugely beneficial for women who often have to take a step back from their career in order to raise their family. I'm not clear how though they would do that. So that is something I would say as well they say they want to expand it they don't go into the detail unlike the Lib Dems who have promised 35 hours of free child care they're the party that have offered the most actually for working parents. I think Labour's offered 30 hours, but yes, the Lib Dems have gone one step further. And that's another point. This isn't just about Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson. It's also about Joe Swinson. And I think you'll find a lot of people, staunch Tory voters, will vote for the Lib Dems

over the issue of Brexit. Right. Okay. Yeah, because they're Remainers and the Lib Dems are the party of Remain. They make no bones about it. You know exactly where you stand with them. So, Ash, on to Danielle's point that actually it's the Lib Dems who are offering the most in terms of childcare. What would you say about that? Well, it's true. They have the biggest offer when it comes to the amount of free childcare. Labour are offering five hours less. But what Labour are offering as hours less. But what Labour are offering as well is extended maternity leave, which is paid, taking it up to one year, more

paternity leave as well. And then when it comes to the bigger offer about women in the workplace, you've got a pledge to close the gender pay gap by 2030. How will they do that? So through multiple means. One is by lifting the floor. So making sure that we've got a £10 minimum wage immediately rather than over the course of a parliamentary term or whatever it is that Sajid Javid is promising. The second thing is by making workplaces disclose what the gender pay gap is and giving HMRC the power to impose fines where there is a gender pay gap and no action being taken to close it because we've seen it I mean you know even here my favorite uh you know broadcasting institution ever the BBC study it has had problems with a gender pay gap and it's

only come to light because male broadcasters have disclosed what they earned and women have realized they're being paid much less and so when you rely on individuals to disclose, it means that you're not going to have a structured or consistent way of closing that gap between men and women. And in terms of the impact on employers raising the minimum wage, what about that? So one of the ideas is, is that by raising the minimum wage, you are growing the economy more generally. So you increase spending power of people. And at the moment, people have taken a huge hit to their wages, which has then resulted in quite sluggish growth for one of the richest economies in the world.

Thank you. Can I just bring Rachel in? On the employers? Yes, on women in the workplace. Yeah, I think all the parties are paying lip service but i'm not completely sure how much in practice how much difference it's going to make and there's a danger of you know it sounds like they're they're trying to um woo women with nice rhetoric but in in reality i'm not sure how much practical detail there is. I think the Charquet offering is much more substantive, particularly from the Lib Dems and Labour, actually.

And that will actually make a real practical difference. I mean, a £10 minimum wage would have made a huge difference to me. I was working in a pub for seven years and I was on the minimum wage. And that gap between my income and my outgoings was then made up with bits of work elsewhere I was exhausted occasionally relied on loans and if I had a 10 pound minimum wage during that time I cannot tell you the difference that would have made to my life during those years in terms of paying rent in terms of having a bit of financial security, in terms of being able to deal with unexpected bills. One in three people in this country could not cope if there was an unexpected bill of £100. And so if you increase the minimum

wage, both for men and for women, it increases their ability to feel secure in their own lives. I want to have a little bit of time to discuss social care. It was a subject we covered on Women's Hour on Monday, to be fair, but it's such an important topic. No party has actually grasped this one and done something really with it. So, Danielle, what would you say about what the Conservatives are saying this time around? that they're not going to scrap it and they're actually going to see it through. They say that they're going to, they appreciate that. OK, you're talking about universal care. I was actually talking about social care in terms of, but go on, carry on, finish that thought. Well, I just think, I think it's intriguing that they're sticking to that policy

because obviously it was introduced by Ian Duncan Smith and I wonder if it is some sort of, you know, we don't want to put our hands up and perhaps say that there were problems with it as the Lib Dems and both Labour have, you know, we don't want to put our hands up and perhaps say that there were problems with it, as the Lib Dems and both Labour have, you know, rightly talked about. They said, you know, the forms online are too complicated for people to fill out. There's a five-week wait.

Yeah, the waiting time is a real challenge for many, many people. And actually, as you say, online access is something many of us take for granted, but it is by no means a given. And for people, particularly on low or hardly any income. It's a real challenge. Social care, i.e. looking after the elderly in terms of in their own homes or the kind of care for which many people don't realise they will have to pay. It's the classic scenario of if you break your leg, you can go to hospital, you'll be cared for there, you won't have to worry. If you're at home and unfortunately you have dementia, then

you're going to be asked to pay for it, except in various circumstances. Rachel? I thought that was one of the weakest aspects of the Tory manifesto, actually, because Boris Johnson stood on the steps of Downing Street when he became Prime Minister. He said he had a plan to fix it and it would all be sorted, you know, social care. And it's a huge, it's a scandal and many people have to sell their home they spend hundreds of thousands of pounds sometimes on um looking after themselves in a way that you don't if you have cancer but you do if you have dementia uh boris johnson said he had the solution and in the end all there was in the manifesto was a promise to try and reach

across party consensus and actually there is pretty much a consensus between Labour and the Liberal Democrats on the need for more money and the need for a cap on what people spend. So if the Conservatives were serious about this, they could just agree to the Labour and the Liberal Democrats' plan. For a real cross-party consensus, yes. Exactly. Ash, Labour say they have a plan for a national care service. So what the Labour plan is, is to establish free personal care for over 65s paid for through general taxation.

And it is about addressing that inequality that if you break your leg, you will be cared for. If you have dementia, you won't. And I know this might sound weird because I'm 27, but elderly social care is perhaps one of the most important issues for me. That's deciding how I'm voting this time round, because I'm watching my mum care for my grandmother. Now your mum is also working. And my mum is also working full time and the burden of care has fallen on her and she's got a relatively privileged position to deal with it.

She owns her own home, she's in stable employment. I'm looking forward to the time where I'm going to be taking care of my mum, which of course I'm going to do because the lady gave birth to me, and I have no chance of owning a home. Like the chances are slim to none. Well, this is a really interesting point because for your generation, you and Danielle are both, I think Danielle's 30. She's very depressed about it. I've tried to cheer her up. Ash is only 26. But you were talking earlier about, I mean, you can't afford to buy anywhere

to live. I mean, it's a massive issue for your generation. On average, it will take a millennial 19 years to save up for a deposit. Whereas in the 1980s, it took an average of three years to save up for a deposit. And even if you do manage to save up for a deposit, it is unlikely you'll be able to afford a mortgage for even one of the cheapest homes in your area. And that has an impact on things like elderly social care, because I'm thinking, OK, well, if I've got to look after my mum, how the hell am I going to do it if I'm still relying on a rubbish little dank flat? All right, well, it's a bit hard on your flat.

On Monday, we did discuss social care. We pointed out, too, the challenges of what is now known by demographers as the 100-year life, because you will live, quite likely, both of you, to be over 100 years of age. Rachel, why isn't housing featuring more in this election, should it? Yes, I think it should. And I think Ash's point is a really good one. There's a huge scandal of intergenerational inequality now that I'm 50, so my age, it was much easier for us to buy houses than for Ash and Danielle's generation. And I think the parties, you know, again, they're paying lip service to this.

They say this is a big problem, they're going to build, you know, however many hundreds of thousands of homes. But in reality, I think that's all being put under the back burner and it's too difficult. It requires too much controversial decision making. And they're not really addressing the serious issues that affect men and women. Quick word on that from you, Danielle. Well, they also need to address the scandalous rates that landlords charge. I mean, I have friends that pay £900 a month on rent and then bills on top of that. And this is to live where in london

in central london in a one bedroom flat um but maximum two bedroom so you know then they have barely any kind of liquid asset as it is left afterwards i mean if you're paying 900 pounds out that's the majority of your wage packet each month going out into it i mean i just by the way i do actually own a place with my partner um however and i did that because um my parents were able to help yes but i went to a state school my parents never paid a penny for my education therefore they were putting money i wasn't going to get at you your parents are entitled to do what they want with their own money but i mean they thought ahead and they would ahead and not everyone is able to do that. But I'm just saying in my personal life, my parents were putting money aside

so that when I was fortunate enough to be in a position to buy, I was able to turn to them. And not everyone can do that, which is why it's unfair. God, could your parents adopt me? They'd love to have you over. Ash is looking for a new home. We've reached a cross-party consensus in the studio, which is lovely. Rachel, thank you very much. Rachel Sylvester

of The Times. You also heard from Danielle Sheridan of The Telegraph and from Ash Sarkar, who is a contributing editor at Navarra Media. Good to have you on the programme. Thank you very much. We'll return to politics, of course. Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland's First Minister, is on Women's Hour on Friday, and then we have our election debate programme.

It's 90 minutes long, starts at the usual time on December 4th. And we've got top female politicians available that morning to take your calls. Now, back to the statue of Nancy Astor, the first woman MP, a Conservative MP, to take her seat in Parliament. It's going to be unveiled by Theresa May on Plymouth Ho tomorrow. Now, Nancy Astor was elected for Plymouth Sutton on the 28th of November 1919. She was not the first woman elected to Westminster.

That was the Sinn Féin representative, Constance Markievicz, who did not take her seat, of course. Dr Jackie Turner is one of the organisers of the crowdfunding campaign to fund the statue. She's an associate professor at the University of Reading. And Mari Takanyagi is senior archivist at the Parliamentary Archives in the Houses of Parliament. Welcome to you, Mari. And Jackie, we'll talk to you in a moment. First of all, let's hear from the woman herself. Here she is on Woman's Hour. The interviewer is Mary Stocks. It's October of

1956. And Nancy Astor is looking back to how it felt when she took her seat. Well, I'll tell you what I felt when I first got. I didn't mind the election at all, because I like that. But to walk up the House of Commons between Arthur Balfour and Lloyd George, both of them who had said they believed in women, but who would rather have had a rattlesnake than in the House than me at that time. They all felt that way. It was really very alarming. And you know, sometimes I would sit five hours in that house

rather than get out of my seat and walk down. But I knew what really kept me going. I was an ardent feminist. I always knew women had more, well, I won't, shall I say moral strength? I must say, I did say once in the House of Commons, we've got moral strength and you've got immoral strength. But that to the gentleman, but that was rude. I said a lot of rude things, I'm frightened. But I really, it was alarming. And yet, I might say this, it was amazing how well the men treated me, considering how few of them wanted me.

I think I could describe it like Henry James once said, about the dauntless decency of the British people. They were really quite remarkable, the way they bore me. You know, the thing that struck us almost immediately when you came on the scene was your courage. I mean, you say you felt nervous, but we got the impression that you weren't afraid of anything. And I've only recently learned that there's one thing you're afraid of, and that's cats. But you're not afraid of bombs, you're not afraid of people, and you weren't in those days afraid of your party whips.

Well, I tell you why I wasn't afraid of my party whips, because the women had put me in, and I felt it was my duty to vote the way I thought right. Particularly, you see, I was mainly interested in women and children and social reform, and I felt it was my duty to do it. Of course, I might say I didn't quite enjoy it at first, but they were so nice to me, and they were so considerate, and I kept out of their way, remember that. I never went into any room, writing room, library. I never went anywhere. Once I got out of the house, I'd go down to a little room I had of myself.

And you asked me why I stayed, why I had courage. Well, it was because I once said, someone said, I told someone, someone said something that I was rather rude, and I said, but you don't know what I've got behind me. I've got the women, and someday you will hear from them. And so they did, didn't they? Nancy Astor. So, Mari, tell us what we need to

know about Nancy Astor first of all she was it was through her husband that she got her seat. That's right her husband was Wardolph Astor and when his father died in 1919 Wardolph found himself elevated to the House of Lords and that meant he had to give up his seat in the House of Commons and Nancy Astor his wife stepped in ran an extremely lively election campaign in Plymouth Sutton and was elected the MP. And it might have been thought at first that perhaps she was just keeping the seat warm for a brief period of time. But in fact, she held that seat through seven elections right through from 1919 to 1945 when she retired. And for a long time at the start, she was one of very few women MPs. She was on her own in the House of Commons for nearly two years and then she was joined by very small numbers of women I think it's important to remember we

just heard her reminiscing about taking her seat we take it for granted today that there's going to be at least a sprinkling of women on the benches in the House of Commons or possibly even a critical mass but back then she was the only one and it must have taken enormous courage to be there yes it really must actually and I get very moved when I hear her speaking about it because it must have been exceptionally tough. Jackie, why has it taken so long for this woman to have a statue? I think that's a really interesting question. I think for me it's partly because she is a politician. It's difficult, she was a member of the Conservative Party and I think it's difficult. She was a member of the Conservative Party. And I think it's difficult when you have a partisan element to any statue like that. I also think it's part of a much,

much wider problem that women are horribly underrepresented in terms of public monuments and statues. Yes, well, we've featured that on Woman's Hour over the years there really are as in percentage terms hardly any statues of women in Britain and why did this have to be crowdfunded? I suppose I just assumed that maybe the council would pay or national government. I think that's another really difficult one we crowdfunded it because the people of Plymouth wanted a statue to Nancy Astor and by far the bulk of the money has come from people in Plymouth. But I think in terms of arts and public monuments at the moment in times of austerity and when times have been tough as they

have been over the last few years, memorials and arts projects have been pretty much at the bottom of most councils lists of priorities. Yeah okay I suppose when you realise the other challenges they're up against you can understand that. I know that you've been really involved in it in the making of the statue just tell us about that. This has just been an absolutely wonderful experience. Our sculptor Hayley Gibbs she's a young woman this is her first solo project But being the historical consultant for that statue has been amazing. I've been able to work with Hayley on how we represent Nancy Astor. One of my biggest things was I wanted the age and her face to match the period of her clothes. Because that quite often gets missed with women.

Okay. But I've been involved right the way through to actually seeing the bronze poured at the foundry into the mould for Nancy. And all the sounds and the smell, I guess that must have been amazing. It was absolutely amazing. The heat was intense.

We were stood with our glasses on behind a panel. The heat was intense. You could see that red glow on everyone's faces who were involved but it's the smell as well you know there was a there was a it was almost metallic but it was a nice metallic spell and then of course there is the huge splash of light when that highly highly highly heated up bronze actually starts to pour from a pot at the top into the mold is the statue already in position or does it go into position today how does all this work it's been a long process and i'm very pleased to say that the statue is in position today, but is completely under wraps. I see. So what time will Nancy has to be unveiled?

She'll be unveiled tomorrow at one o'clock. So that's 1.00 hours. And that's to celebrate 100 years of women in Parliament. Wow. I can tell you are genuinely buzzing, aren't you, Jackie? Absolutely buzzing. It's been a huge amount of work. We're starting at Paddington, where Great Western Railway are renaming a train the Nancy Astor.

We're all piling on this special train down to Plymouth, which will be crewed by an all-female crew. We're jumping off at the other end, down to the Hoh, where we'll be met by over 1 a thousand young women from Plymouth schools who are processing through the city and watching that statue of a woman be unveiled. Right. Well, I really, really hope it goes brilliantly well for everybody involved tomorrow. Congratulations to you and everybody else who took part, who gave money and just supported the campaign. Because when you hear about some of the challenges that contemporary female politicians from all parties are up against we really do need to remember the history of all this don't we?

We certainly do we are still crowdfunding for legacy projects around that around that statue to achieve exactly what you're saying. Great stuff thank you so much and congratulations again that is one of the people behind that campaign to fund the statue of Nancy Astor to be unveiled tomorrow at Plymouth Ho. That was Dr Jackie Turner and our thanks too to Murray Takenaki who is a senior archivist in the Houses of Parliament. Good to see you, Murray.

Thank you very much. Thank you. And just a quick reminder again, the Women's Hour election debate is on December the 4th. The lines will be open for you, leading politicians with me in the studio on that morning. Tomorrow, our guests include Sasha Waskusi, the woman who defended Rosemary West and prosecuted Rolf Harris. She's been a criminal barrister for nearly 40 years.

She's going to be talking about her new BBC One programme, Murder, Mystery and My Family. She sounds fascinating. She'll be on tomorrow. So too will Ching Hiu Wang, who'll be making five spice stir fry chicken and looking far into the future, I hope, fingers crossed, to Christmas Day. We want your stories of how you've had to do something a bit different over Christmas. It could be recently, might be one you're planning for Christmas of 2019. Why was it different? Why did it have to be different? Maybe you've had a Christmas without somebody significant

or you shared it with somebody new. It could even be your first vegan or vegetarian Christmas coming your way this year. Contact the programme via the website, bbc.co.uk slash womanshour for our programme about doing Christmas a little bit differently. Now, Michal Dehal is here. She's going to talk about a quite extraordinary true story of World War II,

but an aspect of World War II about which I knew nothing. Welcome to the programme, Michal. Thank you for having me. Now, you have written about the story of Polish Jewish child refugees, including your own father, who escaped the Nazis and went east. Now, the figures are we're not entirely sure how many people had to do this, but can you just try to give us some idea of how many people are involved here? Yes. So very quickly, these are people who escaped from Nazi-occupied Poland to Soviet-occupied Poland,

who basically in 1940 ended up under Soviet occupation. About a million people escaped. A million and a half or so ended up on the Soviet side. Either they escaped or they just lived there and fell under occupation. Of these, about a third are deported to the Soviet interior, to special settlements and gulorted to the Soviet interior to special settlements and gulags in the Soviet interior. 14 months later, they're released, go to Central Asia, most of them Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan. From there, mostly Polish Christians who belong to

the Andrus army, the Polish army in exile, leave for Iran. And among them are these roughly 1,000 Jewish children who are taken out of the Soviet Union as well. These children end up in Iran and later continue on in a kind of a harrowing route to mandatory Palestine. Right. I mean, your book is called Tehran Children, a Holocaust Refugee Odyssey. And this story is largely unwritten and pretty much unknown. And in fact, you didn't know about your father's part in it, did you? That's right. So my father never spoke about it. But the truth is that the story really is relatively unknown. And it's the story in Iran, you had about these 1000 Jewish children and a few more 1,000 other Jewish, Polish-Jewish refugees. But in Central Soviet Asia, you had almost a quarter million

Polish Jews. In other words, this is the story of how most Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust got out or survived. And it's relatively unknown. So what's been happening since the book came out on October 1st, people call me or write me and they say, Oh, my God, my mother is in Uzbekistan. I didn't know I thought she was the only one, but a quarter million people were there. Your own father, well, you knew your dad as Israeli. But in fact, when you went to the family, the family home in Poland, your family were Polish. Yeah, I discovered that this Polish Jewish family lived in Ostromozevichka, the town that they were from, for eight generations.

So in fact, the first title relative had my name, Michal. So yes, they were Polish Jews. And that past has pretty much been erased, as it has been for most Polish Jews. So both the pre-war past and the journey is not very well known. What was it like when you went back to your family's hometown in Poland? And what, I mean, this is a difficult area, but there is a degree to which the local Polish population were complicit with the Nazis, surely.

And this is a very, very touchy subject. And of course, my book is about Poland, Iran and Israel. Could there be something more sensitive than that? And the book is political. And I have been getting some pushback from nationalist polls and from other people. But I mean, this is very unclear. In my father's hometown right now, they owned a brewery that has been razed. There was a school there. There's not very, there aren't any really any traces of Jewish life there, aside from a kind of a memorial that was created by the relatives

of people who were murdered in this town. So it's a touchy area. And my book sheds a new light on Polish-Christian and Jewish relations because Polish-Christian Jews and Christian Jews escaped to the Soviet Union and were exiled together. So there is stuff there as well, both bad and some good. And what about Iran? I honestly had no idea that Jewish refugees went to Iran, of all places. That's right. What does Iran say about this now? I mean, we'll see. We'll see what happens with my

book in Iran. I hope it gets translated. It's not been published there yet. It's not been published. I don't know if it will be published. Iran is not a signatory on copyrights agreements. I have a feeling that somebody will translate it in one way or another. But yes, not only Polish Jews, but German Jews and Austrian Jews and Iraqi Jews were refugees in Iran during World War II. Iran was a neutral country in 1939. And Iran was a complex place. It had some Shiite clerics who were Nazi sympathizers, but it also let in refugees pretty generously, including my father. What was your father's life like? I mean, you say he didn't talk much about his past, but did he have a reasonably happy life? That's a difficult question. My father was a very quiet, slightly morose, slightly depressive person. My father was an engineer in the Israeli Air Force.

He was not necessarily a military man, but like many refugees around the world, the military is what's open to them as a profession. So I wouldn't say he had a happy life, but he did. He had a family. He had three children. He died in 1993, unfortunately, from mad cow disease, which we now think is due to something he ate in Uzbekistan. In Uzbekistan, there was tremendous famine. The refugees, when I went, I traveled to these places. So the book is also about my own research and traveling to these places. So the book is also about my own research and traveling to these places. And people in Uzbekistan told me the refugees used to eat live frogs and things like that in order

to survive. So we think it contracted it there. So my father died relatively young. And he worked very hard. He was a working class man. He came from a wealthy family in Poland. But of course, all of that was lost. And he had to kind of remake his life, I would say he had a reasonably okay life, but I wouldn't call it super happy. No. And what has it made you feel knowing all this now? You know, I do feel closer to my father, I had a fairly tense relationship with him. I now understand in some ways, I would say I gave a historical answer to a psychological question, which was how, who is my father? Who was my father?

So I do know so much more about him than I did before. I also feel very blessed to, in a way, have provided this research to a lot of other people. And people write me and they say, thank you for your research. And I'm also, you know, as an academic and a researcher, I mean, I'm telling a whole other story of the whole, this is a global history of the Holocaust, not having to do with Nazi Germany as much as with the British Empire, the Soviet Empire, the Iranian government, the Zionist Agency of Palestine, American Jewish aid organization. As you say, you could hardly have picked a more contentious series of things.

I really couldn't have. I really couldn't have. But it's exciting also. Yeah. Your research has been remarkably in-depth and presumably you've been, you've had to, did you find it easy to get access to some of these files in some of these places? Not at all. I mean, first of all, this is a decade work. Second of all, all of these places, and this is partly why the story wasn't told before in such depth, because these archives were not accessible. We're talking Russia, Poland, Iran, Uzbekistan. None of these places you could research a few years back, and even now it's very hard. In Uzbekistan, I actually couldn't even travel as an independent researcher, so I had to sort of pretend I was a tourist on the Silk Road and then have a clandestine

research assistant doing research for me. You can't go to these places even now and say, I want to look at KGB archives, please, and let me in. But I was able to get quite a lot of information in clandestine ways, including in Iran. I couldn't travel to Iran because I have Israeli citizenship, but I have an Iranian colleague and friend who researched for me. Right. Well, thank goodness for them. I think it's an amazing story. Thank you very much for telling us just something about it. Thank you. That is Mikal Deikal, and the book is called Tehran Children, a Holocaust Refugee Odyssey. Mikal, thank you very much indeed for coming on. Thank you so much for having me.

That was Mikal Deikal, and her book is called Tehran Children. And if, like me, you just didn't know anything about that aspect of World War II history, it's well worth seeking out. Now, to your thoughts on the programme today. In fact, we do have one email which does make it an important point, to be fair. Please can you remind listeners that the Nazis had a punishment of death throughout Poland for harbouring Jewish people. Despite this, over 10% of the Polish population took that risk and did help their Jewish friends. My great aunt was a case in point. She grabbed two Jewish children who were being marched off by Nazis and barked at the soldiers that she needed them for work. She then passed them off as her own children throughout the war

and saved money to send them to America. There were numerous unknown, unsung and unacknowledged people like her who did do the right thing under the threat of death and nobody talks about them. Well, we just have. And actually, I was having a conversation with Michal after the interview and I mean, I'm sure everybody in Britain thinks this. We haven't been tested in this country, have we? Within living memory.

We have no idea how we would have reacted if there had been a Nazi invasion of Britain and what we'd have done in terms of colluding with people who were in charge at that point. So who are we to make judgments about anybody else's behavior? Nevertheless, people do. Now, Waspy Women, Philippa says, if it were men who'd lost out over pension payments, compensation payments would be paid without question. This is from Frank. I don't understand why women are now approaching retirement age

and complaining about discrimination. The presenter herself made the point that women want equality, now retiring at the same age as men is equal treatment. Women working longer to pension age increases both their ability to earn an income and get a pension equal to that of men retiring. The pension received is universal regardless of gender, providing equal contributions have been made. What are women complaining about? What is WASPI? That's from Frank. Okay, first of all, the pension received is universal regardless of gender, providing equal contributions have been made. It's really important to point out that women sometimes didn't have the option to make contributions because they were at home.

And you can't carry on making pension contributions when you're at home bringing up kids. So that's one factor, Frank. On the point of what is WASPI, just in case some people are still slightly in the dark about this, and it has been a really big issue. WASPI women is, it's an acronym. It means Women Against State Pension Inequality. And it refers to that group of women born between the 6th of April 1950 to the 5th of April 1960. And they were not necessarily made aware, they say, of their pension age increasing. And that means they just weren't aware that they couldn't retire at the age they thought they could retire at and they just weren't expecting to carry on working and in some cases they're doing jobs that frankly are exhausting

and are going to continue to be even more exhausting as they get older many of these women of course are also people with caring responsibilities of one sort or another this is from dave jane correct your comment just now that the Lib Dems are the party of Remain. They are a party of Remain, but the Green Party are also a Remain party and they have been from the start, right? I've corrected that and I apologise, Dave.

Morag, I can absolutely guarantee there'll be fewer jobs available if the minimum wage rises to 10 quid. It is not a £10 cost to a business. It is far greater when adding in holiday pay, national insurance, etc. All businesses will struggle to remain profitable with this load. Pubs especially. I think you should look out for more closures.

This is from Sian, who says increasing the minimum wage to £10 an hour helps women who work in low paid jobs, maybe no more working full time and still not being able to afford to pay my rent for me. If further education becomes available for free, then I shall be gaining some qualifications and changing my life, hopefully escaping the trap of poverty, which has had me and my family firmly in its grip for decades, says Sian. Thank you to everybody who contacted the program today on a range of issues. We appreciate it. And tomorrow, Andrea Catherwood is here. There'll be some Chinese cooking and she'll talk to Sasha Wass QC.

Hi everybody, I'm Caitlyn Jenner and I am a guest on Simon Mundy's Don't Tell Me the Score podcast. We talked about everything, the Olympics, trans issues, and all the lessons that I have learned along the way. I really enjoyed recording the podcast and I hope you enjoy listening to it. You can hear it on BBC Sounds. Just search for Don't Tell Me the Score. No. 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.