Woman's Hour - Wife, Francesca Segal on premature babies, Love Island

Episode Date: June 5, 2019

After her identical twin girls were born prematurely at 30 weeks, writer and journalist Francesca Segal found herself sitting in what she called the “mother ship” of neonatal intensive care, all her expectations of parenthood shattered. She speaks to Jenni about the diary she kept and about the band of mothers who joined her in the Mother Ship – which is the title of her memoir of the 56 days spent with her daughters in hospital. Inspired by Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, new play Wife focuses on a married woman facing a sexual identity crisis in 1959 in order to explore what we have meant by the word ‘wife’ over 90 years. Set in 1959, 1988, 2019 and 2042 the play follows four queer stories within four generations of one family and it highlights the changes within the institution of marriage. Jenni talks to director Indhu Rubasingham and historian Dr Rebecca Jennings.This year's Love Island producers have introduced changes to make the hit TV programme more inclusive, and Monday’s launch revealed the new line-up. Do the changes go far enough? Jenni is joined by journalist Habiba Katsha, and by make-up artist Frances Shillito. Today is the start of a judicial review into women’s pensions. A group called BACK TO 60 is behind the court action. They want women’s state pensions to start at 60, as it did until 2010. It’s been rising ever since and is set to go up to 67 by 2028. Jenni talks to Davina Lloyd.Presenter: Jenni Murray Producer: Laura Northedge Interviewed Guest: Francesca Segal Interviewed Guest: Indhu Rubasingham Interviewed Guest: Rebecca Jennings Interviewed Guest: Habiba Katsha Interviewed Guest: Frances Shillito Interviewed Guest: Davina Lloyd

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to the podcast for Women's Hour for Wednesday the 5th of June. Love Island is back on the telly for the summer. How well will the contestants be cared for? And might there be a range of body types, including some that are less than perfect and perhaps a mix of races. A new play called Wife at the Kiln Theatre, inspired by Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House.

What has the word wife come to mean from the late 19th to the 21st century and beyond? And a memoir of the mothership, Francesca Siegel's story of the staff and other women in the hospital as her very premature twin daughters struggled to survive. Now today sees the start of a judicial review into women's pensions. It's WASPI, Women Against State Pension Inequality, who are perhaps best known for their battle for compensation for women who, born in the early 50s, suffered the worst shock of the equalisation

of the pension age. It used to be 60 for women and 65 for men. It's now 65 for both. But it's another group that's prompted the review. Back to 60 is arguing for women's state pension age to return to a start at 60. Dr Davina Lloyd speaks for them and early this morning, she explained why her group is arguing to go back to 60. We're asking only for the 1950s women to have their pension restored to 60 because that is the age they could legitimately have expected to receive their pension. We are not expecting everybody to go back to 60. It is just this particular group of women who have been discriminated against. We don't have any problem in the equalisation of the pension age as long as it is done properly. But what about

the argument that the WASPI women have put forward that there should just be compensation? Because it is argued that a lot of women of that age had been given fair warning. Well, I don't think that's true, Jenny, at all. And in fact, if you talk to any of the previous pension ministers, people like Ros Altman and Geoff Rooker, who are now both in the House of Lords, they will state that women were not in the 1950s, were not given adequate time to prepare for the changes in their pension. In fact, the DWP themselves will say that they didn't really start sending out any letters until about 2009. They're a bit vague. 2010, 2011, when all the changes were made. And of course, a woman born in 1950, as you will know, could reasonably have expected to have got her pension in 2010. So sending out

a letter in 2011 isn't very helpful. How do the current rules affect you? Right. I'm actually 65 now. I will get my pension later this year. I took early retirement from my teaching job because of health reasons. And I was very anxious to make sure I would have enough money in my old age. So I kept in touch with the DWP on a regular basis. Since I have retired, they've changed my pension arrangements six times, including last time in 2014. Now, they do argue that they did give fair warning, that they did send out letters. No, they only argue they sent out some letters. Their argument is that women in the 1990s should have been able to see that there was this legislation happening through their use of computers.

Did you really use one in the 1990s? And, of course, through posts, adverts in newspapers, really. There was no individual personal communication as the way the tax office communicates with us all. How did you achieve a judicial review of a law which the government had been very firm about, seeking to equalise the pension age for men and women and save money? Because we put the facts to a judge at the Royal Courts of Justice, the Right Honourable Mrs Justice Lange. We gave her all the points that we felt were unfair and discriminatory. And she agreed with every single one of the points we made and dismissed every single one of the

arguments the government put forward. She said this was a massive injustice to the 1950s women and needed to be put right as soon as possible. So what points will you be putting over the next couple of days? Well, that's down to our legal team, but essentially that women weren't given sufficient notice, that they were discriminated against, the government's tried to bring about equality in a way that has been discriminatory

and therefore in breach of the Equalities Law, and that they picked upon a group of women who were already discriminated against simply because they were born in the 1950s and they're unable to build up a pension in their own right in the same way that a man would have been able to. And what options might the judge come up with? I do not know. But what I do know is that we have paid in all this money over a number of years.

Some women will have paid in for 50 years not to have got anything out. And we took out a contract when we started paying into our National Insurance Fund that we would pay in, our employers would pay in and the government would pay in and the Thatcher government surreptitiously stopped doing that in the 1980s and since then there is at least a gap of 271 billion pounds missing, some figures say400 billion, from that pension fund. And so pension aid had to rise for everybody because the government were not keeping their side of the bargain. We've paid the money in. It's a sealed pot. It should be there to pay us back out again. I was talking to Dr Davina Lloyd from the group Back to 60.

The judicial review starts at half past ten this morning at the Royal Courts of Justice in London and it's expected to go on for two days in front of two judges, a man and a woman. And, of course, we will follow what happens. Now, Francesca Siegel is an award-winning novelist and she's now a mother with a memoir of the unexpected things that happened

when she gave birth to twin daughters ten weeks before their due date. The girls were in intensive care, receiving the best possible medical support, but it's the women she meets in the milking shed, where the women go to express breast milk for their babies, who hold each other up, and the book is called Mothership. Francesca what was your initial reaction when you were told you're expecting twins? I was absolutely gobsmacked. I suppose everyone must say that but I was particularly gobsmacked because my husband and I were slightly trepidatious about having children at all. We very much wanted

them but we were just scared and slightly babyish. And our agreement between ourselves is, well, we'll just have one. So then when I had this scan and the sonographer said, there's two and they're identical, I laughed, really. So how prepared were you for the fact that twins are often premature? An awful lot of people tried to prepare me, I think, to be fair. I was immediately, you're under beautiful consultant care in the NHS when you have identical twins.

It's a high-risk pregnancy inherently. And so I was told that they might come early. And I went to a talk, a tambour talk, about twins and parenting twins. And I should have been more prepared than I was. But I think I just didn't take it in. It was frightening and I didn't listen. Now, you did actually go into labour at 29 weeks, but they were actually delivered at 30 weeks. Now, that is very significant. Why? Why does that one number make such a difference? It's a taxonomic shift as much as anything else, but we move from one risk level to another, really.

Sort of under 30 weeks is extremely premature, and 30 weeks and above, I think, is very premature. And the outcomes are considered to be quite different in those two categories. And so it was just a number, but it was also something that I clung to for reassurance. What risks then did they face? Because they were awfully little. They weighed, what, two pounds each? They were two pounds each, yeah, just a scrap over a kilo. They were unable to breathe for themselves. They were unable to eat. They were fed by an oesogastric tube. They were unable to regulate their own body temperatures, so they had to be kept in warmed incubators. And very premature babies face everything from retinopathy of prematurity, which is blindness, to sepsis, to necrotizing enterocolitis, which is death of the

bowel, and their immune systems are completely unprepared for the world. You became really quite a medical expert on all of this, didn't you? Well, one sort of had to. I mean, I wish someone had told me at the beginning, though, that one doesn't have to be an expert. That was something that I didn't know. I was very frightened by the terminology and the jargon. And because I wasn't able to mother my children, I felt they needed medical care, which, of course, they did. But I sort of also felt I should have to provide it. And so I didn say what does that mean can you explain and I wish I had. What was your first

sight of them because you didn't see them immediately? I didn't meet my daughters the day they were born actually they were delivered around 5 p.m. and I had a whacking great dose of diamorphine for which I'm extremely grateful and I had to attempt expressing milk for them almost immediately after surgery expressing colostrum by hand which was an almighty failure because my body was as unprepared as the rest of me and then I fell asleep and I didn't wake up till four o'clock in the morning and it was then that I went down to the intensive care ward, and I saw them for the first time. So what do you remember of your first sight of them?

It was sort of otherworldly. The ward was dark because it was four o'clock in the morning, and it's often dark to protect their eyes, and they were bathed in this sapphire light for jaundice, and they were tiny, tiny doll-sized humans half humans in eye masks for um to protect them from the light with masks over their mouths to help them breathe their skin's too fragile for clothes so they were naked except for these tiny nappies and it was like I felt I was intruding they weren't ready. What was it like, I felt I was intruding. They weren't ready.

What was it like, though? I mean, you mentioned trying to express colostrum at the outset, but then you have to go on trying to express milk 10 weeks before your body would have expected to do it. How did you manage that? The real heroes are the midwives who supported us and helped us do it. An incredible midwife came and very tenderly and also firmly showed me how to hand express, which is agonising, particularly at the beginning. And we were all just told, this is one of the only things you can do, but only you can do it. And it was also empowering to be told that we had there was something there was a way in which we could mother our babies and that was to feed them even if not directly so we were all ushered into the milking shed we called it the expressing room and and actually however however much of a torment the expressing became the regular sort of two hourly expressing that was where these incredible friendships formed and these women met and were able to support one another through this

extraordinary unexpected start to motherhood. It's the kind of experience, isn't it, with other women, if you're in that kind of situation, where every barrier just goes down. There is no shyness, there is no embarrassment, you will just pitch in instantly it was like no other experience i've ever had there was an absolute absence of cattiness and just pure support and solidarity and sisterhood and a sense that um we were a unit in battle really now both your girls did develop life-threatening infections What happened? It's almost inevitable I think in long-term hospitalisation however extraordinary the care in their care was extraordinary on the NHS

that it cannot be a sterile environment and babies do contract infections and you don't necessarily know where they've come from and it's immediately and instantly terrifying and it might just have been someone's tiny cold who passed through but when babies are unable to breathe alone and are on oxygen then it can be you know it can be deadly almost instantly. Now you said that producing milk was the only thing you were really able to do to care for your daughters because they had to be so isolated. At what point was it possible for you to cuddle them, which obviously they benefited from, and feed them yourself?

Those two things were very, very different times. We were able to hold them, I think it was day three or day four. An incredible nurse said, would you like to hold them? And we were not allowed to lift them ourselves. They have rice paper skin and all these wires and cannulas and needles going into them. And so a layman can't lift them. You need an expert to deliver them to you. But we could lie back in a reclining chair and have them delivered to your naked chest so you were skin to skin and that was just one of the most unbelievable

healing experiences I think for me and for the babies to be able to hold them. Why healing? I mean obviously I've read your book and it seems to be the moment where they connect with you as you connect with them. It was a restoration of a sense of we had been ripped so far asunder and they from one another also and to put us back in contact at a time when they should have still been inside my body just felt like a tiny setting right of this enormous wrong. Now this titled The Mothership I, even though the staff were absolutely amazing, well, most of them were. There's always one, isn't there?

Not quite as wonderful as the others. But who are this group of women and what did they do for you, the ones you met when you were milking yourselves? They were the long-term mothers on the ward. So people whose babies were there for more than just a day or two days. Although I should say that even a day is too long to have one's baby in intensive care when it's not

what you expect. But there were a few of us, a core crew of us, who were there for weeks and weeks who became almost immediately like family in a way that I can imagine only sort of street war and other circumstances can pull people together, you know, a soldier's battalion.

We sat side by side, half naked, expressing milk for our babies and expressing ourselves to one another. And they just became, they are still treasured, treasured friends without whom I can't imagine my life. Because we were just brought together in this extraordinary circumstance. And they were funny and raucous and outrageous under these incredibly difficult circumstances. And we carried one another through.

What was it like for the fathers during this time? Very difficult and very different. Most people had two weeks paternity leave and had to go immediately back to work. So we're trying to live in two worlds at once. And I do not envy that having to have one foot in the real world and another foot in this hospital life. And also they didn't have the milking shirt. I would come out and I would say to Gabe, you know, ward rounds at 10am in our room, and this is the doctor we should try and talk to if we want this. And he'd say, how do you know that? I'd say.m in our room and this is the doctor we should try and talk to if we want this and he'd say how do you know that I'd say well they told me in the milking shed one of the other mothers told me or if the girls were having a procedure I'd say don't worry I'll ask

someone later and he'd say but when do you see the doctor say no no I don't need the doctors I've just got the other mums you say you you tried not to be too demanding with the staff, honey, not vinegar, you described yourself as. And then a much younger mother, Kenesha, was much more demanding. Which is the better approach? Oh, I think I can say without hesitation that Kenesha's approach was the better one to take. I was craven and frightened. And I wanted everybody to like me. And that isn't actually, in fact, how you best parent your children. It's not how you get the best care. The care was incredible and we were cared for equally,

but also people are busy and tired and forget things and you do need to be an advocate for your child who's not able to advocate for themselves. And I learnt from Kamisha, she taught me a huge amount about how to be a mother lion, which was what my children needed. Now as the due dates approach, when the baby should have been born, it's a difficult time for you all, why? It was, I think one couldn't help but envisage how things should have been. And I, for one one was not very good

at saying that isn't how they are this is the real world I spent a lot of time imagining how this due date would have been and the normal quote-unquote birth I had expected and it was actually Kamisha again who really showed me a more grown-up way to be because she saw her daughter's due date as her birthday and she had a party and a cake and a little tiny frock for this tiny little baby and it made a beautiful memory of something that I was grieving and her due date came first and I thought right I'm going to pull my socks up and I'm you know this is how this is the way to be. And how are A-let and B-let which is what you called them initially now Celeste and Raffaella, how are they doing now?

We have been incredibly, incredibly lucky and they are doing beautifully. They're three now and they spend a great deal of time pretending to be dinosaurs. And I am just grateful every day. I don't think I will ever lose my gratitude that they are here and that they're well. Francesca Siegel, thank you very much indeed for being with us. And the book, as I said, is called Mothership. Thank you. Now, still to come in today's programme, The Return of Love Island. Will it be more diverse and will the contestants be properly cared for? And the serial, the third episode of I'm a Slave. You may have missed interesting things earlier in

the week. The violinist Nicola Benedetti and a look ahead to the Women's World Cup which begins on Friday in France. If you missed the live programme, you can catch up. All you have to do is download the BBC Sounds app. Now a new play called Wife opened last

night at the Kiln Theatre in North London. It's written by Samuel Adamson and it takes Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House as its inspiration. The play opens with an actress in 1959 performing the role of Nora as the character leaves her husband around 1889. A 1950s housewife and her husband come to the dressing room. There's clearly desire between the two women

as the husband fulminates about Nora's actions in a doll's house. The wife is not going to give in to temptation. She'll stay with her husband and do the done thing. Well, three more stories are told in 1988, 2019 and 2042, tracing the changes in the meaning of the word wife as time goes on. Well, Dr Rebecca Jennings lectures in modern gender history at University College London. Indra Rubasingam is the artistic director at the Kiln and directed this play. Indra, why was The Ibsen such an inspiration for this story?

I think when the play was first ever done in 1880, I think it was first ever produced, it was so transgressive. People were outraged that a woman could leave her husband and children. It was an impossible idea, to the point where when it was first performed in this country um they rewrote the ending and made her come back um and and so that sort of reverberated through time it's a play that i think attracts a lot of us kind of we all want to know what happens when nora slams that door and leaves that house. What have you made up in your head? What do you think happened to her? I think it depends which time.

I mean, I think ultimately she was happier because, I mean, I'm not saying... I mean, the cost of being yourself is a high cost, but is that worth it? You know, is it better that than the cost of repressing who you are? And I think that's the interesting thing that the play explores. Is it worth being yourself?

And ultimately, I think it always is. How outraged, Rebecca, do you think a late 1950s husband would have been at the mere idea of watching A Doll's House and a woman saying, right, I'm leaving you and going. Well, I think women leaving their husbands was still outrageous in the late 1950s. Divorce was not socially acceptable in that period. And also there were other pressures which caused women to stay in marriages, economic pressures, the desire to stay with children. So it wasn't a common decision for women to make.

Now Daisy, the wife in the 1958 section of the play, does stay with her husband. How common do you reckon it would have been then for a woman to just put her sexuality away? She's clearly wanting to be with the actress and doesn't. I think it was very common. When the first British Lesbian magazine was published in 1964, they were inundated with letters from married lesbians who wrote in saying, I know that I'm attracted to other women. Some of them had realised before they were married and hoped that the marriage would cure them. Others hadn't realised until after they got married.

But many of them said, I feel that I have no choice. I can't leave my children. I feel guilty about leaving my husband. He's a good man. He didn't know that, you know, he went into this situation unknowingly. And I have an obligation to everyone around me to stick with it. And a lot of women made that decision

to stay in the marriage and put their own sense of self to one side. Indu, it's Daisy's son who enters the next scene in 1988. He's openly and to some extent quite outrageously gay. So what by now has happened to the word wife? Well, I think... Well, in the son's context, it's like there isn't a word for... There isn't a wife, there isn't a word for uh there isn't a wife there isn't a

to to express your partnership in in a gay relationship so what he's talking about in 1988 is finding the equivalent of a wife that the word uh a partnership a marriage and legalizing uh gay relationships so in 1988 they're fighting for the right to be together, to have their world celebrated, recognised and to be open and proud. So that's what he's fighting for in 1988. And of course facing terrible prejudice in the pub where he and his partner are having a drink. His partner's having a drink

and his partner's very much in the closet very scared it is in the at the height of aids and the the paranoia around aids uh and how you could catch it and uh that and you know if you think about it this was just uh this was a couple of years before when the play you know before freddie mercury died and, you know, a few years after Rock Hudson had died. So it's a very specific time period which he's fighting for. And what was going on then for women who were in lesbian relationships? How were things changing for them? Well, I think that same desire for recognition of

relationships was happening but um but for women the the idea of marriage has always been much more loaded i think than for men um you know women historically have been um in a subservient role in marriage um and the women's movement also the the lesbian and gay political movement in the 70s had really critiqued marriage and the nuclear family quite, quite severely. So I think it's unlikely that many women in lesbian relationships in the 80s would have been looking for marriage as a as a form of social recognition tolerance certainly one of the big issues for for lesbians in that period was about acceptance of lesbian mothers so so that was that was certainly a big issue at that time as well. Andrew, the play follows through to 2019 and then 2049, way into the future. What's the play saying about marriage and the wife as time goes on through our period and then onwards?

Well, I think it's saying several things. I think it's looking, it's sort of saying what you suppress, the action someone takes in 1950s and the act of suppressing uh what the ramifications are throughout that and how that is rippled and felt throughout the generations and how that is passed on in some way uh and i think i think what what it's sort of i think what the play is sort of saying is that there's the institution of marriage and there's relationships. And sometimes the institution of marriage complicates and makes us lose ourselves. And to find that true relationship is something different and fragile and beautiful. But the institution and society, what society puts on us, can convolute that and destroy that. And now, of course, there is equal marriage, Rebecca.

What's the most common feeling about marriage among the LGBT community now? Well, I think it varies to a certain extent by generation. I think for a lot of younger people, marriage equality is really important as an indication of social acceptance. It gives people a sense of validity that they can turn around to anybody who makes homophobic comments and say, yes, but we are equal to you. But at the same time, there are other people, particularly, I think, in older generations who still see marriage as an oppressive institution and one which will change our relationships and take away the radical potential of same-sex relationships. You've been at the Kiln, formerly the Triangle, since 2012. There have been awards, refurbishment,

controversy about the name change. How are things actually settling down and how important is this play to you right now? It's really important. I mean, I love it. I'm loving it at the moment. It's what's fantastic with the new building and I sort of talk about it's like being a grown-up version of ourselves.

We're seeing a whole new audience. We're seeing a real diverse audience in terms of, and by that I mean age and as well as backgrounds. And I'm loving the excitement. And this play is funny, witty, sassy, but also very painful and bittersweet. And it's everything that I want the theatre to stand for. It's political. it's current it's it's saying so it's it's it's it's grey it's nuanced it's not telling you what to think it's posing a lot of questions um and it's very heartfelt and I I I love the theatricality of the play which we are trying to express on that stage. And what does the word wife mean in the future, would you say?

Wife to me is a painful word, do you know what I mean? Because it's often, it's subservient, it's often used originally in gender. It was a woman and a wife in marriage and it's often used derogatory. So I hope we find a new word that is equal in both partners. Indra Rubasingham and Dr Rebecca Jennings, thank you both very much indeed. And the play is on until when? July, July the 6th. July the 6th.

You had to think there. Thank you both very much indeed for being with us this morning. Thank you, Jenny. Now, Love Island began on Monday evening. For those not in the know, it's a reality show where a number of young people go to an island and choose a partner. It has millions of viewers, but as with other reality shows, notably Jeremy Kyle, there are questions about how well the participants thrown into the spotlight are cared for. Two former islanders have taken their own lives.

From the perspective of the audience, is it really a good idea for them to see only beautiful people with no or minimal racial diversity paraded in front of them? While Frances Shillitoe is a make-up artist and a mental health ambassador, Habiba Kacha is a freelance journalist. Habiba, what's the appeal of Love Island? I think the appeal of Love Island is the drama of it all.

As a young person, it's interesting to see people navigate through relationships on TV because it's just a reflection of society. And I think it's funny for young people to go online and speak about Love Island and see the commentary and see who their favourite person is and who they think should win and who their favourite couple is. So I think for a lot of young people,

it literally is a reflection of how relationships work in society. But, Frances, what do you reckon is the pressure that the participants might be under that they might not have anticipated? As in the contestants? I think the pressures from society outside when they get out, from their followers on Instagram, the backlash they get from their behaviour

whilst they're on the programme, the way they look, the aesthetic surgery they've had um i think it's there's a whole multitude of things that's got nothing to do with them as a person because they're purely being judged on the way they behave when they're on that program and the way they look by strangers when they come out um and it's got yeah absolutely nothing to do with actually who they are because they're not portrayed in the right way and they're edited and produced. And, you know, they have no control over how the producers are going to decide the way they look to the outside world.

You know, they can do anything. They can make them look like a star or they can make them look like a demon. Habiba, the producers tell us that they have improved considerably their duty of care policy. They're very aware now. How confident are you that it will help I'm not sure how confident I am because I think with the increase of social media and I think if

most people are honest most contestants go on love island to be on instagram and to become instagram famous so even though there is aftercare that's that whole pressure of what Francis was talking about of becoming famous when you come out of Instagram that whole pressure of staying with the person that you were coupled up with on Instagram and having to look perfect as you were on the show so even though they've improved their duty of care I'm not sure how much that will affect um this year's contestants yeah I know I totally agree and I think the duty of care may be there. But again, that's not going to control the way the public react to these people. And I don't think anything can prepare anybody for what is in store for them when they get out of there, because it has such a huge impact on their lives and must be incredibly overwhelming.

Now, they do say they've improved diversity. I think there are two black contestants this year, three mixed heritage and one Iranian. How much difference will that mix make for the show? I think it's interesting to see how the show has played out and I think the word diversity is often used as a buzzword because people want places and companies and shows to be diverse but I don't think they're doing diversity right we are seeing more people on Love Island but we're not seeing people who are open to dating people outside of their race so I think if you are going to go on Love Island if you are going to have contestants of colour you need to have people who will date people outside of their race but what we're seeing now is what we saw last year is black women continuously being chosen last because you have people on the

show who aren't attracted to black women so I think that if we are going to do diversity we need to do it we need to do diversity right and also there is a plus-size woman on the show as well but she is what the Instagram culture would call plus size she just has a big bum and curvy so she's not she looks like a kardashian essentially so it's not what people would consider a real plus side woman to be in britain so what what do you make of the racial question because there there were comments about racism last year as a result of the black woman not being selected over and over again. Yeah, we did have this discussion, didn't we, previous to coming on. And the same mistake has been made instantly.

The two people that got singled out on Monday were of colour. So they're almost highlighting the problem by trying, you know, they're trying to fix fix it but they've actually made the situation worse and what do you think having only beautiful women even plus-sized women who are not what i would call plus-sized really on what what effect does that have on the audience i mean a lot of young people are watching this and they all look fabulous in their swimsuits, don't they? I often wonder what would I think if I were watching that over and over again and wanted to be like it. Yeah. I think if you're not a confident person,

it will definitely affect your self-esteem. But Francis and I were talking about this outside. I think you have to take Love Island with a very big pinch of salt because it's a fantasy world. I think people need to watch the show and know that everyone there they've chosen people that look perfect so when I watch it I don't really take it seriously because I know that everything on the show is fake but for younger people who are more vulnerable they might not see it in the same lens so that's why it is a bit

of an issue in terms of only having perfect people in there i was going to say you're a grown-up a lot of young teenagers watching you don't they what do you make of the perfection of the bodies both male and female yes no it is both men are affected as much as women um the problem i have is it's normalizing aesthetic surgery not just love island programs like the only way is essex you watch them everybody looks the same and it's it's sending a message out to young people that in success and fame you need to look like this and they're you know last year we successfully complained about the plastic surgery advert that came on instantly because what that the message that that was sending out was, if you're not happy with the way you look, it's totally okay because financially here's an affordable way to fix that.

And you can look like these people on this programme and that will bring you happiness. And that there's the problem because it's sending out a totally incorrect message. I think the advertising question is being dealt with this year, that the breast enhancement and ads for plastic surgery won't be there this year. How much of a relief is that to you, Habiba? I wasn't actually aware that there were plastic surgery adverts at all because when I watched the show, I literally switched off other adverts. But I think that that's really good.

I literally wasn't aware that that was happening so the fact that they've changed that means that they are trying to help people in their mental health but how far is it really going to go? Last year more people applied for Love Island than for Oxbridge what did you make of that? Well for someone who went to university two years ago this is an interesting question because we have to take in the fact that for a lot of young people going to university now, they will be in debt.

Regardless of the university that you go to, you will be in debt. So a lot of young people now are seeing becoming Instagram famous as a way of having a viable career faster than going to university because Instagram is like instant success. So when people see Love Island, they see,

I'm going to go on Love Island, I'm going to become famous. But when people see university, they think I'm going to go into university and I'm going to go into debt. So it's an interesting debate. What are you hoping for from this year's series, Frances? In what sense? Will you be watching it? What are you hoping for from this year's series, Frances? In what sense? Will you be watching it? I watched the opening one and that was enough to not make me watch it again

because nothing's changed. In fact, I think it's kind of heightened. People look more extreme this year, body-wise and aesthetic surgery-wise. Habiba, will you be watching it? I'm still watching it, but I'm watching it with a critical eye this year because there is more diversity, but I'm just not sure how that's going to pan out. I was talking to Habiba Kacha age of 66, having received my old age pension when I was 62 and a half, I recall clearly having had the situation communicated to me many years ago, perhaps when I was even in my 30s. I was not alone in this as it was discussed with my friends who all had the HMRC letters. Angie said, if only the 1950s women get compensation,

how unfair to those of us born in 1960, and so on. It's the whole issue that needs addressing, not just the effect on an arbitrarily chosen group. Laura said, given the gender pay gap, which continues to exist, wouldn't the fairest thing be to allow women the five years of extra pension surely that's the only way to bring about an equality between the sexes on this happy and then on the question of premature babies someone who didn't want us to name her said i'm transferred back to 1989 when my twins were born at 29 weeks weighing in at just over two pounds each. They were named Tate and Lyle by the nursing staff

as their weight was equivalent to a bag of sugar each. I too am a Francesca and had no sight of my babies for the first few days of their lives as they were rushed into incubators in a London hospital whilst I recovered from a C-section. Your item has almost inspired me to put some recollections down on paper in this the 30th year of my children's lives if only to encourage other parents that there is hope when twins arrive so dangerously early. Wendy said listening to you today brought back memories of 35 years ago and the support from the mother's house at the Royal Manchester

Children's Hospital. My son and I were there for 13 weeks and I couldn't have got through without the support of those women. And Anna said, amazing to hear this woman speaking with such honesty and openness. I was lucky in that my twins were not premature, but so much resonated with me, the milking and the not being demanding, the things I wish I'd known. Very best wishes to them all. And Kusuma said, started listening, can't carry on as I have PTSD from my twins' premature birth. Many of us who are mums to premature twins don't get that kind of sharing and mutual support,

particularly if they're born before 30 weeks, I expressed alone in a room staring at a wall. And then Bernard said, as a retired paediatrician who cared for tiny babies and their mothers, with whom I sometimes wept in the early days of neonatal care, I thank Francesca Siegel for her moving and wise words, her wonderful insight into the problems and technicalities of supporting the babies, which I'm sure will help so many other mothers. And then on Love Island, Jane said, I thought you'd be interested to hear what my

14-year-old daughter said to me in the car this morning about it. My favourite contestant is Lucy because she's very natural looking and doesn't look like she's had any plastic surgery. She also looks like she isn't wearing any makeup which makes her look very pretty. There are a couple of nice blokes but most of them are very cocky about how good looking they are. They rate themselves 10 out of 10 which I think is very arrogant and most of the girls have seen through them which is good. Maybe they might think twice about showing off about their looks. I was very impressed with my daughter's take on the show

and it then led to an interesting chat about dating and women's bodies. A good conversation to have with a teenage girl and possibly not a conversation we would have had had she not watched the show. Now do join me tomorrow, if you can, two minutes past ten, when I'll be talking to the Turkish author Elif Shafak about her new novel,

Ten Minutes, Thirty-Eight Seconds in This Strange World. It's a depiction of what goes through the mind of a woman who's been murdered just after she dies. Two minutes past ten tomorrow. Bye-bye. I'm Simon Mundy, host of Don't Tell Me The Score, the podcast that uses sport to explore life's bigger questions, covering topics like resilience, tribalism and fear with people like this. We keep talking about fear and to me,

I always want to bring it back to are you actually in danger? That's Alex Honnold, star of the Oscar-winning film Free Solo, in which he climbed a 3,000-foot sheer cliff without ropes. So, I mean, a lot of those, you know, social anxieties, things, and certainly I've had a lot of issues with talking to attractive people in my life. I'm like, oh no, like I could never do that. And it certainly feels like you're going to die, but realistically you're not going to die. And that's all practice too. Have a listen to Don't Tell Me The Score, full of useful everyday tips from incredible people on BBC Sounds. 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.