Woman's Hour - Woman and boundaries, Ida B Wells, Cycling, Dementia

Episode Date: May 16, 2020

How do you manage to create boundaries between work and home during lockdown? Dr Yasin Rofcanin, of the University of Bath’s School of Management discusses his new research exploring how COVID-19 is impacting our understanding of boundaries. We also hear from Chloë Davies, head of PR and Partnerships at myGwork, and Melanie Eusebe, management consultant and chair of the Black British Business Awards.Ida B. Wells was an journalist and campaigner. She's just been honoured with a special Pulitzer Price for her courageous reporting of the violence inflicted on African Americans during the lynching era. Professor Paula J. Giddings, who's written a biography of her, tells us about Ida and all that she achieved.How is lockdown affecting people living with dementia, as well as their carers? Linda Clare, Professor of Clinical Psychology of Ageing and Dementia at the University of Exeter, and Philly Hare, Co-Director of Innovations in Dementia discuss. Nurse and poet Molly Case reads her poem 'Hold Your Pen Torches High'.Listener Nadine tells us how the government advice for over-70s has affected her. Gabrielle Rifkind, psychotherapist and director of the conflict resolution organisation Oxford Process, and Professor Jane Lord, professor of immune cell biology and Director of the Institute of Inflammation & Ageing, University of Birmingham discuss social distancing guidance, and how best to communicate when you see risk differently.Cycling is seeing a huge increase in popularity thanks to people avoiding public transport and wanting to get some exercise. We hear from Krysia Williams from the Bristol Bike Project. Anna Jones has been described as ‘the kind of cook who makes you want to eat vegetarian food even if you're not vegetarian'. She shares some lunchtime ideas. Presenter: Jane Garvey Producer: Dianne McGregor

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. This is the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello, good afternoon and welcome to the weekend edition of Woman's Hour. I hope you're OK. It's just me alone in a studio with a packet of sanitising wipes. It's the story of many of our lives right now. On the programme today, you can find out about the life of Ida B. Wells, the African-American journalist and activist who refused to give up her seat in a first-class ladies' car on a train way back in 1883. We'll also today have a conversation with Anna Jones,

the food writer, vegetarian specialist. She's got some good ideas for you, particularly involving the staple of many of Women's Hour Cookery Conversation, the store cupboard. I should say my store cupboard appears at the moment to be very full of crisps and not much else. First of all, lockdown has meant the lines between work and home are becoming more and more blurred if you are fortunate enough to be able to at least attempt to work from home. But how do you manage to create boundaries in order to be able to work productively and look after yourself at the same time? I talked this week to Chloe Davis, the Head of PR

and Partnerships at MyGWork. That's a business community for LGBT plus professionals. She's at home at the moment with a four and a two year old. Melanie Eusebi is a management consultant and chair of the Black British Business Awards. We'll also hear from Dr Yasin Rofkanen of the University of Bath School of Management, an expert in boundary theory. First up, here's Chloe. What is she doing and how is she managing to do it? I spend a lot of my time doing webinars or private sessions. And as you can imagine, with a four-year-old and a two-year-old, it's having to get really inventive about where I can go for an hour's silence. So, you know,

I'm grateful we have a garden. We've tried putting them outside when the weather is really nice um but my go-to space has now become the loft so I'm currently speaking to you uh in our loft with the latch slightly up because they can't climb the ladder where are they now Chloe they're downstairs I can hear them all right um looking at some of the stuff you've been putting out on social media uh there was a very funny post on Instagram um you claim to have written a couple, at least three emails, I think you said, with a child on your head. Yeah, that's my youngest son, Theo,

who has no respect for boundaries at all and thought that sitting on mummy's head was actually the best place for him. So many a time I kind of am walking around with a business phone and then a laptop and just kind of do what I possibly can. You know, I'm grateful to walking around with a business phone and then a laptop and just kind of do what I what I possibly can you know I'm grateful to have a job but it's just about adapting. Yeah Melanie we can make light of this and Chloe is obviously very happy to do so and well done to her for being

so open about it all but actually Melanie this can be very tough on a lot of people, particularly women. This is tough. And so, you know, don't get me wrong. Flexible working is brilliant for women. Under these circumstances, these incredibly sad circumstances, this is where we see that there's a crunch point. And we go back to that super women trope that we are trying to escape from, where we're literally trying to run three different kind of parts of our lives concurrently. And so that's where there's a real danger that we are going to be overwhelmed and overloaded and our mental health will suffer. Yeah, we need to make clear, of course, not everybody has the opportunity to work from home. In many ways, that itself is a real privilege, isn't it? We need to acknowledge that. Exactly. So it is a privilege. And actually, that privilege contributes towards the guilt that I sometimes feel that, you know, I'm having problems managing the different parts of my life all together in my little house, off my little desk. But on the other hand, I know that it's such incredibly sad circumstances that I almost feel

guilty for feeling overwhelmed. So how are you playing it? Are you operating as diligently as you would do normally? Because you're on your tod at home, aren't you? Yes, I am at home with my loud dog that barks when the leaves blow. And so what I've had to do is very much separate my life. But on the other hand, warn people that this is what they can expect by being on a Zoom call with me or by being on a conference call with me. And so it's a balancing act between letting people in, but then also trying to have boundaries. I want you both to listen to Dr. Yassine Rofkanen. He's from the School of Management at Bath University,

and he's done research into the impact of COVID-19 on the working lives of everybody. Now, this is interesting. He believes that essentially we divide into two categories. Segmentators, who want clear-cut boundaries between work and home, and integrators, who are happier to blur the lines between work and home. Women, in most of my studies, published research, they are segmentators. From our research perspective, we know one important reason is childcare and elderly care. Women, female employees, are the major caretakers. But feminists certainly would say that men are allowed to be integrators because women will do the child care

and the caring for the elderly at home that allows the men to carry on working. Exactly. And very, very unfortunately. And our recent study about COVID has actually confirmed and supported that prediction to a great extent. And what is the impact likely to be on women's working lives? The impact is likely to be in the form of falling behind the career ladder, being seen as less performance driven and productivity driven. So we know, based on the statistics we already have, that COVID-19 actually poses more of a health risk to men. But you seem to be suggesting it might have a greater social impact on women. Definitely. And I think this is a fascinating study that I would like to also briefly mention. So we collected diary data, data that means that we collected data over the days from employees

in England, Spain and Italy, equally from men and women. What we have found was supervisor support for family and exhaustion were most important in order to reduce stress related to COVID. But when we divided in terms of gender, our findings were fascinating in that women tend to report higher degree and extent of COVID-related stress compared to men. We were able to show that this is because women perceive higher extent of mental home demands at home. In other words, they perceive that they are responsible from dealing with home errands and home performance, and that at the same time they need to work, be in communication with their supervisors, and take care of the kids and children.

That's the view of Dr Yassine Rofkanen. First of all, Melanie, what do you think about the idea of segmentators and integrators? When I first read the research, I agreed with it. However, I thought that it was a privilege that was not very much afforded to women, that most women have additional care responsibilities that would force them to be integrators. And it was lovely that we were able to look at the diaries, because if I look at my diary, it's a combination of teaching my nephew French, as well as going on a board meeting to decide strategic methods. And they're all blended

together. And even though I would love to segment my life in that way, it's just not possible with care responsibilities, and quite frankly, socioeconomic conditions where my flat doesn't allow me to segregate, you know, into a room or, you know, I'm literally putting a corner of my life away. Yeah, I mean, space is has never been more important and if you've got space Chloe it puts you at an immense advantage at the moment doesn't it? I'm so grateful to have the space for a garden but I totally agree with you you know with the best will in the world I would love to be able to separate and even having that space you know I have a four-year-old and a two-year-old who they just go where they would like to go at any given time and you know I think there's a bit that we're missing the impact that it's having on

children and how they're really dealing at this time in this space you know they need mummy more they need hugs they need cuddles and when you're trying to work during the day as well as kind of take care of a home keep an eye on everything you need to as well as yourself there isn't enough time in the day let alone space to kind of cover all of that so i think you know the greater impact is not only when you're caring but the responsibility of kind of keeping everybody else on track but you have you have a husband at home with you don't you chloe i have a partner yeah sorry they're dead it's okay yeah and yeah he is he is here but he is also still working that takes him outside of the house so it's also that

panic every time he does leave it's the the boundaries that we put in place for coming back home safely. Yeah of course coming back home safely but also when he's out of the house presumably that's the end of your working potential for the day in terms of your professional life. Absolutely. That's why you saw that picture with Theo on my head, because unfortunately, that doesn't necessarily stop. You know, I work for a global organisation, so there are some things I kind of can get away with in terms of I can check in later on in the day for the US. But there are others where, you know, sometimes I just have to be really honest. And like Melanie said, these are my children. They're in the background. I really, you know, I apologise. But this is how it is today. You know, can we carry on?

Okay, finally, Melanie, it does, well, it should present an opportunity for the way we work to change forever. Do you think things really have changed and will continue to be very different? Will it look the same a year or two years from now? No, I don't think it will look the same. I think that, again, under these circumstances, we were forced to adapt flexible working and technology that we've never had before. And that has been a blessing. However, on the other side, there's a lot that we have to do to change our mindsets in regards to children not appearing professional or a dog barking not appearing professional, and what that whole concept is in terms of performance that the research mentioned, because we are even more high performing

because we are juggling so many balls, rather than it being seen as a detriment, rather than it being seen as something that we have to hide or that we have to apologise for. You know, I do have children, they are going to run through and I'm still badass. Melanie Yusebi, and we also heard from Chloe Davis and from Dr Yassine Rofkanen of Bath University. Ida B. Wells was an American journalist and campaigner, very recently posthumously honoured with a Pulitzer Prize special citation for outstanding and courageous reporting on the horrific violence against African Americans during the era of lynching in the States. Professor Paula J. Giddings wrote a biography of Ida B. Wells. It's called Ida, A Sword Among Lions. And this week she got up very early in her morning in the United States

because, as she told me, she would do anything to tell the world about Ida. She was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi in 1862. She was the oldest of five siblings and had a really a decent childhood and her parents had been enslaved. But after Reconstruction, her father, who was a talented carpenter, and her mother, who was a talented cook, really adjusted to freedom quite well. Her father had his own carpentry shop and the family, you know, got education, went to school. Education was paramount. But all of this came to an abrupt halt in 1878 when a yellow fever epidemic swept the Mississippi Valley. And both of Ida Wells' parents died and succumbed to yellow fever within 24 hours of one another, leaving her at the age of 16 as the head of the household and who needed to support her siblings.

And how did she do that? Well, she asked friends in the community to get her a job teaching at 16, and she lied about her age. But that's quite a leap to make between working as a teacher when she was far too young to do so and becoming a journalist. So what happened to make between working as a teacher when she was far too young to do so and becoming a journalist. So what happened to make that possible? About 1880 or so, she is invited to come to Memphis, Tennessee. She's an editor of a journal that's published by teachers. So she's already, she knows that she's a pretty talented writer. But then in 1883, her career really begins and her activist career, as well as the beginning of her journalistic

career, begins when she refuses to leave a first class car, first class lady's car on the Chesapeake and Ohio railway. And she is actually in the end physically extricated from her seat by a conductor, but then leaves the train in a huff before she's actually thrown out. And this is typical of her personality, she immediately contacts a lawyer and decides to sue the railway. She actually wins the suit in the lower court. She'll lose later in the Tennessee Supreme Court, but in 1884, she actually wins the suit and becomes kind of a cause celebre in her community as a result of it, and is asked to write about the experience for a black newspaper in Memphis, for a black church paper in Memphis, Tennessee. And this is really the beginning of her journalistic career. She loves it, writing.

As you can imagine from the trauma she's experienced, she's kind of a lonely person. And she is in some ways a kind of an angry person that she knows that she has to you know, in journalism I found the real me. So she's quite committed to the craft. And Wells is one of the few women who writes both political articles as well as kind of the domestic women's column kind of articles. She writes both. But she's approached by two men to be the editor of their newspaper. And she says, yes, I will, but I must have a third ownership to do it. And she buys a third ownership of the paper and becomes the editor of the Memphis Free Speech, which is really a good newspaper and a very militant one. You say militant. How did that manifest itself?

She believed in protests. She believed in revealing inequities in the society at a time. And this is a difficult period for African-Americans. This is talking about the late 19th century, when there's much more pressure on African-Americans, where violence is really emergent. I mean, there are two schools of thought in this difficult period.

One is sort of for African Americans just sort of keep their heads down to, you know, accumulate wealth, be good citizens, certainly to be nonviolent, not to protest, but to sort of just get along. And there's another school of radicals of protest, and Wells belongs to the second school. And she endorses this idea of the retaliation of Blacks in Georgetown, Kentucky. As a result of the lynching, African-Americans in the city almost burned down the entire town of Georgetown in retaliation.

And she is for this and gets in some trouble. The paper gets in some trouble. There's so much to admire about this woman, not least the fact that she was explicit in her language and in her writing. She avoided euphemisms, didn't she? Absolutely. And, you know, we are in the, this is really the Victorian period when you think about it. And there's, and especially women weren't to use certain kinds of language among other things. And for example, even the word rape. I mean, people didn't use the word rape. Ida Wells did, because she believed that you just had to

be explicit in that way. So her language in and of itself is radical. She is a name we ought to know. She was Rosa Parks over 50 years before Rosa Parks. Why don't people know more about her? It's a good question. I had to ask myself that as well in writing my book, my biography of her, because she was a very significant figure through most of her career. And, you know, one of the things I really concluded was that we understand why her enemies and why racists and why others would want to ignore her or suppress her name. But she was also so confrontational to progressives and people who otherwise would be her allies. When she believed that they weren't doing what they should do for the race, she would call them out publicly. You know, she was that type of person.

Yeah, OK. So she was very singular. But then she'd had to be. She couldn't be any other way. But those people also suppressed her name and also didn't publicly recognize her. And so I think the result of that kind of double edged problem is one reason why we don't know very much about it. And she's a difficult person. I mean, who wants to talk about this confrontation with lynching? And she talked about lynching not only as racial violence, but also as sexual predation. I did happen to see some footage from President Trump's press conference.

Well, yesterday, I'm speaking on Tuesday. I'm thinking, Ida B. Wells at a President Trump press conference. How do you think that would have gone? Well, what a delicious image you just provided. She would press him. You know, she actually went to the White House several times and was the lead of a delegation of representatives, including political representatives, to William McKinley when there was a lynching of a postmaster that she felt that the federal government should intervene with and told McKinley what he needed to do.

She also went to the White House to talk to Woodrow Wilson, who was one of the most racist presidents the US has ever had. She made sure that lynching, and it was, lynching was on the agenda of certainly of all the Republican nominees and candidates for president. So she knew what it was to stand up of truth to power and had no reluctance to do so. An insight there from Professor Paula J. Giddings into the life and challenges of Ida B. Wells. Research by the University of Exeter has shown that many people living with dementia and their carers felt isolated and lonely before COVID-19. And now, of course, these feelings have been amplified. I talked this week to Dr.

Linda Clare, who's Professor of Clinical Psychology in Ageing and Dementia at Exeter's Medical School, and to Philly Hare, Co-Director of Innovations in Dementia, an organisation that's worked alongside people with dementia to co-produce resources, giving advice for carers and volunteers as well. First of all, let's hear about Linda and her research. We find that people with dementia and carers do feel often and often are isolated and often feel lonely. Carers of people with dementia in particular experience a high level of loneliness compared to the rest of the population so introducing the social restrictions that we've seen has been very challenging. For people with dementia, what they tell us is that personal contact is absolutely crucial.

So the loss of that personal contact has been very severe. People need the usual activities and routines. Those are things that keep them going, that they keep their dementia, as it were, at bay, that help them to stay functioning well. So losing those activities that they go out to and the support networks that they have has been very challenging. And, of course, we're talking about a largely older group. While some of those people are able to access the online resources that have been developed so effectively, that doesn't apply to everyone. And we find in our group of people with dementia

that we're following over time, and that's over 1,500 people that we've recruited from areas all over England, Scotland and Wales, many of them don't access the internet. And perhaps as many as four out of five are not regular internet users. And many of them don't have a smartphone. There is this astonishing assumption, isn't there, that everybody has access to the internet. Everyone I know has got a smartphone. That's in speech marks, by the way. It isn't true. As you say, a real significant chunk of the population are totally locked out of this world. Philly from Innovations in Dementia. Now,

I know that you're all about giving a voice to people living with it, and indeed the people they live with and the people that care for them. We're just going to play a short clip from a video that features a friend of this programme, Wendy Mitchell, and also Gail Gregory. Now, they're describing what they would like from a volunteer who perhaps is driving them to an appointment of some kind. Here they are. If they know the person lives alone, you know, for them to look and check, have we locked the door? You know, have we got something with us, you know, them to to look and check have we locked the door you know have have we got something with us you know a bag or now I always travel in the front of the car because I'm more comfortable always travel in the back because I don't like to be in close proximity of people it's that individual bit we need to get across not to chatter too much so it's important to ask people whether

they like to talk or whether they like it to be quiet and if the radio is on don't talk you know one or the other if there's something near to me so if i'm going down a road and we pass something like um i don't know a hedgerow or something like that, it seems to close in on me. So I'll move to one side. So would it be useful just to make people aware to travel slowly if the person that's taking you to wherever you're going could just say, we're nearly there, you know, we're five minutes away.

Because we do get a little panicky to whether we're going in the right direction. General chit-chat and keep us informed on this journey. Just to add something, if they're taking us somewhere, make sure we get to wherever we're going. You know, how are we getting back? Are they going to wait for us? That's Wendy Mitchell and Gail Gregory. And what that tells us, Philly, amongst other things,

is that people with dementia are like the rest of us. They're singular. They've got their own likes and dislikes. They're not just some amorphous blob. Yes, and I think that's the key message that comes through these resources that we've produced with Wendy, with Gail and also with Ron Coleman, who wasn't on that clip. What they're all saying is if you can, as a volunteer or a supporter, try and get to know us, get to know us as individuals, drop any preconceptions you might have and make a connection make a relationship with us and then you as a volunteer will enjoy that contact and we as people living with dementia

will enjoy it as well i just want to bring the listeners in um jane on twitter says i'm really glad you're talking about this my mom is 81 she's in lockdown at home with my dad who is 92 and has dementia he doesn't understand what's going on. She's finding life really hard. I'm not allowed near them to help. I don't know where we'd be without the carer. I just want to put that point to you, Linda. Is it crystal clear, actually, what adult children can or should do to help their parents in situations like this?

Yes, I feel this is an area where the guidance hasn't been clear. And I think that throughout all of this, while we've rightly heard a lot about the situation of people with dementia in care homes, there hasn't been much consideration given to the situation of people with dementia living in the community who do rely often on support from family members who might be living elsewhere.

And I think it is difficult. We were told during the lockdown that it was an acceptable reason to be out and about if we were providing care for a vulnerable person. But there has been a lack of clarity about this, and I think there is still some lack of clarity. Such a worry to feel that your parent may not be safe, may not understand the restrictions, might put themselves inadvertently at risk.

So I think this is an area where we could benefit now perhaps from some very clear guidance. In households, Philly, what would you advise people to do if perhaps they can pop to their parents, not stay long, not hug them, not get close to them? Could they leave notes on doors, on fridges, just as a reminder of the current situation, hand washing? What would you advise? It has to be very personal, doesn't it, to that situation? But Linda's pointed out that a lot of people can't use technology. If they can, of course, conversations on Zoom or Skype or even FaceTime can be really helpful and can really cheer people up.

But if they can't, some people are going back to the old ways of sending a postcard or a photo every day or phoning up, obviously, is very important. Sending little parcels as well, maybe of somebody's favourite thing like a bar of chocolate. It's not just about the instructions and the guidance. It's about keeping people as happy and relaxed as they can be. Yes, happy and relaxed but at a time of enormous stress. We can't get away from the fact that to be a carer right now, particularly when you're older, it's about the toughest thing of all, isn't it? Of course, it's very tough. Almost everyone who's living with dementia has found this a very

confusing and disorientating and probably pretty depressing time. But we also know that many are finding ways to get through. And if people have been living with dementia for any length of time, they've probably learned to be very adaptable. So some of the tips that we're receiving from them through our dementia diaries are actually really inspirational. We've actually received over 100 audio diaries from people living with dementia since the lockdown, which is quite amazing. And they're all on the Dementia Diaries website. We heard from Agnes Houston, who lives up in Coatbridge in Scotland. At the start of the lockdown, she was very panicky. She saw the situation in terms of being locked in,

and she felt like she was in prison. But with the help of her daughter Donna, Agnes was able to actually change the words that were going around in her head to think about keeping safe. And what she said on the diary was, and I quote her, so I'm indoors and I see myself as sheltering from the storm. And while I'm sheltering, I'm gathering information about myself and I'm learning new skills. So that's one example of actually just trying to reframe the situation for yourself. And Linda, what advice do you have for carers? Obviously, we should say there are links on the Women's Hour website right now, helplines and so on, bbc.co.uk forward slash Women's Hour. But on a day to day basis, what can you say to help them? I think, first of all, carers need their own support.

I mean, many carers obviously are very devoted to the caring role and want to do the best for the person with dementia, but they must also think about their own well-being, because, of course, if the carer is doing well, that will have a knock-on effect for the person with dementia, and if the carer is struggling, that will equally affect the person with dementia so by supporting carers we improve the quality of life for both one of the challenges at this time has been for carers to get a break

because often some of the things that they would have been able to do or the person with dementia would have been able to do are not available so i think for carers it might be that if they can't do those normal things, they need to perhaps have other ways of reaching out or reaching out to get some support or having even just have a little bit of time to themselves in one way or another. Dr. Linda Clare from the University of Exeter's Medical School and Philly Hare, co-director of Innovations in Dementia. Here's an email from a listener who says, I have noticed a negative change in my mother's mood and cognition. She has lost all sense of

what time, day, month or year we're in. I have bought a dementia clock for her, which helps a little bit. She's not the easiest of people to take care of. She is by nature stubborn and reluctant to do anything that's asked of her. The illness has amplified that part of her, but she can also be incredibly sweet and loving as well. Without the help of Alzheimer's support in our part of Wiltshire and the lady who runs Mum's Day Club that she attended before lockdown who calls her every week and talks for half an hour every time, I would be finding this situation so much harder.

Thank you to that emailer, and indeed our thoughts with everybody, actually, who is dealing with all this at the moment. It is not easy. Molly Case is a nurse and a poet. She was on the programme this week. She's written a poem commissioned by Ruth May, the Chief Nursing Officer of England, designed to mark International Nurses Day and the

200th anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale, which was on Tuesday. Here is Molly Case performing that poem on the programme. It's called Hold Your Pen Torches High. The earth is nursed on her front. First light brings end to a dreamless night The earth lies face down, infusion pump sounds Busy gloves and gowns surround her bed Outside the sun rises like a crown A halo that gleams around her head Night shift rounds are coming to an end Hot coffee and tea, the earth's leaves return to green

Now that there is oxygen supplying her trees The nurse finishes, takes off her PPE Looks in the mirror, her name badge reads hello my name is Florence. She thinks I am glitter and dust and light in the dark, I am peep and peak and burnt out stars, I am thousands of pen torches lighting a well-trodden path and today is new, it is the 12th of May and Florence Nightingale was born 200 years ago today. The earth wakes at dawn. She sits up, stretches and yawns.

Today is the 12th of May, her first baby's due date. The earth waits, holds her egg-warm roundness in the curtly dark. She has found this last bit hard. Midwife smiles that are hidden behind masks. now she calls her midwife who lives across the street she comes running with cambium hands and heartwood feet the earth has tending to her the very tallest tree cut with knowledge and skill and kindness beneath her baby is coming streaks of red and gold flashes of hot and cold lavender chamomile and marigold. The earth's breath is controlled and her baby is born, three souls forever notched on bark where a new growth ring forms. The earth has grown older,

she feels this in her bones when the weather grows colder. Her chest is a bird's nest of brittle sticks no longer so easily fixed. The earth worries about her lungs since she is to stay at home, frightened now she'll spend each day alone. Her phone rings, a specialist nurse who teaches her with one simple click, a flipped screen and suddenly less lonely in all of this. It is a video call across her deserts and forests, an oceanic ridge, a tectonic shift children's hope-filled drawings on the smooth banks of her snowdrifts, a voice she had missed and from her living room she is no longer adrift nor alone, moored to a nurse that picked up the phone. We look to what came before, at Florence's lamplight quivering against half-open doors and to Cronk and Cavell, Saunders, Seacole and more. We look now to these

nurses and midwives who cared for the earth, who look after others and didn't put themselves first. Hold your pen torches high to car park cries and angry tweets asking why, to those that rejoined and those on standby, to the earth's clearer waters and cloudless skies, to the people that stayed at home with the days drifting by, to the nurses and midwives and cloudless skies, to the people that stayed at home with the days drifting by, to the nurses and midwives and all those who lost their lives, to all of them we know that didn't have to die, hold your pen torches high. Here's to healthy days and hopeful nights. Thank you, NHS, the one and only, the very best. But to anyone listening on the radio who isn't yet a subscriber, get involved. You can just get it on BBC Sounds.

And there's always additional material every day in the Woman's Hour podcast, almost always including your emails, your thoughts on what you've heard in the radio version of the programme. Always some good stuff in there. And some of you are really very appreciative, full of warmth. Others, carping, as you're entitled to. And I like to think we give fair airtime in the pod to people who think I'm tripe and the programme hasn't been as good as they might have hoped either.

But we take all comers. We really welcome your interest in the programme, your involvement. We'd be nothing without you. I think I'm getting soppy in the lockdown. I'm going to stop now. Friday's programme was all about intergenerational relationships in lockdown.

Not always easy, this. We asked whether you were perhaps an adult child struggling to deal with occasionally somewhat wayward parents. Or maybe you are that supposedly wayward parent who really doesn't like being told what to do and doesn't like being told how to behave either. Our guests included Gabrielle Rifkind, psychotherapist and director of the conflict resolution organisation, the Oxford Process, and Professor Janet Lord, a professor of immune cell biology and director of the Institute of Inflammation and Ageing at the University of Birmingham. Listeners were involved as well, and here's just one of them, Nadine, who really isn't keen on having to isolate. I'm actually on my own, so I can go for days without actually seeing anybody.

But by the same token, I am not just self-isolating. I am going to the... Fortunately, I have local shops, so I go to the local shops. I don't go to the supermarkets and I do try to be sensible. Well, I don't try, I am sensible. We are all different and everybody should be taking a bit more responsibility for themselves, not just being told what to do. You start to think that you are becoming vulnerable and that's a terrible thing to do at our age. We, you know, we need to be out and about and socialising as much as we possibly can, being careful. You know, there's no need to be sitting right on top of people. You can talk to people from a distance. You can go outside as much as possible and talk to people while you're out.

I don't see why there is such a lockdown situation. Janet, Nadine really is a little bit resentful, I think, and many people will understand why. What would you say to her? I think she's partly correct. You know, that get out and have some daily exercise has been proposed right from the start. And it's now that, you know, you can go out more than once and she's correct you do not need to absolutely stay down locked in your home if you've got a garden you can go out into the garden or take your walk and have that conversation with somebody at that two meters distancing I mean the two meters distancing you know this stay alert is really the best advice I always say the virus isn't something like a flea or a nip that can leap

from one person to another over great distances. You know, that two metres is there for a very sensible reason. And if you keep that distance, actually, you know, that's really a prime way of protecting yourself, no matter what age you are. Nadine, can I ask, are you proactive about, I don't know, texting a friend maybe and arranging a phone call? I've managed emailing. Yes. And I can message my daughters. I'm not very technically minded, but I am, you know, I'm in touch with them.

Gabrielle, come in. OK. I mean, I really admire your spirit of resilience and also saying very, I've learned how to manage this. And you're taking all the right safe moves. But our imagination doesn't take us beyond what our own experience is because we become very hermetically sealed in the worlds we're in. And I had a very rude awakening when one of my dearest friend's husband died. I had convinced myself I was invincible, nothing would touch me. But the

nature of this virus is there's an unexpected quality to it. And that we only stay within the realms of our own imagination. And we somehow have to both decide we're going to manage life, but also see the bigger picture that it can be very serious at the same time. If you're healthy, it's hard to imagine being sick. If you're sick, you can't imagine being healthy. So how do we get beyond our own experience? That's the challenge to us. I think that's a very, very important point. Nadine, can I ask, without being too intrusive,

has the virus touched you personally? Has it got close to you in any way, as Gabrielle describes? Several of my friend's husbands have died, but they were ill beforehand. I see. And in my immediate family, no, we are very lucky. And when your friends' husbands died, did that not make you reassess the situation perhaps a little bit? I know you say they were already frail.

They were ill to start with. They had serious illnesses to start with. And I have a brother-in-law who has lung cancer. So, I mean, my sister is sort of staying in for him. I see, yeah. So he is obviously very vulnerable. And he's younger than me. So, you know, age is irrelevant, isn't it?

Have you got a garden somewhere to sit? I have. I am very lucky I have a garden. I have a park nearby which in fact i haven't actually been to i do actually play golf and we have actually just opened our golf club so there is the prospect of me being able to go and play golf and actually see people and talk to them from you know two meter distance yeah okay and And the impact on your mental health, if you are able to go and play golf and see a friend, that will be considerable, will it? Oh, yes.

It might stop me drinking. That's the other thing. Well, I wasn't going to mention that, but tell me a bit more about that. Have you found yourself drinking more? Oh, much more, yes. Have you? Very badly.

And I mean, when it was lovely weather, you'd sit in the garden and, you know, start lunchtime when you're having lunch with a glass of wine. And by the end of the day, you finished it. You won't be alone then, Nadine. I'm sure I'm not. No, and thank you for being so honest. And, you know, that's why I've been investigating the wonderful world of non-alcoholic lagers to make sure that that doesn't happen.

Can I suggest that you have a look? There's some quite good ones out there, honestly. I believe you. You don't sound very sure. Nadine, thank you so much for talking to us. I hope you get the opportunity to get out there over the weekend and enjoy a bit of sunshine in the garden that I know you feel very fortunate to have. This is from Rebecca.

Good to hear Women's Hour proving that it doesn't matter whatever your age, you can still think that government instructions are about you rather than a policy to save as many as can be saved. And that, Janet Lord, is the key, isn't it, really? It is really. I mean, the government's just working on the statistics. And for any infection, whether it's the winter flu every year, it's always the older adults that are much more at risk. And it's really interesting listening to folks really not liking the word vulnerable. And it might be just changing it to thinking more at risk,

because I think vulnerable is a very, very negative word. And I sort of got some sympathy with the listeners, perhaps just thinking of judging risk and nobody wants to put themselves at increased risk. And if you know that, you know, as you are older, your immune system doesn't work as well, even if you haven't got an underlying condition, it just doesn't work as well. And so you just got to judge that risk and say, well, actually, no, I'm not going to put myself at risk. But equally, I'll do everything I can to reduce that

risk, keep that distance, keep exercising, and really just trying to reduce that risk, keep that distance, keep exercising and really just trying to reduce that level of risk for myself and for those that I love. Well, Barbara has got that message. She's emailed to say, I'm over 80 and I know it is likely that my immune system is not as good as it used to be. That is why there's a restriction on the over 70s, super fit as they may well be. Gabrielle, a quick word from you on that vulnerable word. Do you think it's the wrong word? Yes, I think it is and it isn't. We don't like to think we're vulnerable. We think vulnerability means weakness and we're going to collapse and not cope. But the opposite is always true. And sometimes when we can recognise we're vulnerable and not be frightened

of it, this is actually where our strength lies. And it's almost as if, can we manage both at the same time? But, you know, I also take your point that you could use different language. But I think we're frightened of vulnerability. We don't need to be. We can also be strong in the face of vulnerability. Gabrielle Rifkind, also involved there. Professor Janet Lord and Nadine our listener who I think spoke for many of you I've just been looking at the Woman's Hour email inbox and it was full of people sympathising with what she had to say and also with our earlier contributors Roxana and also Linda

who started us off by saying that she always thought of herself as a very fit and active person and deeply resented being regarded as in some way particularly vulnerable right now. But as we explored in that programme, this is all being done for the right reasons. If you'd like to hear the whole programme, go to BBC Sounds and it's Friday's edition of Woman's Hour that you want to get hold of. Now, you might well have noticed plenty of cyclists on the road, more than usual right now. This is partly people finding it's a good way to get some exercise, but increasingly, of course,

it's a way to get to and from work. In Woman's Hour's Lockdown Diary this week, Chrystia Williams joined us to sing the praises of her bike. She works at Bristol's Bike Project. I've not always loved cycling. I think as a kid I actually really hated cycling. I found it scary and clunky and I found it difficult being on the road. And then later in life I saw bikes as being a way to get around a city really quickly. I learnt to fix my own bike and suddenly I felt very empowered being on my bike. So I think that passion comes from my personal feeling of independence, really. And what's the idea behind the Bristol Bike Project?

We want to make cycling accessible to everybody. So we kind of recognise that all the benefits that cycling can bring or having access to a bicycle can bring in terms of freedom of movement to be able to get around, but also the physical and the mental health benefits as well. And sadly, bikes aren't accessible to everybody at the moment. Not everyone can afford to access a bicycle. So we exist to try and get bikes to as many people as possible.

But we also are there to try and teach skills around maintenance as well, so that people feel empowered to be independent on their bikes. Why do you focus so much on understanding the mechanics of the bike? There's something about being able to fix your own bike which adds to that sense of empowerment so for example if you're cycling along and you hear kind of squeaks and creaks and you're not quite sure what they are or you think that you know you're not sure if your brakes are working or you get a flat tyre if you're not able to do that work yourself or kind of understand what's going on it can feel very disempowering you have to ask someone else

to help you or you can feel unsafe on your bike but if you get if you gain some of that knowledge and it can be very simple knowledge the basics to gain then it can really add to that sense of empowerment that you're not having to rely on anyone else but that you can do that work yourself now even though you say bikes can be very expensive there are reports of bike shops actually selling out of stock at the moment what do you reckon has been the impact of the pandemic on this clearly what we're seeing is a lot of people are turning to bikes because um it doesn't feel safe to get on public transport at the moment we're being told not to get on public transport so the moment. We're being told not to get on public transport. So a lot of people are turning to cycling and they're really feeling the benefits that they're

getting from that, not only just in terms of being able to get to and from work in a way that feels safe, but also the physical and the mental health benefits that come with it. We're seeing lots of bike shops selling out bikes and certainly what we're experiencing at the Bristol Bike Project is we can hardly keep up with demand. There is a potential impact as well that isn't often talked about, which is a lot of people are going for new bikes as well. And that can add to the kind of waste that we're seeing when it comes to kind of the throwaway culture that we have. So one of the things that we focus on at the Bristol Bike Project is encouraging people to get bikes out of their shed that they've not used in years, and whether it's for themselves or whether it's to donate to us so that we can do them for other people

and you know so many of us have got a bike that we've had in our shed for years that we've not touched and those things can really be brought back into our community for good use. Krisha what advice do you give about safety because I have to say I've noticed a lot of cyclists riding for abreast because there's very little traffic, even though the legal limit is to abreast. What do cyclists as well. So I think we also have to think about the education that there is around what is a safe distance to pass a cyclist and that kind of thing. But, you know, we've heard this announcement from the government about the money that's going to be invested in cycling infrastructure. And really, that is one of the ways that we can make cycling safe is to have the right infrastructure,

to have cities that are designed around active travel, so cycling and walking as well, so that there is safe space for cycling, not just in a socially distant world, but beyond the pandemic as well. Chrystia Williams talking to Jenny and Chrystia is from the Bristol Bike Project. Anna Jones is sometimes described as the kind of cook who makes you want to eat vegetarian food even if you're not vegetarian and she appeared on the programme this week with some ideas for how you might make the most of the stuff you have knocking around in your cupboard at home. Her latest book is called The Modern Cook's Year and Anna told me

she's been a veggie for a decade. When I started off as a chef I used to eat meat. I actually you know used to have to cut up meat and do sort of basic butchery in the kitchens. But things changed about 10 years ago when things shifted. I wanted to eat in a bit more of a conscious way in a way that sort of felt better for my body. So, yeah, it's been 10 years now. You actually started with Jamie Oliver, didn't you? I did, yeah. I worked with him when he was doing the sort of school dinners project and I worked with him sort of developing recipes,

but also as a food stylist, the strangest job title of all time. So making the pictures in his books jump off the page. And I was lucky enough to travel all around the world with him on lots of his kind of more sort of socially minded programmes over in America and stuff like that. Yeah, we'll get on to the food styling. Don't worry, I'm not going to let that one go. But just a word about Jamie Oliver,

because I don't know, he has his knockers, certainly. I think perhaps there's a danger sometimes of us forgetting how much good stuff he did. I really think he's been an enormous character and game changer, actually, in the food scene in this country. You know, the way we talk about feeding our children these days is largely, you know, in the public realm anyway, is largely thanks to Jamie. He shifted things massively in schools. And I think, you know, the relaxed way in which he cooks has changed the conversation around food and cooking in all of our homes yeah I think that's a very good point

okay food styling then um well you said yourself it was a slightly peculiar way to earn a living tell me a bit about what you actually did I mean the practical stuff here what you had to do to twiddle the food yeah I think it's really the most ridiculous job title. The sort of food styling I did was very natural. It was, you know, I used to work on some adverts from time to time. So I used to try and get, you know, chocolate fondants to sort of ooze perfectly towards the camera, which was, you know, all quite a ridiculous undertaking. But really, it was just making food jump off the page or jump off the screen and look delicious.

There are some food stylists who go down a completely different route and use sort of scooped margarine instead of ice cream and paint their turkeys with, you know, sort of boot polish and stuff like that. But that wasn't my thing. It's been ages since I painted a turkey with boot polish. Let's face it, we're all looking for things, particularly yesterday afternoon. I was really scrabbling around looking for something to do. That could have been an option. So after the food has been styled, is it basically inedible then? Oh, absolutely not. I count myself as a cook and a chef, really, and all the food that I have ever made has been edible.

It's more stories I've heard about other food stylists who do lots of advertising stuff where food sits around for a long time. And I think that's when those tricks are used. Tell me then about your current way of life, because I know you've had to leave London where you were living in a part of the city, I think, where all sorts of different ingredients were widely available. Absolutely. Yeah, I live in sort of deepest Hackney and yeah lucky enough there to have lots of corner shops, amazing veg suppliers, you know Vietnamese shops, every Turkish shop you can get everything within a 10 minute walk and I'm actually isolating with my mum and dad outside of London in Surrey and yeah it, it's different here. There's no little corner shops. There's just one big supermarket.

So we've had to be a bit more resourceful with how we get hold of things. So it's sort of less lime leaves and lemongrass and a bit more kind of bread and cheese. But I'm happy about that. There is a recipe of yours on our website, which is, well, flatbreads, but that doesn't seem to do the recipe justice.

Yes, this is one of the things that I often make seem to do the recipe justice yes this is one of the things that i often make for quick lunches i found lunch is one of the things you know that i'm not used to cooking for sort of five people which is what i'm doing at the moment so we've been making this a lot it's an egg flatbread so it's halfway between a kind of egg sandwich and and a quesadilla really you basically scramble an egg in a pan pop a tortilla or flatbread on top flip it over um so it toasts on the other side and then you can fill it with anything you want my favorite is kind of capers avocado and some herbs i'm obviously vegetarian so i would put all types of vegetables in there now asparagus salad leaves and peppers a grating of cheese but

it's just a really quick quite filling lunch um that you know takes a couple of minutes the recipe of yours i've used the most i just want you to mention it is the lentil bolognese with a tin of tomato soup yes well that's it's genius that was inspired by just sort of trying to cook something with all the tins in the cupboard and um i did sort of think oh god there's a tin of there's a tin of tomato soup going to work here but it actually really brings it all together and I think that's the kind of cooking at the moment that that everyone is relying on I've been trying to go to the shops you know very infrequently once every couple of weeks and so you know towards the end of our our supplies I'm definitely relying on the store cupboard a lot more okay just remind me for that recipe all you

need is the the celery the onion the carrots the garlic oil and then sling in your lentils sling in the soup cook for about an hour and that's it exactly exactly you've got you've got that one down i've had to have it down trust me um no that is genuinely a lifesaver and it really is it's super super super tasty i should actually i don't know why i'm not just not doing your PR. That would be where I could go next. I mean, I'd definitely be down for that. Well, she hasn't been in touch so she wasn't actually as

enthusiastic as she made out. That was Anna Jones and if you want to know about the recipe, you just have to go to Monday's episode on the Woman's Hour website, bbc.co.uk slash Woman's Hour., bbc.co.uk slash womanshour, click on show more and the recipe for the flatbread will be there. And also, if you follow us on Instagram, and if not, why not,

it's at bbcwomanshour, there is a video of Anna sharing further tips for lunchtime. If you, like me, are not the kind of person who's ever forgotten to eat, in fact, as we approach approximately 11.30am every single morning, I'm pondering on the possibilities for lunch, that film on Instagram is for you. Join me if you

can, live, three minutes past ten, Monday morning. We're looking at repeat attenders, people who love a musical so much they go again and again and again. If that's you, let us know and let us know which is the musical of your choice, which is the one you can't keep away from. We're also looking at lockdown and the impact on people just over 20, perhaps those hoping to graduate after years of hard work in a couple of weeks and feeling a

little bit forlorn at their, well, let's be honest, at their job prospects and life chances generally. And also, what is it like if you're in your 20s and you're living back home again? So a different sort of lockdown explored on Woman's Hour on Monday. 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.