Woman's Hour - Women, alcohol & lockdown; Jenny Colgan; Michele Roberts

Episode Date: May 28, 2020

Last week an editorial in the BMJ reported that before Covid-19 only one in five harmful and dependent drinkers got the help they needed, and now the proportion will be lower. There is concern for those struggling with dependence and those on the brink of dependence. How do you cope with an alcohol problem under lockdown? And what support is out there? We hear the experience of a listener, the journalist Catherine Renton who has been sober for over 3 years and from Julia Sinclair, professor of Addiction Psychiatry, University of Southampton and consultant in alcohol addiction. She’s also chair of the Royal College of Psychiatry’s addiction faculty.Jenny Colgan's latest novel is called Five Hundred Miles From You. It's about a nurse in London and a nurse in the Scottish Highlands. It explores everything they've seen in their careers and whether or not they can help each other.Coronavirus has made visible a group of people who were often invisible – volunteers. Thousands of people signed up to help the NHS as a volunteer. Local residents’ groups have got together to help those who can’t get to the shops, or to call people who might be experiencing severe isolation. Before lockdown, Woman’s Hour began interviewing women who volunteered in all sorts of areas – community cafes, at food banks, working with the homeless. Women who see a gap, or a problem to be solved, and just get on with it – Troopers. They told their stories to Laura Thomas. Today Annie Taylor and Wendy Robinson, the founders of the Profanity Embroidery Group in Whitstable.How do authors cope with the rejection of the books they are writing? Struggling after her latest novel was rejected by publishers Michèle Roberts decided to write down everything that had happened. In the resulting memoir of a year, Negative Capability, Michèle reckons with the hurt and depression caused by the rejection. She rewrites and edits her novel, reconnects with and loses treasured friends, ultimately finding acceptance and understanding.Presented by Jenni Murray Produced by Sarah Crawley Interviewed guest: Catherine Renton Interviewed guest: Julia Sinclair Interviewed guest: Jenny Colgan Interviewed guest: Annie Taylor Interviewed guest: Wendy Robinson Interviewed guest: Michèle Roberts Reporter: Laura Thomas

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to the Woman's Hour podcast for Thursday the 28th of May. Good morning. Now you may, like me, have heard from several friends that they're not sure whether they'll need Weight Watchers, Alcoholics Anonymous or both when the lockdown ends. It's said as a joke, but it's really not funny. What support is available for those who have a serious alcohol problem during this crisis? The next of our troopers is Jackie Cooper, described as the backbone of the Sussex Independent Visiting Association. Michelle Roberts joins us to discuss her memoir, Negative Capability,

written after the rejection of a novel by her publisher made her hurt and depressed. And we welcome back after yesterday's technical disaster, the novelist Jenny Colgan and her book, 500 Miles From You. Now, yesterday, the Prime Minister faced 90 minutes of questions from the Commons Liaison Committee, made up of the chairs of Commons Select Committees. Among the interrogators were Yvette Cooper, Meg Hillier and Caroline Noakes, who chairs the Women and Equalities Committee

and is the Conservative MP for Romsey and Southampton North. A month ago, we spoke about her inquiry into the impact of COVID-19 and the government's response to it. When it was her turn to question the Prime Minister yesterday, she was widely praised for her clear and informed focus. So what did she make of the answers she got? Caroline, welcome back to Woman's Hour. Now, in a tweet yesterday, you said your job is to scrutinise the government and hold it to account, but said, sorry if my questions to the PM, all within my brief, were seen by some as too tough. Why do you think they were seen by some people as too tough? Well, it was predominantly men who saw them as too tough.

And even before I had finished questioning the PM, I had an inbox that had a smattering of very angry men who were outraged that I was asking about female employment, I was asking about childcare, and I wasn't asking about why more men are dying than women. And I think that's a fair question. We do know that this disease impacts men physically more than women. But we saw the report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies yesterday that was saying actually women are coming through this pandemic

with a really significant impact on their careers. They've been more likely to be furloughed. They're in sectors which went into lockdown very quickly and are coming out very late. And I think it's a real worry about what we can do. Now, you asked whose advice the prime minister had taken on women's employment. And you mentioned the Equality and Human Rights Commission, who said their advice had been ignored. Why do you suspect there is a problem? Well, I don't know. We, as a select committee,

had the Equalities and Human Rights Commission in front of us, I think last week, maybe a fortnight ago now. And they made the point that only one government minister over the course of this pandemic had spoken to them. That was Victoria Prentiss from DEFRA. And they've been beating on the door of number 10. They want to be listened to. They have some really perceptive, sensible suggestions to make to government, but they're not being listened to.

And I really think they must be. Now, the Prime Minister did acknowledge that women have been hard hit economically. How reassured were you by his insistence that women should have legal protection? Well, I think we heard back on the 10th of May, I think it was, the Prime Minister talking in one of the press conferences about the need for employers to be understanding when it came to employees with childcare responsibilities. Now, we know that childminders and nurseries will have to introduce social distancing policies. We know that when they open up there may well be reduced capacity and families will be making really difficult choices about who is able to go back to work, who still has to look

after the children and I am very worried about that sector. I did a Zoom call with child care providers in my constituency several weeks ago now. They're very worried about that sector. I did a Zoom call with childcare providers in my constituency several weeks ago now. They're very worried about how they will be able to function going forward. And I think it's an area that the government hasn't yet looked at and gone, oh, this is an area that needs support. It's a sector that is going to be really challenged by social distancing. The Prime Minister did say that he would do everything he could on this question of additional support for the childcare sector. How satisfied are you that he is aware and enough

is being done? Well, I don't think enough has been done to date. I hope that the Prime Minister's awareness has increased as a result of yesterday. And I hope they look at this very seriously, because we want women to be able to go back to work. The stark reality is we know that the burden of childcare throughout this pandemic has fallen on women, but they will need to be back into the employment market. They will need childcare. And I just want the message to be round home, both to the Prime Minister and to Vicky Ford, who's the minister. Please help out this sector. It's so important for economic recovery. Now, you drew attention to his distinction between a lot of women and enough women being involved in decision-making.

Why did you draw attention to that? Well, I'm very concerned there isn't a single female chair of any of the subcommittees looking at COVID. We have seen Priti Patel occasionally at the daily press conference, but I am not convinced that the voice of women is being heard firmly enough in Downing Street. And the prime minister was very quick to identify Munira Mirza, one of his top advisers, and Dido Harding, who's doing some great work on the tracking and tracing. Neither of them were elected senior female politicians.

And I feel very disappointed that he's not pulling on the talents and the experience of people like Therese Coffey, the Work and Pension Secretary. She has a massive role to play in this. And I just worry that we're not hearing the 50% female voices that we need to. We're half the population. Generally, how satisfied were you with the Prime Minister's answers to your questions? I don't think the Prime Minister was expecting the questions that I asked. I think he was anticipating me to ask that very obvious question about why aren't we seeing women at the press conferences. Actually, that bothers me less than why aren't women making the decisions and having enough influence upon the decisions that are made. I think the childcare issue is an absolute classic

case in point. We have the retail sector where 58% of employees are women and schools going back part-time at the same time. So there instantly is going to be a conflict there, and I think a woman might have spotted that. Caroline Noakes, thank you very much indeed for joining us this morning. Now, I think we're all aware that why no clock has become something of a habit, and during the lockdown, it's not six o'clock in the evening after the sun has gone over the yardarm, but the temptation is to have that first drink earlier and earlier.

But last week, an article in the British Medical Journal issued a warning that before COVID-19, only one in five harmful and dependent drinkers got the help they needed, and now the proportion will be lower. How do you cope with alcohol in this often lonely crisis and what support is there? Well we had an email from a woman who listens to Women's Hour. We've read out what she had to say and we won't use her name. I'm 38 and had been drinking since I was 15. Drinking more and more until it became unmanageable. I gave up alcohol in September and started going to AA meetings and seeing an alcohol counsellor. I'm afraid to say that I started drinking again in February and this escalated with the COVID-19 crisis. As the crisis became more intense, I turned to drink for comfort and to cope with anxiety and also to deal with the

impact of COVID-19 at work. I'm a secondary school teacher and found the two weeks before the closure of schools on March the 20th particularly difficult. So I began drinking every day again, lots of whiskey or gin every night. Like many women, my problem had never really been drinking in pubs or events, though I would do that, but instead it was a secret relationship where I'd do it alone at home. So the lockdown conditions are particularly challenging to relapse, especially as AA meetings have moved online. Some people may find it helpful, but for me it's not the same as the physical gatherings and the human connection that many of us alcoholics crave in recovery. I've continued to work in school, but have to work from home for some of the time. This has

proved difficult to manage without a routine, without the support of colleagues, and with a lot of time to reflect in isolation. My drinking has drifted into afternoons and not just evenings. I have continued to see the alcohol therapist online and have now started doing daily check-ins. I am determined to get back on track. Well, I'm joined by Catherine Renton, who's a journalist who's been sober for more than three years, and by Julia Sinclair, Professor of Addiction Psychiatry at the University of Southampton and a consultant in alcohol addiction. Julia, what do you make of the story you've just heard? How familiar is it? Thanks, Jenny. I think, think you know it's sadly a very familiar story and I think particularly for people such as as the case that you had there is that many people early in recovery

will kind of struggle three to five months after they've they've stopped drinking and lockdown is an added challenge to some people but I think not all. And I think, you know, this will be a mixed picture. And, you know, your listener describes as many people do a really long history of alcohol use that became increasingly problematic over time. So, you know, it's taken almost 20 years before taking action. And that's sadly a really very common story, particularly, I think, for women who often feel a lot of shame around problematic drinking, and that may further delay their ability to seek help. How much worse are you expecting the isolation, the COVID crisis, going to make it for people

who do have a drink problem, and actually, those who didn't have a drink problem before this started, but maybe developing one. I think what we know is that our increase in alcohol consumption has gone up. And I think there's a split picture. Alcohol Change did a survey quite recently which showed that, you know, the people who don't drink very much amongst that group, which is about 75 percent of the population who are drinking, perhaps at lower risk levels. For that group, actually, many of them have reduced drinking or stopped it altogether because actually it was never particularly important to them and they're prioritizing other things. I think the worry is, is for those people who are already drinking more than the kind of 14 units of alcohol per week, you're shifting the population curve up. So a lot more

people are kind of pushing themselves into that higher risk drinking kind of area. And then some of those will fall into the alcohol dependent. And that's where the problem is. And there's been another kind of recent kind of survey looking at how actually that group is now increasing, but that their ability to seek help has significantly reduced because all of the alcohol treatment services are combined with drug treatment services. Much of the focus has been on ensuring that patients with opioid substitution therapy have been correctly looked after,

but there's been very little capacity left to deal with people who've got alcohol problems. Catherine as I said you've been sober for three years how are you finding this period? I found it really difficult at first March was a particularly difficult month and it's gotten better as time has gone on but when when lockdown happened, I started to think about drinking again for the first time in a long time. It seemed to become everyone's default coping mechanism for the crisis, and I felt like, well, you know, the world seems to be ending, so why shouldn't I join in with them?

How much generally are you finding attitudes to boundaries are changing? I know you described yourself as a social and party drinker. Well, you can't go to parties and there's not much socialising to do. So why is it in your face now? Well, it just seems to be all over social media. And I think the boundaries, the way that things are blurring, the days are blurring together, the afternoons and evenings and weekends and there doesn't seem to be that the definite lines between a working day and after

work and weekends anymore so I think people are more comfortable drinking all the time so I'm seeing a lot more on social media on my timeline and also I was a social drinker but I did the worst of my drinking the the real drinking problem that I had occurred after a period of significant grief. And I feel like it's very similar to what people are feeling at the moment. They're using it to cope and developing dangerous habits of self-medication. And I'm really worried about people encountering the same kind of problems that I had beyond this crisis. But you haven't cracked, have you, this time? No, I haven't. I've come seriously close, but I haven't cracked.

Julia, there seems to be evidence that women who drink a lot develop addiction and related medical problems quicker than men do. Where is the evidence of that? I mean, the evidence is, kind of, needs much greater exploration because, you know, like with many things in, kind of, the history of science, women were very, were further behind in terms of being seen as, kind of, interesting subjects. So, you know, you had much of the work that was done

in this country in the States was very much focused on men because men seemed to be the people who were out in the workplace and were drinking. Then we had the 80s and 90s and the ladette culture. And, you know, kind of women were starting to catch up with men in terms of the amount that they drank. And then we started to see really that liver disease was occurring kind of earlier on in women than would be anticipated just

by the increase in numbers. And because of our kind of different body composition and our kind of fat ratios, alcohol kind of seems to have a disproportionate effect on that. That's why we have the link with breast cancer. So, you know, there are lots of things about our biology that potentially makes us more susceptible to the effects of alcohol. But also, I think, you know, there are lots of things about our biology that potentially makes us more susceptible to the effects of alcohol. But also, I think, you know, the motivations for drinking for women, you know, can often be that sense of managing kind of anxiety, depression, all of those things that have already been mentioned. And so it can be that people sort of are reliant on it, are using it as a form of self-medication.

But actually, you know, we need much more evidence about this. As a researcher, I would say that. But I do think, you know, that the combination of motivations for drinking in women kind of fears about kind of going to present for help, perhaps when they recognize it as becoming a problem. And as your previous speaker just mentioned, that sense that if everybody else around you is drinking, and I think it's also about the fact that we're not doing other things, if you see what I mean. I mean, alcohol is always there. Many of my patients have always said to me, you know, I just turn on the television and people are drinking, alcohol's everywhere, billboards are everywhere. So in some ways, I don't think lockdown has increased that. But perhaps what lockdown has done is taken away the other images of other ways of dealing with things and getting out and socialising. Catherine, as Julie has said, there are fewer and fewer places for people to go

for help. But I know you do have an online support group. How helpful is that? I'm a member of several online support groups and they have been invaluable. Like your emailer said, the lack of physical contact is a big issue. I love going for a coffee with sober friends and getting a reassuring hug or a handhold or just a squeeze when you're having a bad day.

You can't really replace that with a zoom call but i'm really lucky that there are lots of um sober communities online um that are helping out at this time but i you know they're stretched because there's a lot of people are finding it difficult um to cope with um their feelings without seeing a professional in person. Julia, one last question to you. At what point do you recognise you have a problem and you have to do something about it? Oh, that's the million-dollar question. It's different for all of us.

And I think, you know, I'd always encourage everybody to just monitor how much alcohol they're drinking because actually that starts to give you where you are on a, you know, on a spectrum. You know, if you're drinking, you know, more than 14 units of alcohol a week, you need to keep an eye on it. And if you're drinking 50, 60 units of alcohol a week, you probably, you know, you are doing yourself harm, not probably, you're definitely doing yourself harm. So and then for everybody else, for everybody within that, it will start to be kind of the things that impact on their lives when their health is going, their decision making is changing, their relationships are being damaged. All of those things, everybody reaches a different tipping point.

And for some people, it's not a single thing, but it's just a drip drip that they think, you know what, I don't like the person I've become or I'm becoming and I need to change that. Well, Professor Julia Sinclair and Catherine Renton thank you both very much indeed for being with us this morning and of course we'd like to hear from you on this question. How worried are you about your drinking and given there are not the places to go to get help how are you trying to get help and maybe tone your drinking down if it has become a problem you can email us or of course you can send us a tweet and thank you both again very much for joining us today now jenny colgan thinks her new one is her 34th book she's not sure because after so many she's rather lost track, but

500 Miles From You is a familiar format from such a popular writer. It's a romantic escapist comedy in which Lyssa is a nurse under pressure in South London and Cormac is a nurse practitioner in the Scottish Highlands. Both are suffering from stress.

Lyssa from the tragedy she's witnessed on the streets of London and Cormac from his previous job as a medic in the army, the NHS, offers them a swap for three months. Lissa goes to Scotland and Cormac to the big city. And Jenny Colgan, after our disaster yesterday, is now on her line and I will hear her perfectly. Jenny, good morning.

Yes, hello. Hooray. Excellent. It's been morning. Yes, hello. Hooray. Excellent. It's been lovely. Thanks so much. Well, it's lovely to have you and to be able to hear you properly. Why did you return in this book to the fictional Scottish town of Kirr and Feef, which I do remember appeared in an earlier novel?

Well, yes, I do have fictional towns because I once wrote about a real town and everyone got terribly upset with me when I got things wrong. So if it's not London or Edinburgh, then I will tend to make things up. But I wanted to write about a lovely rural community in Scotland. And because I'd already created one and drawn the map for it, which I like to do, and had a very clear idea of how it was, I thought, well, she can go there. It's not a sequel. But, you know, I have a place in my imagination that I know extremely well. And why were you keen to look at post-traumatic stress disorder in health workers on the front line? Because the book clearly was written long before

the current crisis brought it into everybody's mind. Yes, it's really been quite odd, partly because there's a big distance between them. That's kind of very much the 500 miles, but also because they are frontline health workers. And I worked in the health service a while back, not in the frontline. And in fact, when the crisis happened, I kind of called them up and I said you want me to come back they were like no you're fine your useless administrative skills are not wanted um but I was extremely in I've always been very interested particularly very young practitioners there's a lot of fulfillment in frontline health care but there's also quite a lot of trauma

so it's automatically interesting to me and why were you keen to set it in two communities that really could not be more different well I mean it's it's a bit of the tribalism thing isn't it everybody feels very split like I'm like this and you're like this and you know I live in the country and you live in the city and and we can't agree and in fact from your real life of course you know that that's not true. It's like bizarre social media kind of distancing that we have. And I've lived in the city and I've lived in the country and I love both of those and elements of both of them.

So I like the idea of taking two quite prejudiced people that think that the country's full of a certain type of person and the city's full of a certain type of person and kind of kicking those about a little bit. But what are you trying to say in the book about social media? Because Cormac isn't on it at all and Lisa leaves Instagram as she moves out of the big city. Yes, it's kind of part of her therapy is to get off Instagram

and think that everybody else is at a fantastic party all the time. Which, of course, if you're taking pictures repeatedly in the middle of the night, you probably weren't having that good a time to begin with. But also, I'm interested. My husband's not on social media. Loads of people are not on social media. It's not real, you know, to a lot of people and I think if you are on social media I am you can kind of forget that there's plenty of voices and perfectly happy lives going on without it all the time and we do forget I think if you're quite active on it one that Instagram is a bunch of lies which I think most people are kind of aware of but two you can live perfectly happily and probably slightly happier without it. I know that you like to draw and there are little illustrations in this book.

Why did you want to do your... They're kind of classy doodles, I would describe them as, I think. It's terrible. I'm a failed cartoonist. I really wanted to be Charles Schultz. I wanted to draw peanuts. And so finally with this one, I said, well, I'm going failed cartoonist I really wanted to be Charles Schultz I wanted to draw peanuts and so finally with this one I said I'm going to put a character in it he's going to draw because we have a lot because they're parts so they have a lot of text messaging and so on he's going to draw little pictures but I will say early on that they're not very good

so he kind of says I'm not very good drawing she's like yeah I can tell and that's how I managed to slip in my drawings and it was such you know you're right I have published a lot of books but seeing the illustrations published was really a big deal for me. What effect is the lockdown having on your writing Jenny? Do you know a lot of us writers we talk and we've been talking about this, which is how's your productivity and are you going to write about it? You know, and a lot of people are going, nope, I'm going to set my next book in 2019 or 1784 or, you know, or I'm just going to ignore it. And I am not ignoring it. I am going to, because I write about local communities often

quite isolated. So it seems to me that that might be interesting and also I think we'll see but we might you know how people remember the good things and forget the bad things about the war or people that lived under Stalin people tend to remember the nice bits and not the awful bits I think it might be quite interesting to read about how amazingly well so many communities have done and in fact how much better people have behaved on the whole um than than might have been expected by kind of apocalypse novels so i'm going to write about it i'm writing about it now oh you've started it already have you and if it turns out next year that people are like no I never ever want to talk about the virus ever again

then I think you know novels are just characters behaving under a crisis that's all a novel is I think I can change what the crisis is if people can't bear it I think people might want to read about it let's see shall we I think there is another novel in the pipeline for Christmas isn't there which is which is not about COVID-19? Oh, no, it's the opposite. I really wrote it for my daughter because she loves all those Netflix Prince in Disguise films that come out at Christmas. And I spoke to my Scandinavian publishers. I said, I was thinking about doing a Scandinavian Prince in Disguise.

Would that be a little bit culturally insulting? And they were like, like no go for it has your daughter read it yet she's a little bit too young to read it but i hope when she is it's it's kind of young and it's kind of very silly and funny and charming and i think a proper take your mind off it kind of a thing well jenny colgan thank you so much for joining us this morning in perfect sound and, another apology for what happened yesterday. It was neither of our faults. It was just the technology.

Thank you. Thank you. Bye bye. Now still to come in today's programme, the novelist Michelle Roberts and her memoir, Negative Capability. How a famous and admired writer dealt with the shock and hurt of having a novel rejected by her publisher. And the serial episode four of A Run in the Park.

And a question. Is your child shielding at home? How do you manage it and how does it feel for them when some children are going to be going back to school? How do you deal with your other children and manage anxiety, both yours and theirs? We'd like to hear from you at womanshour at bbc.co.uk. And now to today's trooper, one of the women who make things happen in their communities. It's Jackie Cooper, who volunteers to help people held in police cells. If, say, you were arrested tomorrow, had to spend a night in the cells

and found your period had started, it's pretty likely that the place in which you were being held would have a supply of sanitary products. Making sure that is the case has been something of a personal campaign for Jackie, who colleagues describe as the backbone of Sussex's independent custody visiting association. Sussex is a member of the public who volunteers to go in and visit detainees who are held in police custody centres. And we visit at any time of the day or night, any day of the week, and nobody knows that we're coming. When somebody's arrested they have certain rights and entitlements to ensure that they are kept in a safe environment, that they're treated with

respect and dignity and we go in to make sure that those things are in place. Talk me through how it tends to go. Okay so you'll arrive at the custody centre and you'll ring the bell and you explain who you are and really they should let you in immediately. You'll gather your paperwork together and you'll speak to the sergeant who is in charge for that particular shift and you'll ask them a series of questions about who's in custody you don't want to know why they're in custody but you'll ask things about whether they've got females being detained people who'd speak english as a foreign language juveniles adults who require an appropriate adult because they're vulnerable custody centers at times are quite tense places to be in.

At times there can be a lot of noise and people who are in custody for the first time, if you're somebody sitting in the cell it's very scary with all that sort of shouting and banging and echoing going round. So always we will visit those people that we think are most vulnerable. Tell me some of the things you come across. There are issues that we've picked up on over the years. We've had this thing which we've loosely called tampon gate, which seemed to have gone on for a long time, and I have to say things are much better now.

But women's access to sanitary products has been really difficult. I'd go into the store cupboard because we inspect stores to ensure that we've got enough blankets and towels and washing things for people, and there'd be no sanitary products there. And the response was, well, if we need them, there's a supermarket across the road that's open 24 hours a day. But those supermarkets aren't open between 10

o'clock on a Saturday night and Sunday morning so what do you do then and you get blank faces. In the last year I would say that every custody centre is well supplied with sanitary products. Another issue that we have is that custody staff don't automatically think that if somebody's been in the cell overnight that perhaps they'd need to wash or clean their teeth. And I think that is part of being treated with dignity, that you shouldn't have to ask, can I clean my teeth?

I've been in the same clothes all night, can I have a wash? It's those sorts of things that are really, I think, still things that we're trying to work through. Are there people who you wonder about afterwards? Oh, yes. Yes. You see so many different people. You see people who are very smartly dressed or people who you can see have been living on the streets people who

are intoxicated or under the influence of something else some other substance and I look at young people and that concerns me that you know that you do get young people in cells but you know sometimes they have done really awful things, otherwise they wouldn't be there. What makes you keep doing it? I think there's quite a degree of satisfaction at the end of a visit, even if you've only made one person happy. Not quite the word, but perhaps you've been able to allay their fears

or you've been able to offer them, I don't think comfort's even the right word, but you're able to sort of reassure them. If they don't know where their children are, if they don't know where their dog's being kept, if they're a homeless person who's been brought in off the streets, it's those kind of things that we can ask that somebody tells them. I know that you do other kinds of volunteering as well. Well I'm the chairman of a local youth club so we run two generic youth club sessions, one for primary school children and one for secondary school children and we also run activities for young carers aged between 6 and 14 during the school holidays.

What's your history with volunteering? How did you come to it? I started volunteering when I was at school. Would you recognise your life without these things? Are they, you know, I mean, this seems to be very central to your sense of self. Well, I think so. You know. I don't have a family. My life, I think, would be very empty without all the different things that I do. I just don't do volunteering.

I do do things for myself, which is equally important. But I do think I have the time, I have the ability, I think I have the skills. And I think, for me, I have the time, I have the ability, I think I have the skills. And I think, for me, at the end of a youth club session, if a young person comes up and says, Bye, Jackie, and thank you, that's, you know, that's reward enough. Jackie Cooper and Jackie won a British Citizen Award for her work this year. For a very long time, Michelle Roberts has been a prolific,

popular and highly regarded writer of novels, short stories, poetry and works of non-fiction. Then she wrote a novel. It was rejected by her publisher and she had to deal with the hurt and the depression that came as a result of that rejection. She decided to write down everything that happened for a year after the shock of it all. She's now published her memoir as Negative Capability, A Diary of Surviving. Michelle, I suspect this is not the first time in a quite long life that you've faced rejection. What made it so different this time? Well, Jenny, you're right about that.

I've faced rejection very often in professional terms. I think this time it was partly because the stakes get higher. The older you get, the more books you publish. Perhaps you feel there's more invested, more at risk. And partly because this particular professional rejection coincided with various personal crises. So the whole thing blew up inside me. What were the other things that may have contributed

to the hurt and the depression? There was a great fear about not being able to earn my living anymore and becoming destitute. There was a personal crisis to do with the end of a love affair that was tremendously painful. I don't know, and I think also, yes, I was having a bit of a spat with a very old and cherished woman friend. The whole lot seemed to just come together in a kind of explosion.

So at what point did you say, right, I've got to do something about this. And the only way to get through this is to think every day about what I'm doing and become more positive. It was a crisis that happened late at night. After a very difficult day, I suddenly felt I'd come adrift and cut loose and lost myself. It was a very frightening experience of lying in a bed in a room I didn't recognise as my own and feeling that I'd completely disintegrated and fallen to pieces.

And those are metaphors that we use for psychological conditions, but it felt real, as though I was a boat that had smashed onto the rocks and was just a mess of timber bobbing in a very rough sea. And it was so frightening that I thought, what can I do? What can I do? The only thing I could do was reach for words. And they were kind of bobbing about me like bits of my shattered boat. There wasn't even an eye thinking that. And I said to myself, right, tomorrow morning I'm going to get up and write.

If I could put words together, perhaps I can put myself back together. And indeed, that's what happened. But I was so terrified that this experience would happen again, that I went on writing the diary for a whole year. And then at the end of the year, I realized that I had a story, I had told a story that existed in time. And therefore I did have a self again. The title, Negative Capability, that came from Keats originally, didn't it? Yes, and it's a wonderful concept that he invented. I think back in 1816, he writes to a friend saying that he was coming, or to his brother, I forget, saying that he was coming back from the

pantomime one crisp winter night, and he suddenly started thinking about Shakespeare and other men of genius and thinking that they existed in a state of negative capability. They didn't have very strong, very powerful personalities, Keith thought. They were very open and very receptive to the world about them and to people and to ideas, and they just let themselves receive and then he went on to say they didn't have any anxious or irritable striving after reason and facts and making decisions and I really hung on to this idea when I came across it by chance and thought that is the answer is to not be in control not feel I've got to be successful and powerful I'm allowed to be what I think of as a failure and just live but how difficult was it to adopt it for yourself when you've had so many years of of fame and respect and people saying nobody writes like Michelle Roberts

well Jenny if only that were true every day of my life until now. I mean, there's a truth in that. But I think the awful thing about the kind of space I entered into with these various rejections was that I lost all memory of previous success or respect

or the affection of readers. That was the dreadful thing about it. That just all vanished and there was nothing but feeling like a smashed empty eggshell that was the problem but I got my memory back as I wrote and I think I emerged humbler and wiser and and less um less bothered perhaps about public opinion or editors opinions or agents opinions and of course I've had loads of rejections in my life you know any any woman who's ever had a spat with her best friend knows that these things happen or you fall out with a lover or you fall out with your mother

I mean it's not as though my life hadn't always had a current of those kinds of things alongside the professional success. What happened to that novel? You did rewrite it. Have you abandoned it? No, I did in the end rewrite it so completely that it found favour with a publisher and it did get published. So there was a very happy ending to that story. And the friend you were falling out with? We made it up. She was absolutely magnificent. She came through. She listened to me express hurt and bewilderment and pain. She was wonderful. We had suffered together and she said sorry. And I just thought she was amazing. And we are very close now, I think much closer than we ever were. How has the adoption of negative capabilities served you during lockdown?

I mean, you love food. There's food all the way through this book, but you can't share it with your friends. You can't cook for friends. You're on your own that's it exactly one thing i do is i read what a friend of mine calls gatedro porn so i read late at night old french cookery books that's very soothing i cook for myself i cook the nicest possible meals the most delicious meals i can possibly think of that I can afford. I ring friends and talk about food and yearn for them. And I also use negative capability to say to myself, yes, I am powerless.

Yes, I can't do what I want. Yes, I'm unable to see the people I love and ask them around for tea or lunch or dinner. And there's a kind of consolation in just yielding to powerlessness when you have to, rather than fighting it and feeling in a state of fraughtness all the time and a state of rage all the time, which I do sometimes, of course. And how helpful are friends now? I mean, I know we kind of share that period of early feminism when our women friends were so important and so close. Does that continue for you during this lockdown? Yes, and it's intensified, Jenny, because I've always loved the telephone as a method of communication. I use email more for chit-chat or business. I don't really do social media. And the telephone is a lifeline, a landline. And every night I'm on the phone to different women friends. And I feel that we've constructed a net of mutual support between countries, between cities,

between streets. And I feel close to my women friends, even more than usual, and very connected to them by the power of just talking about the day over the phone at night. I was talking to Michelle Roberts and there was much praise for her on Twitter. Annabelle Robinson tweeted, If I can put words together, perhaps I can put myself back together. Wonderful to hear Michelle Roberts discussing her memoir of writing and failure and how she emerged humbler and wiser. And Rosanna Lee added, for every author who's ever had a book rejected, just listen to the brilliant Michelle Roberts. Lots of you shared experience of drinking in lockdown and alcoholism. Someone who didn't want their name mentioned sent an email entitled,

How I Got to Admitting I'm an Alcoholic. I'm a 54-year-old woman who gave up drinking seven years ago. After years of being the type of drinker that doesn't have an off switch, my relationships were being seriously affected. I'd tried not being the only one drinking and not drinking alone and other methods. After one particularly drunken night, my very supportive partner asked what I thought I could do to change the situation. For some reason, the time seemed right, so I logged onto the internet and googled AA, how to tell if you're an alcoholic. The link that came up changed my life and I attended an AA women's meeting the next day.

I have not drunk for seven years and don't miss alcohol at all. Someone else who didn't want a name used said, thank you for your feature in increased drinking in this difficult time. I wanted to say that having my adult children at home from university full-time has highlighted my increase in drinking, and they've both been able to talk to me and support me in changing my habits. For me, it's been a positive outcome in this lockdown. And then an email from Robin who said, I've been sober for 10 years and I'm a member of AA. And although all the meetings of my home group have gone online, three a day,

I've noticed that whilst there was an initial large attendance at these Zoom meetings, it's declined. Also, there are a lot of new people, beginners. One of the most important elements of AA is the group dynamic, It's declined. Also, there are a lot of new people, beginners. One of the most important elements of AA is the group dynamic, which, whilst it's still there online, doesn't give the same support to people in early sobriety. There might be a silver lining to this time, though. People who are problem drinkers have often been able to hide the extent of their drinking behind social

drinking and have probably found the lockdown a bit of an eye-opener as to the extent of their dependency. So this could be a good thing as it could save them from years of otherwise unhealthy drinking before they reach the bottom. Thank you for all your contributions to today's programme. Tomorrow, Jane will be here when she'll be talking about public toilets, which have been a well-known victim of council cuts, leaving the UK with 50% fewer toilets than a decade ago. Coronavirus has caused even more closures, albeit temporarily, but where does that leave

people who need urgent access to the loo? Jane will discuss the economic and health importance of public toilets in a post-Covid world. Join her tomorrow, three minutes past 10 if you can, from me for today. Bye-bye. Hi, my name's Jarvis Cocker and I'm here to tell you about Wireless Nights, a nocturnal investigation into the human condition. A collection of stories about the night and the people who come alive after dark. From nightclubs to night rail, from the man in the moon to the land of the midnight sun,

join me and discover a different kind of nightlife. All episodes now available on the BBC Sounds app. 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's 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.