Woman's Hour - Women train drivers. The new smear test. Novelist Yvonne Battle-Felton

Episode Date: February 8, 2019

Southeastern trains said fewer than 5% of its drivers are women. They've launched a campaign to get forty percent of applicants to be women by 2021. Driver Kelly-Joe Ballard talks to Jane about why she loves the job. All graphic images of self-harm will be removed from Instagram, the head of the social media platform has told the BBC. This is after the father of 14-year-old Molly Russell, who took her own life in 2017, said Instagram had "helped kill" his daughter. We hear from Naomi Salisbury the Director of Self Injury Support: At just 25 US journalist Noor Tagouri is already breaking down barriers in the media industry. She joins Jane to discuss her career and what it means to be a Muslim female journalist in America today. By the end of this year a new smear test system will be rolled out across England. It’s already happening in Wales. It’s taken decades of research to get to this point but experts say the new screening regime will be more accurate. Dr Matejka Rebolj a Senior Epidemiologist at King’s College London explains more.And the author, Yvonne Battle-Felton discusses the lengths mothers go to protect their children in even the most tragic circumstances, themes explored in her novel Remembered.Presenter Jane Garvey Producer Beverley PurcellGuest; Noor Tagouri Guest; Ellie Burrows Guest; Kelly-Joe Ballard Guest; Yvonne Battle-Felton Guest; Dr Matejka Rebolj Guest; Naomi Salisbury

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. Hi, this is Jane Garvey and thank you. You have downloaded Friday, the 8th of February 2019's edition of the Woman's Hour podcast. On the pod today, how do you fancy being a train driver? If you've never thought about it, and actually the overwhelming majority of train drivers are men, have a listen to the interview with Kelly Jo on the programme today.

I think it might galvanise a few women, and hopefully young women, into considering that as a job, because I thought she sold it absolutely brilliantly. We'll talk too to the novelist Yvonne Battle-Felton, whose new novel, Remembered, is the story of an emancipated slave, and much more besides. And we'll discuss the new smear test. So that's on the podcast today.

First of all, though, you won't have missed the headlines about Instagram. We've now discovered that all graphic images of self-harm are going to be removed from Instagram. This is from the head of the social media platform in conversation with the BBC. This, of course, is after the father of 14-year-old Molly Russell, who took her own life in 2017, said that Instagram had helped kill his daughter.

Molly's family had found out that she'd been looking at graphic images of self-harm on the site prior to her death. Instagram say they are trying to balance the need to act now and the need to act responsibly. So I spoke this morning to Naomi Salisbury, who's the director of an organisation called Self Injury Support. I asked her what she thought of this news from Instagram. I think it's great that they have responded,

because often social media companies seem to kind of go underground a bit in these situations. But it's a very strong um very black and white response um and i think what it does risk doing is um pushing this topic of self-harm and seeking support for self-harm even more into that realm of being taboo and something that we shouldn't talk about um and i think for our organization what is really key is why are people feeling the need to post these images and why do they feel the need to look at them? And if we ban them, we just push that issue somewhere else. So you think that Instagram has frankly been put on the back foot and has felt obliged to come up with an announcement like this? I think it suggests that perhaps this is not something they've thought about before. Perhaps it's something that has existed for a long time.

I remember this discussion around Tumblr a number of years ago. It was a very similar discussion. And so you would hope that in this day and age, social media companies would have proactively been thinking about this kind of thing. Well, you're right. There was a conversation about Tumblr. What happened? I think with Tumblr, again, a similar process. There seems to have been quite a push towards supportive spaces. But also, if people are posting these images for whatever reasons,

if we don't discuss why they're posting them, then they're just going to move to do that somewhere else. Let's talk about your views then on why they might post those images. What would you say to that? I think there is going to be a huge range of reasons and it's going to vary from person to person. But I think in the Internet, in some ways, you know, I am not yet 40 and I can remember when the Internet really did not exist at all. So it's a very new thing. And it's not surprising that that is where people go to seek support. And what better way of having people respond to you quickly

than saying I've really injured myself or just feeling that they can't tell other people. This is definitely something we get on our support services that people say you are the only people I have talked to about self-harm because this is an anonymous service and nobody can work out who I am. So I think there is an element of the internet providing actually really purposeful peer support, but it may not be in ways that are socially palatable. The head of Instagram has said, I don't want to do anything that will unintentionally stigmatise any sort of mental health issues.

I don't want to do anything that will put a vulnerable person in a place where they feel unsupported or ashamed if we take that content down. Do you have sympathy for that part of his statement? I do. I think that's very sensible, but it doesn't really mesh with the announcement they have made because there's something about banning things that says these are taboo, these are things that we shouldn't be doing, these are things we shouldn't be talking about. And if that doesn't drive shame and guilt, I don't know what does. Instagram is a tricky one to define, actually. I was trying to think of a way of doing it. And I've got written down here, Instagram is a social media platform where users can share images, follow others, and like, comment and interact with them. You have to have some

sympathy with the founders of Instagram, because I don't suppose they at any time gave any thought to the prospect, the quite distant prospect at the time, that they would have a duty of care to people who are extremely vulnerable. Because there's a lot of people who use Instagram for cheerful images of their best life, don't they? Everybody's having a great time. In fact, you could say that's another of the negatives of Instagram. There are cute things on Instagram. A lot of crafters use Instagram. It can be a very happy place. Absolutely.

And I think it's also, again, it's coming back to not splitting these into these very black and white positive and negative images. Yes, I think it's concerning if people are going to look for really graphic images to trigger themselves into self-harm or if this is prompting people down that route. But then we need the discussion we need to be having is why are people seeking this out and how can we at some point in that process get them to think about what other types of support they can look for because the value of online peer support really can't be underestimated. So I think it's a very difficult balance.

And I'm sure this is not something they thought about at the beginning. And it seems that all social media companies are playing catch up at this point, which when you actually work daily with vulnerable people, these are the first things you think about before you set up any service. You think, how badly wrong could this go? And how can we prepare contingency to make sure that doesn't happen in the first place? There can't be any parent, any adult actually, who hears the story of Molly Russell who doesn't have immense sympathy for her family.

But I wonder to what extent you think changes like this should be driven, frankly, by bereaved people who are in an absolutely desperate state. I think I have nothing but the utmost sympathy and it's awful and I think for every young woman that comes in to use our service this is our ultimate concern that this is that they might die by suicide or by misadventure from self-harm and I think actually it's you know again that idea that people who've been bereaved and are really distressed shouldn't be people who are pushing changes again pushes that sort of taboo idea that we shouldn't talk about our emotions and we should only talk about things when we're absolutely utterly rational.

Some of the most important changes and shifts have come from people who are really passionate and driven for whatever reason. And I think actually bringing this discussion out is a really valuable thing that her parents have done. I think it's really brave of them to have done that. It's so tricky, isn't it? Because the same space that can offer such a level of support and refuge for people is also the same space occupied by hideous individuals and graphic and shocking images.

This is something that we're going to have to learn to deal with. But frankly, how we go about doing it in the future, I certainly have no idea. What would you say, Naomi? I think I agree with you it's a really it's a really tricky subject and I think we have actually started to try and get to grips with this in other areas as thinking about this on the way here you know there's really great guidance from the NSPCC around potential sexual abuse around around safe and you know five-year-olds get lessons on safe use of the internet and there's advice on grooming sexual exploitation so actually we have started thinking about these things so and this is something as an organisation that we're starting to think about as well is actually how do we produce guidance that goes

you know to all to all levels thinking about well actually there are people out there who are horrible individuals there are things out there that some people might find helpful to look at but you might find really distressing and triggering. How do you differentiate? How do you act sensibly? And how do you know when to step away from that and ask someone else for help or to ask an adult to help you check? Is this, you know, what's going on here? And I think perhaps that's what we need to start thinking about is we've got guidance in other areas. Maybe this is a very specific area we need to look at as well.

Really interesting to get your perspective thank you very much Naomi Salisbury the Director of Self-Injury Support she's in our studio in Bristol there are links to organisations like the NSPCC on the Woman's Hour website bbc.co.uk slash Woman's Hour but any parent will know that feeling of frankly just not knowing what is going on behind that closed teenage bedroom door. Any thoughts on that at BBC Women's Hour if you want to get involved. Now, Noor Taghuri is an interesting new voice to me, certainly. She's a young American Muslim journalist and reporter. She's just 25, but she's already made waves. She has posed, we should say, fully clothed in Playboy and made a podcast series about America's sex industry, Sold in America. Last month, she was featured in American Vogue, but she was wrongly identified as the Pakistani actress Noor Bakari. And that mistake was publicized all over the world.

Anur Tagore told me how she sees herself. I would describe myself as a storyteller. I go out and I report stories and I use different platforms to do so, whether that's documentaries, podcasts, fashion, writing. And that's what I've been doing since I was a kid. Your parents are Libyan. Yeah, they both immigrated to the United States from Libya. Okay. And where did you grow up?

I grew up in Southern Maryland. Now, I don't know a great deal about the United States, but I imagine those parts of the country are, well, Utah, how diverse are they? I mean, I walked into my first grade class and I sat down next to the only other girl who had dark brown hair and I asked her if she was Muslim because I had never seen another girl with dark brown hair. So how were you treated by your fellow pupils at that stage? I mean, when I was younger, I think that kids don't know exactly what it was just more senses of curiosity. I looked different than my peers. And so they would ask things like, oh, why does your mom wear that thing on her head? Or they would poke fun at like the fact that I could speak a different language or the fact like my parents had funny names. So it was little things like that. And then of course, when you

get older, they turn into deeper bullying. But I was able to, or my family moved to South town when I was 14, turning 15. And we moved right outside of Washington, DC. So then I experienced my own sense of culture shock and how diverse it was. And was it then that you decided you would, or perhaps could wear the head scarf? I knew that I wasn't ever going to wear the scarf because I had never seen anybody on television with it on. So I thought that, you know, of course, if it's something that I've never seen before, then maybe it can never happen. And it wasn't until I moved outside of that town that I realized, you know, like, I think there's a first for everything. And there are so many other women who have broken barriers, who have made it easier for somebody like me in this time. How hard do you think you had to work to make a name for yourself? I got my first job in

news when I was turning 16. I got a job at a newspaper. And then when I was in college, I got an internship at a radio station. And then I got a job at a radio station. And then I also started touring as a speaker. So it's very interesting. I think that I ended up having mentors who, like a mentor specifically, who had said to me, I want to train you to be so good at your job that nobody can ever not hire you for your skill set. And because I knew that I had this disadvantage, I ended up really working so hard at this job and shadowing so many people and asking people questions and networking. And I made sure that every place I went, everybody knew my name. And sometimes I wonder to myself, like, had I not put the hijab on and known I had to work this hard,

would I have worked this hard to get to where I am? I always talk about how when you are a part of a marginalized community whose identity is literally like on their sleeve, you're constantly seen for that identifying factor before you're seen for the work that you do. But my work ethic came from knowing that it was going to be hard. At any time in your journalistic career, has anybody just said to your face, you know what, you'd do better if you didn't wear it? Oh, absolutely. Oh my gosh, yeah. I would have news directors, I'd have people like writers, executives who would just be like,

why don't you just take it off or tell, you're so good at what you do, why don't you just take it off for the show and then put it back on after? And I'd be like, yeah, that's not really how it works. You are also known for that viral clip of the American Vogue edition that thought you were someone else. Just explain that. So I shot a spread with Vogue magazine, which was like a dream of mine. You know, I grew up reading Vogue and I had an incredible time on set, but we had been looking for the magazine for a while because we knew that it was coming out and sometimes they drop it early. And then finally we went to the airport and picked

up an issue and I opened it and I was like freaking out. And that video was never meant for like the internet to see. It was a personal video. I was never planning on posting that. And then I saw that they had misidentified me, but I didn't realize that they totally, I was like, maybe this is a typo. It's a very weird typo because it's a completely different name. But then I realized that they called me like an actor, a director. And I was like, no, they completely misidentified me. I didn't realize that until I got on the plane. And then I asked my husband, I was like, wait a minute, did you get that on video? And he was like, I think I did. And we rewatched the video, which was so hard to do. It was so uncomfortable. And then we realized, yeah. Now thousands of people have watched it. And what did they do?

What did American Vogue do? They issued an apology on social media. And I met with the executive editor and we had a conversation about it. Let's talk about, I've been listening to various episodes of your podcast series about America's sex trade. Obviously, the situation in Britain is slightly different, as you'd expect. But this is a series of 10 different podcasts called Sold in America. What really stood out for you in that, Noor, in terms of something that shocked you or surprised you about what you discovered? I think that what surprised me the most was just our deep misunderstanding for the sex trade in the US and understanding that a lot of the people who are a part of the sex trade are part of it because of this huge lack of a social safety net that we have in our country. So for instance, we passed a law called

FOSTA-SESTA to end sex trafficking, but sex workers were not included in that conversation. And so the law has incredibly affected them in a negative way where websites are being taken down and being held accountable for any sex that's being sold online and because and this was in an effort to end sex trafficking but it's also harming the community of sex workers here because it pushes them out essentially onto the street to trade sex and it puts them in danger. They can't vet their clients as much. And so I really learned how like there's a lot of ways our community and our policymakers are doing things based on their own moral compass and then putting many people in harm's way and not even including those people in the conversation.

There was one particularly notable episode where you went to Nevada. And you better just explain what is what's the situation there? So there's 18 counties in Nevada, where prostitution is legal. And those counties are like very small rural counties. And you met a man called Dennis Hoff. Yes, he's dead now, actually. But who was he? Dennis self identifies as a legal pimp. And he runs several brothels or he ran several brothels in Nevada. And he essentially picks the people who works for the brothels. And he's just a very interesting character. He's he loves to be character. He loves to be notorious. He loves when people talk about him. Because you cannot advertise the brothels,

he does a ton of media interviews and loves to be a character. So, like, when we went and met with him to do the interview, you know, he took out a cigar, and he asked for a glass of champagne, but the champagne wasn't real, and the cigar was never touched after the interview. It was just a prop to, like, blow smoke in smoke in our faces literally and in every other way yeah um did his behavior well you don't know i suppose i was going to ask whether you think his behavior was different

because it was you doing the interview let's talk maybe i'd gone to do the interview i mean what what do you think i think in a way way Dennis was intimidated and he says things to make people uncomfortable or just like push their buttons and and uh and he definitely did that with me like he would make references about like me working for him or um after the cameras went off he said uh I bet your parents never talked to you about sex growing up huh and so he definitely like made reference to the fact that like he was talking to a muslim woman in a hijab and i don't know if he had ever done that before so there's just an interesting way the place was run nor it is alleged you'll have to tell me

whether this is true the first muslim woman to appear in playboy i should say that you were you know you were fully clothed obviously is. Is that significant? And is that or is that something that actually, again, somebody mentions it just annoys you? I didn't think that it was that big of a deal when I did it. I thought it was pretty cool because I was able to bring this message to an audience that wasn't familiar with it. At the time, Playboy was not doing nudity in the magazine. And the feature itself was for the renegades issue. So they were profiling renegades in different industries. And for journalism, they profiled me. So I was being profiled for my work. And it was really it was an incredible opportunity. I mean, I'm so proud of it. I'm so happy I did it. I think that the conversation that came out

of it was incredible. And you know, people will disagree, but that's on them. And I think that I'm very forward thinking. And I think about, you know, how are we really going to challenge our communities and our society today. And if you're going to sit and you're going to try to just, you know, spread your message in a place that's heard it already, which is great, because you're inspiring people, but it's not challenging enough. I've constantly since I was young, put myself in uncomfortable positions to try to connect and build other people up. That's the voice of Noor Taghuri, and I can recommend her podcast. It's interesting. It's called Sold in America, about the sex industry in the States.

Now, a brief word about the new smear test system, which has already started actually in parts of England. And by the end of the year, everywhere in England is going to have it. And it's already available in Wales. Scotland will get it by 2020. No exact date yet for Northern Ireland. Now, the tests are said to be more accurate, meaning some women will have the tests or have to have the smear test less often. The smear, though, is going to be carried out in the same way but the difference is that your sample will be tested right away for the HPV virus which is the cause of

cervical cancer. Let's have a word with senior epidemiologist Dr Matejka Rebol. She's from King's College in London. Matejka, take us through this then. What is the significant change here? The significant change here is only the way the same kind of a sample that is taken for screening, the way it is analysed in the laboratory. And the way that is going to be analysed now allows us for a better reassurance that the woman is not going to develop cervical cancer in the next few years. So that means that we can safely discharge her to the next screening round, the next routine screening round, routine recall, for a longer period of time than the smear tests allow us now when they're tested for cytology.

Right. Hence the headlines that are focused on the need for less frequent smear tests. I guess we've got to be a bit careful about that headline because that, of course, then starts us thinking about how we don't like going for smear tests. Therefore, the idea that smear tests will happen less often in most women is a good thing. This is the problem you're always up against whenever you talk about smear tests, isn't it? It is. But at the same time, we shouldn't forget that we do screening for the individuals who need to have the disease found as early as possible so that we can treat it with more chances

of actually the person surviving. And this is what this test is actually also offering. So the women we're doing the screening for, they're going to be better served by the new test. Right. We're told, though, that there might be more so-called false positives. That is correct. With population-based cancer screening, such as cervical screening, we know that, and this is unfortunate truth, that if we have a test that is better at detecting what it's supposed to detect, it will also give us more false positive signals. And this is what is happening with HPV testing as well. Now, the program is going to work in such a way that is going to minimize the harms and the anxiety that could be caused by these false positive tests.

The current recommendation is that not all the women who have a positive test will be referred to coposcopy because they will not need it. The natural, we call it etiology of the virus is such that by far the majority of the infections, they clear on their own and they don't need any attention, but we do detect them. And at the moment, we don't know what to do with them. So what we do do with them is for women who have the infection, but they have not developed any cellular abnormalities, we will be inviting them to come back in a year to see if the virus has cleared. So if you get that message, you don't need to panic? No, you definitely should not panic. In the majority of the women, the infection is harmless,

but it is in the minority of the women, the infection is harmless, but it is in the minority of the women we need to take it seriously. And the system is going to work in such a way to minimise the risks of developing anything serious. Yeah, all this does have to be very carefully explained to people, doesn't it? I'm aware that a lot of people, including me, find it all a bit baffling. Absolutely. And at the moment, Public Health England and the NHS England, they're working on developing materials on how to communicate with the women. They're certainly working with health professionals, such as midwives, general practitioners, gynaecologists,

on how to relay the message and how to prepare the woman for what is waiting for her. Now, we did very briefly mention on the programme a couple of weeks ago the idea of a non-invasive smear test or test for HPV. Any progress on that one? Well, in principle, the smear test, it is non-invasive, but it may cause embarrassment. You call a smear test non-invasive? It's not something I absolutely enjoy, but it should not lead to bleeding and severe pain.

Sorry, forgive me, that's the definition of invasive, is it, in medical terms? In medical terms, exactly. If it was an invasive test it would not be ethical to offer it to the entire population or the balance of how we would be offering it would be completely different but what is happening is that the new technology for HPV testing is also allowing us to offer a different kind of technique to take the sample where women will be able to take the sample in the privacy of their own home at the time that suits them and put it back in the envelope seal it send it back to the laboratory where it will be tested in a similar way as as smears taken by by the midwife

it this is going to be the future of hpv screening at least for the women who otherwise do not go for screening. And it's better than nothing. It is certainly better than nothing. It is a plan B. The standard, the highest quality of screening is still afforded by physician-taken sampling. But if there's no way that you can get screening otherwise, self-sampling is certainly going to be a fantastic option.

And the NHS is considering the introduction of this test in the future. Thank you. Really interesting. A lot of people, I'm sure, will be glad about that. Although we shouldn't knock the smear test. They are important. Dr. Matejka Rebbel, thank you very much. Matejka is from King's College, London. Late Night Woman's Hour, the podcast is out now. Guests include this week Ellen Coyne from The Times, Zoe Strimple, the gender historian, and Clara Amfo from Radio 1.

And your host is Emma Barnett. So the Late Night Woman's Hour podcast available now. Subscribe to Late Night. It's a different feel to the programme. You'll enjoy it. Late Night Woman's Hour, the podcast, available now. Let's talk to the author Yvonne Battle-Felton, who's with us now. Yvonne, good morning to you.

Welcome. Good morning. Thank you for having me. Well, your novel is a really interesting one. It's called Remembered. And, well, set it up for us because it's the story of an emancipated slave. She's called Spring. But we go backwards and forwards in time, don't we? We learn

quite a bit about her experience. And that's what I wanted. I wanted us to explore the emancipation through the eyes of a character who may have been enslaved in the US. And so that's kind of why we go back and forth in time is so that I can explore what it might have been like for her to be a slave. But I definitely wanted there to be a period where she was free. And I wanted us to experience that as a character or a person at that time might have experienced it. Now, it starts in 1910 in Philadelphia. Just explain the incident at the very beginning of the book, Or well, the alleged incident? So the alleged incident is her son, Edward has been accused of a crime that he may or may not have committed of running a streetcar purposefully into a shop window and killing or hurting people.

And so there's no investigation. He's basically tried on the streets of Philadelphia. And he seems to be found guilty by the streets of Philadelphia. So he's beaten and he's basically tried on the streets of Philadelphia, and he seems to be found guilty by the streets of Philadelphia. So he's beaten, then he's in the hospital. And that's where Spring comes to tell him stories to lead him home. It's a terrible indictment of where we are now that that sort of thing wouldn't be unheard of in 2019, would it? That's exactly what I was thinking of while I was while I was writing it, it was kind of, I guess, my form of advocacy, because I was here in the UK, I was doing my PhD at Lancaster University. And while I was researching momming and slavery, and all these questions that I had about reconnecting family,

back home, black people were still being killed by police at this alarming rate. And it was story after story. And it struck me that the narrative hadn't changed. There was still the excuse, I guess, or the reason, the rationale was I feared for my life. This person, I thought they had a gun. And that narrative hasn't changed. And so even though now we have more access to technology and to the truth and to different versions of actually what happened, it struck me that since we're not as far as we like to think we are, and so in the novel I definitely got the chance to experiment with that.

Can you read us an extract? Just tell us exactly where we are in the story here. Certainly. So we are, at the part that I'm going to read, we're back in time. So it's 24 years in the past, 1840 to 1864, and it's told over 24 hours in the present, which is 1910. So in this section we are in the past, 1840 to 1864, and it's told over 24 hours in the present, which is 1910. So in this section, we are in the past, and it's just around the time of the Emancipation.

And so there have been rumors, ongoing rumors, of slavery ending. And so these characters have heard this story before, and they don't all believe it. So this day is a day that they get together and they celebrate, not the Emancipation, but they're celebrating because every once in a while their slave owners allow them to connect with different communities. And so this is a day of their celebration. Ready or not, here we come, Tempe shouts. Watson, long brown legs and thin bony arms flailing,

is already halfway to the porch. He's panting and sweating. His chest pumps hard. I just watch it, glistening. Run. Tempe's long shapely legs carry her to within inches of Watson. It don't look like she's hardly breathing. She cuts through the yard with hardly no effort at all. It don't seem fair. Tempe can catch him any time she wants. She knows the land and made the rules. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. I tap each little head quickly, dashing from one to the next so I can turn back to the race. There are no tears this time. The little hearts race along with Watson's. Run. Watson is just a few strides ahead of Tempe. If she leans forward just a little more, she'll have him. If not, he'll reach the porch, sanctuary, seconds before her. He slows, and even

from the back of his head, I know he's grinning. He zags sharply. You're running the wrong way. I can't get the words out fast enough, but then I see. He isn't running the wrong way. I can't get the words out fast enough. But then I see. He isn't running the wrong way at all. The women must have heard the commotion. Armed with broomsticks, they take to the porch and synchronize the annoyance. They stand guard. Around back, the men have already stopped talking about the war, escape, and freedom. They're out front, gruff voices whispering.

Run. Tempe must have seen it then. We all do. Watson isn't running for the porch. Tempe stops. She stands still whispering. Run. Run.

Run. Along with everybody else. Watson never stops running. I wish he had taken me with him. So you say that you went to Lancaster University and you decided to write this book. Well, actually, what came first? Was it part of your plan to go to Lancaster to write this specific book? Or how did all that work out?

Well, I went to Lancaster University for a creative writing PhD. And so my questions that I wanted to ask were about the emancipation. And I was really curious how families might have reconnected. Because presumably it was really difficult to do that. How would you go about it? See, that was my question. And it seems like the people in my life, the people that I spoke to, there was this myth that people did reconnect and families found one another. And it seems like we don't do a lot of talking about, even if families found each other geographically, what that might be like emotionally. So even though the children would have known that there was nothing the parents could have done to protect them. I felt like there was still a lot of hurt and anger. And even for parents, that feeling of not being able to protect your child and that guilt that might come along with that.

I don't read a lot about that and I wanted to explore that, especially as a mother, just not being able to know where your children are and not being able to protect them. It's just my worst fear. And as we said at the very beginning of the conversation, there are some mothers who are petrified by what might happen, particularly to their sons when they go out on the streets of, well, Britain and America, we know. So tell us about the central character's mothering, if you like, and her commitment to mothering. So I think all of the characters in

this novel, all of the mothers, they commit to mothering in different ways. And I think they all have that one goal of protecting their children at no matter the cost. And so some of the choices that they make will be uncomfortable. Some of the choices that they make will seem like the only thing that they could do. And that's maybe why they made it. So it may not seem like the logical choice to the reader. But I think given their confines, it's the only way that they could have agency. So there's Spring and her, the ways that she raises Edward, but even before her,

there's her mother, Agnes, and the way that Agnes mothers her and tries to protect her. And then before Agnes, there's Mama Skins and the ways that she mothers are, I want to say thank you. Well, no, there's shocking brutality. It goes without saying because we are talking about slavery. But I think people will be really rightly made deeply uncomfortable by some of the things that are in this book. Tell me briefly about your life outside writing because you're somebody who's, and I haven't met many people, Yvonne, who have founded a literary salon, but you are one of those people. I am and I didn't do it alone so my friend Naomi

Kruger it's I love this so she went through her season of yeses there was a time when I started my PhD when I needed to do things off campus I was living on campus I was working on campus I was researching and teaching and momming on campus. So I needed to be off campus and do some things. So I asked my friend Naomi, who's also a writer, her book May came out. Don't plug your mate's book. So while that was happening, I would say, well, what about if we started this event? And I wanted a literary salon where writers came in and they told us stories. And at first the response was no. And then the next one was the True Story And at first the response was no. And then the next one was the true story open mic night and it was no. And then one day she said,

you know what, I don't actually know why I'm saying no. I'm just going to say yes to everything. And so then it became like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And so the literary salon was a chance for us to hear stories from writers across the North. And we invited them in and they told us stories because I love that. And for me, that's what actually builds community. It's a really interesting idea. I wish I could say I was going to a literary salon anytime soon. I think I'd probably enjoy yours by the sound of things. Thank you very much, Yvonne.

Really good to meet you. And Yvonne's book is called Remembered. Now, to driving a train as a career, we're going to talk to a woman who does exactly that, Kelly Jo Ballard. Welcome to the programme, Kelly Jo. Thank you. You have been driving trains for Southeastern for how many years now? I started in 2016, the initial training. I've been driving two years on my own now. Okay, brilliant. And also with you is Train Services Director Ellie Burrows. Welcome to you, Ellie. We know, Ellie, that Southeastern are trying to make an effort to recruit more female

drivers. What exactly is your commitment? So out of the 1100 drivers you've got only 53 of those are actually women and that's not representative of society so what we're aiming to do is increase the number of applicants for train driver jobs. Normally we get about 14-15% of applicants for every job that goes out there are female. That doesn't feel right and we feel like more women should know that it's an interesting job and more women should be applying for that. Tell me about your early aspirations then Kelly. Kelly Jo what did you hope to do when you were younger? I actually went into floristry. I was training to be a florist. That didn't although i completed the training it didn't go very far because you need to

own a florist shop really to earn any money so i then steered off from that um the journey to become a train driver i cared for my grandmother um and during that time i had a lot of time to think about what i wanted to do do and discussed it with my grandmother. What did she say when you said, I fancy being a train driver? It was that I wanted to get into the transport industry, maybe what might be the best way to do that. She was a very intelligent woman, my grandmother. And we just discussed because I had been in libraries.

That was what I was doing before caring for my grandmother, which had been given up. That was what I was doing before caring for my grandmother, which had been given up, and to care for her. So it gave me the opportunity to think about what I wanted to do. You actually went to bus driving initially, didn't you? Exactly, yes. Now, I mean, I'd never done either, but it strikes me that driving a bus is harder than driving a train. I don't know. You tell me.

They're two different jobs or careers. There's stresses in both both careers um for me i find driving a train less stressful but that's because we're given so much support there's plenty of people that we can talk to whether it be another driver whether it be our driver manager um there's just so much you're you're given support the whole time round so although you're in the front of the train and you're on your own actually you're given more support than when you're driving a bus and you and you're actually talking to passengers face to face sure i mean to be really crude the money is better isn't it yes the money is better um we do work a four-day working week also so we we are given, although you're concentrating for long periods of times while you're at work, everything is safety-based.

I mean, everything revolves around safety, the safety of your passengers. even though you can be very tired after those four days, you have got the time at home to recuperate, to rest yourself before coming back into work. Now, your favourite route, you were telling me earlier, is, remind me, Charing Cross to? Seven Oaks. OK, what's the appeal of that route? It's a little bit prettier. It's a bit hard on the south-east of England.

The stations are a little bit further apart Once you pass Stolpington You're just not Anybody that drives a car If you had to pick up multiple people You're pulling over You're stopping And then you're restarting

When you're driving And you've got further distance between your stations, you've got a little bit more time to relax, not completely. You're still concentrating, taking in the environment and your signals that are in front of you. But there's a little bit more of a downtime, so to speak. Whereas when you're driving more into the metro routes of London, you're stopping a lot more often.

And there's train safety checks that you have to do at every station it is but there's no getting away from this a colossal responsibility yes how aware of that are you as you're doing it very aware we're very aware um you have to be you you are carrying hundreds and hundreds of passengers around every day and I'm pretty sure the passenger would want you to be aware of the pressure that you're under and the safety aspects of the job that you are fully trained and aware of that. You're one of those people who, when asked about her working life,

your face lights up and you just sparkle. Why do so few women do it then? I'm really not sure. i've been doing a few few things with south eastern with which is to do with women with women with drive which is you know what ellie's been been doing um and i found that when i do speak to women at these some of these events that they just don't realize really that they can go for the job. So things like this, the radio and some of the other stuff that is getting the message out there. I'm a normal person, normal girl.

The job isn't gender based. It doesn't matter what background you've come from, whether you're male or female. We're all doing the same job and there's nothing stopping a woman from doing this job. Nothing at all. No, it is frustrating that young girls haven't quite got that message yeah um but hopefully with more of this getting the message out there hopefully they they will come forward and apply in the beginning you are tested it's called an assessment day but you're not tested on how intelligent you are or how academic you are. They test how your brain works and how well you are at concentrating and things like that. So you are tested right in the beginning.

So you will be told whether you'll be able to A, go through the training or have got a chance of going through the training and whether you would be suited to the job. So there's nothing stopping any woman for just going ahead and going for it. Train driver Kelly Jo Ballard. Everybody loved hearing from Kelly Jo. This is an email from a listener who says, just brilliant to hear that interview

with the female train driver. Not just because she's a woman doing a so-called man's job, but just to hear about ordinary achievable work that anyone can do and how to do it and what it feels like to do that job. The world of work is so mysterious and inaccessible to those who are not working unless you have that job. Nobody knows what it's like to be a shop owner, as per the programme about owning an independent shop in Hastings this week, or a care worker or a dentist or a doctor. I think it would be so interesting to do more profiles like this.

Do you know what? I completely agree with that email. I want to know, what is it like to drive a train? I didn't know. Having spoken to Kelly Jo, I know a bit more. A few of you, I'm afraid, have resorted to humour. This is from Janet. All this reminds me of a favourite piece of graffiti I saw in the 1980s on Hampstead Heath railway station.

More women train drivers. A woman's right to choo-choos. Yeah. Clive says, nothing new about female train drivers. You'll find an item on North West Tonight from circa 1991 with a story about the lady train drivers in Manchester. Not many, but they were doing the job as well as any. And Clive does point out he is formerly train crew drivers in Manchester. Not many, but they were doing the job as well as any. And Clive does point out he is formerly train crew manager in Manchester.

So, Clive, glad you're listening to the programme. Thank you for that. And I'm sorry about the choo-choo thing, but it does make me laugh, actually. From Anna, happened to get a train to Cambridge a few years ago with a female driver, could have been Kelly Jo. Guided across the station by a female guard, picked up by a female taxi driver. For a few brief

minutes, it was a beautiful utopia of everyday representation, but sadly unusual, says Anna. And Fiona's a bit dischuffed, ho ho. Why did the interviewer say to be really crude, the money's better, referring to the difference between bus

drivers and train drivers' pay. Why is it crude? Earning money for a job, that's what it's all about. I think Fiona says she's an international HGV driver. I meant crude in the sense of let's get down to basics. But you're right, I shouldn't have used that word, crude. Helping me out now in the podcast is Yvonne Battle-Felton, who we've dragged back into the studio.

You were halfway out of the door. I was, but we came back and I'm glad we did. What is disconcerting about you is that you have just, as many listeners would have pointed out or did point out, you've just got this amazing voice. Slightly irritatingly, a lot better than mine. So I wouldn't normally encourage you, Yvonne, but I would say that if the novel writing

runs out you know if you run out of inspiration consider broadcasting why have you not done that or perhaps you have um well thank you first and so um it's one of those things that I think I'd always love to do and I would always love to like to have my own show um yeah all right that's enough now um to interview people right here for the beep. No, I'm just kidding. But I do like interviewing people in that conversation. And while I was doing my PhD, I did have just a local campus radio. Oh, that's right, you did. I did read about that. Yeah, so you have done it.

I have. And that was, it started out kind of selfish, I guess. It was because I wanted to know what I could do with my creative writing PhD and how I could make a living with my words. So the best way to find that out was to talk to people who were making a living with their words. So they were editors, they were writers, they were publishers, but then they were also people who had day jobs and multiple jobs and kind of like I was doing, crafting a career. And so that was, I think, the most beautiful thing, just having people share their stories. What we didn't get onto in the conversation about your novel was the idea of, it's an expression that you do hear a lot.

Oh, man of his time. Oh, he's a man of his, or a woman, people of their time, men of their generation. How do we judge people like that? Because there are still people around today who would say things that I would not say um and there's been an instance this week we know of a well-known Hollywood actor yeah saying something I suspect well anyway um where where do you stand on all that judging people um so I try not to judge them um I do judge what they do and so the whole idea of it being a product of your time, Nikki Giovanni spoke about that. I was fortunate enough to see her at an event at the, where was I? I was in Baltimore. And she is? So she's an author and a poet and a little bit of everything. She's absolutely amazing. But so she was talking about the idea of someone being a product of their time. And it's really,

it's not a pass. It's at all times through history. Well, that's what I was asking you, Rudy. Go on. Yeah, it's not a pass. When people are doing things, I feel like you know that it's wrong. You know that it's unethical. And what you might be saying is that, okay, everyone else is doing it.

And that doesn't make it right. So there were people who were 100% racist. And I think there's a lot of ideas around, well, if my neighbor is racist or if I go to church and I do this and if I do that, then it makes everything okay. And of course it doesn't make everything okay. And neither does saying, well, forgive me. I'm 20 years past that and I'm a different person now. And in some respects, people are. And I'd like to think that they grow and they change but if you're still holding on to that and you've never actually said well that was wrong I've owned up to that and that's who I was then and now I'm a different person I now have learned some

different things I appreciate everyone if we haven't done that then you're still back where you are. Are you going to what's going to be the subject of your next novel? Do you know yet? So, so far I've been thinking about, so there's an area called Black Wall Street and it's no longer there. So it was in around 1910. I don't know what it is around 1910 in America. Yeah, something was going writers, they were porters, they were restaurant owners, they owned hotels, they were lawyers, they were doctors, they were thriving, and they had set up their own community. And then other people from less affluent communities came around, and they attacked them, they murdered them. I mean, it was a coordinated attack where it seems like the city may have also been influential because the houses were burned from the air. So there were planes involved. Someone was organizing this.

Right, exactly. And the National Guard was called. And so they call it a race riot, but it was actually a massacre. So I'm interested in that. But also it wasn't just there. And I think that's the scary thing. But these are lost stories, aren't they? How do you find out about that?

Well, I guess they're lost in the way that some people would like us to forget them. And some people would like us to think, well, this couldn't happen again. But the more that we look at the news now, the more that we see history repeating. And so sadly, anything is possible. We're sliding backwards, it would seem. And so I think that's what makes me curious about some of these things in history and looking at, well, one, if it was an isolated incident, then you could say, well, it only happened once in however many years. But a lot of times they're not isolated and they're happening in different pockets of community. And if you look at back then, so how were people spreading the news about these terrible things

that they were doing? If it was so isolated, then it wouldn't have been cropping up around. But they were not just doing it, but they were documenting them through postcards. So things like lynching. It takes something in a person, something maybe missing, that you could participate in the lynching and then take pictures of it and then send those pictures around to people,

one as a warning to other black people, but then also as a sort of pride for, look what I've done, look what I've done, and share those from generations. So I'm really interested in those stories, because as people, some of us have yet to evolve. Yeah. Thank you. So is that book going to happen? And it will it be about that incident in 1910? Um, I think it's definitely going to happen, because I'm starting to get to that point where some of the characters are coming to life to me. The 1910 incident will have helped to shape it, but I'm not going

to use that particular incident. I think I'm going to use several of them and then I may end up making or creating a community for it to happen. And I think that for me ethically it feels right because what I don't want to do is to explore different people's grandparents and don't want to do is to explore different people's their grandparents and

their ancestry and to do things with it that it just doesn't seem like that's my story to tell. Thank you very much for being with us really appreciate it really interesting talking to you thank you. Thank you for having me. And the program and the podcast back on Monday of course but don't forget as well if you can't get enough of us at Weekend Woman's Hour two minutes past

four tomorrow afternoon. The monarch. Many wish the shah to fall. Hope for revolution. They're frightened. You can smell the fear. Do you now see why I must be firm with my people? Please, I am innocent. Lie down on the table.

Lie down on the table now. The insurgent. My country suffers. He stands against the shah, doesn't he? The country burns. He stands against the Shah, doesn't he? My country burns. What does he stand for, though? That's a question for later. And a story that reverberates throughout the world today.

I have one purpose only, to execute God's revenge on this earth. The BBC World Service presents Fall of the Shah, telling the story of the 1979 Iranian revolution. Available now on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Trelevan, 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.

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