Woman's Hour - Women's magazines, Dawn Sturgess, Female funeral directors

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

For generations of women and girls, glossy magazines have been a guide to clothes, lifestyles, relationships and, of course, sex. Titles like Cosmopolitan, Woman’s Own and Sugar were pored over by thousands of us and now there is a podcast that celebrates those beloved back issues. Every week the hosts of Mag Hags, Lucy Douglas and Franki Cookney, read a different issue of a magazine from the 70s, 80s or 90s. As well as revelling in the 20th Century fashions, features and lifestyle advice, Lucy and Franki join Nuala McGovern to uncover a fascinating insight into the way we lived then, and the way we live now.A public inquiry begins today which will explore the circumstances of the death of Dawn Sturgess, the woman from Wiltshire killed by a 2018 poisoning blamed on Russian agents. Her death came four months after Sergei and Yulia Skripal were found unconscious on a bench in Salisbury. At the time Prime Minister Theresa May said the Skripals were poisoned with the military grade nerve agent, Novichok and that it was "highly likely" that Russia was responsible - a claim Russia denies. Dawn Sturgess died after coming in to contact with the nerve agent which had been hidden inside a perfume bottle. Nuala is joined by BBC Wiltshire's Marie Lennon, one of the voices behind the new BBC Podcast, Salisbury Poisonings.Black Box Diaries is a feature-length documentary that follows the director Shiori Itō’s investigation into her own alleged sexual assault in an attempt to prosecute her high-profile offender. Opening up questions around the #MeToo movement in Japan, Shiori explains how her quest became a landmark case exposing the country’s outdated judicial and societal systems.Death is a subject many people still shy away from, but one woman is determined to change that. Funeral director Inez Capps is on a mission to challenge the taboos around death and demystify an industry often shrouded in mystery. Since the age of 19, she’s been working with the deceased, and she’s using social media to give people a glimpse behind the scenes — from the care a loved one receives, to tours of the hearse and the embalming suite. Inez runs a funeral business with her parents in the East Midlands.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Kirsty Starkey

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.

Hello, this is Nuala McGovern, and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello, welcome to the programme. Shiori Ito is with me today and she'll be in our studio. Shiori is, for many, the face of the Me Too movement in Japan. She is a young woman who took on Japan's authorities and its conservative culture after alleging that she was raped by a prominent figure in Japan. She has now directed an extraordinary documentary about her story and we're going to hear what she hopes to achieve with its release. Also today we'll hear about the inquiry getting

underway at 11am focusing on Dawn Sturgis who died after coming into contact with the nerve agent Novichok. We're also reminiscing about the magazines that influenced us long before influencers were a thing. Do you have a vivid memory of advice, and I put that in inverted commas, that you took from a magazine? Can be good or bad ideas that you followed for your life, your work, relationships, beauty, sex? I remember trying to erase my freckles with lemon juice.

It didn't work out. You can text the programme, the number is 84844, on social media, we're at BBC Woman's Hour, or you can email us through our website. For WhatsApp, you can message me or send a voice note using the number 03700 100 444. Also, the woman demystifying the funeral industry. You might know her from TikTok or Instagram, Ines Capps,

also coming up on Woman's Hour. But let us begin with that public inquiry into the Salisbury poisoning, which begins, as I mentioned, at 11. And it will explore the circumstances of the death of Dawn Sturgis. She was a woman from Wiltshire who died four months after Sergei and Yulia Skripal were found unconscious on a bench. At the time, the Prime Minister, Theresa May, said that the Skripals were poisoned with military-grade nerve agent

called Novichok and that it was highly likely that Russia was responsible. That is a claim that Russia denies. Dawn Sturgis died after coming into contact with that nerve agent, which had been hidden inside a perfume bottle. Well, joining me from Salisbury is BBC World Shares' Marie Lennon. She's one of the presenters of the BBC podcast Crime Next Door, The Salisbury Poisonings. You're very welcome to the programme, Marie.

Expand for us a little bit of exactly what the inquiry is trying to do. Good morning. Thank you for having me. Well, yes, the point of the inquiry is to examine the full circumstances leading to Dawn's death, looking at what we know, how we know it and establishing, if possible, where responsibility lies. Now, this is an inquiry not only because the scale of the questions around Dawn's death is so vast, but also because some evidence can and will need to be heard behind closed doors. For example, witnesses who work in national security or whose testimony may relate to intelligence gathering. We will hear from the people who responded to Dawn and investigated what happened to her. So paramedics, hospital staff, local and counter terror police,

public health, chemical weapons experts and her family. This is not an inquiry into the poisoning of the Scree pals, though clearly, as you've said, those incidents are connected. So that will be relevant in this. But, you know, she died in 2018.

We're now in 2024. Why has it taken so long? Well, it has taken a long time because, I mean, the family have really fought for this. It's partly to try to get some of that information out into the public and have it cleared to be used in a public inquiry. As I've said, some of this evidence relates to national security and intelligence gatherings. So having that cleared to get to this point has taken quite some time. It's also

worth saying that this is still an ongoing and open investigation by counter terror policing and they say it's one of the most complex investigations they've ever dealt with. And why is that? Why is it complex? Why is it so complex? Well,

because essentially the two incidents are linked. So we had in the March of 2018, the poisoning of a former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. It's alleged that this was carried out by GRU agents. So Russian intelligence officials who came to the city, planted this Novichok and then left again. But the circumstances of that are still very complicated. And the difficult thing with the death of Dawn Sturgis is the time lag. So Sergei and his daughter Yulia were discovered in the march. They recovered remarkably, they recovered and survived this and then four months later we had the discovery of novichok in a town seven miles away so there are lots of questions

about how that happened there is an assumption that the would-be assassins of the screepells had this novichok and they discarded it as you say it was disguised in a perfume bottle and it was discarded somewhere in the city um It's also believed that Dawn Sturgis's partner, Charlie Rowley, found that bottle. But there are still lots of questions about how that was possible, how it did go undetected for four months somewhere in the city of Salisbury. Tell me a little bit more about Dawn, because people might be seeing her photograph this morning on newspapers or on websites but what was her life like? Yeah so Dawn was a 44 year old woman, mum to three children. She grew up around Salisbury Plain. It's said that she

loved being at Stonehenge. She grew up in a very close community, a very close-knit family within Salisbury Plain. Her friends and family say that she was very caring. She was always the first person to help if a mate was in trouble. She was the one that was offering to help them. At the time that she died, she was in what was described as a very happy and loving relationship with Charlie Rowley. She was also getting ready to move into a new flat, having been vulnerably housed before. Friends said that before her death,

she was enjoying the heatwave of that summer, was excited to see England's footballers in the World Cup. She did have some problems in her past with addiction, and her family have said that they were angry at the time this was happening, with how the news media focused a lot on the problems that she had had previously and almost making the link that those problems had contributed to her coming into contact with this stuff they are really angry about that and I think very keen to describe within this inquiry who Dawn really was you know she, she was a 44-year-old mum of three.

Your podcast that I mentioned there as well, it has launched in the past few days, and you speak to another woman who was heavily involved in this case, Tracey Daskovich. Can you tell us a little bit more about her? Yeah, so Professor Tracey Daskovich, she is someone who features in this podcast. She was head of public health for Wiltshire at the time. She describes getting called into Wiltshire police headquarters the morning after the Screephills were taken to hospital and very quickly understanding that this was serious. Her role in public health is to keep people healthy and safe. We saw lots of public health officials during the COVID pandemic. So she led that response, working with police to work out where the scrape house had been and where else might be contaminated.

Because this substance is one of the most deadly chemicals in the world. A very small amount could kill many people and no one knew where it was. So Tracy led that response. She managed where people could and couldn't go and dealt with what was a very complex and ever-changing situation. She also worked with others to get the city reopened again after the Scree pals had survived and then was thrust right back into the situation when it became clear that more people had been poisoned. This was even more emotional for Tracey because she knew the victim, Dawn Sturgis. I remember her very, very clearly because she was very quick-witted

and she did this dry wit without a filter. So she presented almost shy, quite a gentle, quiet person. I just really warmed her and I remembered her from that. And that those early days, you know, those first few hours where you're talking about names, you know, and Dawn isn't an uncommon name. And then the photo comes around and you realise it's her. You know, I can absolutely, even now, I can feel how I felt. Devastating, doesn't even come close. For her family, who were private people, a very close family,

all of a sudden, you know, very private, ordinary people and their daughter's death became mercilessly public property. Yeah, it just, how do you begin to deal with that? I mean, the impact on that family is just, well, it's forever, isn it it's it's always and so they are trying to i suppose get to the next stage marie with this particular inquiry but you talk about a close-knit family close-knit community in some ways as well what has the impact been of this world's focus on this small area yeah salisbury itself is a small city. It's the kind of city where everyone knows everybody, really. And this took over the city for weeks on end back in March 2018. There were huge areas people couldn't go to, a worry about how safe people were, and also a

feeling that their home was being invaded by this unwelcome attention. You know, they didn't want any of this to be happening on their doorstep and had no idea that a former Russian spy was living in a cul-de-sac on the edge of Salisbury. They really fought to get their city back and to reclaim the city for Salisbury. So the death of Dawn was devastating, you know, of course, more so than anybody for Dawn's loved ones. But also, it was very hard to take for the community who were told that they were safe, there was no risk to the public. And I think there was an understanding that this could have been a lot worse in lots of ways. This was a deadly substance that could have been anywhere, you know, it could have been handed around amongst school children. So I think that, that fear stayed with the community for quite some

time. And I think, you know, with Dawn as well, there is a feeling that lots of the world's media really left after Sergei and Yulia Skripal. And there is a feeling that actually Dawn and her voice and her life was somehow lost in this. And it should be heard again. You're reminding me of that time indeed when they just didn't know whether it might be somewhere else around the vicinity of where Dawn had been with Charlie. How long will the inquiry go on? It begins today. And let me see about 45 minutes time.

Yeah, it begins today and it starts in Salisbury itself at the Guildhall at the request of the family so that it can be heard and understood by local people. It then has a break and then it continues in London for about five weeks and within that time it will hear from lots of different people who were involved in many different ways in what happened. As I say some of it behind closed doors but what we, we will bring you in this new podcast, The Salisbury Poisonings, hearing the testimony, making sense of that testimony. And then by the end of, by next year at some point,

we will get a report. We'll get a sense of what this has all been leading to. Marie Lennon, thank you so much for your new podcast, The Crime Next Door, The Salisbury Poisonings. As you mentioned, you can find it on BBC Sounds. Thanks to all of you getting in touch with your advice that you followed.

Morning Nuala. As a pale, auburn-haired teen in the early 90s, each summer I was desperate for tanned skin like that of my lovely neighbour Nita. I asked her how she got so brown and she said she used olive oil on her skin. Keen to get that same hue, I slathered myself in the oil and lay out on the lawn for a few hours, only to burn horribly.

Turns out freckly redheads, sun and olive oil are not a sensible combination. Well, Becky, you can't blame the magazines for that one, but I understand what happened. There was another one. After 30 years, about 30 years ago, I read in a letter page this woman's guidance from her mother. If in doubt,

go without it has saved me from hundreds of later regretted purchases over the years keep them coming advice from the magazine that you followed to well or detriment let me know um Sharon D. Clark an Olivier award-winning actress who you might know from Holby City she played Lola Griffin there in her career so far she has done everything from pantomime to vocals on a song that reached number two in the charts. And now she's starring on stage and on screen, including in a BBC adaptation of Bernadine Evaristo's novel,

Mr. Loverman. She takes the lead role of Alice in an upcoming Channel 5 crime drama as well. Well, Sharon joined Krupa on Friday to talk about many things. Here's a snippet. We should all be watching each other's stories and finding out that actually, if you look at stories from most cultures, they will intertwine and overlap

because the human experience is the human experience. I don't want to just sit down and watch stuff that's just about my community. Do you know what I mean? I live in my community, I know that. The world is supposed to expand and television and film does that. It can educate you, it can elevate a situation, it can inspire people when they've seen something that they've never seen before to get them to do something that they've never done before.

And it can educate, it should do that, and it should spark debate as well. You are a trained social worker. How much does your kind of past life working in social care inform that? I think that kind of just informs everything I do without me even thinking about it. I love people. Had I not become an actor, I would have continued in social work

because I love being with people. I love helping people. I'm the kind of kid that was in school and having girls coming to me in the toilet and say, I'm dying. And I'd be like, no, it's just your period. I can't believe no one's talked to you about this. My brother, my brother from another mother,

has a name for me, Kimberly Clark. And Kimberly Clark was like the person that you used to see on the toilet rolls and stuff in the ladies and that's my kind of social work persona that is a part of me

that will always be a part of me and so will inform everything that I do The actor Sharon D. Clark there and you can hear the full interview by going to BBC Sounds and looking for the episode of Woman's Hour

from Friday, the 11th of October. Shiori Ito shocked Japan when in 2017 she went public with allegations that two years previously she was raped

by Noriyuki Yamaguchi who was a well-known TV journalist. He has always denied the allegations. Now Shiori is releasing a documentary film, Black Box Diaries,

and it tells the story of how criminal charges against Mr Yamaguchi were never brought and also what propelled her to pursue a civil case against him, which she won. In 2022, Japan's Supreme Court upheld the lower court's ruling that Mr Yamaguchi had sexually assaulted Ito following an appeal by him. But Shiro Ito telling her story has come at a price. For many women, she was the face of the MeToo movement in Japan, really igniting it. But she also became a lightning rod for misogyny and victim blaming. Her critics casting her as an overly naive young woman who had let her guard down. So what has changed for Shiori and for her country when it comes to how rape and sexual assault are now viewed and treated in Japan?

You're very welcome to Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for coming to studio. Thank you for having me. So I watched your film yesterday. It is a compelling watch. I would, I was even thinking at times, almost call it a horror film with some of the things that you talk about going through. You switch between formal investigation as a journalist.

There is a kind of intimate confessional tone to parts of it as well. You're 35 now, I should tell our listeners, this is nine years since the alleged incident happened. But what I was really struck by is your resilience and kind of dogged determination to continue throughout this whole journey. Where does that come from? I think after you experience sexual violence, there are so many ways to survive. And for me, it was to ask questions,

looking for the truth, what happened to me. So that was sort of my coping mechanism to what happened to me. You called it Black Box Diaries. Why? So, you know, this film is not focusing on what happened to me. It's focusing about what happened after. So it's a whole investigation system that failed our legal setup, which was we had 110-year-old rape law. And so many of that what happened, what I discovered afterwards, and maybe power

involved why the arrest warrant once was issued, but then disappeared. So, and when I face these things, especially police were using the term of black box, we don't know what happened in this little box. I think they were talking about, you know, like behind a closed door. But then later I learned going through imbiscation and, you know, facing these powers. There are so many black boxes in our community. So for me to make a film to imbiscate my own case was open up these black boxes one by one. But as you're opening up these black boxes you take us through that journey with your film because I hadn't I remember your case but I hadn't read extensively recently about it and that's why I mentioned the horror part of it as various aspects are revealed. When you were making the film, you were filming yourself from a number of years ago,

and did you have the final story in mind of what would happen? Explain how it occurred. Well, first two years was purely protection reasons. So I just constantly recording the conversation with police and whatever that involved with the case because I didn't believe that they were doing the job but then when the the case didn't go anywhere I decided to ask to reopen the case and that was a time when I went public which was half a year before the Me Too movement happened. So in Japan where the society is not really used to talk about this issue, it's really often stigmatized and there's such a strong norm against victims. So I realized it's really hard for Japanese media to talk about it

and I decided maybe this is something I can do. Did it take a lot of time to come to that decision about whether to speak publicly? Yes and no, in a way, because I did everything I can do. Privately. Privately. And when it didn't go anywhere, I just realized that it's, of course, a failure of the police investigation,

but it's a failure of our legal system. So it was a great example to use my own case to test it, what we are today and where we are today. Your family didn't want you to go ahead with it. They were so scared um and because they knew what kind of outcome that happened that could happen from society which they were right so um can you tell um i got many um threats um they were really horrible online troll i couldn't work as a journalist anymore so i actually had to move right after I went public.

I was lucky that I met amazing new friend here in London who just told me move here. I didn't know them before, but they heard about news and they just invited me who's my producer, Hannah, for this film and Akemi, who became like my British mother here. So they provided me a safe place to be. And that was the starting point that I could look what was happening to me in Japan from the distance. I mean, the sense I got watching the film and some of it is also which you've captured on film

is people on the street shouting at you, angry that you had spoken out with these rape allegations. And I can't imagine what it must be like when it's your home country, because you were battling against the police at that time, you were battling against your alleged offender who was in a high profile position in journalism, which is your industry. And it felt like it was on all sides. Yeah, it's hard to say. And I still remember today

when I actually also published a book called Black Box, which was more focusing on the investigation as a journalist. And that was the time when Me Too movement broke out October 2017 and the first email I got was from women saying how she thinks it's shameful

for Japanese women to talk about it even as a truth so it was just shocking to see, of course no one wants to get violence and, you know, harassment. But somehow getting to hear from that, from women was really hard. But I have to say, you know, I still get this name as the Me Too person of Japan. And I think that's wrong.

Because if I'm the person of Me Too, clearly it says that Japanese Me Too movement failed. Because Me Too is all about solidarity, speaking up together. I mean, there are parts that are so incredibly moving about the people who did stand in solidarity with you. Some of your female colleagues within journalism, also a number of men that had quite a lot to lose by speaking out, particularly within Japanese society. Do you want to talk about them a little? Yes. Well, so this film really, I want to highlight all these heroes around me

who decided to speak up together or who decided to give us be as a whistleblower witness for the case even that could be a huge risk for their work or you know where they are one was an investigator on the case investigator a as you called him in the film he was taken off the case then when he seemed to be, have a connection with you or talking about things that weren't working on the case. The other one, which is, I mean, it brings you to tears. It will bring people who are watching to tears, was a doorman on the night of the alleged rape.

Can you tell us a little about that? A doorman at the hotel, I should say. Yes. So I knew there were a doorman. But when we received the the cctv from hotel everything was brutal so I didn't know that he actually witnessed to the police um and so he just got me got uh emailed me a few days before the case was closing saying I witnessed for your case but no one called me. And what he witnessed, do you want to tell people? I don't know how much detail you want to go in about what happened on that particular night. So I'll leave it to you.

He clearly remembered that I was intoxicated. I couldn't get out from the taxi by myself. So I was dragged out from the taxi and how it was. And that was the part I didn't remember so it was really important to hear from him and he was willing to go public in any ways and telling me that he was always feeling so bad as a Japanese man that these cases were happening around him and couldn't do anything about it. So it's just that, you know, when we say Me Too, it's often coming from a victim. But I think especially a society like Japan,

it has to come from bystanders and everyone around. So he was an amazing example. So I'm just really lucky that he stepped forward. Yes, and with that case, which is part of your film, I mentioned the word horror a couple of times, but I found that the CCTV footage, obviously a young woman that was you, 25 years of age at the time,

hardly able to stand from what we see. And this older man lifting her almost like a rag doll into the hotel where the alleged rape took place. You believe you were drugged at the initial meeting that you had with the alleged perpetrator and hence this video. And it kind of unfurls, suppose before our eyes and then you realize these people along the way if they speak up maybe things can change you mean possible victim possible by I mean the bystanders people like that yeah exactly yes um it took a long time but for me um when the criminal case didn't go anywhere, I couldn't access to any evidence or witness the police gathered.

So it was again... What did they tell you about why it didn't go any further? They didn't give me any crystal answer. But first, I still remember when I tried to report the case first, they just told me these things happens a lot and they can't take it. And slowly I understood what that means. It's not just the number of the case, but how the law isn't set for that. So in Japan, consent doesn't really matter to define the rape.

So it's really hard to criminalize it. Has it changed dramatically, you think? Yes. Since 2015 when you first raped it took place? So legally speaking in 2017, finally men can report the rape case. So before it was only for female victim who can report the case so that changed and last year our age of consent changed from 13 years old to 15

yes so it's a baby step but it changed and also i just talked about consent we they don't focus about consent but you are in state of not being able to give consent if you're intoxicated that's also rape so if i were to put my case today maybe outcome was different and i should say um the alleged perpetrator does deny all the allegations um do you think more people are coming forward now is Is it possible to see whether Japan views rape and sexual assault in a different way? Yes, I'm optimistic. But you know, if you're still optimistic, of course, I have to be and that's why I made a film. But it is still hard topic to speak about so i really wish through this film we can open up the conversation um but unfortunately we don't have yet um distribution plan yet in japan

it's still sensitive topic what are you what are you being told many things um but japan is weird it's not like a strong censorship but it's more like self-censored. So they don't want to touch something. It's risky. So hopefully distribution here in UK will be a success. So they will start hearing about film and they can ignore it. You think they cannot ignore it then? They'll have to? They have to.

Do you think you'll go back and live in Japan? Yes, it's where my family and all my friends are. But actually, yeah, I just always have to find where I feel safe outside Japan. and right before the release of this film I also start living in Berlin now so that I can feel safe away from Japan but it's just that we've been traveling with this film since our premiere in Sundance in the United States and I feel like I start having all this amazing support and amazing community around the world.

That's encouraging to hear because I felt, and you tell me, but making that film must have been so difficult. I mean, I felt I was on a roller coaster while watching it and obviously you are the protagonist. Yes, well, to start with, as a journalist, it was a huge struggle to put my emotion and tell my own story through film with all of it.

I had to be honest. And I just didn't know how I can be partial. I was thinking, should I interview Yamaguchi? Really? Yes, I thought about it. Which is the man who denies all the charges. Because... He would never have agreed to that no but i i had to try at least because i felt like um it is not fair to do one-sided story but at some point i just have to encourage myself no no no it's okay it's

in a film i'm okay to talk about what i found out and as a survivor too, because I was always wearing the mask as a journalist. That helped me somehow to distance myself from the emotion and the horror of the trauma. But yes, making the film was all about facing this trauma. Yeah, you couldn't escape from it. It's one thing to do it as a journalist. It's another thing to do it as the central character. Yes. How are you doing now? After I made this film,

you know, this weekend we did a UK premiere, and it feels like the story took off my shoulder. It's travelling now, and it's no longer just my own story and it feels great and now I can tell if you have a trauma make a film it really helps you. Shihiro Ito so good to have you in studio thank you so much for making the time to come into us here Black Box Diaries is going to be in cinemas from October 25th. And I should say, if you've been affected by anything you have heard this morning, you can find links to support organizations on our website. 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. Now to magazines. For generations, women and girls have had them as a guide to clothes, lifestyles, relationships, and of course

sex. Before the impact of online publishing and social media were felt by the magazine industries, titles like Cosmopolitan, Woman's Own, Sugar we could add a lot more titles here as well they were poured over by countless women and now there is a podcast that celebrates those beloved back

issues. Every week the hosts of the podcast, MagHags real life friends Lucy Douglas and Frankie Cookney read a different issue of a magazine from the 70s, 80s or 90s. As well as delving into 20th century fashion, they also have the features and the lifestyle advice from those times. It's a real insight into the way we lived then and how it differs or doesn't from the way we live now. Welcome to both of you.

Hi. Hi, thank you so much for having us. Now, what is the fascination with magazines? Let me start with you, Frankie. Oh, what is the fascination with magazines? I mean, I think probably from our point of view, it definitely stems with having grown up reading magazines. You know, we're millennials, so we grew up in the 90s

and reading all those titles that you just mentioned, Sugar, Bliss, Just 17, graduating to the kind of glossy mags like Marie Claire and Cosmo. So I think it's a very personal connection. But then we both went into journalism. We've both been journalists for like 10, 15 years now. And so we've kind of seen it from both sides. I think we also feel that like they're really important culturally, like there's such a rich kind of social history in there. And that's what we wanted to get at.

You know, I just threw it out this morning. I don't know if you were listening, like people with their advice that they might have got from magazines. Here's Judy. Fifty plus years ago, I read in a magazine that the French ladies splash cold water on their chests to keep their busts pert. I still to this day splash my chest after I've washed my face. What do you make of that, Lucy? I mean, actually, in the episode that's coming out on Wednesday, we actually talk about those kind of beauty trends and specifically French beauty and the kind of fast, like the longstanding fascination that we've always had with like French women beauty and French women doing. Yeah, exactly. And sharing those rituals. And and yet also that idea of like reading something in a magazine and then internalizing it. And that is, you know, the rituals that you live by. People do. Like, I totally remember,

I suppose I was about 14 or so, and one magazine I picked up, these three girls going around London on a weekend. I'm living in Ireland, obviously, at the time, kind of this spotty 12 or 13 year olds. And they had flawless skin and they were wearing, you know, great stripy sweaters with leggings

and eating fish and chips, but not eating the batter. And I was like, oh, maybe that's what you're supposed to do to look as great as these girls and not have teenage acne. But it kind of stayed with me then for years. And I suppose we're so impressionable at that age. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, Frankie and I kind of joke about eyeshadow colours that we just won't go near because we read in a beauty editorial that like, if you've got blue eyes, that's not, you shouldn't wear that colour. Will not stray from my colour palette. Here's some advice that came in. Don't have a name. Advice I got from a magazine. I can't remember which magazine it was, but the best advice I've got about buying clothes is only buy it if it makes you jump up and down.

Myself and my two grown daughters now follow this rule. I love that. I mean, that's perfect. So if you, Frankie, for example, see some of the phrases, having it all, which funny enough was in the newspapers again this morning,

you've had a having it all epiphany. I want to hear about it because it has been on the cover of many a magazine I've picked up oh yeah I mean and it absolutely is somebody in a whatsapp group I'm in sent me an article the other day which was sort of a comment piece about we're told we can have it all

and that actually means we're doing it all and I was going guys guys listen you'll never believe what I found out this week so having it all as we talk about in the podcast was a phrase that was coined by Helen Gurley Brown Listen, you'll never believe what I found out this week. So having it all, as we talk about in the podcast, was a phrase that was coined by Helen Gurley Brown, the editor of Cosmopolitan. Well, she kind of popularised it anyway.

It was the title of her 1982 book. But the key thing is that the subtitle of her 1982 book was, oh, remind me now, love, success, sex, money. And there is no mention of family and children in there and I think certainly through the 90s into the 2000s and definitely now because this is what I see all these comic pieces about people are going we were told we could have it all meaning you know kids in a career that's definitely what I thought it meant going back reading this book looking at you know what was said about it at the time, no one ever mentioned having children. So at some point that's a little bit easier, perhaps.

Yes, and twisted, of course, with women having to pick up that baggage. I did read this morning that Superwoman is dead. So if anybody hasn't seen that headline, I've read it and I'm happy to give it to you. Lucy, you took a look at a copy of Cosmopolitan magazine, 1982, and it features quite a negative article about the pill turning 21 were you surprised about that piece? I was the thing that fascinated me most about that piece was how similar it was to a lot of the tone that we a lot of the kind of complaints that women today

like still have with the pill. It was kind of disheartening that like 42 years later and not very much has changed. One thing that was really stark about that article is that it was written by a man. I think as Woman's Hour was presented in its original format as well. But another aspect I saw, Frankie, with you that some of our listeners may have heard of the campaigner Erin Pizzi, who founded the charity Refuge. She has a fascinating story

and she had advice to a young man who seemed unsure about whether he wanted to settle down. Well, I mean, that whole feature was a little bit baffling to us because first of all, it was called Talking It Out and the slug on the page said Cosmo Counselling, which made us think this was something Cosmo were doing regularly at the time. And Erin Pizzi and her husband at the time, Jeff Shapiro, were the so-called counsellors in this feature. Now, I saw the name Erin Pizzi and recognised it. I knew a little bit about her work founding Chiswick Women's Aid, which is now Refuge. And I thought, hmm, what's going on here? Why is she counselling somebody? We never quite got to

the bottom of what his problem was. But he'd come in, he'd been invited in to Cosmopolitan to sit down in a room with Erin and talk about why some men were choosing celibacy over being in relationships that weren't going the way they wanted and I think what we found most interesting about that feature is just how they really didn't take any prisoners with it it was it was very simple yeah I mean Esther Perel it was not um it was very much along the lines of oh buck up you'll never get a woman if you keep whinging yeah very quickly turned into a telling off didn't it yeah which honestly I I didn't not enjoy I'm trying to think of a modern day you know we hear about incels it's a whole different topic

but I'm just trying to think of comparisons in a way of how somebody might speak to one of them. More advice coming in from our listeners. I think this was from 1977 Cosmopolitan. I was 19 years old and read a column on female masturbation and how to give yourself an orgasm.

No one I knew spoke of such thing. There were no books that I knew of. Suffice to say, one memorable Sunday morning, I followed their instructions. First, orgasm, felt jubilant, and have forever been grateful for that piece of information. No-brainer, I see Frankie putting her hands up. In the 60s, Bunty had etiquette tips on the back page.

I read that if you wanted to sneeze in a public situation, just to suck the roof off your mouth. It works, and I've passed this tip on to others all my life. We are going the gamut here. This is amazing. Right, one more. How to keep your marriage alive was the title of the Women's Magazine article. The advice included making an unexpected phone call to your husband and crooning, I crave your body. I did it. Unfortunately, David was in the middle of a high powered business meeting. He was not amused, but our marriage survived. That one from Margaret in Sussex. Keep them coming. 844. Now, there was also Honey 1976, an article that genuinely asks a group of women what they do at the weekend what did you learn um what did we learn from that um we learned we learned about uh debutantes and the deb season in the just as it sort of was kind

of petering out that was um it was after the royal family had stopped putting in a in an appearance at the queen charlotte's Ball but um the season had sort of carried on I think for people that really wanted to be a part of it and so yeah we got a little glimpse into that kind of upper uh upper class of society um but yeah I think overall my impression of that magazine was how kind of like optimistic it was and how it was kind of documented. It was obviously a stage where young women were starting to go out into the workplace and getting used to having more opportunity than maybe their mothers did. And the magazine itself, it was all very kind of...

Like go get them. Yeah, go get them. There's lots of... I suppose it was such a societal shift at that point, right? To try and I suppose new parameters or what you were supposed to do or not do. I do see another message coming in

from somebody in the 70s as well. I grew up reading teen magazines in the 70s and always been told to keep a boy, you had to put his needs before yours. It was terrible indoctrination that affected me for years. Here's another one, Julie. Put the big stones in the jar.

This was the advice I read 10 years ago in Miss Lexia, the women's writing magazine. It means set aside time for writing first, like putting the big stones in a jar, then fit everything else around the fitting of the small stone, all the other tasks around your writing. Women will always put others needs first. So this advice has helped me be firm in putting my needs first and writing exclamation point. That one is from Julie in Merseyside. Are they very different, the magazines then and the magazines now? Yes and no.

Yes and no. I think, you know, when we first went into this, we definitely thought we were going to be reading these like funny, really old-fashioned headlines and sort of laughing. And, you know, there's definitely stuff in there, as your listeners who've been writing in have already shown us. You know, I remember in particular there was a headline um a cover line from a magazine from 1976 which was something like is you know is too much sexual liberation undermining your

relationship obviously you read things like that now and it's you know it's sort of laughable but i think the thing we've been most struck by isn't it um is how similar things are actually you know we're reading like the language has really changed um there are definitely subtle shifts like we have moved on in the last 50 years it's not like social progress has been stagnant but actually a lot of these features at their core they're grappling with the same things we're grappling with now which is um you know being a woman going out into the world of work, managing our friendships, managing our relationships, maybe trying to get that work-life balance.

It's just, it's all framed a little bit differently. The political context is different, but actually there are so many threads that we've been able to pull and kind of relate to them now. I suppose that the equality is not there yet. It's not there yet. And so that's what they're trying to figure out. Okay, here's one.

When I was 14, I read in Jackie, I used to read Jackie, that boys liked girls' hands to be pale and interesting. They recommended keeping your hands above your head to keep them pale. I must have looked a right idiot with my hands up then bringing them down just before the boy looked at me. When I grew up, I realised teenage boys were definitely not looking at my hands.

Do either of you have a best piece of advice that you read from magazines? Oh, that's a good question. Oh, your eyeshadow, I know you mentioned. Yeah, yeah. I mean yeah that's I mean that's still that's stuck with me I don't know if that's good advice but it's it stayed with me I I've got to say I do still love a DIY kind of face mask you know maybe a bit of yogurt and honey that kind of thing do you read magazines now oh we're gonna be telling on ourselves now, aren't we? Yeah, fewer now. I mean, there are far fewer magazines to read now. And obviously, like

everybody else, we get so much of our content online. Yeah. Although, I do think it's slightly different when it's online, as opposed to in your hands. But it is, of course, a time and a place which Lucy Douglas and Frankie Cookney have been exploring.

New episodes of Mag Hags are released every fortnight on a Wednesday. Thanks so much. Thank you. Now, next to a subject that many people shy away from, death. My guest is working to change that. She is funeral director in his caps on a mission to challenge the taboos around death and also demystify her industry and I realise the following conversation might be difficult for those who have recently lost a loved one and my guest is very aware of that too because since Ines was 19 she has been

working with the deceased. She's using social media now to give her 100,000 followers a glimpse behind the scenes so it could be anything from the care that a loved one received to tours of the hearse and the embalming suite. She runs a funeral business with her parents in the East Midlands. She joins me now. You're very welcome to the programme. I'd love to know, Inez, why you decided to go this route and share more of what happens in your industry to the public? I think that over the period of time when I first started in the profession that there wasn't anything that was shown about it some people spoke about it but it was very rare that anybody spoke about death it was such a and still can be such a taboo subject.

So I just wanted to show people that behind this kind of name of funeral and conductors, that there was a human behind it and that human can be very, very approachable. What do you think are the biggest misconceptions that people have about death and funerals I think sometimes that it is scary that's quite a misconception it doesn't have to be scary and the process can actually end up being something of a celebration of that person's life so I think the misconceptions are as well that it's very male dominated um and being a female in this profession has had its challenges and you know talking now about this to lots of people they love the fact that there is a female behind the behind the top hat there were figures this is according to the

national association of funeral directors that 50% of funeral directors are women. That figure did surprise me. Yeah, and it's gone up in the past couple of years. I would say maybe probably the past five years that has definitely got a lot more, which is for me just brilliant. What do people want to know? Because I'm sure you have so many people that are commenting, messaging you, etc.

What is it that's, I suppose, most requested that they want to know more about? Everything. There's not something that's so specific. It's everything to do with the actual funeral. What is it that, as somebody's funeral director, what do I do? So it's actually everything to do with the funeral. They just don't know because nobody's ever opened their doors before. The funeral industry has been very, very closed off. So some of the videos that I was watching, you give a tour of the hearse, for example. There was also one that was very moving.

It was a gentleman, I believe, whose remains had not been recovered by any family member. And you talked about what happens to those ashes and how they turn into a scatter tube. I had never seen anything like that before. But I did wonder what you would say to those who say you're indulging morbid curiosity. Oh, wow. What's the question? I think sometimes we put that on ourselves don't we we put that kind of barrier up ourselves and everybody kind of goes well no I'm not going to talk about it I'm not going to talk about that so my question is well why can't we talk about it so

yes the morbid curiosity is there and I kind of indulge it a little bit don't I and show And show people and some people are like, this is this is fantastic. Thank you so much. And other people are like, I didn't really want to see that. Well, that's OK. That's you're totally entitled to that. So, yeah, maybe I am. Maybe I am showing that little bit of a side and kind of showing people that you can have a little bit of curiosity. Why do you think people are so uncomfortable talking about death? I think because in generations, if you spoke about it, was it going to happen? So people used to say, no, I don't want to talk about it, because they used to think if I talk about it, perhaps it would happen. And that's very, very generational. So, you know, older generations, I'm not going to talk about it.

I don't want to talk about it. But then the problem that happens is if we don't talk about it, then your family are left not knowing what to do. So some people come into our care and they sit in front of me and they go, I have no idea what I'm doing. Does that happen often that somebody hasn't left their wishes? Yeah, a lot of times and it's becoming better that people are just saying their funeral wishes I'm not talking about funeral plans or pre-paying for your funeral but just let your families know whether you want

to be cremated or you'd like to have a burial or a natural burial just inform them of what you want but also what you don't want. I noticed how respectful you are towards the people that you are taking care of. You very much treat them and speak about them as a person. But I'm wondering what that job is like. How would you describe it? You know, somebody has died. Their remains come to you.

You have to dress them, makeup to make them I suppose you're kind of comforting the family with the job that you do too yeah there's a lot to it there is a lot to it but for me when I'm caring for that person when I'm doing the makeup and everything I'm giving them their identity back because sometimes it's stripped from them when they've been in the care home or the hospital you know they become their illness don't they but when they've gone what I can then do is is give them themselves back so just spending that little bit of time and then with that it gives the families that comfort of knowing that they've had a really nice wash and they've they've had their makeup done which they may not have done for quite some time but the whole kind of job in itself there's lots of aspects to it and yes

you're caring for the person that I've been entrusted with from the family but you have to carry the weight of these families and sometimes I can be caring for 10 families but every single one of those family members needs to feel like I'm only got them how do you how do you do that though um I'm not sure um I find it um easy as in a way of it just it comes naturally to me um I like to make each family feel just as important and I just try and make sure that I'm constantly reminding them that they can ring us they can call us whenever they want um but yeah I think it's just who who I am and who I've become. Do you look at life differently considering the job that you do? Absolutely I try to live it to the fullest I try

and book the holidays um live life to the full do do whatever it is you that makes you happy you know I like decorating the house for different seasons makes my heart happy do it whatever you want to do um you've also received some unusual or memorable requests. Do you want to tell us about a couple of them? Yeah, so I always think that a funeral should be a reflection of the person that's passed away, a reflection of who they are and the imprint that they've left on everybody's lives that knew them, because that's essentially what life is. You're leaving an imprint of yourself, aren't you, on others. And when we get requests, we always get, I want to ask you this. I go, OK, yeah, of course, ask away. Is there any chance that you could wear something different for the funeral?

And I'll say, yeah, of course, what would you like me to wear? Well, he never wore anything but jeans. So would you mind not wearing your conducting attire and just popping on a pair of jeans and a jumper? Of course I will. Absolutely. My dad, he's a cyclist and a motorbike rider. So very often he will go in front of the hearse and lead the cortege out in public. And he even rode a gentleman's road bike for him. So it was actually his bike. So, you know, what a tribute for that family.

Do you feel that people are getting better at speaking about death or understanding what comes afterwards when it comes to funerals, for example. I mean, I'm Irish, which I think we have a different tradition, perhaps, to the UK when it comes to speaking about death. Yeah, I do. I do think you are, in my opinion, better at it because you are a lot more open. But I think as we're going along and the years are going along and the years that I've been in

the industry now I think people are more open to talk about it and I think they want people to know what they want and what they don't want so I think we're getting there there's still a lot of kind of I feel work that could be done. But I do think it's the younger generation that are helping the older generations do that. I think teenagers and things like that, they've got a curiosity into it. I'm wondering, and they obviously do, because looking at the following that you have on social media, but it's kind of, it's not a morbid question with you. Have you made your plans? Do you know what you want for your funeral? Yes.

What is it? Whatever my family wants to do. So if they would like to cremate me and scatter my ashes, then they can do that. If they want somewhere to go so that they can remember me and bury me, then that's absolutely fine. I've got only one request and that is that i would like a black glitter coffin and that can be arranged i imagine with the context that you have it's been lovely to speak to you thank you so much inez caps who is a female funeral director you can find her online i was watching some of her videos and learned quite a bit as well. And that brings us to the close of Woman's Hour today. I'm going to be joined tomorrow by acting legend Leslie Manville

to hear about her new role in a very powerful adaptation of Oedipus. That is tomorrow from 10. Thanks for all your messages that have come in on advice from the magazines that you were following as teenagers. But 10am tomorrow, I'll see you. Same time, same place. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hello, I'm Amol Rajan. And I'm Nick Robinson.

And from BBC Radio 4, this is the Today Podcast. And Nick, this is the moment to ask you what you most enjoy about spending a couple of hours in my company each week. Well, that would be enough in itself but the fun is to go in depth on a story with an expert guest and for you and i to try and really get what's going on i have cctv on my home i've had people rip my gates down is it worth it andrew being an mp on no occasion did they know did the scan that i'd had ever appear in the other hospital so what do you enjoy most about doing i love the fact that we'd had ever appear in the other hospital.

So what do you enjoy most about doing? I love the fact that we've got a really strong sense of community. And yes, I love some of our star guests too. Frank Skinner! This is where we need tinned applause. I'm going to clap as well, just to thicken it up. Listen and subscribe on BBC Sounds. 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.