Woman's Hour - World record sheep shearer, Cuts to part-time work benefits,Seoul Femicide, Actors:Hayley Mills & Rula Lenska, Author Ira Mathur

Episode Date: September 23, 2022

Sheep farmer Marie Prebble speaks to Woman’s Hour about how she sheared 370 sheep in eight hours to set a new world record in female sheep shearing. She’ll be giving us an insight into what it takes to prepare for such an event and telling us a bit more about being one of the few female sheep farmers in the UK.More than 100,000 people in part-time work could face a benefit cut if they fail to properly look to do more hours, Kwasi Kwarteng is set to announce in his mini-budget today (Friday). The new rule will require benefit claimants working up to 15 hours a week to take new steps to increase their earnings or face having their benefits reduced. Part time work is essential to those in unpaid care roles, which are mostly held by women, so we wanted to find out how the new rules will affect these women. In Seoul last Wednesday, a 28-year-old woman was killed in a subway restroom, one day before her alleged killer was due to be sentenced on charges of stalking her. Her death has shocked the nation and prompted calls for a tightening of Korea's recent anti-stalking laws. We speak to BBC Seoul correspondent Jean MacKenzie.The much-loved film and book The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel has been adapted for the stage, featuring the acting talents of Academy award-winning actor Hayley Mills and Coronation Street star Rula Lenska. They play Evelyn and Madge, two British retirees who start a new life in a retirement hotel in Bangalore; and join us to discuss how the play tackles misconceptions about ageing. Ira Mathur’s 'Love the Dark Days' is set across India, England, Trinidad and St Lucia. The memoir follows the author and broadcaster's journey as a child growing up in post-independence India with a Muslim mother and a Hindu father. Having lived with her grandmother, a member of an elite Muslim family, with a history of having colluded with the brutality of the British rule, she realises she has unconsciously imbibed her grandmother’s prejudices of class and race. Ira joins Anita Rani in the Woman’s Hour studio.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Kirsty StarkeyInterviewed Guest: Helen Barnard Interviewed Guest: Marie Prebble Photographer: Emily Fleur Interviewed Guest: Jean Mackenzie Interviewed Guest: Hayley Mills Interviewed Guest: Rula Lenska Interviewed Guest: Ira Mathur

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning, welcome to Friday's Woman's Hour. I want to hear about your talents today, your special skills. What can you do that not many others can? Your party trick, please, that little something that gives you the extra edge. Can you wiggle your ears? Lift an eyebrow?

Whistle like a nightingale? Knit faster than all your mates? Imagine that. Ice a cake like a demon? Are you the person who always does the splits at parties after a couple of gins? There's always one.

Well, my Punjabi mother has instilled in me the ability to cook up a storm for at least 50 people should they unexpectedly turn up at your house unannounced, which is very possible. So I want to hear your special skill this morning. Feel free to show off. You're in good company. The way to get in touch, you can text me. It's 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. You can also contact us via social media at BBC Woman's Hour. You can email us through our website and you can also send me a WhatsApp or a voice note. We love to hear your voice.

03700 100 444. Just make sure it's not a mini podcast, which is what I always leave. Now, the reason I ask is because we're going to be joined by the sheep shearing world record breaker. You heard right. She was shearing sheep for eight hours straight. What a legend. And she'll be talking to me shortly. Also this morning, we are looking at a section of today's mini budget, which impacts part-time workers. The government wants to encourage people to work more hours or to increase their income, and failure to do so could mean a reduction

in your universal credit payments. Is this you? Are you a part-time worker? Are you worried about how this might impact your life? What are your circumstances? Can you only work part-time because of care responsibilities? I would really love to hear from you this morning on this. Feel free again to leave me a voice note that number again 03700 100 444 or if you'd like to talk to me on the program please leave me your name and number i'll also be joined this morning by journalist ira mathur she'll be talking to me about her astonishing memoir in which she bravely shares the story of her royal indian family how generational trauma is passed between mothers and

daughters, and migration between India, London and the Caribbean. And we're rolling out the red carpet on Women's Hour today for acting royalty. Hayley Mills and Rula Lenska will be joining me to talk about their stage production of The Real Marigold Hotel. And of course, we would love to hear from you on any of the topics. Drop me a text 84844. But first, the Chancellor is currently on his feet in the House of Commons announcing his mini budget. So far, he's spoken about energy bills for both homes and businesses and says his government is focusing on growth. He said the cap on bankers bonuses is to be scrapped. And one policy that was announced ahead of time relates to some part-time workers.

Women make up the majority of part-time workers. 38% of women compared to 13% of men work part-time, according to the Office for National Statistics. The Chancellor's plans are to tighten benefit rules for some of these workers, requiring them to work longer hours or take steps to increase their earnings. Claimants working up to 15 hours a week on the national living wage will have to take what the government call active steps to increase their earnings or face a reduction to their universal credit payments. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is an independent charity working to solve poverty in the UK. Helen Barnard is their associate director and joins me now to discuss this. Good

morning, Helen. Let's just be clear to start with which workers are we talking about here? So what we're talking about are about 120,000 workers who are currently in work, but they're working less than 15 hours a week and they're on around the national living wage. So they're on low pay and so their earnings don't meet the threshold so it's a kind of further tightening of something that they announced a little while ago so tell us more about the policy what's its aim what does it propose to do well i mean the thing about policy is it is it's tackling the wrong problem in the wrong way so for part-time workers the main problem we have is that

they're twice as likely as full-time workers to be stuck on low pay. And that's because there are very few jobs that are decently paid, that are advertised as flexible or part-time. So we've got lots of people working below their skill level, but they're stuck there because employers aren't making better jobs available. Now, the work the government is doing is saying, well, we're going to come at this by essentially putting more and more pressure on those part-time workers in the hope that that will somehow magically create the capacity for them to do more hours or that they will somehow find better paid jobs. But of course, I mean, as you said, it's mostly

women, and actually the vast majority of part-time workers. The reason they're part-time is they're either managing their own health condition, or they're caring for another adult or a child. And, you know, we all know the cost of childcare. When you talk to parents, a lot of them say, I'd love to work a bit more, actually, but I couldn't afford the childcare, or we don't have the buses to get me to better jobs. So it's all those barriers, which this policy does absolutely nothing to tackle. But what it does put in the frame is some of those people actually having their benefits reduced because they're not deemed to be trying hard enough during a cost of living crisis. I mean, it's an extraordinary thing to do. Some of our listeners, some of whom may well fall into this category that we're talking

about, might be the first time they're hearing about this. What are your thoughts? How are you feeling about it? Drop me a note. 84844 is the number to text. The Chancellor says that inactivity in the labour market is limiting economic growth. That's what this is all about. It's about increasing productivity. Surely this is a good way to promote exactly that, especially during a cost of living crisis. This is a very strange thing, because actually, when you look at the labour market as a whole, the biggest problem we've got is more people who are out of the labour market altogether because of ill health. That's actually the top of the list of problems in the labour market and that's completely different that's not the group that this particular policy is aimed at so the i mean to be fair the chancellor has said they're also going to put in more support for

over 50s because there's a big group of over 50s who are out the labour market actually a lot of them aren't claiming benefits so none of this benefit conditionality stuff is going to make any difference so that is good if they do it well but actually this big group who are out because of ill health they're you know that this is not going to put any extra support in this is not going to support employers to redesign jobs so they're open to people who are managing health conditions it's not going to sort out the mental health support that people need to be able to get quickly so it doesn't get worse there's all these things you can do this policy does none of them you mentioned there the over 50s the plans um also about helping um getting them back into work

finding more supports to find over 50s out of work more work do you see that older people find it hard what what's your own research showing you? And is this especially the case for women over 50? Yeah, so there are kind of two things going on generally with this. One is that there's still quite a lot of ageism in our labour market. So there's quite a lot of research showing that employer attitudes are one of the issues here, because employers quite often don't think that older workers are going to be able to fill their needs. The second thing, it is about a lot of older workers in their 50s, particularly women, they are caring. Sometimes they're caring for both

children and adults. Sometimes they have their own ill health. So there are those things around, and quite often they will therefore need more flexible work. And again, employers are not necessarily doing that. And there's the kind of employment support. So the way a lot of our employment support is designed, it is kind of designed for people who are out of the labour market for a short time, who are young and healthy, and they just need a bit of kind of, let's get your CV sorted, and here's how you search for jobs. Now, that doesn't really work for workers in their 50s, particularly women. Actually, the people who are great at doing this with women in their 50s are

charities. There's lots of charities out there who do really good tailored support. And actually, what I'm hoping is that the government's new support, what they will do is to link up with those charities who have got this expertise and actually work through them, because that is often the most effective way to help people back in and help them find a good job. That's the other thing. We've got a lot of people stuck in in-work poverty and insecure jobs, which doesn't help productivity, actually. It doesn't help the economy particularly. So we also want people to get into decently paid, secure jobs that they will enjoy,

that they will have the skills to do. And that is good for both them and for the economy. I mean, Kwasi Kwarteng has said that this is a win-win. He says this policy boosts income for families, helps businesses get the domestic workers they need. Often people say they want greater opportunities to work. Won't this scheme give them just that, the support to find more work? You see, I would say it's a lose-lose. It's going to do nothing for the economy. This is 120,000

workers. This is not going to make a big difference in the scheme of things to employers. What it's actually going to do is create more stress, which is likely to make people's mental health difficulties worse. It may well mean that people's incomes actually go down because they will have their benefits cut, which will mean that actually they are struggling to pay bills. They're getting into more debt. It will also hit their health and it will do nothing to help to open up more opportunities. You know, kind of putting pressure on part-time workers doesn't magically create better quality part-time jobs for them to do. You have to work with employers to do that. Can you see why they would have done it though? This government's got 18 months to prove themselves. We know we're heading into a recession. We've got the cost of living crisis. Can you see

where this thinking has come from well i mean yes i think you know they're kind of reaching for something that sounds clear that sounds simple um but actually i actually think that the fact they've got such a short period of time and the fact that we're facing such big challenges it actually makes it even more baffling in some way. Why would you distract yourself and use up the Department for Work and Pensions time and energy doing something that is not going to tackle any of the problems we're facing and is likely to make people's lives worse? You know, we want to be firing on all cylinders, tackling the problems we actually have, which are lots of people with

ill health, not able to get into work, and lots of people in work that is still trapping them in poverty. Those are the problems we should tackle. This is just a distraction. You know, it's like trying to cut a steak with a spoon. It's kind of why would you waste your time with the spoon? You have some knives over here, use those. We've had a few messages in from our listeners. Someone here said, I have a family member who would love to work extra hours but his employers keep the staff working 15 hours a week only as it's cheaper and someone else has said my employer at university tried to reduce our hourly rate for teaching in temporary contracts the union uh was able to protect us as eu law said that to cut part-time workers would um workers pay would discriminate against women

not sure we have the protection anymore. So lots of people, you know, just worrying, I suppose, thinking about how this is going to impact them. According to the Office of National Statistics, most workers who are in part-time work are working in the lowest paid occupations. Is this true for both men and women? And how will this impact those in these professions? So, yes, you see part time workers, men and women are much more likely to be stuck in low paid work.

It is more the case for women, though, because women tend to be concentrated in the kinds of jobs that are low paid. So the kind of caring jobs, social care, childcare workers, hospitality, shops, and so on. So yes, I mean, that's in there. There is a massive pay penalty for working part-time, particularly for women. And that is one of the big problems, actually, because we have, you know, about one in four of us in the UK work part-time because we've got caring or health issues. It makes no sense for the economy for all those people to be crowded at the bottom end of the labour market, when a lot of them have the skills to earn more and do more, but the jobs aren't there, the better quality part-time jobs

are not being created. And that's actually what we should be really hammering at, is let's get more jobs advertised as part-time or flexible at a higher wage. And actually that will do what the Chancellor is trying to achieve, which is higher earnings, without punishing people who are stuck in a system that's not working. Helen, we've just scratched the surface of this conversation. Thank you so much for joining me this morning.

That was Helen Barnard from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. It's an independent charity working to solve poverty in the uk for more information on today's mini budget and how it will affect women in particular listen to women's hour on monday where we'll be joined by our new cost of living panel it includes a financial journalist a business owner and the head of citizens advice in gateshead and that's from monday at 10 a.m i'm sure lots of you will have many questions we've just had a message in from Bobby who says just on exactly what Helen was saying I work to support the well-being of parents

of children with additional needs I'm very concerned about the effect of this new policy on parent carers who need flexible working hours in order to care for their children and someone else has messaged in to say if this policy is as described it's a ridiculous solution.

Incentives to make better quality part-time jobs would be far more useful. I find part-time employees more productive, often fitting full-time output into their part-time hours. They're much more efficient and less shattered.

I've edited your words there if you don't mind me doing that just to make it more Radio 4 friendly. More quality part-time jobs incentivised via the tax system. Well, in a statement about this announcement, the Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng says, we must

get Britain working again. These gradual changes focus on getting people back into work and maximising the hours people take on to help grow the economy and raise living standards for all. 84844 if you want to drop me a note about anything you hear on the programme today. Now, have you ever broken a record? And I don't mean a piece of vinyl. I've never broken a piece

of vinyl. That would be devastating. Imagine. I would love to hear from some of you today at home who may have achieved some sort of title or who are holding a record in some way or your super skills. Lots of you getting in touch. Harriet says, Hello, my party trick is around flexibility. I can grab each wrist behind my back and then pull them round to the front, bringing my head through, keeping hold of my wrists. It either repulses or delights onlookers at a party.

I also took part in a talent competition as a teenager by successfully knitting behind my back. The breakdancer won, and she's never got over it. I can wiggle my nose, don't know how or why. It literally bewitched my husband 35 years ago and has proved very useful in entertaining, distracting babies and young children. Keep them coming in.

The reason I'm asking you all is because my two worlds are about to collide this morning as we head to the countryside to a sheep farm in Kent to meet Marie Preble, who set a new world record in sheep shearing. She sheared over 46 sheep every hour for eight hours. Marie, welcome to Woman's Hour. You absolute legend. How are your arms?

Good morning, Anita. My arms are fine, thank you. I've had a bit of recovery, so all good. Give us the exact figures. How many sheep did you shear? I sheared 370 ewes, so that's the adult sheep, in eight hours. Why did you decide to do this? I was very aware that there wasn't an existing record for women's shearing for eight hours for ewes. So the opportunity was there and luckily enough, I've had the shearing for eight hours for you so the opportunity

was there and I've had luckily enough I've had the right people around me to support me through the process and it's and it's just been a personal journey of pushing my comfort zones in the stretch zone as they took as they say you know just just having to improve my technique with shearing and then build my confidence in terms of I was very aware that there was other more experienced and more capable women shearers out there than me but actually to set myself up for this challenge which was a big step up from from what I'm used to I have been shearing for 10 years but not done very much in that time so I'm a farmer primarily and shearing is generally fitting around that so I've really devoted the

last couple of years to spending more time off the farm and and advancing my skills with shearing so yeah it was a great opportunity to be able to set the first women's eight hour year record yeah congratulations tell me about the training so I was training from just after Christmas so that involved um being in the gym every day really um a lot of mobility I probably could have done with some of the flexibility or your last call I just mentioned there um yeah a lot of mobility to open up open up the shoulders and then some strength training um because obviously it is a skill that demands quite a lot of strength you're you're you know on a daily basis you know moving a lot of sheep around which is could be 60 to 90 over 100 kilos

per sheep um and so obviously strength is part of that but yeah technique is is the main main part of it so it's definitely something that women can do as well as men so let's talk let's talk about where your sheep sharing journey began you grew up on a farm how many generations so my family have actually been on this farm since 1760 so we go back quite a long time and we did used to own the farm but now we're tenants of the ministry of defense so the farm was actually compulsory purchased by the mod uh for the second world war so now we're now we're tenants of our own farm essentially but yeah we've been here a long time and i'm just the the latest in a long line of sheep farmers in kent and you're all very hands-on yeah definitely i mean it is a practical job and i it's the only way i'd want it

to be really i mean there is a lot of office work, as you understand, like in terms of just managing the business. But definitely it's a practical job and that's why I love doing it. I mean, I went to university, I studied environmental sciences, but I was quite quickly aware that an office job probably wouldn't keep me active. And it's just a fantastic, fantastic way of life as much as anything else. And it is a way of life, isn't it? Because, you know, i'm lucky enough to spend a lot of time on farms up and down the country and you say it's an office job but it's it's it's not just an office job it's it's all day every day out in the office with the animals on the land there is no stopping definitely and you have to be all things you know you need to be sort of a vet you need to be an agronomist there's there's

so many different facets to farming which is why I love the challenge of it. So, yeah, coming back from university and just learning the basics of, you know, how to drive a tractor. And shearing came in sort of after a couple of years of being on the farm. I probably must have seen the contractors come to the farm and shear our sheep and probably asked to have a go. And at some stage, you know know got the bug for it and i decided to go to new zealand to learn to do you know i did a course out there how was that 2012 i mean they kind of dwarf they dwarf our farms out there especially sheep farms yeah certainly like massive stations with tens of thousands of animals on the on each station so my

my 300 and 300 or sheep here yeah 230 acres and I've got 400 ewes and then and then another sort of 600 lambs and you know so we're running about a thousand sheep but um yeah that's that's just the day-to-day the day-to-day job of shearing and then you know there's a competitive side of it as well which is quite quite a cool thing be part of. And how many women in that competitive side? There are more and more definitely and there's women's competition so within shearing it's quite an amazing sort of unique sport in the sense that you're actually competing alongside men so you compete in your grade so from the juniors, intermediates, seniors to open you're basically competing alongside men which is fairly unique in to open, you're basically competing alongside men, which is fairly unique in sport, really.

So you're competing according to your grade and not just your gender, but there are women's competitions as well, just in terms of sort of raising the profile of women cheering, which is great, you know, just to get that exposure and show that there are women doing the job sort of day in, day out. And I'm just one of many, really. And it is not easy.

You make it look easy, and it is not easy you make it look easy but it is not easy you it's a wiggly animal that you have to keep still whilst you're doing and and the fleece has to come off in one so what kind of do you get yourself into a certain kind of zone when you're doing it yeah definitely I mean you are dealing with a live animal so certain elements that you can't control but the more you do and the more skilled and practice you become with that job um the easier it does get so it may maybe does look easy but I think when you're starting it it doesn't feel it and and it's something that you keep improving on so yeah you do actually get into a bit of a zone and certainly for the record like the mental preparation was as much as the physical preparation for me so I actually find cheering quite a mindful kind of practice like it's such

a repetitive thing and you're always trying to do a really good job by the animals so welfare is such an important priority for us when we're handling the animals and yeah to try and do it as calmly and efficiently as possible is always the is always the aim do you know there's someone who's already training to try and beat your record and it's not me. It's not me, by the way. I'm not making announcements. I would love it if it were you. If we got the opportunity to have a women's hour shearing day out to the farm,

I would be all up for that. Yeah, that would be amazing. There are other women's records out there. So to be clear, there's already several women's lamb records and a nine hour you record um set by by kiwi shira so there's definitely a woman's woman trying to attempt the eight hour lamb record in in february this year so it's just a really exciting time you know there's a lot of the men's records have been done several times and this is just like an emerging

emerging category really like we're just going to see more and more I think so if I've done anything to inspire someone to have a go and and tackle what I my challenge then then that's amazing that's really satisfying oh you really have you've inspired so many just listening to you this morning and I actually um googled you last night to watch a bit of the last five minutes and it was emotional watching it how was it for you after eight hours when everybody started applauding, knowing that you'd got it? Yeah, there's certainly a lot of emotion involved. Like in the run-up to it,

you kind of have to zone out from all of that and just be very much focused. Like I was just focused on the job I had to do essentially. And even on the day, it's amazing. All those people were there, but I was really just, all I could hear was Stuart Connor's voice, who was the man that when you see me cheering, he was my timekeeper.

So he's a world record holder himself and he's the one there with the time. He knows exactly what rate I should be going at. And all the guys in the pen were just so encouraging. So apart from that, I didn't really wasn't so aware of everything that was going on around me. So until I stood up at the end and actually saw my family and friends like in front of me, cheering me on. Yeah, definitely. You're definitely allowed the emotion in at the end, but until you finish the job, you know, that's just your head's down,

your mind's focused on the job. Well, you've done incredibly well. Marie, thank you so much for joining us. You were definitely a Woman's Hour kind of woman and congratulations once again. And that was Marie Preble. She is the world record holder for sheep sharing. 40

seeks sheep every hour for 8 hours. I advise googling it. It's really quite something to watch. Lots of you getting in touch with your own tricks that you can do. Fiona says I can wiggle both my ears at nearly 60 years of age. I have not met anyone else who can do both. Right, we're all trying it right now.

Hello, I'm Tegan from Brighton. Hello, Tegan. In 2016, I was best in the world at a Christmas food quiz that millions of people competed in. Additionally, I can say the alphabet backwards. Niche achievements, but I'm proud. Yeah, we're celebrating our niche achievements today.

And Sarah says, I can wolf whistle very loudly. That's cool. Extremely useful when corralling my five children. 84844 is the number to text. And lots of you getting in touch with the first thing we covered this morning about the changes to universal credit for people in part time work. Someone here says very worried about my care workers. Several of the ladies who look after me are single mums of disabled children working part-time and universal credit.

They're at food bank level and struggling. Now, in Seoul last Wednesday, a 28-year-old woman was killed in a subway restroom. One day before, her alleged killer was due to be sentenced on charges of stalking her. Her death has shocked the nation and prompted calls for a tightening of Korea's recent anti-stalking laws. Well, earlier I spoke to Jean McKenzie, BBC Seoul's correspondent, and began by asking her about the facts of the case. This is quite a shocking murder, really, that has shocked the country because it's the murder of a 28-year-old woman. She was working at a subway station in the centre of Seoul

and she was on shift one evening unbeknownst to her she was being watched and when she went to the toilet she was followed into that toilet a public toilet by a man who had been waiting for her police say for over an hour for her to use the toilet he went into the toilet and he slapped her multiple times and she died. So the details of the case just on that basis alone are shocking. She was murdered at work using a public toilet, going to the toilet in what should have been a safe space. But really, the more details that have emerged about this case, the more horrifying it's become. And it's because the man suspected of murdering her was actually due to be sentenced the next day for stalking her he'd been stalking her for many years they'd actually been working together at the subway they started

working together about three years before when he began to harass her threaten her stalker he called her hundreds of times asking her to date him threatened to harm her if she didn't and now after a couple of years of the harassment stalkinging, she'd reported him. So he was fired from work last year, he was arrested by police. But crucially, while this investigation was going on, he was never detained, and he was never given a restraining order. Even the police applied to the courts to have him detained because they considered him a risk. And the courts rejected that appeal, saying that he wasn't a flight risk, seemingly giving not much consideration to how much risk he posed to her. Like you say, a very shocking case. What's been the public reaction in Korea?

The country have been totally shocked by this. And there's been a huge outpouring of of anger and fear you know what's interesting is people started turning up to the subway station where this happened we spent a bit of time there and and turning up to to leave flowers as you would often see you know the scene of a murder but also to leave these notes these hundreds and hundreds of post-it notes people writing their messages really trying to put into words how angry they are and how afraid they are. And I was really surprised when we were there by how many people were coming, men and women and people of all ages. You know, I was speaking to women in their 70s and 80s who were coming just devastated about what had happened, but also speaking to a

15-year-old boy who'd come on his way home from school one day because he was equally devastated. So it's something that appears to have touched everybody. Yeah, really shaken the nation. So what were the women telling you? What were some of the notes saying? Women here are just feeling very unsafe. I think there's a sense that it could have happened to any of them

because there is a feeling that this woman was failed on so many levels. People feel that she was failed by her employer, she was failed by the police. She was failed by the courts. There were so many instances in which she wasn't protected, which we could talk about, that they feel that this was a hugely systemic, systematic problem that means that they could easily open the target. And it goes beyond just this case of stalking. They're saying this isn't just one murder. This is a country these young women feel where violence against women just isn't taken seriously enough yet. And we'll talk about that in just a moment. But you also spoke to the family of the victim, didn't you? Yeah, we went to the funeral home where their daughter was being laid to rest and spent a bit of time with them and

they were just absolutely devastated as you can imagine and still processing the shock and the grief and because she hadn't actually told anyone in her family anything that had been happening to her over the last few years and they've actually been very private they've chosen not to reveal her identity I think because they're still you know coming to terms with what's happened but I was able to learn a little bit about her um through them and then they talked you know about how she was so independent she was so smart she'd gone off to Seoul to go to university by herself she was supporting herself financially they were so proud of her that they were telling me that they never worried about her at all they thought that she'd be absolutely fine and she also she's the youngest

of three girls so she's got two younger sisters and she very much took on the caring role so she was looking after them and they were saying to me her family that that they just imagined that she would have not wanted to burden any of them with this. Absolutely heartbreaking. The family are now blaming themselves because they didn't spot what happened. And that was just devastating to see. But as you said, she'd been stalked by this man, who incidentally his name has been released. Why have they done that? Why have they released his name? Yeah, so it's actually common practice in South Korea

not to release the name of suspects in cases. It happens very rarely, a case that has to hit a certain bar. So the suspect has to have committed or be suspected of committing a very violent act and an act of great cruelty. There has to be enough evidence. And so the police really have to decide that it's in public interest that they know who this person is. But they only reveal the name of about 10 or less suspects every year. But clearly in this case, they felt that it did reach that bar of a violent act committed with cruelty.

And she went to the police because he had been stalking her. And there are anti-stalking laws in South Korea that were brought in last year. But are they effective? Obviously not. Well, it's interesting because if you look at just beyond last year, there wasn't proper anti-stalking legislation. So stalking up until last year was actually only classed here as a misdemeanor, so you would get a fine of around about £50. And then last year, this first official anti-stalking legislation was

brought in but people said at the time that it wasn't the law wasn't strong enough effectively and it wasn't going to be able to protect victims um crucially because there was a clause in that law which says that for somebody to be prosecuted for stalking the victim has to give their permission so people felt that that just left this huge loophole in which the perpetrators could effectively bully and threaten their victims into withdrawing the case at any moment but as we see in this case as well that there's more than just the law itself it's how that law is applied because you know this use of detention isn't being perhaps used enough and also you know people are not being given restraining orders when it comes to these cases.

So this is more than just the law. It's about the kind of attitudes to stalking and to the risk it poses to victims. How has the government responded to the case? Well, the president has actually come out and addressed the case and acknowledged that the stalking legislation isn't strong enough and he's ordered his government to strengthen it. So there are some murmurings of change,

but really people feel here, as I said, that this kind of isn't enough. First of all, change has been promised in terms of women's rights on so many occasions here and it's failed to materialise. So I think there's a scepticism, people saying, well, we'll believe the change when we see it. But also, as I said, this attitude that this isn't just a law that needs to change, it's the fundamental attitude of people and authorities when it comes to violence against women. This is a much more, you know, this is a symptom of a much, much bigger problem.

Well, give us some more insight for people just to understand what is the situation when it comes to stalking, femicide, violence against women, just equality, just give us an overview if you would Jean. Yeah I mean it's interesting actually we spent all week trying to get femicide data from the government and it turns out that the police and the politicians here do not record femicide as a crime in its own right. So we were not able to get that data. Which could be quite telling.

Yeah, but this is a country that has a difficult relationship, I think, when it comes to women's rights. And particularly recently, the government has really tied itself in knots. There was a hugely successful Me Too movement here back in 2018. It was the first Me Too movement in Asia. And women found it a moment of real hope. But what happened afterwards, interestingly, was a backlash to feminism. There was an anti-feminist movement that sprung up in its place by sort of young men who felt that they were being disadvantaged

by this feminist movement, primarily because in this country, you still have mandatory conscriptions, so men have to go to the army after they finish university. So there's a huge amount of resentment about that. And they felt that, you know, women's rights were not really the thing that should be the focus. So this anti-feminist movement sprung up, and politicians have really seized on this, particularly in the run up to the most recent election to try and win the votes of these young men. And that has kind of resulted in this very sort of anti-feminist rhetoric. So the government, even in the run-up to the last election,

said that it was going to close down, as one of its election pledges, the gender equality ministry here, something that it is still sticking to. So when the gender equality minister, for example, visited the scene of this murder, she was asked by reporters, was this a case of gender-based violence? And she said, no, it wasn't.

So you have a situation here where the government, in some cases, is sort of ignoring the reality of the situation or ignoring the reality as women see it. And therefore there's very little faith, I guess, that the changes that need to happen are going to happen. But there are protests, there are vigils, women are coming out, they're paying their respects. Is this a watershed moment? I think that's a really great question.

And, you know, I went to a protest last night with hundreds of women who'd come out and they're angry, but they're also depressed. And I was struck by the fact that they don't expect this to be a watershed moment they've been promised change so many times before as I said they had this hugely successful me too movement and very little change when it came to women's rights that they just don't have faith that this is going to trigger the change that they want they certainly and many people here believe that this should be an awakening. But will it be? Yeah, there's not much optimism, really.

That was Jean McKenzie, the BBC's sole correspondent, speaking to me a little bit earlier. Lots of you getting in touch with the show today about various things. We started the programme by discussing the Chancellor's new proposal to try and get more part-time workers into more work.

And if they don't, there is the possibility of reduction on universal credits. Someone's been in touch to say, today I cancelled a second stage interview for a mid to senior level position. After doing the sums and lack of employer flexibility and the low remuneration package, I realised that I could not do the job due to childcare costs and the affordability of this. I'm incredibly sad about this. However far we have come, men earn more than women, not in all cases, but generally caring falls on women. We've also been talking about your super skills. Margaret says whilst living in Montreal in the 70s, I visited their Olympic Park and had my lung capacity measured just for fun. And I was told I had the largest lung capacity that I ever found in a woman.

I was so chuffed. That's very impressive. And my next two guests are also very impressive. Now, imagine spending your twilight years in a retirement hotel in India. Well, that's what happens to the characters in the stage adaptation of the best exotic Marigold Hotel. Many of you may have read the book or watched the film, which is a hit starring Dame Judi Dench and Dame Maggie Smith. Well, the story follows an eclectic group of British retirees as they embark on a new life in a retirement hotel in Bangalore in India, set up by young entrepreneur Soni Kapoor. Some can't afford to stay in the UK. Some don't have families who can support them.

Others are looking for a new adventure. They include Evelyn, a recent widow, and Madge, who's looking to find love. Again, preferably with a wealthy Maharaja. Well, Evelyn is played by Academy Award winning actor Hayley Mills and Madge by Coronation Street star Rula Lenska. And both acting legends join me now. So I am rolling out the metaphorical red carpet for you both.

Welcome to Woman's Hour. I'm going to start by asking you both. Hayley, I'll come to you first. How much fun are you having? We are having an enormous amount of fun because it's a wonderful cast. And we know we're all involved in something that's making people happy. That is a very, very timely, enjoyable night in the theatre. It's about real people and real issues.

It's beautifully cast play and everybody we all get on terribly well we love each other actually but I think the initial thing is that it's a really really good play

it's so well written coin an old phrase, if it ain't on the page, it ain't on the stage. And the bottom line is it's a wonderful play and deals with real issues that people are dealing with today of whatever age they

are, but particularly older people and older people in this country and how we deal with old age and our personal attitude towards it. And it's funny and it's moving. And the reason we're having such fun, I think, is because we believe in what we're giving to the public.

Absolutely. So let's talk about your character then. You play Evelyn, a character she's recently widowed, a little unsure of herself, self-conscious about ageing. Did you relate to her in any way? Yes, absolutely, completely. Completely. I mean, she's gone on a wonderful journey, Evelyn, and she discovers that being in India suddenly

you know bereft of all her support systems apart from her husband who she had a long good comfortable marriage with her children are leading their lives her son is in Seattle

her daughter is busy learning to be a psychiatrist and um she discovers other talents within herself she she finds her voice and I this is something we can all relate to because I think that's part of growing up and part of living is to find our own authentic voices uh and it starts I think in our adolescence and if we're lucky it carries on but some people like Evelyn her marriage kind of put her in an aspect. She became, she didn't evolve after she got married.

So suddenly finding herself in India, you know, it's an opportunity to discover who she is. Let me bring you in, Rula. Sounds like you're having a great time. You're all in love with each other. You're getting to play these incredible characters. Tell us about Madge. Well, Madge, unlike Evelyn, who sort of always lived on the middle line, Madge has had a life of extreme highs and extreme lows. She's been married three times. She says things how they are. She can be quite a bitch sometimes, but she's great fun to play

and has some of the best laughs in the play. But as Hayley said, this is a peach of a job, you know, and you get a brilliant product with a brilliant cast, a brilliant director, a brilliant music composer, and audiences absolutely lapping it up. And it's something that happens very rarely in our careers. And it's an absolute joy, even though it's backbreakingly hard. We do nine shows a week. Well, it must be wonderful that this has turned up, you know, as a job.

Absolutely. And, you know, with two years of things being rather thin on the ground to suddenly be involved in something like that, this, which gives pleasure to everybody, to the cast and to the audiences. And it's just wonderful. Now, Madge, your character, Rula, getting old is not for sissies or that's what my mother always used to say. My outlook is still the same as that of a woman in her 30s. I still feel that until I look in the mirror. I can't bear the fact that the body doesn't obey me like it used to. But it is inevitable. And I think attitude is the thing that makes the biggest difference. You know, forget plastic surgery and all of that. That's just surface. But it's attitude. And I'm not a person who likes to give up or give in. I enjoy every moment and live life by the moment. This is good life advice, Rula. Now, one of the big themes of the play

is how older people are treated in society. Mrs Kapoor, the mother of the hotel's owner, Sunny, can't believe that people in Britain might want to outsource their parents' retirement care to India. How do you feel about British attitudes towards older people? Welcome to you, Hayley. Oh, me? Oh, well, it is.

It's cultural, isn't it? Absolutely cultural. And I'm not saying it's perfect in India. The grandparents and daughters and sons and sons-in-law and daughters-in-law don't all have difficulty, but they do feel a greater sense of responsibility culturally. It really was highlighted for all of us, I think, during lockdown,

when we saw so many hundreds and hundreds of old people shut up in care homes and not being able to be with their children and grandchildren, standing outside the window, tapping on the glass, getting sick and dying alone. I mean, it's absolute, it's a national shame. We should be ashamed of ourselves that we treat our own people like this. What's the reaction you get from the audience around it? They absolutely love it.

They love it. They're tremendously exhilarated and uplifted by it at the end. And it's hard not to be, actually, because it's, you know, every character finds hope and finds a way of being. Well, let's not let's not let's discuss love and let's discuss lust. But a part of Evelyn and Madge's story is not just reserved for the younger characters. And these are usually themes that are neglected in storylines for older characters, aren't they? Rula? Yes, absolutely. There's been a film recently which made a lot of headlines about a younger

man having an affair with an older woman. I mean, I don't see any reason why love or lust should change whatever the age you are. I certainly have feelings of laughter. I don't have a partner at the moment. And with every passing year, it gets more difficult to imagine that there is that perfect somebody out there still. But I never lose hope. And, you know, I come from an Eastern European background.

So our respect for our elders is iconic. And I have several much older friends than me from whom I learn an enormous amount. Yes. And I have a huge respect for my forefathers. I never knew any of my grandfathers, but I knew both grandmothers well. And they were a fountain of knowledge, as was my mother, and treated with the utmost respect and care. You were born in a Polish refugee camp in the UK, weren't you? Not a refugee camp. It was an army barrack.

An army barrack, sorry. And so the story of the family very much stays with you and the culture has been passed down to you. Oh, absolutely. My parents were adamant that we spoke only Polish at home, which I hated as a child. So I grew up bilingual and certainly bicultural. I think of myself much more European than English. And I'm now eternally grateful that, you know, my parents, with the original hope of one day moving back to Poland instilled enormous feelings of root and tradition and custom and respect and love in the purest sense and I think it is as Hayley said disgraceful the way that we treat old people in this country. But not a select few actors who are about to go on stage tonight in Brighton.

They're being treated very well. Sorry, say again? I said just not, but apart from a select few actors who are about to go on stage in Brighton this evening, you are being treated very well this evening, tonight. We are being treated extremely well. And it's just a joy to see the other actors coming in for the show, whether it's a matinee or an evening performance.

You know, everybody hugs everybody else. And there is such a feeling of goodwill and hope. Oh, you know, I could talk to you both for so long. We need a whole hour dedicated to you to discuss about what you haven't even gotten to the Oscars, Hayley, but you'll just have to come back and talk to me. I want to say to both of you, break a leg, have a great production this evening and good luck with it all. Rula Lenska and Hayley Mills speaking to me there and the best exotic Marigold Hotel will be on its UK tour. So find it at a theatre near you and it's on until June next year. Now we're sticking to some of

the themes that Rula was talking about there and we're going to stick with India as well because my next guest, Ira Mathur's incredible memoir, Love the Dark Days, is set across India, England, Trinidad and St. Lucia. The memoir follows the author and broadcaster's journey as a child growing up in post-independent India with a Muslim mother and a Hindu father. She also lives with her grandmother, who was born into an aristocratic Indian household. It's beautifully written, reads like a novel, and the story, let me tell you, doesn't leave you.

And Ira joins me in the studio, which is always such a treat. We're just getting back to normal, so we never quite have people in every week, so it's nice to have you here. Congratulations, Ira, on the book. Thank you so much, Anita. It's such a pleasure to be here. I'm going to go straight in because sometimes it's no, let's just dive straight in at the deep end. There's a lot of pain in this book. A lot of pain that's passed from generation to generation, particularly through women. How painful was it to write it? It was eviscerating.

I think that, you know, if you want to write something that's meaningful, it starts with journalism, of course, where your first allegiance is to the truth. But in literature, if you want to write something that has echoes with other human beings, you have to eviscerate that. A bit of your skin has to come off with your pen. And it was painful, but I think it was also cathartic. Describe the book starts in British times in India and with my grandmother, who was from the royal family of Bhopal and Savanoor. And it's us, my sister and myself as little children, listening to stories about how her great-great-grandfather came from Uzbekistan to actually put down the mutiny of 1856. So actually, my family fought against our own Hindu and Muslim soldiers. And you know how devastating that was

when the people who were rebelling soldiers were actually put in cannons and blasted off into nothing because they disobeyed the British. So there was that collusion in my family right from the start, from 1856 when they came from Uzbekistan and then on to when they were members of the Raj, where they mingled very, very closely with the British in order to run their states. My great-grandfather was the Nawab of Savnoor and my great-grandfather on the other, my great-great-grandmother, Sultan Jahan Begum, was the Begum of Bhopal. And it's interesting to know that, you know,

she built the first mosque in Woking, actually, and we had Begums of Bhopal, which is women actually ruling India, ruling Bhopal for over 100 years. That's four generations of women in Bhopal, which is women actually ruling India, ruling Bhopal for over 100 years. That's four generations of women in Bhopal doing that. I was so fascinated by this lineage of incredible women that you have in your family. But by the time you've come around, these are stories that you're hearing. You're not born into royalty. No, absolutely not. I'm born into a very fractured modern family. My mother was disinherited when she was in her early 20s because she met my father, a Hindu army officer, and they met over

piano lessons, very post-colonial, in an Anglo-Indian woman's home and they fell in love and my mother basically ran away. My grandmother was devastated because my mother was the only child of this family and she prided herself of her family going back all the way to the Prophet and of course there was all that royal lineage and Islam behind her. And my mother basically left my grandmother and went off to Delhi and got married to my father in a very, very simple ceremony in Birla Temple and left with nothing. And your grandmother has this very difficult relationship with your mother, but also your

grandmother sort of punishes you throughout the book for being the product of this mixed marriage between a Hindu and a Muslim. That's right. And I think that the reason I think it's got echoes with colonialism is that if you think about how colonialism worked, it worked on about from punishing people, from making sure they were kept in their place. was that parallel. It happened in families as well. So as the dark child of the family, as someone who didn't look Afghani or didn't look like I came from Uzbekistan, I was a very, I was a very, I was a natural target to my grandmother. So yes, you know, I do get called a little black girl. But I think part of the reason I wrote this book is because nothing is literally black and white.

There's dissonance everywhere. And, you know, my time with Derek Walcott as well showed me that there is some beauty to be had of everything. My great-great-grandmother, you know, Khaliq-un-Nassab Begum of Savnoor used to burn her sarees, her chiffon sarees once a year in her garden in Savnur. And they were all lined with gold, but they were chiffon. So if you think of that image of that chiffon flaring up, and all that's left is like the molten gold around it. And afterwards, she would go and pick the pieces out. And that's really how I see my life. And I actually see the life of humanity because I think we all have dark days. We all

have bits of ourselves that we don't love and bits of others that we don't love, but we don't throw people away. And I think with insight and understanding, it makes the range of human experience more bearable and also more interesting. And that's exactly, there's a lot of humanity in this book, even though it's very difficult to read what happens to you and how you're treated, not just by your grandmother. And you mentioned the color of your skin there. This is colorism that is, again, post-colonial India, which is just stuck around the darker your skin tone, the worse you're treated, particularly as a young woman. Yes. And I just want to pick up another bit.

You also mentioned Derek Walcott there. I just must mention that sort of you go back in time, but then we're in 2016, where you go to talk and spend a weekend with him and his partner, Sigrid, in St. Lucia. And I went there and I think I was grappling with my past and trying to understand what it was all about. And I think spending time with him in the New World made me realize that the New World in Trinidad is made up of strands of five continents or four continents. If you think about how we got there, there was the slave trade, then there was the Indians who came as indentured labourers and the Chinese came, the Lebanese came and the people from Venezuela came. So we're really now new immigrants from Nigeria and India. And your family were new immigrants. That's right. Yeah, right. So my dad was in the Indian Army. So then he said to me, can you imagine a place as tiny as Port of Spain and you have five continents mingling there?

Can you imagine what could come out of that? And we are in a process in Trinidad and Tobago of redefining ourselves, redefining our own identity, because, of course, so much of it was lost from slavery. People were literally and figuratively and in every way stripped of their identity and everything that they were, including language. And when you lose language, you lose everything. And the same thing happened to Indian indentured laborers, most of whom went from Bihar and UP. So we are in a process of reclaiming ourselves. And I think Derek Walcott said, why not write of the present? And why not see yourself instead of, you know, somebody who doesn't belong to India now part of a new world where you can reinvent yourself and be anyone.

Oh, how fantastic thing to hear from someone like him as well to kind of just, just reinvent yourself. Yes. You can hear just from listening to Ira, there's so much in this book. We're barely scratching the surface and we're running out of time. Has your sister Angel read it? My sister Angel has read it. And as what happens with families when there's difficult circumstances, there's kind of silence, but not a bad silence, a quiet silence. Ira, thank you so much for joining me. But not a bad silence, a quiet silence.

Ira, thank you so much for joining me. Can I highly recommend this book, Love the Dark Days by Ira Mathura. There's so much to unearth in there and so much that so many women around the world will be able to relate to, I'm sure. Thank you so much. And thank you all of you for being in touch. I'm going to end with an email. Mary says, when I was at school in the 1970s, all our books had to be covered in brown paper and leftover wallpaper. As a result, my niche skill was the ability to cover a book neatly in less than a minute. Sadly,

they now don't seem to require book covering in schools anymore. So my superpower lies dormant. Have a wonderful weekend. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. 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 was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this?

What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.