Woman's Hour - Zadie Smith, Baby banks, Pat Hume, Irish tampon ad, Victoria Cilliers, Kids against plastic

Episode Date: August 8, 2020

The multi award winning writer Zadie Smith on 'Intimations', a collection of personal essays about lockdown. Photo courtesy of Dominique Nabokov.The rise in families with children under 5 needing help from baby banks has risen significantly since the pandemic began. We hear from Lauren Elrick who has a fifteen month old daughter and uses Abernecessities in Aberdeenshire. Sophia Parker, chief executive of Little Village baby bank in London and Tracy Thorn, an NHS family nurse.A television tampon advert has been banned in Ireland for causing widespread offence. Alexandra Ryan, CEO of Goss Media, and the radio presenter and former doctor Ciara Kelly discuss. Victoria Cilliers’ story made headlines in 2015, when it emerged her husband had tried to kill her by tampering with her parachute. Against all odds, she survived. After two trials he was sentenced to 18 years on two counts of attempted murder. Now she's written a book called 'I Survived'.At the funeral service of John Hume, the Northern Irish politician and Nobel Prize winner, it was said that 'when the history of Ireland is written, if Pat Hume's name is not beside John's, it will be incomplete history'. Pat, his wife, had been at his side during the Troubles, during peace, and his years of living with dementia. Jenni hears from Eimear O'Callaghan, former BBC News Editor, and Monica McWilliams, Emeritus Professor at Ulster University.Teenage sisters, Ella and Amy Meek are the founders of Kids Against Plastic. This week they were speaking at online climate change forum, hosted by the all-electric Formula E race Team Envision Virgin Racing. They told us about their concerns about the rise in single plastic use, and how we can all be plastic clever.Presenter: Jane Garvey Producer: Dianne McGregor

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hi, good afternoon and welcome to the weekend edition of Woman's Hour. This week, what have we got for you? Well, first of all, reaction to the tampon ad banned in Ireland. The thing I loved about this ad is that it was very specific. It was about how to use it. It wasn't hiding the fact that we menstruate. And I find that over the years, so many ads were telling us how to hide the string how to wear white pants like you know god forbid there'd be a stain it's

always about this whole idea of hiding the fact you're on your period more about that later we also celebrate the contribution of Pat Hume wife of the late John Hume and you can meet the teenage sisters Ella and Amy Meek who want us all to be plastic clever. Oh, and you can hear too from the brilliant novelist Zadie Smith, who has a new collection of essays out. First of all, the truly astounding Victoria Silius, whose story made headlines in 2015 when it emerged that her husband had tried to kill her by fiddling with her parachute. Against all odds, Victoria survived. After two trials, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison on two counts of attempted murder.

Her book about her experience is called I Survived. Victoria had been a physiotherapist in the British Army and was an experienced skydiver. She told me a little bit about her former partner. He just came across very strong and competent and capable. He was a bit like a knight in shining armour. Yeah, OK, well, that's how he cast himself. Did any of your friends raise concerns about him? Not initially.

As the relationship progressed over the years, a couple of friends, one in particular, noticed the changes in me and was aware of some of the money issues I'd had or concerns with him and also his fidelity. But by that point, I was so drawn in and I was pregnant with my son that I almost dismissed it or didn't want to believe it and he always had good reasons to explain why these things had gone on or these suspicions had arisen. Even before you married I think I think there were what you might now regard with the benefit the wonderful benefit of hindsight as warning signs there was the money he did take money from your accounts, didn't he?

Yes, he did. And did he attempt to explain it at the time? How much did you ask him about all that? It was something that cropped up on an increasingly irregular basis. He always had excuses. It was fraud. He contacted the banks and they were investigating. But whenever I tried to contact the banks, they never had any recollection of it. Initially, he made the money back and paid me back. But that diminished over the years. And as you say, when you were pregnant, it really was.

It simply wasn't a time when you felt you could do anything, even if you wanted to. So were you simply compartmentalising your doubts about him and just ploughing on? Yes, I was basically avoiding confronting him because with a toddler and a baby or a baby on the way, I felt incredibly vulnerable. I was well aware there was massive cracks in the marriage. But I wanted to at least get through the first six months and then address the issues. So can you take us back to the day when you did the jump? We should say that you were a very experienced skydiver. This was something you'd done.

You'd loved doing it. You were very good at it. In fact, you were teaching other people how to do it,'t you yes i've done thousands of jumps which by the way i mean please own your courage there that is a quite extraordinary well to be able to do that victoria i don't think i think people like you who do this don't appreciate that it is one of the most terrifying things i could ever imagine but this was something you had sought out and become extremely good at it's very addictive oh I'll take your word for it okay so um very soon after you'd given birth um for the second time that's right isn't it your your husband arranged a jump it was initially for both of you um how did you feel about it jumping that soon after having a baby wasn't anything out of the ordinary because I'd

done the same with my daughter but I was just excited that he wanted to do something with the two of us together. I thought maybe the birth of my son had sort of instigated a feeling of family in him that he was considering me really. On the day he couldn't do it because he said he couldn't arrange childcare. So what happened when you did the jump? Just tell us about what the jump was supposed to be like and then what actually happened. It was meant to be just a jump on my own,

just getting back into the air and see how I felt about it because I had some reservations about jumping after having two children. Just there's more responsibility when you've got children. And it was a long day because it kept getting put off for wind, rain, et cetera. And when I got in, we knew it was only going to be a low jump. And I just felt completely out of sorts.

I wasn't happy. I was in tears in the plane, which would never normally happen. Yeah, that split second when you leave the aircraft, it was just a wonderful feeling. And then pulling the parachute and it all went dreadfully wrong from there. But because of your skill set, you were able to deal with the situation, weren't you? I tried to manage the situation as best I could.

But this is you falling through the air at great speed, presumably, from a height of...? 3,000 feet. So you're spinning quite violently and the focus is just on slowing down the spin trying to gain as much control as possible because I was very aware at the back of my mind that I've got a baby and a toddler at home so failure wasn't an option I just had to try and reduce the spin as much as I could and you did which is why you're talking to me now. Yes.

What happened afterwards what was the atmosphere like between you and your your husband at the time after the accident he came to see you in hospital? Awkward and dare I say I felt guilty incredibly guilty that now he had even more work to do because he had to look after the children as well as the house and work. And I just added to it, I felt a bit like an inconvenience. Yeah, I mean, I'm just trying to let those words just sink in. What had happened the week before that there'd been a, well, what we now know wasn't an accidental gas leak at home? Yes. And he, one evening, said he had to be on duty, therefore had to go back to the barracks the night before. He didn't leave until I'd given the baby his night

feed and I stayed upstairs to go to sleep. He went down, he said he was going to make a cup of coffee and then leave, which wasn't anything out of the ordinary, but he was downstairs a long time. And I could hear tinkering, but when you've got a newborn, you don't really want to get out of bed when you've got the opportunity to sleep. Went downstairs the next morning to get the children's milk and could smell gas. And that was something he'd also, he'd done, he'd fiddled with the gas supply in the house, hadn't he? Which is why he is now serving 18 years on two counts of attempted murder.

But there was quite a gap between your terrible accident and the police coming round to tell you that they believed your husband was responsible. What was that incredible moment like when the police had to tell you this? I felt a thunderstruck. It's just, you feel like everything just drains out of you. Absolutely stunned. But again, also that feeling of guilt. He's really going to hate me now,

even though I hadn't contacted the police. I couldn't see any way, shape or form how he could have been involved in something that sinister. And yes, he had issues with money and fidelity, etc. But murder, no, that's a whole different level. He even attempted to keep up control of you when he was in prison and after he'd been sentenced even. Yes. And I went to see him initially because i had so many questions i wanted to ask and get answers to police had warned me that i probably wouldn't and they were right but i was still very caught up in it all i was writing to him he wrote back but gradually he wanted me to come

and visit more and more. I wasn't writing enough. And it just became too much. And after the sentencing, it all started to become clear in my mind that actually I had been a victim of emotional manipulation and I had been a victim of attempted murder and I needed to separate myself completely from him. Which you have now done. Yes. Well, I know that you write very movingly of the support you had from your dad and his partner.

They sound absolutely brilliant. I hope, I really do hope you have a strong circle of friends around you now. Yes, I do. I'm very lucky. Well, that's brilliant. In terms of your trust in other people, what would you say about what that's done to you? I'm a lot more wary, especially of new people in my life. So new friends, male or female,

I think I'll never 100% ever trust someone. The focus has to be on keeping myself safe and supported and the children. That is Victoria Silius, and if you'd like to hear that interview in its entirety, you can listen to Friday's edition of Woman's Hour via BBC Sounds, and our very best wishes to Victoria and to her two children. The Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland has ruled that an ad for Tampax tampons shouldn't be shown on telly in its current form

after it was deemed to cause widespread offence. The body got 84 complaints about the ad which featured a discussion about how you use a tampon properly. In fact, really a full-on discussion about how you get a tampon into the right position. Here's an idea of the ad. How many of you ever feel your tampon? You shouldn't. It might mean your tampon isn't in far enough. You've got to get them up there, girls. Example, just pull it, lock it and put it in. Not just the tip, up to the grip. So get them up there, girls.

Well, that, of course, was an ad for Tampax tampons. I talked to Alexandra Ryan, CEO of Goss Media, an Irish entertainment news website, and to Keira Kelly, presenter of Lunchtime Live on the radio station news talk as she's also a former doctor kira to put it mildly was quite annoyed on her radio show i just spoke about how angry i was that the shaming of women and the shaming of women's bodies goes on and that young women in particular maybe who are who are getting their periods for the

first time and you know they can be very young they can be from the age of 9, 10, 11, 12, that we are taking these ads and hiding this away as if it is something to be ashamed of. And I felt it was a very poor message to be sending to people. And I was extremely irate about it, and I still am. And I think it's a nonsense, frankly, that 84 complaints in a population of 4.9 million in the Republic of Ireland is considered widespread offence. OK, 84 complaints. Who complained, Ciara? Well, sadly, actually, three quarters of them were women. It wasn't all men going, oh, that's gross. But that's not necessarily surprisingly, because, you know, I don't know about you, Jane, but I remember getting my very first period

and not really knowing what it was about. And I remember going to a mixed school all through my teens and sitting and squirming in my chair in terror if I thought my period was due and it might come during class and somebody might know or somebody might see. So I think living with hiding our periods and living with embarrassment and mortification and shame around all of that was certainly in my day in the 80s was a normal part of growing up.

So I think there are many women who are very uncomfortable with talk about periods and certainly public talk about periods. But unfortunately, I think that isn't, I suppose, a paradox. I think the shame has been put upon us and now we carry that shame ourselves. Are we assuming that the women who complained were older? We don't know that, do we? No, I don't know that. And I can't be sure because the clip of me on air has gone quite viral. I think we're on 1.9 million views or something of me expressing my sincere dislike of what's happened with this ad.

So there's been thousands and thousands of comments generated around it. The vast majority of both men and women, I have to say, were very supportive of what I said. And that would be the vast majority. But certainly there were comments from some women and they weren't all older saying, no, I didn't like that ad. That ad made me uncomfortable so I think there is a way to go for women old and young to become comfortable in their own skins comfortable talking about their own bodily functions and not sort of feeling that they're reproductive their sexual health their bodies themselves are sort of shame-filled things we have to acknowledge there's no discomfort quite like

walking around with a tampon that isn't in the right place. And we have to acknowledge that, which is exactly what this ad was designed to illustrate. For sure. And when they become uncomfortable, and I said in my little monologue, I said, you know, I'm not wearing one now, but I wear one sometimes.

And the only time I ever feel one is if it's starting to come down, if it's starting to expel itself. So if they're too low in the vagina, and I said vagina multiple times on air that day too, you get into difficulties because you can feel them. And that's the way the vagina is designed. It's got a bigger space further up. We've got a statement here from Tampax who say, we're disappointed by the decision made by the Advertising Standards Agency of Ireland to adjudicate against our recent Tampax and tea advert.

But we're overwhelmed by the subsequent support we've seen by the Irish public. We're trying at Tampax to normalise conversations around periods through awareness, information and education. Our ad was designed to address a very common usage question and to help educate how to use the tampon correctly in a straight talking way. Alexander Ryan, you're a young woman, CEO of Goss Media. What do younger women make of this decision, do you think? I think a lot of women are very frustrated by this decision. So I'm 30 years old, a lot of my friends are in their 30s as well and even at this age so many friends of mine do not use tampons because they genuinely don't know how to use them they've said to me that they're sore and unfortunately it's not even a

common conversation if even at this age we would awkwardly kind of talk about it and the thing I loved about this ad is that it was very specific it It was about how to use it. It wasn't hiding the fact that we menstruate. And I found that over the years, so many ads were telling us how to hide the string, how to wear white pants, like, you know, God forbid there'd be a stain. It's always about this whole idea of hiding the fact you're on your period. And subconsciously, as you grow up, especially as a woman in Ireland, I think you become ashamed of menstruating at all and you don't want to. And that's what we've been seeing in advertisements for years how to hide it so I actually really

embraced this ad and I know a lot of people here had an issue with the tagline which was get it up there girls get them up there girls but I felt that it was provocative for a reason I think they were trying to target younger girls yeah well provocative and advertising do sort of go hand in hand because it is about getting your message across whatever your message might be. The idea that this was somehow sexualized, I mean, that is a real puzzle. If anybody's ever had a period, they'll know that it's not necessarily associated with feelings of sexual interest. I know some women do claim to be more interested in sex during their period than any other times so I'm just covering all my bases here but um so Alexander what do you say about that I think when you're in

your period yes you can definitely be you know more sexually active or feel you can kind of sexual feelings but putting a tampon in your vagina does not turn you on and I was likening this to getting a smear test like anyone who's got a smear anyone who's had to put a tampon up there it is not pleasurable it is not sexual I've never met any woman in my life who said that it's sexual you know having to crouch down and actually put it up there you know in the bathroom women have been doing it for years it's awkward and it's not like the ad was actually showing a woman crouching down putting it in which you know maybe it should have but you know it really wasn't that bad it was just talking about it it wasn't even

showing it this is really um going back to how little so many women know or are allowed to know kira about their own bodies what they look like how they feel how they work absolutely and as someone who worked as a gp and so in the area of women's health very much so for 20 years it was very common that people come in and use all the euphemisms, you know, something down below, women's troubles, or, you know, it was like we were talking in code half the time.

And it's very disempowering for women if they actually have an issue. So sometimes it's hard for them to get help if they don't know the names of things or don't know where anything is. And I think it's really interesting what Alexandra was saying there about, you know, the sexualization thing.

There's definitely a perception that if you talk about putting anything into your vagina that that is a sexual thing and that is very much the male perspective, no doubt about it but for those of us who have periods we're often sticking things into our vaginas because we have to and I think it is very important and I like what

Tampac said, it is about normalising our bodily functions and normalising this issue around our bodies. And I don't think that it is sort of good enough that we let that go unchallenged. Yeah, I think we need to acknowledge that although this ad is shown in the UK, I think there will be plenty of people who see it in the UK and are, frankly, somewhat taken aback. I mean, the idea that Ireland is terribly behind the UK. Well, I'm not sure that's necessarily true when it comes to issues like this.

Alexandra, what do you say about that? I do think this is something that is an issue in general. And, you know, for me, a lot of this derives back to the issue of double standards in general. It's very frustrating as a woman to see that sometimes we're, you know, meant to be showing our boobs, showing our curves, but other times we have to keep things hidden. And I think that idea needs to stop.

I think we should be able to accept our bodies and talk about our bodies all the time and it's very confusing for young girls in their teens in their early 20s being shown you know dance on TikTok take off your clothes but you know don't talk about periods don't talk about menstruating it's not a good way to grow up and it is quite shameful so again I applauded Tampax for doing that ad because I really thought it would have stopped a good few young women in their tracks and thought, oh my God, this is okay to talk about. Alexandra Ryan and Keira Kelly.

Jan emailed to say, listening to that conversation about periods reminded me of two incidents connected with tampons back in the 60s. I'm now 67, she says. Firstly, I was due to take a personal survival swimming test in the school pool. I can still recall going into my mum's bedroom with the tampon diagram and trying to fit it in the right place.

The memory is still very vivid over 50 years later. I think most of us know exactly what you mean by the diagram. That's the thing. I think it still comes in packets now. I think you were supposed to put your foot on the toilet seat or something like that. Anyway, the other occasion was waiting a long time for a friend to come out of a cubicle. When she emerged, she was very open and explained that she was trying to reinsert the tampon after having a wee. I had to explain that she didn't need to remove it in the first place. Sad there still seem to be issues, says Jan.

Yeah, we got some, to put it mildly, interesting emails after that item was broadcast on the programme. Now, you might have seen the Duchess of Cambridge this week spending a bit of time unloading boxes of baby clothes at a baby bank in Sheffield. This is a place where retailers can donate items like clothing and nappies and formula milk. New figures from the three big charities in this area, Baby Basics, Little

Village and Abba Necessities, published this week, showed that the number of families with children under five who've needed their help has risen significantly since the coronavirus crisis began. Lauren Elric has a daughter of 15 months and uses ABBA necessities in Aberdeenshire. Sophia Parker is chief executive of the Little Village Baby Bank in London and Tracey Thorns, an NHS family nurse, also in Aberdeen. Tracey was asked why so many people are now being referred to a baby bank. Every family's story is completely different, but it's a combination of families such as Lauren's where additional hours that were relied upon are no longer available. There's families where they were on a temporary contract

that suddenly ended. There is possibly a delay in accessing universal credit so I've got a family just now who were self-employed, had been self-employed for less than a year so unfortunately for them they had to access universal credit and to actually get that funds in place there was a delay which meant they had no money for a period of weeks. So I think there's lots of different reasons. Every family story is unique, but no family that I have on my caseload has not been affected by COVID-19 on a financial basis.

Lauren, how would you describe the impact the lockdown has had on you? It's made me feel very isolated. Also with my partner not getting as much hours as work, we have struggled to afford essential items for our daughter like nappies and that's where Aber Necessities stepped in and really helped us. How much are you in the country and so it's not easy to find places, even if you could afford it, to buy things. Yeah, we don't have any big supermarkets in the small village that we stay in. There is a little corner shop and even their prices are quite a bit more expensive than what they would be in the supermarkets. So we only have a limited amount of items in the shop as well to be able to buy.

And even the shop here, we're struggling to keep its stock up, even simple things, nappies, and that was very, very difficult to get hold of. Savaya, how difficult have you found having enough things to fulfil the need in your area? At the beginning of the lockdown, it was very, very difficult for people to find those basic essentials, things like nappies, and where they were unable to go to the supermarkets, they were then going to local corner shops where those items were much more expensive. In our experience, I mean, we've been incredibly lucky to have amazing support from our local communities, people donating and buying nappies for us via

our wholesaler. But there's no question that the level of demand that we're now facing and the number of requests for support is making it very challenging to continue to meet those requests. Now the Duchess of Fire has persuaded I think it's 19 retailers to donate 10,000 new items to more than 40 baby banks around the country. How important will those donations be? We feel so lucky at Little Village to be part of this campaign along with Baby Basics and Aber Neities. And there's no question in my mind that the things that those brands are going to be providing to families via us will be a huge lifeline. They will help financially, but also to reduce the anxiety and stress that the parents we're supporting are experiencing.

But I think we need to be really clear that while they are a lifeline, what they aren't going to do is reduce the soaring inequality we're seeing in this country. And I think we also need to be looking at that issue as well. But what range of goods are coming to you as a result of this push? Lots of toiletries for babies and for mums, play equipment, weaning equipment, all the essentials. They really will feel like a gift from one family to another, which is very much what we stand for at Little Village. And I know it's something that ABBA Necessities and Baby Basics and indeed all the other baby banks we work with think is very important that the items we give out are great quality and they don't feel like a handout at all. Lauren how did

Aber Necessities help you? How did it work practically? I spoke to Tracy my family nurse and then she referred me to Aber Necessities and I received items like clothes, nappies, formula milk and not just that but also for my daughter's birthday and I received gifts for her that I wasn't able to afford Christmas as well we got some gifts then for my daughter but also things for myself toilet trays and just things to make me feel quite nice as well so there was quite a big range of things that I was given. But, Josie, what's it like for you trying to find people who might need your help and need to be referred to a baby bank

when you can't really meet them face-to-face? No, unfortunately, that's correct. We can't meet most of our families face-to-face. We are still having some face-to-face interactions with families, such as families that have got child protection or there's concerns about mental health or newborn babies. But the way my role works, we've built quite a therapeutic relationship with my families. I've got a caseload of 25 and we have a very good working relationship with each other. So we're keeping in contact with our families through video conference calls so we're still keeping connected and having those conversations for the role that I'm doing

it's not been too too affected I'm still being able to have that connection and families have been able to report to me you know that they are struggling. How are you managing Sophia in London? Yeah I mean so we had we had a very intense period at the beginning of lockdown back in March where we had to basically completely redesign our operations. Normally families are welcomed into our hubs and able to choose the items that they want and need for their children and we now operate a delivery service where we get that stuff out to the families that need it safely and securely directly to their doorsteps. And we have an amazing team of volunteers who are between them calling around about 200 families a week.

And we've gone back to the good old fashioned phone and are just checking in with families. And certainly what we are seeing is that as well as the kind of financial stresses that lockdown brought, I think we're seeing families that were already quite isolated and anxious. We're seeing that many of the places they went to for support, be that, you know, the playgroups and the other local charity drop-in sessions, Little Village, those things have had to close down. And so that's leaving them even more isolated. And when you're in a damp and cramped room, often without much outside space, that can be a very challenging place to be. Lauren, obviously the things that you've had to help you

have been wonderful. But how important has Tracy's personal support been to you? Tracy has helped me so much, also emotionally emotionally it's so nice to feel like I have someone there to help me through anything any questions I have or you know someone just to speak to she's not a judgmental person at all she's she's so kind and friendly and I really, really do appreciate everything that Tressie does for me. Sophia, this is not coming to an end quickly, this difficult period. How do you reckon you'll get through the next few months? I think we'll be getting through with the support of our local communities, with the support of the brands like the Duchess has brought together,

with the incredible dedication of our volunteers. But, but you know I'm very clear that this is not going to be easy when we first started looking at the impact of COVID we were thinking it was going to be a kind of sharp spike for three months and then it might normalise but actually we're now planning for a sustained increase in demand we're on track to meet 6,000 kids this year and support them. It was 3,000 in 2019, and I know many other baby banks are in a similar situation. So it's a case of continuing to fundraise, continuing to keep that support coming,

asking people to continue donating essential items to us so we can get them out to the families that need them most, and we'll just keep going. Sophia Parker, Lauren Elric and Tracy Thorne contributed to that discussion on Women's Hour this week. Hilary said, I think the support organisations for new mothers and babies is fantastic, but I don't understand why the use of reusable nappies

isn't promoted as this would take away the insecurity of not having enough nappies as well as being better for the environment. In the long run, they've got to be much cheaper, says Hillary. Fiona, I appreciate all the work going into supporting people in need, but the bigger question we should be asking is why one of the richest economies in the world is in this situation. Should this not be part of the feature or are we going to normalise baby banks in the way we've done so with food banks, thereby apparently absolving the government of any responsibility? That's the view of Fiona. And a reminder, if you need one, you can email the programme on any subject you like, whenever you like, via our website, bbc.co.uk forward slash Women's Hour. If you've been listening to our How To series,

you will know that throughout the summer we've been running practical guides to some of life's trickier areas, from how to change career to how to be a good friend or even how to end a relationship well. If you've missed out, you can go to the Women's Hour website and you can read up on the best advice and tips in our collection of articles designed to accompany that series.

And don't forget, of course, BBC Sounds is the place to go to subscribe to the Woman's Hour podcast. It comes into your inbox every day and it's just a way of catching up with the programme. If you're not able to listen live, there's always additional content as well. The podcast is where we put your brilliant emails these days. Now, the multi-award winning novelist Zadie Smith is a professor of fiction at New York University and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She's also published two collections of essays. So we shouldn't be surprised by the fact that the coronavirus pandemic has provided a bit more inspiration for her.

She spent the lockdown partly in New York, partly in London, and now she's written Intimations, six essays she wrote during the early months of lockdown. At the end of one essay, Something to Do, she writes that she's comforted to discover she isn't the only person who's no idea what life is for. Jenny asked her why she found that a comfort. It's nice not to be alone in these

extreme feelings. And I was very struck by the sudden emptiness, you know, silence inside yourself when you're not permanently distracted by tasks, things to do. Maybe it's what Buddhists know when they sit and meditate for eight hours. But for the rest of us, I think it was something of a shock to find how, in my case, how little inner resources you had, in fact. And for me, the book is a demonstration of that. I fell back on the only thing I know, which is typing. There's an essay called Peonies, where you become fascinated by some tulips that are growing and garish. You're out in the street and you want them to be pianists.

Why? You know, a lot of fiction writing is a kind of rewrite and kind of aesthetic re-representation of experience and I'm always aware of that in myself and I wanted to write an essay being honest about that instinct and about the gap between that kind of essentialization of your life

and your real life. And I thought about it. I mean, obviously, all novelists know that. That's their personal experience. But I thought of all the many writers we have everywhere now. Everyone's a writer now, online, all the time, daily. And it seemed to me, just sometimes talking to my students or other friends, that there is also a large gap between that daily performance, that unpaid labour that

everybody's doing and their real lives. And I wanted to make the connection to try and remember what a real life is. In the essay called Suffering Like Mel Gibson, you write about a conversation between two working class women, and you're at pains to point out that they are working class women, talking about a rich woman they've seen who's wheeling her child down 8th Avenue and the child has an iPad. How exactly did that conversation go? Oh, that's something that happened to me when one of my kids was very young and I was standing behind them in a line and they were talking about the outrage of seeing a small child with an iPad and I was getting very enraged with them and wanted to get involved in the conversation.

But as they spoke i realized that i was thinking of the effect of technology on small children and they were thinking entirely reasonably of the outrage of giving something worth nine hundred dollars to a small child and it just struck me that that conversation is something i would have understood say 10 years ago and that whenever you move through life there's this constant change in your awareness dependent on your class dependent on your position obviously my position has changed so what came to me was a kind of liberal ethics argument about technology instead of a vital economic argument about technology noting that in in myself i suppose when i'm writing i'm trying to encourage

other people to to notice these differences between themselves and others and not always put themselves on the winning side of every difference. How much of your time as a writer is spent just what you could call earwigging, I suppose, overhearing other people's conversations? Oh, man. I mean, I don't do it consciously. I don't want people to avoid me in the street. But it's certainly the case, particularly when I was younger, that the buses and trains,

any kind of communal situation has always been thrilling for me to hear a variety of people sitting next to each other, speaking often from completely different worlds right next to each other. That is my happy place, I suppose. And it still continues. I do often have an ear out, but I never have a pad and paper. I'm not a, you know, vulture after human experience, but I'm entertained and always curious. It always strikes me when I hear someone speak,

my God, you live in a completely different world than me and from the person next to you and from the person next to them. And that's the animating thing for me when I'm writing. Having spent the last months partly in New York and partly in the UK, how different was the experience of the virus and the lockdown in those very different places? I mean, I can't really underestimate the difference. I'm sure there are people listening who had experience of both. I mean, even now in New York, I left in late May, and every man, woman, child, dogs, sometimes that's not an exaggeration, is wearing a mask in all situations, biking, running, everywhere at all times.

And there is a sense of, I don't want to say fear, because I don't think New Yorkers are fearful, but they have been heavily traumatized, which is what happens when 40,000 people die in one state. They're not playing, as you'd say in New York. And when I came to London and saw people picnicking, people breathing on each other, I felt like the ancient mariner, you know,

constantly horrified by something. It's a time lapse, perhaps, but it was really disturbing. Yeah, it was a disturbing thing to see. What particularly horrified you here? It started very early on in March when anybody in America who had British relatives or European relatives was phoning home saying, please do this, please wear a mask, please don't, you know, wash down your packages or whatever we thought at the time. And the response you'd get from English friends was laughter, you know, that you'd gone mad or you were hypervigilant or you watched too much crazy news. So it was always like that. And at each stage, there was a time lapse and you had to learn not to get angry with people because they were dealing with the reality that was in front of them, the media that was in front of them. I think that the main lesson for me was what an incredible influence the media has in constructing reality, which I know is not news, but very intense to see that.

And you say very clearly that the virus creates inequalities. How would you hope the virus and the inequalities it creates might be resolved? Oh, I don't think the virus creates inequalities. I think it exposes them. And what it exposes more than anything is the fact that some of these differences, these inequalities we've allowed to exist between groups of people are existential. They are deadly. hope is that this experience will make people think again about what the commons might be and what it might involve. I mean, when people look back on, say, a book like White Teeth and think of it as whatever they think of it as, happy multicultural land, they're missing the main point of that book. It is a description of a community in which there were certainly several differences between all kinds of people in the kind of schools I went to. But those differences were not existential. They were not deadly. So though there were recent immigrants in those schools, there were poor children,

black children, middle class, white children, Asian children, we could expect certain things to come to us more or less equally. Our health care, for example, our university access, there was a possibility that we could go to university for free all of us the differences between us which were many economic personal religious were not existential we have now created a situation in this country and in america too where those differences are deadly and can be deadly not only in the literal sense but in terms of your life expectancies your life hopes hopes, your professional future, where you live, what you earn. That's what I mean by existential. So for me, those kind of differences, they can't ever disappear, but they can be made more safe. They can be

neutralised. We know how to do it. We've done it in this country before. And so I hope for a re-emergence of that commons. Zadie Smith, and that book of essays is published under the title Intimations. John Hume won the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the Northern Ireland peace process and his funeral was held this week, on Wednesday. During it, Father Paul Farron said, When the history of Ireland is written, if Pat Hume's name is not beside John's, it will be an incomplete history. Pat, his wife, had been at his side and a very active partner throughout the tough times during the Troubles,

during the years of peace and during his years of living with dementia. So who is she? Jenny talked to Monica McWilliams, Emeritus Professor at Ulster University, and to Ema O'Callaghan, a former BBC News editor in Derry. Here's Ema. Pat was never the quiet wife in the background doing her duty. She was John's equal intellectually, politically and every other way. She's been described as his eyes and ears on the ground when he would have been away traveling internationally

doing what he was doing best and she was there in touch with the ordinary people looking after the ordinary issues and keeping a feel for the place and she was his advisor, confidant, protector, supporter, everything that a partner could be. Monica we know they had five children and had a very very tough time particularly during the 70s and 80s what kind of toll did that really difficult period have on them well pat was um survivor as as most of us had to become and she was a teacher and she had to become the breadwinner because the assembly collapsed in 1974, putting John, who had been a minister and a leader in those negotiations, out of a job. So she just got on with her life, rearing five children, bringing in the money, making sure they stayed safe and supporting him in every possible way. And when he got back into politics, she was running the constituency work for him, entertaining politicians in her home, making pots of stew, putting on the kettle,

speaking to journalists, doing everything a politician does. But in those early days, they were tough. I remember Pat describing John coming home after one of the first civil rights marches, the 5th of October, I think in 68, soaked to the skin. He had been standing trying to pacify things and knew they were getting out of hand. But it didn't help when he got covered from head to toe by a water cannon, as did most people who were there. So that's the kind of life that she had to protect her children in. The family home was a dangerous place, wasn't it?

Yes, yes, and John was taking risks personally for political reasons, but it was her and the family at times alone when John was travelling, as cards often do, came to harass them. And Pat walked, as Aidan told me, across the border with five children into Donegal to get some respite from it all and to keep them safe. Now, I think to a lot of people, a turning point in the peace process was when John began talking to the Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams. I think that was in 1993. Let's just listen to Pat remembering that time. A neighbour had seen Gerry Adams

and knew that he had been with John. And the following day, it spread like wildfire that John Hume was speaking to Gerry Adams. And immediate demonisation began. He was vilified from one end of Ireland to the other end of Ireland for what he was doing. How did that feel at the time, being in the eye of that storm? It was very, very, very difficult and very difficult for our children as well

to read in the papers. They just were, I hadn't told any of them about John and these talks and they were completely at sea about the whole thing and found it difficult. There were party members and friends and colleagues who were also at a loss to understand why John was engaged in those talks. And John had kept the talks very much to himself because I think his feeling was, if heads were to roll, let his head roll. Ema, how involved was she with the peace process as it went on and politicians like Bill Clinton who came along? She was always there as a presence. I think what's significant about that interview that we just listened to, Pat was saying she didn't tell her children.

Nobody in the community at large knew what was going on between John Hume and Gerry Adams. But Pat was part of it. Pat was privy to that information. So she was sharing that burden with him. So she was very much part, the other half of John. She mixed, she mingled with presidents and prime ministers and diplomats. She would have entertained people

from the highest order at home in Derry or at her home in Donegal. But she was always totally at ease, totally confident, self-assured, never overawed by the occasions or by personalities. You know, she was a woman without pretension and was happiest when she was among her own

people probably, but she could acquit herself in any company. I say a brave, feisty, intelligent, clever woman and a confident, obviously, of John's. You know, I think it's really important that the foundation was the John and Pat Hume

Foundation for Peaceful Change and Reconciliation, that both their names are there. And she also had a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018. What did all that mean to her? I think at the time it was embarrassing for her.

Pat, while she was always there by John's side, she didn't seek the limelight. She didn't want to be out front. So in November 2018, the Irish Red Cross announced they were going to honour her with a Lifetime Award for service to the community, basically. The award was presented by the former SDLP leader, Mark Durkan. And John wasn't able to go. He was too ill at that stage. And she was lauded as a sense of heart and hope and a perpetual tonic during the troubles a true humanitarian ethic you know that's what she had

but pat's reaction was that first of all she was shocked by the response she was overwhelmed she was humbled um and then in her acceptance of the award what she said is that i have gradually come to recognize that i am here to represent many people people who have struggled to sustain fundamental human values amidst the brutal tragedy of social conflict and also of those who struggle with the smaller daily challenges of living alongside long-term illness. You know, she was an incredibly modest woman.

How significant, Monica, was her openness about her husband's dementia? She spoke publicly when the book was published in 2015 on the Irish RTE channel and it's very very sad to listen to that but also very powerful. She talked about living with dementia and how people didn't understand dementia and I used to sit beside John after he was ill and I understood what she must have been going through, and it was a long, long illness. And she was calm, always calm. When I said about the cup of tea, it's very powerful what can happen,

as we've just heard from Eimear. Underneath the radar, when you sit and enter a dialogue, a very important dialogue. Someone described it as the Cobra Room in Derry when those talks were taking place and they were making such a difference. And it was her who was creating the calmness, pouring the oil in troubled waters,

as Breach Rogers described her. That's the woman I knew. And she was also a public speaker. She probably didn't seek limelight in any way. But some of the best speeches I ever heard came from Pat. She didn't make them often, but she stood up in Washington when she was appointed after the Good Friday Agreement, along with Daphne Trimble, who was married to Dave Trimble. And they were appointed to monitor and see if they could fundraise for victims.

Just after we had signed the agreement in 1998, and it was a very powerful speech. Anybody would have reached into their pockets after hearing Pat speak. Monica McWilliams, Emeritus Professor at Ulster University, and you also heard in that conversation from Ema O'Callaghan, a former BBC News editor in Londonderry. Now, there have been concerns about a rise in plastic use during the coronavirus and I have to say,

you do see those discarded face masks just littering the streets everywhere and when I mentioned how annoyed I'd been about that, two of you took the time and trouble to make me reusable masks. So thank you very much. I have taken both home and I will use them from now on. Thank you for that. It's a very nice thought. Ella and Amy Meek are sisters from Nottingham.

They are 15 and 17 respectively, and the founders of the campaign Kids Against Plastic. They were talking this week at an online climate change forum, Race Against Climate Change, hosted by the all-electric Formula E race team Envision Virgin Racing. I asked Ella why she was so passionate about plastic. Well, our parents have always brought us up to really care about the environment and the planet and love wildlife and nature in general.

So when we were researching plastic pollution four years ago now, where no one really knew about this issue, we saw how terrible it was and how bad of a global problem it was. So when we knew about this huge issue, we knew we couldn't just turn a blind eye to it and carry on like normal. We had to spread awareness so that the people knew like we did. Right. And is it the single use plastic that you're particularly passionate about? Yes. yeah. We understand that plastic is a really amazing material. It's really durable and flexible.

So we understand how good of a material it is, but it's these single-use items like single-use plastic bottles that could be replaced easily with other materials or just use reusables instead. And it's those kind of items that get discarded after five minutes yet last forever that really we think could be changed. Yeah, Amy, the really impressive thing about you both is that there are lots of people who feel very angry about things, perhaps just for a couple of seconds, and they pack it away and

they get on with the rest of their life. You two have actually done something. Can you explain the difference between just noticing and getting cross and then forgetting about it and actually harnessing that annoyance and making progress on an issue? Yeah, I think for us, when we first found out about plastic in particular, we saw from future generations' perspective, this is an issue that we are going to inherit from our parents. So if we don't do anything about it, then, you know, we're going to inherit a massive plastic legacy. But we totally understand that it is really hard to go from learning about this issue to actually

doing something because it is so immense. There's so many different streams of plastic pollution and plastic is everywhere in our everyday lives. You just have to go to the supermarket to see that. So, it can be hard to find that link between this is a massive problem, but what can I do? Which is why when we always try and encourage people to reduce plastic usage, we never say, look, go completely plastic-free because it is so difficult, it's time-consuming, and it's unmanageable for most people, including ourselves. So, we always encourage people to become what we call plastic clever, which is where we encourage people to stop using four items in particular, which are cups and lids, straws,

bottles and bags, because it's a really easy first step to take. And all you need to do instead is just swap in reusable items. Right. OK. And in fact, you set yourselves the task of, well, you started with the real basics. You went round collecting rubbish. How many pieces, Amy, did you collect? Well, we set ourselves the goal of picking up 100,000 pieces, which is one for every sea mammal killed by plastic in the oceans every year. And we're now currently on just over 77,000 pieces of plastic. So over three quarters of the way there. Well, do you think, Ella, that actually lockdown has,

it's put us all back, hasn't it really, in terms of the environment and our use particularly of single-use plastic? Yeah, definitely. I mean, at this point with coronavirus happening, we do need single-use items like face masks and gloves just to make sure the virus isn't spread between people and we completely understand that. But there have been steps back in terms of, for example, coffee cups. You can't bring in a reusable coffee cup in some places now.

And luckily, that has been proven that it doesn't carry germs because obviously you put boiling water in. So now these places are accepting reusable coffee mugs again. But there were a few steps back that were a bit frustrating, but we did see why it was happening. You're both fantastically articulate and brilliant performers. Amy, I was watching your TED talk on YouTube yesterday and the audience were, well, they were clearly very impressed by you, but they were older. And I do wonder sometimes whether people of my age and frankly, 15, 20 years younger, do we get it sufficiently? Well, I don't think that necessarily it's kind of an issue that some generations get, some generations don't. I think...

I think that's quite generous of you, actually, I have to say, but carry on. Well, I think, you know, in every generation, there are always going to be people that are really motivated to tackle this issue and some people that aren't as motivated or, you know, don't care so much about the environment. And I think our generation has got a bit of a reputation now for being quite eco-conscious, which is great because I think, you know, especially social media and spreading awareness of these issues, you know, I think a lot more people know about them now, which is great. But I think it's kind of a bit unfair to point the finger at certain generations because, you know, I don't think anyone purposefully, for example, created plastic to think, oh, you know, a few generations down the line, this is going to be a massive problem that they can't control. So,

actually, I think we try not to point the finger and actually think that everyone has a massive potential to reduce their plastic usage and to, you reduce their carbon footprint it's not a kind of pitting people against each other and on the issue of disposable masks because i'm very conscious obviously we are wearing them on the tube for example on buses in in london right now should i i should really try and buy a more upmarket version of the mask, shouldn't I really, not use the disposables? Well, there are reusable masks out there, which is, you know, which is great. And you can even make them at home just out of cloth, which is really great. It doesn't have to be something that's really expensive

because it has been frustrating, especially when we've been going on litter picks more recently to sort of see a real increase in the number of face masks that we've been picking up. Oh, they're everywhere. Yeah, and, you know, there's been news articles now about how face masks are going to be a really prominent form of plastic pollution in the ocean. And it's really horrific to see that really quick change from, you know, not seeing much of this litter to actually it being so prolific. So,

yeah, we definitely encourage people to use reusables where possible, but at least please don't drop your face mask or your gloves on the ground as litter. Quite. Amy and Ella Meek, those fantastic sisters from Nottingham. Jenny will be with you next week on Monday. She'll be discussing the BBC Sport Elite British Sportswomen Survey 2020, which is published that morning. Thank you very much for listening today. Keep in touch with the programme via the website or on social media. We love hearing from you.

Don't forget, Listener Week comes up August 24th when every single idea on the programme will be suggested by you. You can email us via the website to give us an idea of what you'd like to hear about that week. Have a good week. I'll be back the week after. Jenny here, Monday morning.

Hello, it's me, Greg Jenner, the bloke from that funny history podcast, You're Dead to Me. Big news, we are back, once again combining the talents of comedians and expert historians as we explore stuff like ancient Egyptian pyramids, Genghis Khan and 19th century vampire literature. Search for You're Dead to Me on the BBC Sounds app. 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.