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Woman's Hour

Boxer Francesca Hennessy, NEETS, Painter Caroline Walker

Woman's Hour

BBC

Society & Culture, Health & Fitness, Personal Journals

4.22.9K Ratings

🗓️ 20 November 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Francesca Hennessy is the 21-year-old shaking up women’s boxing. Nicknamed the 'Billion Dollar Baby', she’s unbeaten in her first six professional fights and will be fighting on the bill when boxing returns to BBC primetime TV, free-to-air on a Saturday night for the first time in 20 years later this month. She’ll face former world champion Fabiana Bytyqi, marking the biggest test of her career. Francesca joins Anita Rani along with BBC Boxing reporter Kal Sajad to discuss what this means for women’s boxing.

Figures just released by the ONS show the number of NEETS - young people 'not in education, employment or training' - remains at a concerning level. In next week's Budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves is expected to give more details on how the Government is planning to tackle these rising numbers. Historically, more women than men have been NEET, but in recent years that trend has reversed, with young men more likely than young women to be NEET. But with one in eight people aged 16 to 24 in the UK now believed to be NEET, what does it mean to be one? And what is being done to bring the number of NEETS down? To unpick this, Anita is joined by BBC's Employment Correspondent Zoe Conway.

Scottish painter Caroline Walker explores the realities of motherhood in her exhibition, Mothering, at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester. She began painting maternal themes after becoming a mother in 2019. Her work includes Birth Reflections paintings which depict maternity care in hospitals and the domestic scenes of early motherhood. Walker’s paintings show everyday details such as breast pumps, baby grows and unfinished drinks, highlighting the unseen labour of modern parenting. Her art has become increasingly autobiographical, featuring her children and family life in Scotland. Caroline Walker joins Anita to discuss identity shifts, domestic realities, and the value of caregiving.

Suzanne Edwards is currently taking part in ground-breaking medical trials that involve her learning how to move her legs using neural implants. Suzanne has been a sportswoman for decades, both before and since a life-changing accident 14 years ago, and she explains how this training has informed her approach to taking part in medical research.

Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Corinna Jones

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

0:07.0

Hello, I'm Emma Barnett. For most of my career, I've been on live radio, and I love it.

0:13.3

But I've always wondered, what if we'd had more time? How much deeper does the story go?

0:19.2

I remember having this very sharp thought that what you do right now, this is it.

0:24.3

This defines your life.

0:26.0

I'm ready to talk and ready to listen.

0:28.3

I'm insulted by how little the medical community is ever bothered with this.

0:33.9

Ready to talk with me, Emma Barnard, is my new podcast.

0:37.0

Listen on BBC Sounds. Hello, I'm Anita

0:40.1

Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to the program. I'll be

0:46.7

speaking to a woman who experienced a life-changing accident at the age of 22 when a balcony collapsed

0:52.9

beneath her in Morocco. She broke her spine

0:55.7

and lost the use of her legs. Now Susanna Edwards is participating in cutting edge medical trials

1:01.7

aimed at helping people with complete paralysis move again. Also, she's been labelled the billion

1:08.1

dollar baby at only 21. Francesca Hennessy is unbeaten in her first six professional fights,

1:14.4

and she's here for a round in Woman's Hour, HQ.

1:17.7

Actually, I'm not calling it out, Francesca, by the way.

1:20.3

I'm fully going to remain on this side of the studio.

1:24.0

Francesca is from a boxing family and grew up with it all around her, even though she wasn't expected to go into it.

1:30.0

So can you relate?

1:31.6

Did you grow up heavily influenced by what your family was doing or even just a member of the family?

1:37.3

Were you encouraged or discouraged from following in their footsteps?

...

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