Jessica Fellowes on the roaring twenties and comparisons with life today as come out of lockdown.
Woman's Hour
BBC
4.1 • 3K Ratings
🗓️ 7 April 2021
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As we begin to emerge from lockdown, what are the similarities with the ‘Roaring 20s’ 100 years ago when Britain, having survived the Spanish Flu and the Great War, became a hedonistic playground? Will this time create a need for crowds, parties, touch, and an urge to ‘get out and enjoy life’? Jessica Fellowes, author of Mitford Murders crime series and companion books to the television series Downton Abbey, describes the Bright Young Things who were the influencers of their day, ‘Bachelor Girls’ who no longer needed to be married to enjoy independence, and gives parallels with how technology transformed lifestyles – from the labour saving devices that freed women from endless housework, to the internet which enables women to work from home today.
The public’s understanding of dementia is generally very poor and the message we receive about it are overwhelmingly negative. Could fiction be the answer to showing a more rounded and factual portrayal? Emma Barnett talks to Wendy Mitchell, Anna Wharton and Professor Jan Oyebode.
Presenter: Emma Barnett Producer: Lisa Jenkinson Studio Engineer: Tanzy Leitner
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:06.0 | Good morning. Well, on one hand, we seem to be driving towards the big unlock and hoping |
| 0:10.5 | for our lives to resume normality as soon as possible. But on the other, there are new |
| 0:15.0 | realities which seem like they are going to be our norm which weren't there before, whether |
| 0:19.4 | its face masks, hand sanitizer and the potential for COVID passports. The government has said |
| 0:25.8 | COVID status certificates could be used at theatres, nightclubs, mass events like festivals |
| 0:30.9 | from June onwards. They could be used to prove if a person has been vaccinated, has had a recent |
| 0:36.3 | negative test or has natural immunity. But they're controversial. And if put to evoke, |
| 0:42.1 | the government will face opposition from its own benches as well as labour. On today's |
| 0:46.8 | programme, we're going to explore the case for and against these as well as any particular |
| 0:50.7 | impact on women. But where do you come out on this? Would you mind carrying some form |
| 0:55.5 | of car to show your status on COVID? Or does it go against your civil liberties? Or perhaps |
| 1:01.0 | you think, well, my civil liberties have been in fringe for the last year or so. This is |
| 1:05.6 | just a part of getting back to normal. Where do you come out on this? 84844, please |
| 1:10.6 | text women's oral and that, text will be charged your standard message rate or let me know |
| 1:14.9 | on social media at BBC Women's Hour or email us through our website. But this sort of |
| 1:20.0 | car carrying flies in the face of another discussion we're having today on the programme |
| 1:24.4 | around the roaring 20s. 100 years ago when Britain, having survived the Spanish flu and |
| 1:30.2 | the Great War, became a hedonistic playground, some are saying our 2020s, 100 years on, |
| 1:36.0 | could be the same. The writer Jessica Fellows will tell us more, she's extensively researched |
| 1:40.8 | that period. And we're going to explore what life actually feels like for those living |
| 1:46.1 | with dementia, twice as many women affected as men in the UK. And what role fiction can |
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