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Woman's Hour

Jilly Cooper, Rachel Goldberg – mother of hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Women & binge drinking, Perinatal pelvic health service.

Woman's Hour

BBC

Society & Culture

4.13K Ratings

🗓️ 8 November 2023

⏱️ 58 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Jilly Cooper began her career as a journalist, wrote columns on marriage, sex and housework for the Sunday Times, and numerous works of non-fiction before turning to romance novels - to great success. She has sold more than two million copies of her books including: Riders, Rivals, and Polo - taking us into the glamorous worlds of show jumping and classical music. Her latest novel Tackle! takes us to the football pitch and features her legendary hero Rupert Campbell-Black. Jilly joins Emma to talk about football, why there is less sex in her novels now, and her view on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reading her books.

Yesterday marked a month since Hamas launched its unprecedented attack on Israel in which 1,400 people were killed and more than 200 men, women and children taken hostage. One of those seized and kidnapped was Hersh Goldberg-Polin - a 23-year-old dual Israeli American citizen who was attending the Supernova music festival - the site of which became a massacre of a majority of young people - more than 250 people at the hands of Hamas. Hersh lost an arm during that attack but is still believed to be alive. Since then more than 10,300 people have been killed in Gaza according to the Hamas-run health ministry in retaliatory air strikes by Israeli forces demanding the return of its citizens. Emma speaks to Hersh's mother Rachel Goldberg.

A new report by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, which compared alcohol consumption across 38 countries, British women top the list as the heaviest binge drinkers alongside Denmark. The OECD found that 26% of British women reported binge drinking at least once a month - defined as having at least six drinks in a single session. Emma discusses the issues with Dr Helen Garr, GP and Medical Director of NHS Practitioner Health, a mental health and addiction service for healthcare professionals; and Catherine Gray, the author of The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober.

The government has announced £11 million in funding for the NHS in England to roll out a dedicated perinatal pelvic health service across all trusts. The aim of these new perinatal pelvic health services will be to help educate and assess women during pregnancy and after a traumatic birth – but how will it work? And is it enough? Emma speaks to Jacqui Barrett, who had a traumatic birth and was incontinent for a year, Professor Swati Jha, consultant gynaecologist and spokesperson for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and the Conservative MP Maria Caulfield, who is the Women’s Health Minister.

Presented by Emma Barnett Producer: Louise Corley Studio engineer: Gayl Gordon

Transcript

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0:00.0

You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and trust me you'll get there in a moment but if you're a comedy fan

0:05.2

I'd really like to tell you a bit about what we do. I'm Julie Mackenzie and I commission comedy

0:10.2

podcast at the BBC. It's a bit of a dream job really.

0:13.0

Comedy is a fantastic joyous thing to do because really you're making people laugh,

0:18.0

making people's days a bit better, helping them process, all manner of things.

0:22.0

But you know I also know that comedy is really

0:24.4

subjective and everyone has different tastes so we've got a huge range of comedy on offer

0:29.6

from satire to silly shocking to soothing profound to just general pratting about. So if you

0:36.2

fancy a laugh, find your next comedy at BBC Sounds.

0:41.0

BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.

0:45.0

Hello, I'm Emma Barnet and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4.

0:50.0

Good morning and welcome to the program.

0:52.0

How's your head today? I'm asking because we hear that women in the UK

0:56.3

are some of the heaviest binge drinkers in the world. This is new research and for this purpose

1:00.8

just in case you want to know exactly what that means, it means six drinks in one session.

1:05.0

Once a month, why do you think that is? You might not think it's that bad.

1:10.0

Men are heavy drinkers too, I should say say but what is driving women's relationship

1:14.2

with booze what's yours like where are you with it this morning perhaps it's quite

1:19.0

fresh in your mind the number is 848-44 that's the need the number you need to text on social media at BBC women's hour or email me

1:26.2

through the women's our website or you can send a what's that message or voice notes

1:30.4

using the number oh three seven, 100, 444. Those numbers you can get in touch with

1:36.4

Julie Cooper today. Well via us that is because she's going to be here. She of

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