Listener Week: MND and women, Not being a granny, Studying later in life

Woman's Hour

BBC

Society & Culture, Health & Fitness, Personal Journals

4.2 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 6 August 2025

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Motor Neurone Disease is a condition that affects nerves found in the brain and spinal cord which tell our muscles what to do. The disease is life shortening and there is no cure. One listener, Diana Keys, was diagnosed in May 2023. She tells us about her experience and asks why does representation of MND in the media skew so heavily towards men? Diana is joined by Dame Pamela Shaw, an academic neurologist and world-leading researcher in MND.

Listener Sally Ruffles describes herself as a 68 year old woman with one daughter and no grandchildren. She got in touch with Woman's Hour for Listener Week to say: "There’s this common assumption that having grandchildren is always a wonderful thing. But nobody really stops to think that not having them might also be okay—or even a positive thing for some people." She joins Nuala with her daughter Hannah, who persuaded her mother to write to Woman's Hour, to discuss why it can be difficult to talk about not being a grandparent.

We talk to women living full time on the UK’s waterways. Charlotte Ashman is an artist and print maker and Jo Bell is a writer and former UK Canal Laureate. They tell us about their lives, their work and the pros and cons of narrowboat living.

Have you ever thought about going back to school? Recent graduates Sue Goldsmith & Rahat Ismail both returned to studying later in life. They join Nuala to discuss what took them back to education and the value of lifelong learning.

Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Emma Pearce

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:06.0	Hello, this is Neula McGovern, and you're listening to The Woman's Hour podcast.
0:10.4	Hello, and welcome to listener week on Woman's Hour.
0:13.9	This is the week where your ideas create the program.
0:16.7	Thanks so much to all of you who got in touch.
0:19.2	In a moment, we'll meet Diana, who is MND, motor neuron disease,
0:23.6	and wants to raise awareness of women that are diagnosed with it.
0:27.5	Also, Women's Hour has discussed women not becoming mothers.
0:31.9	But what about not becoming a grandmother?
0:34.4	Our listener, Sally, wants to explore the societal expectations that she has encountered
0:38.5	on that front. I'm sure many of you will have thoughts on this. If your children are not able to
0:44.2	have children or have chosen not to, please get in touch. Or indeed, if you've not had children
0:49.2	yourself and so will not become a grandmother, I'd also like to hear your perspective. You can text
0:54.1	the program. The number is 84844. On social media, we're at BBC Woman's Hour, or you can email us through our website. For a WhatsApp message or a voice note, use the number 0-3700-100-444. Sally and her daughter, Hannah, will both be with us. We're also going to connect this hour with women who live on narrow boats and hear about what our listener, Dina, called the challenges and delights for women of the waterways.
1:19.7	And we'll be talking about studying in later life.
1:22.6	We have two remarkable women who headed back in their 50s and 70s and both graduated with firsts.
1:28.3	So I'm looking forward to meeting Sue and Rahat and hearing about their motivation.
1:32.3	They'll also be in the Woman's Hour studio.
1:35.3	But let me begin because several listeners wrote to Women's Hour to share their experience
1:40.3	of being diagnosed or caring for a woman who has with motor neuron disease.
1:48.4	Motor neuron disease, you might also know it as MND, is a condition that causes muscles to weaken and they can deteriorate quite quickly.
1:57.7	The condition is usually life shortening and there is no cure. Women make up 40% of
	...

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