Summary
At night women say goodbye, telling each other "text me when you're home". We carry keys between our knuckles, avoid dark streets, cross the road, then cross back again, keep looking over your shoulder.
In Night Watch, four women from different parts of Britain share stories of street harassment. Woven through this feature is a new, specially commissioned poem by Hollie McNish.
The murders of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa compounded the perception of city streets as male spaces- unwelcoming and unsafe for women, and other marginalised groups. Is this the way it's always been?
In these raw and unfiltered accounts women will hear their own experiences echoed back in others' words; stories of shouted insults, rejected come-ons, intimidation.
Featuring the voices Nosisa and Alison Majuqwana, Aggie Hewitt, Katie Cuddon, Alice Jackson the co-founder of Strut Safe, author Rebecca Solnit, author and moral philosopher at Cornell University Kate Manne and design activist Jos Boys.
If you've been impacted by any of the issues raised in this documentary contact details for support organisations can be found in this link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2MfW34HqH7tTCtnmx7LVfzp/information-and-support-victims-of-crime
Producer: Caitlin Smith Poetry: Hollie McNish Sound Design: Joel Cox Executive Producer: Peter McManus
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This was an impregnable fortress. The only way you get out was in a wooden box. |
| 0:05.0 | The controversial maximum security prison impossible to escape from. |
| 0:09.0 | And one of the duties of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.0 | The IRA inmates who found a way. of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.5 | The IRA inmates who found a way. |
| 0:14.5 | I'm Carlo Gableer and I'll be navigating a path |
| 0:19.5 | through the disturbing inside story of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history. |
| 0:25.0 | The narrative that they want is that this is a big achievement by them. |
| 0:28.5 | Escape from the maze, listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:34.0 | BBC Sounds. |
| 0:35.0 | BBC Sounds, Music Radio Podcasts. |
| 0:39.0 | Hi there, you're listening to seriously from BBC Radio 4 and I'm your host Vanessa |
| 0:46.6 | Casule. Radio 4 is home to the world's best audio documentaries and each week |
| 0:52.0 | you'll find two hand-picked programs in this feed. |
| 0:55.0 | You're about to hear something gripping, extraordinary and seriously unforgettable. |
| 1:37.1 | I usually wear trainers and a rock sack so then I'm prepared tired of being on guard the beauty of darkness and stars stolen over and over again by men who just used to be boys. So much advice on how to stay safe. Every walk home a constant cacophony of what to avoid. Lest you be blamed for the actions of men who just used to be boys. |
| 1:45.0 | Is that being on a drug but not good like because your senses are so aware of your whole surroundings but it's just pure fear like the |
| 1:56.7 | drug is fear and you're trying to like just be in control of anything that could happen in any seconds. |
| 2:03.2 | You know, as soon as it gets dark now, I'm on edge. |
| 2:10.9 | You sort of take mental notes of, are they male, are they female? |
| 2:17.0 | Each noise and new risk, each footstep, each breath closing in, then passing, please passing, each footstep again, each rustle of star |
| 2:26.5 | in the breeze, each moonbeam in puddle, heart stops at every new shadow. |
... |
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