Nursery fees, Linda Bassett, Maria Semple
Woman's Hour
BBC
4.1 • 3K Ratings
🗓️ 26 May 2026
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has urged the competition watchdog to look into hidden extra charges some parents have encountered when trying to access Government-funded childcare. The Department for Education said 'too many' parents have reported being asked to pay extra to secure a place – including waiting list deposits, compulsory add-ons or additional hours to access what they are entitled to. So what impact is this having on parents? Joeli Brearley, founder of Growth Spurt and a campaigner for working parents, explains to Nuala McGovern.
Young people want more age-specific protections for online spaces, according to new research from the Ada Lovelace Institute. Aged between 14 and 24, those who took part in the Nuffield Foundation’s Grown up? Journeys into adulthood programme – say they want to make sure future generations are not exposed to the same online harms they have experienced. Octavia Field Reid, Associate Director of Public Participation at the Ada Lovelace Institute, discusses their findings.
Care for the elderly, whether in hospital, a specialised residential setting, or a person’s own home, is one of our most pressing social issues. Not regularly looked at by the entertainment industry, a new play is addressing this topic. Most familiar in her role as Phyllis Crane in Call the Midwife, we hear from Linda Bassett who plays Joan - an unwilling new arrival in a decidedly unglamorous care home in CARE, now on stage at the Young Vic in London.
Maria Semple is the bestselling author of books including Where’d You Go, Bernadette, which was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize. Her latest novel, Go Gentle, focuses on Adora Hazzard - a Stoic philosopher and divorcee living on New York City’s Upper West Side. She has a job as a moral tutor for an old money family. She is assembling a ‘coven’ of like-minded single women living on the 6th floor of the legendary Ansonia building. But then a chance encounter with a charming stranger threatens her joyfully curated life. She joins Nuala to discuss the idea of ‘invisible’ women who are just getting started.
Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Kirsty Starkey
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
| 0:07.2 | Things just swirling around my head. |
| 0:09.6 | Am I really the product of this? |
| 0:12.1 | Astonishing secrets uncovered by at-home DNA tests. |
| 0:17.0 | Little did I know what more was to come. |
| 0:19.5 | I'm Jenny Clemen, and in the new series of The Gift, we'll hear more stories emerging |
| 0:25.2 | out of the ever-expanding global DNA database. |
| 0:28.8 | They did know that I was different. |
| 0:31.7 | You had kids together. |
| 0:33.0 | Yeah. |
| 0:33.5 | Then you met. |
| 0:35.3 | The Gift. |
| 0:36.1 | Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:39.3 | Hello, this is Neula McGovern and you're listening to The Woman's Hour podcast. |
| 0:43.8 | Hello and welcome to the program. |
| 0:46.1 | Hidden extra charges in nurseries in just a moment, but also today. |
| 0:51.6 | Single women living on the same floor of an apartment block in New York, sharing groceries, TV subscriptions, a hairdresser, even a dog walker. |
| 1:00.5 | It is the setting of Maria Semple's new novel, Go Gentle. |
| 1:04.1 | And we have more than groceries to unpack with Maria. |
| 1:07.3 | That interview is coming up. |
| 1:08.7 | But I wondered, does living with other women sound like |
| 1:12.3 | utopia to you? Or is that your idea of hell? I'd love to hear if you've lived in any |
... |
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