Sister Bliss, Maternity reports, River women, Karis Kelly

Woman's Hour

BBC

Society & Culture, Health & Fitness, Personal Journals

4.2 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 20 August 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sister Bliss started out DJing on London’s gay club scene, before co-founding Faithless in 1995 and became one of the few women of her generation to help shape UK dance culture. Faithless have sold more than 20 million albums and amassed close to a billion streams. 30 years on from the hit dance anthem Insomnia, she joins Nuala McGovern to discuss their latest album - Champion Sound.

Too many recommendations, not enough implementation - these are the findings of the latest report into maternity services in England, from the Health Services Safety Investigations Body. It has pressed pause on its own investigation to make way for a new government rapid review to be led by Baroness Valerie Amos. So why are the findings of multiple reports and reviews not yet leading to change? Nuala finds out with BBC Social Affairs correspondent Michael Buchanan, and maternity campaigner Emily Barley, who lost her own daughter due to maternity failings in 2022.

Winner of the Women’s Prize for Playwriting 2022, Karis Kelly’s play Consumed is described as a pitch-black and twisted comedy of dysfunctional family dynamics, generational trauma and national boundaries set in Northern Ireland. Currently well-received on stage at the Edinburgh Festival, Karis explains why she chose to focus her story on the lives of four generations of women from the same family.

You might love your local river, but enough to marry it? One woman felt so strongly about protecting the River Avon in Bristol that she took part in a wedding to it...she is part of a group of women bathers and activists who want the watercourse to have the right to be free from pollution. Megan Trump, or Mrs Meg Avon as she is now known, and Charlotte Sawyer are in the Woman's Hour studio.

Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Kirsty Starkey

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:05.6	Hello, this is Newell O'Ongoven and you're listening to The Woman's Hour podcast.
0:10.5	Hello and welcome to the program. Well, we have covered maternity care failings extensively on this program and also the reports and the reviews into tragedies for families at a time where there
0:22.0	should have been great joy. But what change has really come from the numerous investigations?
0:27.8	We're going to discuss that in just a moment. Also today we are expecting the arrival of Sister
0:33.4	Bliss into the studio shortly, the co-founder of the hugely successful Faithless.
0:39.1	We're going to hear all about the road to making their new album, Champion Sound.
0:43.4	It is the first since the death of their lead vocalist, Maxie Jazz, in 2022.
0:48.9	Sister Bliss calls the record's collaborations a real passing of the baton from Maxi.
0:54.0	And it is 30 years since Faithless released Insomnia.
0:58.9	And I was thinking there must have been some great nights out for Sister Bliss in that time.
1:03.4	And I'm going to ask her about hers.
1:05.2	But I was also wondering about yours.
1:07.6	I'd love you to share your standout, night out.
1:14.9	Where was it? When? With who? And why is it the one that you remember? You can text the program. The number is 84844 on social media where at BBC
1:20.3	Women's Hour. Or you can email us through our website for a WhatsApp message or voice note. The number is 0-3700-100-400-444.
1:29.8	Also, Caris Kelly's play Consumed is now on at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
1:35.0	Karas will join us to tell us more about why she set it amid a family reunion dinner in Northern Ireland with only women present.
1:43.3	Plus, why one of my guests today married a river?
1:48.9	But let us first look back. Since 2015, there have been at least four major independent
1:55.0	investigations centred on specific trusts as well as a number of system reviews from bodies
2:00.8	such as the
	...

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