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Woman's Hour

Weekend Woman's Hour: Putting your life on the page, Dr Lin Berwick, Poorna Bell

Woman's Hour

BBC

Society & Culture, Health & Fitness, Personal Journals

4.22.9K Ratings

🗓️ 8 January 2022

⏱️ 50 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We explore why so many of us want to put our lives on the page. Can writing stand in for therapy? What are the ethical and moral considerations of such sharing. Julia Samuel is a psychotherapist and the author of Grief Works.

Dr Lin Berwick MBE has cerebral palsy quadriplegia and became totally blind at the age of 15. She also has partial hearing loss and is a permanent wheelchair user. Now in her seventies, she has been a fierce advocate and ambassador for people with disabilities and their carers, and has written a new book On A Count of Three all about what it's like having a carer - and what she thinks carers should know.

Military mums rally in protest at the decision to award former Prime Minister Tony Blair a knighthood. Hazel Hunt, whose son Richard died in Afghanistan, is considering sending back the Elizabeth Cross that her family had received as a mark of protest.

Many of us will be thinking about making a change for the better now that we're in a new year. Poorna Bell, author and journalist, gives us some inspiration and talks about getting stronger, both emotionally and physically. Poorna took it literally and started weight lifting after illness and bereavement.

'Collector culture' - the swapping, collating and posting of nude images of women without their consent - is on the rise. To understand why Anita is joined by Professor of Law at Durham University, Clare McGlynn and Zara Ward, senior practitioner at the Revenge Porn Helpline.

Southall Black Sisters was founded in 1979 to address the needs of Asian, African-Caribbean and minority women and to empower them to escape violence. Pragna Patel was one of the founders of Southall Black Sisters and Wednesday was her last day as Director. We talk to Pragna about her 30 years in activism.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

0:04.6

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

0:08.4

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable

0:14.3

experts and genuinely engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC

0:20.4

makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

0:24.6

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

0:29.7

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.

0:36.0

BBC Sounds, Music Radio Podcasts.

0:41.0

Hello and welcome to the first weekend women's hour of 2022.

0:45.8

We're right back into the swing of things with top interviews and juicy discussions to

0:50.1

enlighten, entertain and possibly even enrage.

0:54.0

Put the kettle on or pop that cork and settle in for the standout moments from the week just gone.

0:59.2

Coming up, the author Dr Lynn Berrick on her lifelong work in disability rights and military

1:05.6

moms we find out why a group of mothers who lost their soldier sons during the war

1:09.9

in Afghanistan have written to the Queen urging her to strip Tony Blair of his

1:14.4

knighthood. And how do you stick to your New Year's resolutions? We hear from

1:18.9

inspirational author and weightlifter Brunabel. Now on Monday Emma spoke to authors Ann Patchet,

1:25.7

Kathy Rensenbrink, Julius Samuel and Arifah Akbar on the power of writing.

1:30.7

In this special program we explored why so many of us are putting our life stories on paper.

1:36.0

I know all about it as it's something I've done and personally speaking a very cathartic experience.

1:41.0

Here's Julia on the connection between writing and therapy.

1:45.0

I mean there's very good evidence James Pennybaker from Harvard showed that

...

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