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BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.

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Sheila McClennon

Susannah Tresilian

Jane Hawking

Kim Cotton

Richinda Taylor

Mary Anne Hobbs

Maria Malone

Natalie Gamble

Woman's Hour: Jane Hawking; Surrogacy; Same Clothes Every Day; Safe Houses for Over-45s

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02/01/2015

Jane Hawking; Surrogacy; Same Clothes Every Day; Safe Houses for Over-45s

BBC Radio 4 - Woman's Hour, Jane Hawking; Surrogacy; Same Clothes Every Day; Safe Houses for Over-45s

Jane Hawking, surrogacy, wearing the same clothes every day, safe houses for over-45s.

Jane Hawking on the film of her life, 30 years since UK's first commercial surrogate mother, wearing the same clothes every day, and EVA Women's Aid's safe houses for the over-45s.

In 1965, a 21 year old student called Jane married a young and brilliant cosmologist, knowing that he was ill with Motor Neuron Disease and had been given only three years to live. But together they fought the disease and confounded all expectations. Fifty years on, Jane and her now ex-husband Professor Stephen Hawking are the subject of The Theory of Everything, a film based on Jane's autobiography Travelling to Infinity. 

On Jan 4th 1985 Kim Cotton became the UK's first surrogate mother when she gave birth to "baby Cotton". The story shocked the nation when it was revealed that £6000 was paid to her for the baby. Kim Cotton went on to set up COTS - Childlessness Overcome Through Surrogacy in 1988, which gives help and advice to surrogates and childless couples in the UK. She joins Sheila with fertility law expert Natalie Gamble.

How much time do you spend deciding what to wear in the morning? Recently Karl Stefanovic, a television presenter from Australia, admitted to wearing the same suit every day for a year to make a point about the ways in which his female colleagues are judged - and claimed that during all that time nobody noticed. Mary Anne Hobbs who presents the weekend breakfast show on 6Music and Maria Malone, lecturer in fashion at the Manchester Metropolitan University Department of Apparel talk about how less might be more. 

A new safe house for women who have been victims of domestic or sexual abuse and violence will be opening in the North East of England in January 2015. It's aimed at women aged 45 and over and thought to be the first of its kind in UK. Richinda Taylor, CEO of EVA Women's Aid and Wendy, who was in an abusive relationship for 15 years, join Sheila to explain why they would like to see more women over 45 seeking help.

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