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Ena Miller

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Diana Quick

Alexandra Gilbreath

Louise Robertson

Isobel Ewing

Sinead Morrissey

Woman's Hour: Foodbanks, Winter Solstice, Mother Christmas

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21/12/2017

Foodbanks, Winter Solstice, Mother Christmas

BBC Radio 4 - Woman's Hour, Foodbanks, Winter Solstice, Mother Christmas

What is it like going to a foodbank at Christmas?

The increasing number of women and children having a 'foodbank' Christmas. Plus two actors reveal how a Christmas play in London is mirroring the stresses of the festive season.

The number of women and children having a 'foodbank Christmas' is on the rise, according to the charity The Trussell Trust. So what's it like going to a foodbank at Christmas? We hear the experiences of women using them in West London. Jenni is joined by Alison Inglis-Jones of The Trussell Trust, who also works at three foodbanks, and by the Reverend Gemma Sampson, Curate of St Aiden's and St Columba in Hartlepool, who recently set up an independent foodbank and kitchen. 

To celebrate the Winter Solstice, poet Sinead Morrissey will read her poem Last Winter marking the changing of the seasons.

Mother Christmas is currently playing at the Hampstead Theatre in London. Three generations of the family gather together again on Christmas Eve but beneath the cosy spectacle, the bickering and resentments from Christmases past emerge. Diana Quick plays Maggie the matriarch. She and her on stage daughter, Alex Gilbreath, join Jenni to discuss the joys and umbrages that can erupt during the festive period.

Our research revealed that East Dunbartonshire in Scotland is the Best Place to be a Woman in 2017. Next door, West Dunbartonshire came near the bottom of the list. How can the quality of life be so different for women who live so close? Ena Miller went to meet two women from each area as we asked them to spend the day together. Louise Robertson is a grandmother who lives in Renton in West Dunbartonshire and Isobel Ewing is a mother and farmer's daughter from Baldernock in East Dunbartonshire.

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