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Woman's Hour: Wally Funk, Blood Inquiry, Gloria Vanderbildt, Conservatives

19/06/2019

Wally Funk, Blood Inquiry, Gloria Vanderbildt, Conservatives

BBC Radio 4 - Woman's Hour, Wally Funk, Blood Inquiry, Gloria Vanderbildt, Conservatives

Race for space; NHS infected blood; queen of jeans; leadership candidates and women

Mercury 13 and 'Women in Space'; worst treatment disaster in history of NHS; Amber Butchart on why Gloria Vanderbildt promoted jeans; and winning over female electorates.

As the candidate field narrows further in the Conservatives quest for the next leader, we discuss how those left are trying to win over different female electorates - MPs, the party membership and the women who will have to vote for the new PM in any general election. And, how do they compare to the Lib Dems where the favourite to become their next leader is a woman?  Jenni spoke to Anne McElvoy, a senior editor at the Economist and Miranda Green, a journalist and former adviser to the  Lib Dems.

In 1961 an American pilot, Wally Funk wanted to be an astronaut and passed the Woman in Space programme as part of a group known as the Mercury 13.  The programme was abruptly cancelled and instead Wally became America’s first woman aviation safety inspector and taught 3,000 pilots to fly. Now nearly 80, Wally still wants to go into space and is on the waiting list to go as a tourist.

More than 2,000 people have died after being infected with HIV and hepatitis C through blood treatments.  The victims were infected over 25 years ago, in what has been called the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS. But even now new cases are still being diagnosed.  Michelle Tolley found out that she had been infected with Hepatitis C while she was giving birth in 1987.  She tells Jenni what happened and why she is taking part in the Infected Blood Inquiry.

Earlier this week we heard of the death in Manhattan of Gloria Vanderbildt. She was 95. She was a famously beautiful, fabulously wealthy socialite, but she was also a fashion designer and known as the Queen of Jeans. Jenni spoke to the fashion historian, Amber Butchart about what led Vanderbildt into the promotion of jeans.

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