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Woman's Hour: Attic memories; Afghanistan; Food and climate; ME and Covid; Neanderthals

Listener Week: Women and trades, Afghanistan, Stealthing, Dumping a friend

Attic memories; Afghanistan; Food and climate; ME and Covid; Neanderthals

BBC Radio 4 - Woman's Hour, Attic memories; Afghanistan; Food and climate; ME and Covid; Neanderthals

Memories in the attic; Afghan safe houses; Food and climate; ME and Covid; Neanderthals

How do you sort through a lifetime's-worth of family possessions? Two listeners talk about the stories uncovered in their attics and cupboards.

What should we do with all our attic memorabilia? Vicki from South Wales talks about the joy of clearing our her attic with her daughters and Maryam from Rotherham talks about her mother's suitcase brought over from Pakistan in the 1950s.

The desperation of many thousands of people trying to get out of Afghanistan in the last couple of weeks has been on our screens and the front page of our newspapers for days now. Many, outside of the country, are trying to do what they can to help get their colleagues, friends, loved ones get out – as Alice Bromage, previously a Major in the UK army , told us yesterday. She talked about the Sandhurst Sisterhood, around 2500 ex-army women officers, who are constantly being messaged by women, and men, who they have trained and worked with in Afghanistan. Jude, as an ex-military officer, is one of the network. Based in Dubai, she and her husband, an ex-Royal marine of 24 years, run a small local security business in Kabul, and have done for about a decade now. What role are they playing in the ongoing evacuation?

What are the best food choices to make for the environment? And can going vegetarian or vegan really help with the issue of climate change? That's what Woman's Hour listener Judith wants to know - so Sarah Bridle, physics professor at Manchester University and author of Food and Climate Change Without the Hot Air is on hand with some answers! She joins Emma to crunch the numbers and give some practical advice on ways to make our breakfast, lunch and tea less harmful for the planet.

About a quarter of a million people in the UK suffer from myalgic encepahalomyelitis (ME), also known as chronic fatigue syndrome. It's a condition that affects more women than men, but patients still face doubts about their symptoms and there is controversy about treatment.  Since the pandemic began, as many as two million people in the UK may have long Covid, with women 1.5 times more likely to experience ongoing symptoms than men.  The symptoms of long Covid range from fatigue and muscle pain to coughs and headaches and have been linked to ME. Scientists and ME/CFS patients hope that research into long Covid will be an opportunity to learn more about long term consequences of viral infections.  Dr Nina Muirhead, specialist surgeon in dermatology who has ME and Dr David Strain, the British Medical Association's lead on Long Covid and medical advisor to Action for ME discuss the links between long Covid and treatment of ME/CFS.

What was it like to be a Neanderthal woman? That's what listener Hannah wants to know. She emailed asking to hear from female archeologists, such as Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes, about their view on the Neanderthal female lifestyle and how it compares to our own. So, we asked Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes to come on the programme to tell us. Did they hunt? Did they look after the children? Did they have the menopause? Her book, Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, aims to tell a completely new story about Neanderthals.

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Attic memories; Afghanistan; Food and climate; ME and Covid; Neanderthals

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