Alison Maloney - Womans Hour: Words from Wise, Witty and Wonderful Women

For the last 70 years, the guests of Womans Hour have been entertaining listeners with their compelling combination of wit, warmth, insight and humour. Womans Hour has interviewed many of the biggest female names from entertainment, politics, the arts and beyond.

Words from Wise, Witty and Wonderful Women is a collection of quotes and extracts from 70 years of the Womans Hour archive, featuring some of the most memorable guests to appear on the programme, from Doris Lessing to Nora Ephron, Hilary Clinton to J.K. Rowling, and Bette Davis to Meryl Streep. Charting the social and political revolution that has taken place in womens lives over the past 70 years, as well as the perennial aspects of female life, such as love, family, relationships, the workplace, sex, ageing, and food, this delightful book shares fascinating insights and sage advice from the wise and wonderful women that have graced the Womans Hour airwaves over the decades.

Its been such a pleasure for me to read through these wonderfully wise and witty words and remember all the extraordinary women Ive been privileged to encounter in the past thirty years. Yes, it has been that long. My younger son, who is about to turn thirty, doesnt remember me being anything but Mum, the Womans Hour presenter!

Of course the programme is much older. We celebrated her seventieth birthday in October last year. I was born in 1950, four years after the first edition, and became a listener at my mothers breast. Feeding schedules in those days were strictly four-hourly and 2 oclock in the afternoon the time of transmission until 1993 when we moved to the morning was perfect for the mother whod had her lunch, put up her feet and put her baby to her breast.

I must have heard so many of the women in this book because I was a fan of the programme long before I joined. I remember hearing Enid Blyton talking about being forced to play the piano as a child when all she wanted to do was write. I was so impressed by her, and George in The Famous Five is still one of my favourite characters.

I doubt I heard Nancy Astor saying her husbands wealth was one of the reasons she married him. I would have loved to have interviewed her, she had such a sense of humour, but that interview took place in 1956 when I was only six and hadnt yet cottoned on to the significance of the first woman to take her seat in the British Parliament.

The subject matter included in this volume is as wide-ranging as the women and their interests. Whether its politics or knitting, breast cancer or baking a beautiful cake, these are experiences we all share. We all grew up as little girls, we all worried about family and children whether we were able to have them or not we all experience love and relationships and grapple with health and lifestyle issues and I doubt theres a woman in the world who hasnt agonised over her body image. Its always surprised me that even the most beautiful never see in the mirror what we see on the screen.

Jane Fonda, when she was encouraging us all to feel the burn with her fitness videos, explained on Womans Hour that her father, Henry, had always made her feel she was fat.

Some of the women in this book sat across from me in the studio or I met them in their own homes and I will never forget them and what they had to say. Benazir Bhutto had suffered the execution of her father, exile in England and was planning her return to Pakistan to begin her career in politics. We sat in her aunts flat in London as she explained that she had trusted her mother to choose a husband for her. A young, unmarried woman wouldnt stand a chance in public life in Pakistan. She was the first woman to lead a Muslim-majority nation and was Prime Minister twice. Her assassination in 2007 touched me deeply.

I met Carly Simon in her house in Boston as part of a special programme about the city. She refused to tell me which of her lovers shed described as so vain but talked about her treatment for breast cancer with a sense of humour Ive found to be quite common among women whove had to deal with the disease I think having two breasts was overrated anyway, she said.

Among the most memorable conversations about children and grandchildren were with Hillary Clinton, who admitted finding it hard to muddle through her career as a new mum with a new baby, and Doris Lessing who had left two of her children behind when she escaped her marriage in Africa and raised her remaining son alone in London. It was more difficult, she thought, to bring up a boy without a father than it would have been to raise a daughter.

Then there was Shirley Williams, one of my favourite interviewees of all time, on her grandsons with whom she tried to spend as much time as possible, but they too have had to adapt to the idea of not only young women working, but much older women working until they drop.

My absolute favourite comment though came from Oprah Winfrey on her difficulties with yo-yo dieting. What kind of life is it without a French fry ever? Definitely a woman after my own heart.

If youre a mother, daughter, grandmother, sister, aunt, wife, partner, friend, young or old therell be something in this book to delight you. Enjoy!

Jenni Murray
February 2017

As Julie Andrews famously sang, Lets start at the beginning, a very good place to start.

The diversity of the eminent guests on Womans Hour is never more evident than in their varied backgrounds and upbringings and its those very beginnings that shaped them into the wise and wonderful women they are today.

Ive been in show business for an awful long time. As I say, I was a child sort of prodigy or whatever you care to call it. I think that touring a lot, as I did when I was young, gave me a great deal of discipline.

Actress andSound of MusicstarJulie Andrews, 1974

I had a blissful childhood, because I loved Pembrokeshire, and my brother and I more or less ran wild, over the cliffs and studying the birds and scrambling. We would take off from morning and just appear after dark.

The War was on and we were being shunted from one school to another and I managed to escape school for whole summers on end. My father [was] involved with a boys school, so I went to a boys school at one stage, which was quite fun. I was a sort of pet, a sort of mascot.

Mary Quant recalling her Welsh childhood in 1971

I was very earnest when I was fourteen. I thought I was the only one who really understood the ills of the world. I was the only one really feeling it.

Harry Potterauthor JK Rowling, 2000

Author Enid Blyton had been a cornerstone of childrens literature since the 1930s but in 1963 she told Womans Hour her family had other plans for her talents.

My father always wanted me to be a musician. Music is in my family. I had a very clever aunt who used to give concerts and things like that, and my father rather visualised that I would do the same. Therefore at six years old, I had to begin to learn to play the piano and all through my childhood, there was practice, practice, practice til I was in my teens, when I was doing four hours a day.