Back in October we asked for your suggestions about what you’d like to hear on Woman’s Hour, In Our Time and Saturday Live. Listener Week starts on Monday, 24 November and runs until 29 Saturday. There’s been a brilliant response and we’re grateful for all your ideas – we certainly couldn’t have predicted all of them.

In Our Time had an overwhelming response, with almost a thousand on topics ranging from the history of belly dancing to the Hanseatic League (me neither) but which subject will be picked? Melvyn will announce ‘the chosen one’ on the Today programme on Thursday morning (27 November).

Saturday Live’s inbox ranged from the importance of your allotment to what belonging to a trade union means to you, and even an invitation to join one woman’s walk around Wales. But this Saturday, the programme will hear from an extraordinary Derbyshire community who came together to renovate their own town centre. Plus, a listener who’s written a series of stories about things he got up to when he was a kid and never told his mum:

Woman’s Hour is dedicating the entire week to the topics its audience wanted to explore. If you find something tedious, don’t complain to me or Jenni…every single item will have been suggested by a listener including: whether 50:50 shared care works as well for the child as the parent, staying fit above the age of fifty (tip: I fear it may involve a certain amount of exercise and moderation in all things you might enjoy) and why anyone would choose to be a social worker. And throughout the week, you, the listeners, will give advice on other listeners’ problems, including one who asks ‘Do I get back in touch with my ex?’ (where do I begin?). I’ll start the week with a listener who wants to discuss her husband’s addiction to pornography and its impact on their marriage

Of course, we would be nothing without our listeners and your input, no matter what the programme. Please don’t stop giving us ideas and inspiration. We’re always here so if you fancy getting in touch any time of the year for Woman’s Hour, In Our Time and Saturday Live, just click on the links below. The 21st century has its knockers, but one of the best things about it has got to be the wonderful opportunities we have to interact with and respond to you. Thank you. And we don’t even mind if you complain. Much.

 

Jane Garvey is a presenter on Woman's Hour

 

Woman's Hour on Twitter - @bbcwomanshour

Send an email to Woman's Hour

 

Saturday Live on Twitter #bbcsaturdaylive

Send an email to Saturday Live

Send an email to In Our Time

 

 

On this week’s Feedback we featured Jonathan Dimbleby making an unusual, and, perhaps for him, unique mistake on Radio 4's Any Questions. He attributed to a member of the panel a quote which was not theirs.

Here is the mistake in all its gory glory:
 

 
Now when a fellow presenter hears something like that there is often a moment of malicious glee, followed by a familiar cold tingle down the back of the spine as one realises that it could easily have been oneself making such a mistake.

Indeed I have done so, dear reader, though as a young assistant producer, first on Nationwide and then on Panorama.

In the case of the former I managed to invite onto the programme someone who was in favour of a proposition rather than, as I had been tasked, someone in opposition to it.

I discovered my mistake when the guest arrived with 20 minutes to go before we went on air. I excused myself and, in total despair, left the building and I thought  my career in television, too afraid to face the music, or rather the wrath of the presenter Michael Barratt.

Fortunately, I had gone only a few yards before sense returned and I steeled myself, went back inside and explained the situation to Michael, now with ten minutes to go before transmission.

He was calm, turned his questions around, and conducted a perfectly good interview.

Afterwards, on his way down from the studio, he gestured for me to join him in an empty side room where he proceeded to take me apart. Having done so he put his arm around me, confident that I would never make that mistake again, and took me into the hospitality room where he poured me a drink.

Subsequently he never mentioned the incident to anyone, and I survived. Thank you, Michael.

In the case of the Panorama programme I had just completed my first, and I hoped breakthrough, film for the programme, lambasting the Swansea Vehicle Licence Centre for a series of spending cock-ups and quoting a senior judge’s scathing comments in support. The trouble was he hadn't made them.

They had been made by another judge with whose views he violently disagreed.

He wrote me a scorching letter threatened to take up the issue with the Director General.

I had no defence so I crawled, abjectly, in print, and again survived. I’m glad to say the future rows in which I was involved were based on firmer journalistic ground.

So I have sympathy for Jonathan - or his researcher. I bet that particular error will not be repeated on Any Questions for a long time to come.

Meanwhile on Feedback I talked to Alison Hastings of the BBC Trust about its latest report on impartiality in science coverage and in particular about the concept of false balance, as defined by Professor Steve Jones, eg balancing someone representing an overwhelming scientific consensus with a non-scientist  who takes a different view.

The issue fascinates me because I think that too narrow a range of voices is heard on the air and I think that those who challenged the prevailing consensus should be given the air time to do so. However, as Steve Jones once put it to me. “You don’t need to balance a mathematician who says 2 plus 2 is 4, with a non- mathematician who says 2 plus 2 is 5.

I take his point.
 
Do let us know what you think about Woman's Hour coming south on Fridays, after decades of residence in Manchester, and about two front line women presenters on 5 Live being replaced by men. Not sure that was what the DG intended.
 
Roger Bolton
 
PS Sven was back this week - on Clue. Did you welcome his return or do you think he and Samantha should go off on a long holiday together?

Listen to this week's Feedback.

2. Judi Dench’s 1967 revelation that acting was not her first career choice, and a description of how audiences in West Africa found her performance as Lady Macbeth very funny.

3. An interview with fashion icon Mary Quant in 1971, in which she discusses the craze for hot pants, the lack of fashion rules, and Coco Chanel as a role model.

4. Sue MacGregor’s 1986 interview with Winnie Mandela in her Soweto home to the accompaniment of police dogs barking outside, in which she tells of the devastating effect of introducing her daughters to their father for the first time once they turned 16.

5. The story of how French and Saunders became a double act and survived being “gonged off” at the Comedy Store, as told to Sue MacGregor in 1986.

6. Jenni Murray’s 1993 interview with Lady Margaret Thatcher, in which the former prime minister argues why women’s issues should not be given special treatment, and reflects on feeling 'sick at heart' after being deserted by her cabinet.

7. Martha Kearney, who presented Woman's Hour from 1998 to 2007, “I will always remember a programme of mine in which Julie Burchill let fly at Germaine Greer and we threw away the rest of the running order to let them fight it out.”

8. Nigella Lawson and John Diamond appeared on the programme together to talk about John’s illness and how it affects their marriage.

Jenni Murray, who has presented Woman’s Hour since 1987, added “Going back through the Woman’s Hour archive, I am reminded of some very special moments I hadn’t thought about in years. I can confess it now that she’s gone, but no-one terrified me more than Margaret Thatcher, and it all came flooding back when I listened to my interview with her from 1993, of which one reviewer said it was the only time his radio had frozen over!”

 

Alice Feinstein, Editor of Woman’s Hour, adds: “This is our first dip into a huge archive. It has been hard to choose with such a wealth of amazing material, we hope this collection shows the range, the journalism, the personal testimonies, the humour and the glamour that are the hallmarks of Woman’s Hour. We’ll be adding to The Woman's Hour Collection with more interviews and features from the archive soon.”

• In a special programme on Boxing Day Jenni Murray is joined by former Woman's Hour presenter Sue MacGregor, looking through the Woman's Hour Collection and discussing their memories of the programme.
• Each week during 2014, a specially selected interview from the Woman’s Hour vault will be broadcast on the programme. The interviews will also be available permanently in a collection on the Radio 4 website and will be offered as a free download as part of the Woman’s Hour podcast.
• For more archive from Woman’s Hour including the Power List and Cook the Perfect recipes visit the Womans’ Hour site. Every edition of Woman’s Hour since March 2010 is available to listen to on the Woman’s Hour website and each item is available as an individual chapter.

I’m Nicholas McInerny and the writer of How To Have a Perfect Marriage.  I was married for nearly 19 years, with two children, before I Came Out at 45. My children were 16 and 12 at the time.

Obviously this was a huge transition in my life. I was caught between two great forces. One was the overwhelming need to be authentic, the real person I felt I had to be. The other was the terrible knowledge of the pain I was going to cause to people I cared about most.  Looming over all of this was the elephant in the room – the undeniable fact that I was gay and could no longer avoid it.

After I Came Out I realized I wasn’t alone. There were lots of other ex-married men who were gay and a strong support network for all gay married men, whatever their status. I also discovered this fascinating organization in America called the Closed Loop, which promoted another model where, in order to preserve stability in a marriage, and with the wife’s consent, the husband is allowed contact with a single gay man. A very modern kind of ménage a trois!

Having left my wife and also had my first significant gay relationship, I eventually found myself with someone I was very deeply in love with. This gave me the courage, along with sufficient time and distance, to reflect on what had happened. Naturally it was something I wanted to write about. It felt timely and relevant, and not just as a gay issue. I believe it touches on all kinds of long term relationships where the desire for commitment and security struggles with the need for adventure and self discovery.

Three years ago I was introduced to Mel Harris of Sparklab Productions and we started a conversation about how to approach the subject. We quickly agreed it should be told from the wife’s point of view – our main character, Karen. After all, it was she that was being confronted by a huge change in her life over which she had no real control, but had to come to terms with. We wanted Karen to have a strong voice which caught the impact of what was happening to her – raw and real and honest. We also wanted to try and capture the great conflict that lies in the heart of all of us – our imagined ability to react decisively and rationally whilst dealing with those things that strike deep into our very being – messy and confused and volatile. Above all I wanted to try and depict Karen as not being a victim, and to show her having choices too.

I found this both the easiest and most difficult thing I’ve ever written. Sometimes I felt like I was transcribing my life, as conversations with my ex-wife captured every accusation, assertion and plea in those agonized attempts to be brutally honest. They brought up powerful emotions of shame, guilt, entitlement and self-loathing -  and finally self-acceptance. A great example of that is the final scene where Karen first gets to meet Tom, who wants to be her husband’s lover.  I felt physically sick writing that scene and yet it sprung fully formed onto the page, needing no revisions.

We always knew, right from the star,t that we would get a strong reaction to this subject.  Mel and I were lucky to thrash out what we felt over the drafts I wrote, but even when we started recording with our wonderful cast - Julia Ford as Karen and Greg Wise as Jack - we’d often find ourselves in passionate debate.  Should Karen chuck Jack out? Is it really possible to love more than one person? Does sex mean something different to men than women?

What I realized was that in moments of great personal intensity we naturally fall back on our instincts, and yet in the shifting sands of emotions, even those instincts become deeply unreliable, even alien. And that’s where Karen finds herself. Jack’s revelation about his sexuality doesn’t just provoke her need to find some certainty in her marriage. It becomes her struggle to find the language necessary to articulate that need for certainty – the right way to speak her truth.

I’m delighted with what Mel has produced.  I’ve written over 30 radio plays and this is the one I’m most proud of. I really hope it will speak not only to people in the same situation but all couples in a committed relationship dealing with what is the only real constant in our lives - change. 

We’re led to believe there is only one kind of marriage. What I’ve discovered through my own experience is that there are many kinds of marriage being successfully negotiated up and down the country.  But that in order to happen, it requires a degree of absolute honesty and willingness to communicate, that we as human beings often seem to find more difficult than the idea of monogamy.

Nicholas McInerny

The BBC is not responsible for content from external websites.

Listen to How To Have A Perfect Marriage

So how did we get here?

In October we invited Woman's Hour listeners to nominate the women who they thought held the most power in the country. The response was overwhelming. More than 4,000 listeners sent us their suggestions through email, Twitter and Facebook yielding more than 1,600 different names. The task of deciding who would make the top 100 was daunting.

There were prominent doctors, lawyers, scientists, artists and leaders from the public, private and voluntary sectors – many of them accomplished, respected and successful.

And so the panel of judges met for the first time in December at Broadcasting House to discuss how they would set about the task. I was in the room throughout watching them go about it.

The criteria

The brief was simple: to compose a list of the 100 most powerful women in the UK at the start of 2013. We placed no limits on who could be on the list, other than to say that they must be British, or operating in the UK today. We asked them to think widely about where we find powerful women.

We also asked them to keep in mind a few criteria in making their decisions. They should consider what impact women have had on the country – political, economic, social, cultural or intellectual.

Could these women make meaningful decisions to bring about change? And did they have the financial resources to bring about that change?

We also asked them to consider the place of leadership, the ability to inspire and to act as role models. However, we left it to them to decide how to balance these factors.

Adele v Joanna Lumley: Measuring power

In addition to the suggestions from listeners, we consulted widely, taking advice from expert witnesses about some of the leading women in their field and about how they measure power, including Baroness Helena Kennedy on law, head-hunter Heather McGregor on business, and The Economist journalist Anne McElvoy on public policy. All of these recommendations were fed to the judges who were also free to bring their own names to the table.

There was agreement that political and financial power could not be ignored; that money can change people’s lives. But they also thought that power wasn’t just about money or legislation – power was about making a real and noticeable difference. Neither could they escape the overwhelming impact of influencers – those who could change the way we think. And then there were the celebrities and role models who were prepared to use their power… and the curious question of whether David Cameron would be more likely to pick up the phone to Adele or Joanna Lumley?

The Final 100

The final list reflects these competing views of power and the process of negotiating how individual women used their power. Persuasive cases were made for individual women including JK Rowling, Chrissie Rucker and Denise Coates. They listened, discussed and reached deliberate decisions. Weighing up the relative ability of women ranging across every sphere to make an impact was not a process for fine metrics. Comparing the merits of a FTSE listed CEO and an artistic director proved to be an art, and not a science. And in one sense what the women who have made it on to the list have in common is an ability to set the agenda in 2013 and to see it through.

The panel took the decision that given the breadth of talents and achievements they were comparing, it made sense to rank only the top 20 names. After that it was agreed that the distinction between one number and the next was less meaningful – particularly when you might be comparing the power of a chief executive with a leading scientist.

And who was left off the list?

The judges were keen to find women from every background in every area of life. There was disappointment that there were gaps where they did not find women in the most powerful jobs – in areas such as newspaper journalism, pharmaceuticals and the Armed Forces.

There was also disappointment that the list was not more diverse and that no woman from an ethnic minority had made it into the top 20. But there was a hope that the legacy of the list might be as a reality check; that it might open a conversation about what needs to done to change things.

In the interests of transparency they took the decision to withdraw themselves from consideration. And as presenters of Woman’s Hour, Jenni Murray and Jane Garvey were not eligible for inclusion.

More importantly there were nearly 1,500 women nominated by our listeners who have not made the list. There were women, whose careers have been dedicated to curing disease, entertaining people, running our schools and hospitals and leading our communities.

There were many brilliant women who the judges considered, but ultimately left off the final list.  But, in the end this was not a testament to the many amazing achievements of women in 2013 – it was an attempt to capture the women who have power now.

Follow the Power List Live Blog as it is announced

Listen as the Power List is announced live from the Radio Theatre

Hear the Power List discussions so far

Download the Power List podcast

The morning after I had visited The Connection at St Martins, I woke up at 5 am and wasn't able to fall back asleep. It was dark and cold - the timer on the central heating not yet having kicked in - and outside icy raindrops were pinging off the bedroom window. I pulled the duvet up to my chin and remembered Jo who had told me it's early winter mornings that are the hardest when you are sleeping rough.

By that time of the morning, Jo told me, no matter how many layers you've wrapped yourself in, the cold of the pavement has seeped in, through your flesh and into your bones. If you wake up too early, and can't fall back asleep - before the day centre, the underground, libraries or anywhere else that might provide shelter is open - then you're stuck: cold and shivering.

If you've got enough money you might go and get a coffee and sit in McDonalds for a little while, she said. But you have to leave after half an hour which is hardly long enough to chase the chill from your feet or hands.

Tom slept rough for two years before recently having found accommodation. Women joke, she said, about how the female body isn't made for sleeping on hard flat surfaces. Men are made "straight up and and down", perfectly adapted for lying on concrete. Women have too many curves to get comfortable and end up getting horrendous backache.

Early winter mornings, I was told, are even worse than the nights, when passers-by give you a kick, just for the heck of it. Which is most nights, Sarah told me. But not as often as some lairy idiot sees fit to yell insults at you because maybe you haven't had the chance to wash recently and, maybe, you're looking a bit rough.

But not as bad, the women say, as those many nights when, despite your best efforts to hide your gender, you're subject to unwanted sexual attention. All the women have experience of that and know of others who have been sexually assaulted or raped. Because, let's face it, Sarah says, when you're a woman living on the streets it's not just the cold you're vulnerable to.

I didn't expect any of the women I interviewed for Woman's Hour in connection with the Radio 4 Appeal to tell me that rough sleeping or being homeless was "easy".

What did surprise me was how, at certain times in their life, sleeping on the street - even with the cold, the discomfort, the abuse and the constant fear of violence - was still preferable to the "home" situation they had left behind. Whether it was a violent partner, mental illness, a bereavement or some kind of other family breakdown; whether they had been evicted, abused or fighting alcohol or drug dependency issues, the homeless situation these women found themselves in was, often, the only option they felt they had.

What I learned from Jo, Tom and Sarah was that the reasons a woman becomes and sometimes continues to be homeless can be very complex. And that those reasons are always, like the women themselves, very individual.

There is no such thing as a "typical" homeless person.

And ultimately, lying there in my warm bed, snug and dry at five o'clock in the morning, it's hard not to feel how fortunate I have been that I have not faced the same challenges or hurdles they have, because the truth is, it could have been me. Given the wrong combination of circumstances, it could be any of us.

Anna McNamee is a reporter on Radio 4's Woman's Hour and a presenter on the BBC World Service arts programme, The Strand.

• Anna's report on women and homelessness is on Woman's Hour on Thursday 22 December.
• Details of how to donate online or by post to the Radio 4 Christmas Appeal are here.

It was a bizarre pitch. "We're making a reality show about projects designed to help struggling village communities regenerate their economies. And we'd like you to write a murder mystery drama serial based round the Village SOS concept."

Because, of course, there's nothing that regenerates a village economy like a juicy murder...

But I was intrigued, because I do believe crime fiction is the perfect vehicle to shine a light on the society we live in. Also, I hadn't written any radio drama for more than ten years, and I've always enjoyed a challenge. So I said yes.

It turns out the biggest challenge was to keep the distance between reality and fiction.

I live in a seaside village in Northumberland. I chose to set the drama in a seaside village in Northumberland.

Now I'm awaiting transmission with deep trepidation, hoping friends and neighbours don't make the mistake of thinking these murderous villagers are based on them.

Val McDermid is an award-winning crime writer

• Listen again to Val McDermid on Woman's Hour from Friday 19 August talking about the project.
• The five part Woman's Hour Village SOS ties in with a BBC One series and BBC Learning campaign. In the BBC One series, six villages were given BIG Lottery Fund grants to start a rural enterprise. In the Woman's Hour Drama, Val has written about a seventh, fictional village which receives a grant to turn a deconsecrated chapel into a performing arts centre. But on the day of the planning committee results, the project manager is found murdered in the chapel and so DCI Marion Bettany, played by Helen Baxendale, is called in to investigate.
• Village SOS will run every weekday from Monday-Friday, August 22-26, at 10.45am and 7.45pm on Radio 4. An omnibus edition can be heard on Radio 4 Extra on Saturday, August 27 at 12 noon.
• Follow Radio 4 on Twitter or see a full list of Radio 4 accounts on Twitter
• Join the Radio 4 page on Facebook

Paul Murphy is the acting editor of the Radio 4 blog

• The recipe for Claire Burnet's chocolate brownies
• The next Cook The Perfect feature is on Easter Monday when Shepherd's Pie with Lindsay Bareham takes centre stage. You can send in questions for Lindsay or share your tips via the Woman's Hour website.
• Previous features on Cook The Perfect...
• The BBC Radio 4 photo group on Flickr

As this video preview confirms, the brutal inter-station comedy smackdown that is Stand up for Comic Relief is under way. Six of the BBC's national radio networks are represented this time; Radio 4 by Woman's Hour legend Jenni Murray and the others by various presenters I can't quite bring myself to name (this, remember, is the Radio 4 blog).

Each has taken a crash course in the indelicate art of stand-up comedy with a big name mentor from the comedy world and, at 1830 this coming Wednesday you can hear their live sets in front of an audience at London's Comedy Store on Radio 4. Then, from 1900 on the same day (right after the programme), you'll be able to see videos of all six sets on the BBC's Red Nose Day web site and (this is the important bit) the lines will open for you to vote for the one you thought best. Let battle commence.

Steve Bowbrick is editor of the Radio 4 blog

• The three-episode chronicle of the six presenters' unlikely journey to the stage at the legendary Comedy Store starts tomorrow evening at 1830 on Radio 4. Listen to all three episodes for seven days after transmission on the Radio 4 web site.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00snjn7

I was recently at the home of Hari and Matt (I've changed the names) - a friend from childhood and his partner, respectively - now new adoptive gay dads to two older children. The kids come from troubled backgrounds and are having difficulty settling into their new homes. They're testing both the limits and patience of their new parents.

But when I see Hari in action with the kids, I see and hear his dad, Mr Syed - who terrorised us all in childhood with his authoritative, sphincter-tightening reprimands. Hari who has definitely not been a fan of the type of parenting he received is now channelling his dad without even being aware of it.

It's been interesting to observe the parenting styles of my gay friends who now have children. Most of them are adoptive parents, who have spent years of time and energy negotiating with agencies and lawyers to gain custody. For some there has been little time or space - and certainly little in the way of cultural context - to imagine or interrogate the kind of parents they might want to become. Does the fact of their gayness necessarily mean a different approach to parenting? How to negotiate the discrimination that now might inflect their kids' lives? How do the sometimes non-traditional values and lifestyles of queer culture co-exist with parent-teacher nights and car pools?

In Leaving Normal, the new Woman's Hour comedy-drama I wrote and directed, Luke (Paul Nicholls) who abhors the traditional parenting he grew up with under his strict mother Nicki (Imelda Staunton), finds himself now wondering if maybe it's the way to go - after his orphaned niece and nephew are suddenly placed in his care. Sammi (Nikesh Patel) his partner, erased all prospects or possibilities of parenting when he came out. He now refuses to engage with the role of 'dad', believing it's a kind of sell-out to his hard-won gay identity and life-style - much to the chagrin of his mother Dolly (Meera Syal) who desperately wants her own grandchildren.

But the truth is that there are no rules on offer. Most of my friends are travelling through the parenting wilderness map-less. They're pioneers, moving forward, without even the benefit of cultural role models to emulate or use as a reference point. But that too is beginning to change. And I hope that Sammi and Luke and Leaving Normal will go a small way towards redressing that even further.

Ian Iqbal Rashid is writer of Leaving Normal on BBC Radio 4

• Leaving Normal is in the Woman's Hour Drama slot at 0945 from today until Friday 11 June.
• Ian will be interviewed on Woman's Hour on Monday today in an item about gay parenting.
• BAAF, the adoption and fostering advisory charity, is on Facebook and Twitter.
• There's a Leaving Normal group on Facebook.
• The picture is by Darwin Bell. Used under licence.

Leader of the opposition David Cameron came into Broadcasting House this morning to talk to Jenni Murray. I headed over to meet him as he entered the building and got a few photographs of the big event. The other pictures are on Flickr and you can listen to the interview - the second of the programme's interviews with the main party leaders - here for the next seven days. Gordon Brown is next.

Steve Bowbrick is editor of the Radio 4 blog