Finally…
Dirty Mother Pukka is back.
This is the intelligent and gritty Global Player podcast where we air the dirty laundry of our brilliant guests, uncovering the highs and lows of the humans behind the big names completely unfiltered.
The first three guests on the podcast have not disappointed, all coming from very different walks of life, we’ve covered miscarriage, divorce and foot fetishes alongside the daily juggle of being a mother in parliament without maternity cover.
These three women; Myleene Klass, Cheery Healey and Stella Creasy MP are absolute legends and they bring with them real and raw experiences filled with emotion, tears and loud snort laughs.
Miscarriage
Myleene Klass my first guest, opened up about the heartbreak of baby loss. It’s not the lightest topic but life isn’t a linear journey to some elusive happy ending.
In this episode, Myleene shared the most powerful explanation of miscarriage that has rippled across the Internet and made so many women that little bit lighter. As someone who has experienced five miscarriages, what Myleene shared really choked me up. “They never leave you. The DNA stays in your body, so they never really leave you.”
Myleene also talked about how ostracised Hear’Say was by the music industry, and how her and her bandmates responded to being boo’d off the stage at the Brits, she looked over to bandmate Kim and mouthed “what should we do?” When the boo’s were getting louder, the response? “sing louder!” so she did.
Myleene has worked for every inch of her achievements, she grafted from the age of four, yes four! To perfect the violin and piano to become the globally acclaimed musician that she is today, and in this episode, she talks candidly about the true grit involved.
In true Dirty Mother Pukka style, the episode ends with a reading from Klass from Jilly Cooper’s bonkbuster novel Riders. Expect tears, laughter, solidary, eye-opening revelations and everything in between.
Divorce
Cherry Healy joins us for the second episode, where she opens up about dating after divorce. The pain – and equally the relief – of divorce is covered in this warts and all chat.
Cherry reveals the shame she felt from other women when she separated from her husband, “I felt shunned when it wasn’t my fault. But there was so much stigma around divorcing a man. In a way that doesn’t get applied to men.”
Cherry also opens up about dating after divorce, revealing the three golden dating rules that she lives by.
Firstly, she tells people that she can only meet for 45 minutes as she has more plans. This way, she says, “you can escape if you aren’t enjoying it, but if you are having a good time, you can say your other plans got cancelled.”
Secondly, she recommends not spending any money before the date (getting your hair done, getting a wax) to take the pressure off! And finally, if the fun stops stop. Dating should be fun, and she urges that people take a break if it stops being fun.
The episode wouldn’t be complete without a filthy little bedtime story. This episode is brought to a close with a frisky reading from an amateur lesbian novella no less.
Life of a female politician
Then we were joined by none other than the labour legend who is standing up for all mums every day, voting for women’s rights in parliament and doing it in style with her baby in a sling. Stella Creasy MP joined me to talk about the highs and lows of being a politician and a mother and to talk about the lesser-known shoe fetish requests she receives from strangers online. Yes, you read that correctly. Here are a few things we learned about Stella Creasy MP on the show…
It’s not easy doing the juggle – Stella has had to bring her son Isaac to work because she doesn’t get maternity cover or leave as an MP. This has been widely reported in the media. She shares, “I have a choice here – either I look after my kids, or I look after my constituents. And I’m trying to do both because that’s my job.”
So she’s trying to get more mums at the top table – Stella Creasy MP has recently launched a campaign called VoteMama in the UK, intending to help mums through mentorship and funding to put themselves forwards for government. “It’s not rocket science why so few women of childbearing age go into politics or stay in it. That isn’t going to change unless we tackle the deterrents to running that start before you even stand for office as well as those which persist long after.”
Being contactable (as all MPs are) and having a public email address brings with it some interesting asks! – “I got a really weird man who wrote to me early on and was like, ‘I was really interested in what you had to say, and also I really liked the boots that you wore, where did you get them from?’ I wrote back about the issue, and I wrote, oh, and the boots are from X place, and then he wrote back, ‘that’s great. Can you send me some pictures of you wearing them again?’ And then I looked at his handle, and it was like foot fetish central!
This is the podcast which shows the full 360 degrees of women, where women turn up, show up and be themselves. Think feminism with a side of Mills and Boon filth, alongside brazen chats between Anna and her best mate Polly who she co-hosts the show with. This is the podcast for women who don’t fit into boxes.
Download the Dirty Mother Pukka podcast today on Global Player to catch the full interviews with these three legends and more.
Words by Anna Whitehouse.
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