I listened to a solid week of Woman's Hour...

I was a weird kid, and though I harboured the usual innocent girlish ambitions of being a drug fiend and having sex with pop stars, I also nursed a desire to appear on Woman’s Hour. As a shy, provincial virgin, the programme opened up a world of women’s troubles from anorexia to zuigerphobia – and I was keen to have A Complicated Life.

Here was the wet hand of today’s lily-livered sensibilities I had anticipated

From my twenties to my fifties I appeared on it several times; my last outing was in 2016, as – like most other institutions – it was captured by the trans cult, leading to the show’s best presenter, Jenni Murray, leaving in 2020. Since then, the programme might more accurately be named What Is A Woman’s Hour. As Mumsnet noted, around 43 trans activists have been invited on to the programme over the years, compared with just 13 from the gender-sceptical side.

After half a century of listening – in which my emotions have run the gamut from longing to contempt – I decided to listen to a solid week of it and give the show an MOT. The lead item on Monday was about what Kemi Badenoch’s appointment might mean for women. I was pleasantly surprised that the presenter, Clare McDonnell, didn’t nag; she mentioned ‘structural racism’ but that’s practically mandatory on Radio 4 programmes – I fully expect the Shipping Forecast to slip it in soon.