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Following a debate in Parliament last Thursday, the government has announced that it is going to release all the information it holds on the drug Primodos - a hormonal pregnancy test which some people believe caused birth defects. Health Minister George Freeman has also said that he is going to set up an independent panel to look at the evidence. During the debate, MPs heard that it took eight years for doctors to stop prescribing Primodos after initial warnings were aired. One dose of Primodos was equivalent to 13 morning after pills or 157 oral contraceptive pills. The drug was taken by pregnant British women between 1953 and 1975 - other countries stopped using it sooner. Jenni is joined by journalist Katie Collins – a reporter on North West Tonight who has investigated Primodos – and by her mother Pam Mawdsley who took the drug in 1973. Katie’s older sister Louise was born with a number of disabilities later that year.
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Joanna Briscoe is one of a number of female authors who have recently turned to writing stories with a supernatural edge. Her latest novel Touched published earlier this year follows in the footsteps of Helen Dunmore’s The Greatcoat and Jeanette Winterson’s The Daylight Gate – both authors’ first forays into the gothic genre which were published in 2012. Over the centuries many women have been drawn to the gothic – from Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre – so why does the genre seem to have an everlasting appeal for female writers? And how can today’s authors make a ghost story convincing enough to terrify a modern reader? Jenni is joined by Joanna Briscoe and Professor Avril Horner from Kingston University. 

Recent figures have shown that more women than men own a wrist watch as the market for fashion watches continues to grow. Because we tend to use all sorts of devices to tell the time nowadays [such as our phones and computer screens], our wrist watches are more likely to be fashion accessories rather than time keepers. So, what are women buying and how has wrist watch fashion changed over the years? Reporter Ailsa Rochester has been on the streets of Manchester to talk to the ordinary punter and Jenni is joined in studio by antiquarian horologist and watchmaker Rebecca Struthers.

What would improve the quality of older people's lives in the areas where they live? This is the question addressed recently by Roger Clough [Professor Emeritus of social care at Lancaster University] in a report which included research into the problems of living with dementia. One of these problems concerned the importance for many people of a continuing relationship with a partner or parent living with dementia. Typically, the support on offer assumes that the person without dementia wants a break from their responsibilities. Professor Clough’s research revealed that there are two few opportunities for couples in this situation to carry on doing things together. This is why he has found himself working with Age UK Lancashire and the Dukes theatre in Lancaster on a special project project to give those with dementia and their family members the chance to go out and enjoy movies together. Judy Merry went along to the Dukes theatre earlier this week to talk to some of the people involved with the project. Jenni is joined in studio by Professor Clough and by Diane Armstrong, an Age UK Dementia Champion.