"Darlington Nurses" vs County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust Tribunal Thread 7

[ThreeWordHarpy]

Thread 1, 7-Oct to 23-Oct; pre-hearing discussion, KD (day 1 of evidence) and BH (day 2).
Thread 2, 23-Oct to 28-Oct; BH (day 2), CH, JP, MG (day 3&4), TH, SS, ST, LL (day 4), JS, AT (day 5)
Thread 3, 28-Oct to 29-Oct; AT (day 5&6), TA (day 6&7)
Thread 4, 29-Oct to 31-Oct; TA, AM (day 7) JB (day 8)
Thread 5, 31-Oct to 04-Nov; JB (day 8), SW, CG, JR (day 9)
Thread 6, 04-Nov to 05-Nov; RH (day 10), SW (day 11)

Five nurses working at Darlington Memorial Hospital have filed a legal case suing their employer, an NHS trust, for sexual harassment and sex discrimination. The nurses object to sharing the women’s changing facilities with a male colleague, Rose, who identifies as female. The hearing started on October 20th, with evidence starting on October 22nd and is scheduled to last 3 weeks. To view the hearing online requests for access had to be made by October 17th. The hearing is being live tweeted by Tribunal Tweets who have background to this case on their substack. An alternative to X is to use Nitter: nitter.net/tribunaltweets or nitter.poast.org/tribunaltweets

The Judge made clear at the start of the public hearing on Day 1 that only TT or press have permission to tweet. If online observers see/hear something in the court that isn’t reported by TT, we don’t mention it until the next time there’s a break. This is a very cautious approach to avoid any accusations of “live reporting” on MN. Commentary on the content of TT tweets is fine as soon as they’re posted on X.

Key people:
C/Ns - Claimants, the Darlington nurses
R/T/Trust - Respondent, County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust
J/EJ – Judge/Employment Judge Seamus Sweeney
NF - Niazi Fetto KC, barrister for claimants
SC - Simon Cheetham, KC, barrister for respondents
RH - Rose Henderson, trans identifying nurse
CG – Clare Gregory, NHS ward manager
SW - Sue Williams, NHS Trust HR
KD – Karen Danson, first claimant to give evidence.
BH – Bethany Hutchison, claimant
AH – Alistair Hutchison, husband of Bethany
CH – Carly Hoy, claimant
JP – Jane Peveller, claimant
MG – Mary Anne (aka Annice) Grundy, claimant
TH – Tracy Hooper, claimant
SS – Siobhan Sinclair, witness for the claimants, retired from Trust
ST – Sharron Trevarrow, witness for the claimants, retired from Trust, former housekeeper and wellbeing officer
LL – Lisa Lockey, claimant
JP – Professor Jo Phoenix, expert witness
JS – Jane Shields, witness for the claimants
AT - Andrew Thacker, NHS trust Head of HR
TA – Tracy Atkinson, NHS trust HR.
AM – Andrew Moore, NHS Head of Workforce Experience
JB – Jillian Bailey, NHS Workforce Experience Manager
AT – Anna Telfer, NHS Deputy Director of Nursing
SW – Sandra Watson, Matron for General and Elective Surgery
JR – Jodie Robinson, manager of Rose

It’s a shame that “making love” is considered cringy, because it’s actually one of the pleasant and sometimes entirely accurate terms available.

But it’s a fashion thing. No one wants to sound like a fuddy-duddy.

She probably said that over 20 years ago and we still find it cringey. I suppose it is/was classed as something ‘posh’ people would say rather than our peers. I prefer the more technical terms to the flowery language. You can’t piss about with those terms and make them mean something else. Usually.

It emerged in the late 60s and early 70s, when the availability of the pill had made all women 'available', Jimmy Savile was a hero, and when PIE was working hard to normalise sex with children. Getting a sexualised vocabulary out in public was part of the agenda, and lots of people grabbed onto it as a 'liberation' without wondering were there other things going on.

Though well into the 70s 'sleeping with' or 'going to bed with' were more likely to be used in general gossipy conversation. And well into the 90s, 'sex' did not always mean sexual intercourse. And people didn't have genders.

they would euphemistically refer to it as “sleeping with” or “making love”, not as “having sex”. At least this is my recollection from the sixties, seventies and early eighties. Or, if less refined, “fucking” or “screwing” (screwing seems to have fallen out of fashion, though fucking is perennially popular).

All of those terms during that time period. Plus the playful "bonking" and later in that time (eighties?) the brutal "shagging".

IIRC "Sleeping with" and "making love" were the terms used by everyone. They imply a consensual act of shared pleasure.

"Bonking" was "sex for fun" and was also used by everyone.

Both men and women, heterosexual and homosexual, could be "screwing around".

However, men and boys seemed to prefer the more macho, violently dominating language of "fucking", "screwing" and "shagging".

That these terms are more like euphemisms for rape than "having sex" is seen in other phrases in which they appear, phrases which are more often used to refer to male, rather than female, submission to fate, circumstances, domination or weakness, eg.

• "that really fucked him over", "he's fucked now"
• "he was screwed over", "he's screwed!"
• "he was shagged out and couldn't walk another step"

Even if the shared act is expressed by "They", the shared experience still has to be inferred from, "They were fucking/screwing/bonking/shagging", etc.

"Having sex" wasn't something that I was aware of normal people saying in everyday conversation. It has got a text book or check-list ring to it. It used to be something a doctor might say, or that you might hear in a documentary or on the news, as an updated, less formal version of "engaging in sexual intercourse" or the weird sounding "having sexual relations".

One of the oddest euphemisms was "having relations", which sounds like incest!

"Having sex" seems to have entered common parlance, rolls off the tongue (Fnarr! Fnarr!) and does not sound clinical, anthropological or sociological these days.

I am really surprised that some PP find the expression "making love" to be creepy or cringy. What seems to being lost, or avoided, is acknowledgement of the unique, mutual creativity that is possible through sexual intimacy, irrespective of any procreational aspect. As well as creation and shaping of a relationship with a specific sexual component, there can be a shared spiritual experience and bonding even with "one night stands" let alone in a committed relationship.

None of that is captured by the term "having sex", so I think the term "making love" still needs a place in our vocabulary. Unless there is an equivalent term that I have not come across yet?

Fascinating - I've never consciously considered it (and don't have any personal anecdata to confirm or deny, as I skew matters by being horribly carsick if I'm not in the front).

Just confirmed with DH that “Ugandan relations” was certainly a Private Eye thing (thinking probably
80’s/early 90’s).

“Horizontal jogging” was another thing.

Ha ha!! I had forgotten those!

"Ugandan discussions" still pops up from time to time in Private Eye, dating from 1973.

"Discussing Uganda" In 1973, the satirical magazine Private Eye reported that journalist Mary Kenny had been disturbed in the arms of a former cabinet minister of President Obote of Uganda during a party. Variations of "Ugandan discussions" or "discussing Uganda" - the term is believed to have been coined by the poet James Fenton - were subsequently used by the Eye to describe any illicit encounter, and the phrase soon became part of common usage.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22470691

I do like bawdy euphemisms. I had a stitch laughing the first time I heard this one, which was when a friend told me that a mutual friend had been "caught playing hide the sausage" with his best friend's wife in a caravan at the coast

🤭

OMG! 'Going to bed with..' !! I haven't heard that for DECADES. And it's only my DM who I've ever heard say that!

I bet there would be a toilet one. I was right!

There's a picture on the internet of Prince Phillip driving the car with the Obamas in it. The Queen and Michelle in the back, Barack and Prince Phillip in the front.

Now I'm imagining QE (aka "Brenda" as she was referred to in Private Eye) peeling open her Tupperware stash of triangular, crustless, salmon paste and cucumber sandwiches, her and Michelle tucking in while the lads ("Keith" and Barak) swig Scotch from hip flasks in the front seat 😂

The British royal family is widely considered the least aristocratic among all European royalty. Farming, horses, and lots and lots of tweed.

A bit random but i have often wondered if “queenie” had a footman whose specific job was to pick up corgi poo.

need to go bed dont i ….

Common use will always be skewed to slang and euphemism, and vary by age and place.

Being used in popular book and film titles in the 70s shows the meaning was near-universally understood then even if it wasn't what most people would have said themselves in general conversation. Google ngram shows occasional use from around the 1880s, with it really taking off from from 1965 onwards.

In the old days (child of the 1960s here!) the formal term was "sexual intercourse". Caused giggles reading Victorian novels which innocently used "intercourse" to mean "conversation". "Having sex" was the short version.

"Sexual intercourse" seems to have dropped out of use (as a phrase not an activity!) altogether.

I don’t know much about aristocracy but surely from a British perspective those 100% go with the territory (literally, ones estates).

@Justabaker - are you getting any copies of submissions?

I would love a stand alone reading day for them!

Also anyone any insight on how long judgement will be? Not as long as Peggies hopefully?

You are reminding me of that classic 1960s documentary about the royal family, which has Philip and gender-bending Anne nursing a barbecue, while the queen literally opens tupperware pots.

for some reason we loved that doc as kids. Not because of any royalist passion but because in those formal, un-media-saturated times it was so weird to see them outside of the framing of big ceremonial events

Re the evolution of "sex", at least we have moved on from the hideous (late nineteenth-century?) convention among men of referring to women as "the sex", as if only women had this bolt-on attribute of sex, and men were practically sexless in virtue of being the default.

In fact this perception persists, most clearly in animal cartoons, where the males are usually represented without any add-on features to indicate their maleness, but the females have bows, long eyelashes, or whatever to signify their sexed deviation from the male norm.

I'm sure this attitude is part of the impetus behind male transgenderism. If womanhood is a bolt-on, then anyone can bolt it on. And if women but not men are essentially defined by their sex then being a woman is essentially sexy.

I suspect that “the sex” was a contraction of “the fair(er) sex”, an expression in common usage (which seems to date back to the 17th century) but that even some nineteenth or early twentieth century men might have found “cringey” (or whatever the contemporary equivalent of cringey was).

I'm now imagining Holmes and Watson types in their gentlemen's club: "I say old chap, is that not somewhat cringe? I might even venture to observe that I have received something of an ick."

Just catching up - gosh this thread has taken an interesting turn!
Cole Porter's song:
Night and day, under the hide of me
There's an, oh, such a hungry yearning burning inside of me
And its torment won't be through
Till you let me spend my life making love to you
Day and night, night and day

is an older meaning of 'making love' - one hopes so anyway, unless there were very strictly enforced rules for meal breaks, annual holidays, etc etc😁

It's from a 1932 musical called The Gay Divorce - not to be confused with the Rogers/Astaire film The Gay Divorcée, 1934 -more evidence of how words change meaning over the years.

That said, it is more than likely that some of the 'gay' references were deliberately sneaked. Like 'Never underestimate a woman's touch' sung by Calamity Jane to Katie as they set up house together..

Is it submissions today?

Thank you for getting us firmly back on track, Zebracat

Sorry, wasnt doing that. Loved the chat, especially your Calamity Jane reference, always loved that scene. But is it ?😀