Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I am your host for the
Joanne Lockwood: Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I have interviewed a number of
Joanne Lockwood: amazing people and simply had a conversation around the subject of
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion, belonging and generally making the world a better place
Joanne Lockwood: for everyone to thrive. If you'd like to join me in the future, then please
Joanne Lockwood: do drop me a line to
Joanne Lockwood: jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk.
Joanne Lockwood: That's S-E-E Change Happen dot co dot uk.
Joanne Lockwood: You can catch up with all of the previous shows on itunes, Spotify
Joanne Lockwood: and the usual places. So plug in your headphones,
Joanne Lockwood: grab a decaf and let's get going.
Joanne Lockwood: Today is Episode 42 with a title
Joanne Lockwood: being a Woman in a Man's World. I
Joanne Lockwood: have the absolute honour and privilege to be joined by Mandy
Joanne Lockwood: Hickson. Mandy is a former Royal Air Force
Joanne Lockwood: Tornado GR4 pilot. Now a keynote speaker
Joanne Lockwood: and author. The best selling book. An officer,
Joanne Lockwood: not a gentleman. And when I asked Mandy to describe her
Joanne Lockwood: superpower, she said Authenticity.
Joanne Lockwood: Hello, Mandy, welcome to the show. Hi, Joanne. What an
Mandy Hickson: absolute pleasure it is to be here. Thanks so much for inviting me in. Yes,
Joanne Lockwood: we've talked about it for a couple of months now, and finally, the Ducks are
Joanne Lockwood: in a row. We all wanted to have it last week, and then
Mandy Hickson: my son suddenly got a cancellation for his driving test, didn't he? Which
Mandy Hickson: I would like to say he passed, so we can relax
Mandy Hickson: in our house. Now, that's an achievement, because I hear that driving
Joanne Lockwood: test waiting lists are around almost a year in some cases. It's hideous.
Mandy Hickson: Yeah, I mean, he had failed a couple of times before because it's
Mandy Hickson: just been such a stagnated and awful sort of like training for them
Mandy Hickson: for the whole year. And we had one booked in in
Mandy Hickson: September, and then he literally got a cancellation because I was like it was
Mandy Hickson: like a quick draw on this app where cancellations come up and it's like the
Mandy Hickson: fastest finger first. Well, I tell you what, I would be all over who Wants
Mandy Hickson: to Be a Millionaire? I got it nailed within seconds.
Joanne Lockwood: And he passed. That's the best thing.
Joanne Lockwood: So you've spent a whole career being a woman in
Joanne Lockwood: a man's world. What was that like? It's
Mandy Hickson: fascinating. So I joined the Royal Air Force when I was
Mandy Hickson: 21, back in 1994, which, gosh, it makes me
Mandy Hickson: feel like it was aeons ago, especially when I speak to some of the younger
Mandy Hickson: generation and they go, I wasn't born then. I'm thinking, oh, really?
Mandy Hickson: And yet I was the second woman to fly the Tornado Gr Four on the
Mandy Hickson: front line. So I sort of came through in that very first tranche
Mandy Hickson: of women that were allowed to fly fast jets and, yeah, it
Mandy Hickson: was interesting. I never really massively struggled with
Mandy Hickson: that sort of being a woman in a man's world, particularly in training,
Mandy Hickson: because I think the guys that I was going through were a
Mandy Hickson: band of brothers, they were my best friends. And I
Mandy Hickson: didn't feel that I sort of stuck out, even though, realistically, looking back, I did
Mandy Hickson: stick out because I'm six foot tall and I've got a really loud
Mandy Hickson: laugh. So regardless of gender, I stuck out
Mandy Hickson: anyway. But when I got to the squadron, I did start to notice it
Mandy Hickson: more. Probably because they'd never had a woman flying
Mandy Hickson: as a pilot on that squadron. And so of course there's going to be big
Mandy Hickson: differences there. Well,
Joanne Lockwood: I joined the Royal Air Force, actually in 1981. Oh, really?
Joanne Lockwood: And I trained as a communications
Joanne Lockwood: engineer. I worked on radar radio, and I
Joanne Lockwood: probably actually trained on PTR
Joanne Lockwood: 1751, which is probably the radio you had in your Tornado.
Mandy Hickson: Wow. I used to repair those. And then lastly I worked for Plessy
Joanne Lockwood: Avionics who manufactured those, and I used to service the test
Joanne Lockwood: equipment in some of the third line hangers that used to
Joanne Lockwood: support hotels. So yeah, I never got much
Joanne Lockwood: closer than watched them taking off, lift off from the runway, which
Joanne Lockwood: is an impressive sight when they put the afterburners on, just punch their way out.
Joanne Lockwood: It's like absolutely incredible. There's nothing quite like that feeling, actually. And
Mandy Hickson: people often sort of said, oh, what was it like that first trip? And that
Mandy Hickson: first trip is literally seared into the memory bank of just
Mandy Hickson: lighting the burners, because you've done lots of practising in the simulator, and then when
Mandy Hickson: you do it for real, you're thinking, oh, yeah, I'm used to the environment because
Mandy Hickson: I've been in the simulator, so I know a while. The switches are and then
Mandy Hickson: you put these throttles forward and you click them into burner,
Mandy Hickson: and it's that thrust. I think it's about two G force of lateral
Mandy Hickson: acceleration. I think the closest I'd ever describe it as
Mandy Hickson: is there's a roller coaster at Thorpe Park
Mandy Hickson: and I can't even remember what it's called now, stealth. And it literally just as
Mandy Hickson: a wingover. That's it. The ride lasts for I think it's 7 seconds
Mandy Hickson: and people queue up for 2 hours. And you're thinking why? Well, the reason
Mandy Hickson: is because it's as close as you'll ever get to taking off in a fast
Mandy Hickson: jet. Really? Wow. I remember back
Joanne Lockwood: in I was talking about the early eighty S, and there was
Joanne Lockwood: still the male Air Force and
Joanne Lockwood: the women's Royal Air Force, the WAFs, and it was still separated.
Joanne Lockwood: Women weren't allowed to go on the front line, they weren't allowed to fight, they
Joanne Lockwood: weren't allowed to go on ships in the Navy. It was a very
Joanne Lockwood: different world back in those eighty s, and probably you just came in just
Joanne Lockwood: after that site change. I don't know when it actually changed, to be honest, Joanne,
Mandy Hickson: I'm not sure what the date was when actually it went from being the
Mandy Hickson: WRF to the RAF as a whole, actually.
Mandy Hickson: But I'm really proud in some ways of
Mandy Hickson: all the services. But the RAF was the first of all the three
Mandy Hickson: services to have full inclusivity for
Mandy Hickson: genders on every single role. So every role was
Mandy Hickson: opened up to women. And I just feel
Mandy Hickson: it's such a different place to work from. Probably what you
Mandy Hickson: experienced certainly in the 1980s and actually what I experienced as well.
Mandy Hickson: I did see that changing throughout my time. One of
Mandy Hickson: my really close friends is gay and
Mandy Hickson: when he joined the Air Force at the same time as me, it was illegal.
Mandy Hickson: He actually had to say in his interview, they said, Are you gay? And
Mandy Hickson: he would absolutely categorically no I'm not. Because he was desperate
Mandy Hickson: to be a fast jet pilot. And as he was saying it, he's thinking, I
Mandy Hickson: absolutely categorically am and I'm going to have to basically
Mandy Hickson: have this awful world where I'm living
Mandy Hickson: closeted. I can't be true to my own identity, and the stress that brings to
Mandy Hickson: the workplace is enormous. Well, in fact to your whole life is enormous, isn't
Mandy Hickson: it? Completely. So I was the early eighty s,
Joanne Lockwood: and I certainly wouldn't be able to have been trans
Joanne Lockwood: in those days. I certainly wouldn't be able to be an open about that. And
Joanne Lockwood: it wasn't a kind of passive if you're gay, you're in trouble. It was kind
Joanne Lockwood: of an active rooting out of people who were gay, wasn't it? It was very
Joanne Lockwood: proactive and the Special Investigation Bureau would come down and they'd
Joanne Lockwood: grill you. It wasn't like being a
Joanne Lockwood: bit ostracised. You would literally were you could be arrested.
Mandy Hickson: I don't think actually they would definitely kick you out and you potentially could
Mandy Hickson: lose your pension rights and things like that. But it even
Mandy Hickson: had that if you went to the doctor with an issue that they
Mandy Hickson: had the rights to out
Mandy Hickson: know, they've taken this oath to not share any of the things that
Mandy Hickson: they hear, and of course they could do it as
Mandy Hickson: mean. It was horrific when you think about that. I know that there's a lady,
Mandy Hickson: Caroline, who I don't know if you've come across her, and
Mandy Hickson: she was one of the first women that transitioned in the
Mandy Hickson: Air Force. Caroline Lawson. Yes.
Mandy Hickson: Must have gone through an incredibly challenging
Mandy Hickson: time and I think it's fantastic.
Mandy Hickson: So have you interviewed her at all? I haven't, no. She's
Joanne Lockwood: in America at the moment, I believe. I'm not sure what she's doing, but I
Joanne Lockwood: see some of her posts on Facebook and I'm in touch with a few people
Joanne Lockwood: in the Marines, few people in the army, people who are
Joanne Lockwood: ex EMT drivers and things like that. So yeah, I'm in
Joanne Lockwood: touch with a few people who are in the services now and who
Joanne Lockwood: probably went through that early stage of their career being
Joanne Lockwood: closeted as a trans person, which
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, is a real struggle. And I can imagine that
Joanne Lockwood: that freedom of civic life again allows you
Joanne Lockwood: to burst out. Yeah, absolutely. And I think I
Mandy Hickson: know that when I used to speak to my friend, and he would say his
Mandy Hickson: biggest fear was being outed. Some
Mandy Hickson: people's fear is spiders being outed, because it was that
Mandy Hickson: feeling of loss, of control, that you're doing something that you're passionate
Mandy Hickson: about, that you know you're good at, you're at the top of your game, and
Mandy Hickson: yet somebody could take that all away by
Mandy Hickson: choosing to out you. And
Mandy Hickson: even when the rules change, he didn't actively come
Mandy Hickson: out for about a year just because he just didn't feel
Mandy Hickson: happy to do that yet. And then culture started to change
Mandy Hickson: enormously, and thank goodness he did and could be his
Mandy Hickson: true self. But the stress that creates is
Mandy Hickson: enormous. Yeah, as you say, the
Joanne Lockwood: culture change does take a while to permeate. You can't just change the law, change
Joanne Lockwood: the rules, change regulations, and if it snaps into place no,
Joanne Lockwood: you've got that old school thinking, haven't you? But that's the same in any organisation,
Mandy Hickson: isn't it? I mean, if you look at, say, blame
Mandy Hickson: culture, let's look at aviation as a whole. They have
Mandy Hickson: transitioned from a blame culture in the 1990s, whereby we
Mandy Hickson: never learned anything, to a really open learning
Mandy Hickson: culture now. But that does not happen overnight. You can't just write a
Mandy Hickson: policy, as you say, change the Queen's regulations and say, okay, everyone's going to
Mandy Hickson: be abide by these rules, because ultimately, people have got
Mandy Hickson: preconceived ideas. That's the way it always
Mandy Hickson: was. And it's only as you start to see new blood
Mandy Hickson: coming through, I think, and also that
Mandy Hickson: you start to see evidence of, for example, a woman in a man's
Mandy Hickson: world, she can do the job just as well as the men. Yes. It doesn't
Mandy Hickson: make any gender is irrelevant, and it really is. And it was only when you
Mandy Hickson: start to see that going through, that people started to sort of change their mindset
Mandy Hickson: as well. So did you find that
Joanne Lockwood: as an early woman in that environment, that you were still coming across a
Joanne Lockwood: very male only environment in terms of bunks
Joanne Lockwood: barracks, messes and things? Yeah, completely,
Mandy Hickson: utterly. I mean, when I used to go out to the Gulf, because
Mandy Hickson: I served on Operation well, three different operations out in
Mandy Hickson: Iraq, basically, we were all in this
Mandy Hickson: port cabin, basically, together with this awful air conditioning system. I
Mandy Hickson: won't even go through that. But, I mean, we were all in there together. Again,
Mandy Hickson: that didn't massively bother me. There was one toilet at the end
Mandy Hickson: of each corridor. No male, no female. You've
Mandy Hickson: got 39 men and me, so you're not going to have a toilet to yourself.
Mandy Hickson: Again, didn't bother me. When you're queuing for the showers, you're
Mandy Hickson: all standing in your towels waiting for the two showers, and
Mandy Hickson: I've just got a towel wrapped around the top half and they've just got run
Mandy Hickson: around the bottom half. And again, I'd just be standing, having conversations
Mandy Hickson: with them and it didn't see to bother me. The one thing that I
Mandy Hickson: did not like was
Mandy Hickson: purposeful, slightly vindictive actions,
Mandy Hickson: and that is the thing I cannot tolerate. So every time
Mandy Hickson: I went out to the Gulf, I was always given the room by the
Mandy Hickson: we have a pre deployment group that go out there and it's a bit of
Mandy Hickson: a joke. I mean, the men had a lot of pornography on the walls, fair
Mandy Hickson: enough, everyone's choice is their own, but they would always give the room with
Mandy Hickson: the most pornography on the walls, to me, literally
Mandy Hickson: plastered. It was like wallpaper and the ceiling. And I'd walk in and go, oh,
Mandy Hickson: really? Again? And they did it three years running. And I would strip
Mandy Hickson: all the porn off the walls, put it all in a pile outside the door
Mandy Hickson: and yell porns up. The first
Mandy Hickson: time I just thought, oh, gosh, that was unlucky that I got that room.
Mandy Hickson: Well, it wasn't unlucky that I got it the second and the third year,
Mandy Hickson: and the guy in the room next door who's
Mandy Hickson: sitting there in a room with no pornography on the walls and
Mandy Hickson: things like that annoyed me. And there was a few
Mandy Hickson: occasions with very sort of slight underhand comments,
Mandy Hickson: a little bit of bullying started. And I'll be really
Mandy Hickson: honest, on my first tour out there, it really got to me because
Mandy Hickson: I'd worked so hard to achieve this goal. Five years of the
Mandy Hickson: most intensive flying training pretty much anywhere in the world, you get to fly
Mandy Hickson: on operations, you're out there, you're thinking, I've made it. And then it's the
Mandy Hickson: most lonely world you can ever imagine because
Mandy Hickson: male and female conversation is really different. And there was only
Mandy Hickson: so much football and politics I wanted to talk about, and I'd be
Mandy Hickson: sort of craving female conversation. And at the time, it was
Mandy Hickson: before mobile phones, and we had this 120 minutes phone call that you could use,
Mandy Hickson: you could split it up, but it was like on a card. And I would
Mandy Hickson: ring my boyfriend, who I'm now married to my husband, and I go, you have
Mandy Hickson: got three minutes, I need to speak to women for the rest of the time.
Mandy Hickson: And I go, I'm fine. Everything okay with you. Goodbye. And then I'd be straight
Mandy Hickson: on to just talk to me about some normal stuff, like just normal
Mandy Hickson: conversation. And I found that probably hit
Mandy Hickson: me harder, bizarrely than most things actually out there.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I can remember my time in the
Joanne Lockwood: field service sort of side. It was a very blokey, beery,
Joanne Lockwood: rugby clubby type mentality all the time.
Joanne Lockwood: Lots of male humour and male banter going on. And how did you feel? Did
Mandy Hickson: you feel you fitted into that? At the time, I was
Joanne Lockwood: 1617, 1819, sort of years old.
Joanne Lockwood: I had confusion in my head, but at that time
Joanne Lockwood: in my life, I guess it didn't really bother me.
Joanne Lockwood: I was already socialised into that environment and you just get on with it.
Joanne Lockwood: I think one of the things of basic training is it strips away your
Joanne Lockwood: independent thinking. Some of it, isn't it? You get up, the tannoy
Joanne Lockwood: goes off, you jump out of bed, you get in the shower, you do everything,
Joanne Lockwood: you make your bed up, you get on the playground or you get on and
Joanne Lockwood: do whatever you've got to do. So there is not a time to think. You're
Joanne Lockwood: always being driven. Yeah, I think that is very fair thing to say, actually, is
Mandy Hickson: that I did realise that at one point
Mandy Hickson: we were in America and we were on a big exercise and I was wearing
Mandy Hickson: a dress and we were going out for dinner as a squadron, and I'd made
Mandy Hickson: quite an effort. I mean, you and I earlier were just talking about makeup. I'd
Mandy Hickson: actually put some makeup on, which was like, oh, my goodness, I wasn't
Mandy Hickson: wearing the flying suit, the grow bag. And one of the
Mandy Hickson: guys, sort of, who was a French guy, said, oh, Mandy, you're looking beautiful. And
Mandy Hickson: the guy next to me went, Slapped. And went, you can't say that to Mandy,
Mandy Hickson: she's one of the boys. And he turned back with this sort of Gaelic shrug
Mandy Hickson: and went, You Brits, you have so much to learn about women.
Mandy Hickson: And it was a really lovely moment, though, because it became, in my own mind,
Mandy Hickson: probably quite a pivotal moment. I think up to that point,
Mandy Hickson: I hadn't realised just how much I had
Mandy Hickson: tried to be one of the boys. And you mentioned
Mandy Hickson: a really poignant word right at the start. Fitting
Mandy Hickson: in, belonging. There's two very different things on there
Mandy Hickson: and I know that when we talk about things like diversity,
Mandy Hickson: inclusion, diversity is what we have and inclusion is what we do
Mandy Hickson: with it, isn't it? And I think up to that point, I had been
Mandy Hickson: trying desperately to fit in. I was being more
Mandy Hickson: blokey than I probably should have done. I was swearing
Mandy Hickson: so much more, I was drinking a lot more
Mandy Hickson: than I would have probably done normally in a different
Mandy Hickson: career. And I was just sort of in that whole
Mandy Hickson: alpha male blokey environment. And when this guy said,
Mandy Hickson: she's one of the boys, I suddenly thought, oh, my
Mandy Hickson: goodness, I actually am trying too hard to be one of the boys. And
Mandy Hickson: I think it was in that point I realised that I had to
Mandy Hickson: actively make a decision not to be one of the
Mandy Hickson: boys, but to maintain who I was. I still wanted to be a
Mandy Hickson: woman, but just in a man's world. And I could do that, but
Mandy Hickson: it was going to take a little bit more strength of character to find that
Mandy Hickson: belonging rather than just fitting in. That's
Joanne Lockwood: really interesting you say that because when I went through the early stages of
Joanne Lockwood: my own transition, I found mixing in all
Joanne Lockwood: female groups. I found it really awkward to start with
Joanne Lockwood: because the conversations wasn't just the
Joanne Lockwood: conversation. It's the way women talk to each other is so completely different and
Joanne Lockwood: alien to the way men talk to each other. And it took me a long
Joanne Lockwood: while to resocialize myself into an environment where I could be one of the
Joanne Lockwood: girls, because I felt an outsider to start with. And I
Joanne Lockwood: remember probably about a year or two in using the word
Joanne Lockwood: we as we women. And I felt really self
Joanne Lockwood: conscious about looking around, is anyone going to call me out on this?
Joanne Lockwood: And I felt so kind of relaxed afterwards, because I'd
Joanne Lockwood: suddenly accepted that I was part of we, not part of
Joanne Lockwood: other. And that was a real build. So I can only equate to
Joanne Lockwood: what you were saying is you always felt the outsider in the we,
Joanne Lockwood: if you like. Yeah. And I think when you're going through it, you
Mandy Hickson: don't really realise it so much. It's only when you
Mandy Hickson: start to leave that environment. And yours is a lot more recent than
Mandy Hickson: mine. So, I mean, mine was sort of 20 odd years ago now, and
Mandy Hickson: I think doing what I do now as a speaker. And actually, when I wrote
Mandy Hickson: my book, it was very cathartic in many ways, and a
Mandy Hickson: lot of people say that, don't they, when they write books, that it becomes quite
Mandy Hickson: a cathartic experience, because you're going through all of those memories and you're
Mandy Hickson: reliving that time. And I can only
Mandy Hickson: imagine, actually, because you're so right. Women's conversation
Mandy Hickson: is so different and it's
Mandy Hickson: fascinating. I see it when, bizarrely,
Mandy Hickson: my husband, he really enjoys female conversation
Mandy Hickson: probably more than male conversation. And if I'm going on a girl's night out, he
Mandy Hickson: always goes, Can't I come? Because he really much
Mandy Hickson: prefers it, because he just said, women speak about so many
Mandy Hickson: more interesting things. And I think that is changing a bit
Mandy Hickson: more now as men are
Mandy Hickson: realising they don't have to be this alpha male character, they don't have to be
Mandy Hickson: this grower, testosterone filled individual. They can be themselves
Mandy Hickson: and therefore they can say, I hope, more and more. And that's why I love
Mandy Hickson: it that mental health is so high on the agenda these days, because people are
Mandy Hickson: saying, Actually, I'm feeling really low, and it opens up their dialogue
Mandy Hickson: rather than everything, you know, and it's much
Mandy Hickson: more sort of frivolous, not very deep conversation. Yeah. It's
Joanne Lockwood: very superficial, isn't it? I'm all right. You're all right? We haven't a beer type
Joanne Lockwood: stuff, isn't, isn't it? Exactly. Seen the football recently and it's know,
Mandy Hickson: whereas Craig always goes, oh, I love it. Women get straight in there and
Mandy Hickson: they get sort of know, really into deep conversations much
Mandy Hickson: more. Yeah. And even men talking about their children is much more
Joanne Lockwood: functional, sort of I took them to the rugby, I took them to here, and
Joanne Lockwood: it was almost like the things you did with them, rather than how they're succeeding
Joanne Lockwood: or how they're thriving, how they're growing and developing. I love the fact that you're
Mandy Hickson: using all those positive words, whereas often when I've described I'm
Mandy Hickson: living with teens. So, yeah, I'm like,
Mandy Hickson: what a nightmare. Have they managed to not be excluded from school?
Mandy Hickson: He actually finishes tomorrow and all I'm just thinking
Mandy Hickson: of is no more seeing the school's phone number coming up
Mandy Hickson: on my phone, thinking, what's he done this time? My
Mandy Hickson: heart foot drops every time. My daughter
Joanne Lockwood: is 30 in
Joanne Lockwood: January. She gets married in six weeks.
Mandy Hickson: Did she get a booking okay? Yes, she had to cancel last
Joanne Lockwood: year. They had to postpone it a year. And she's got a hold for
Joanne Lockwood: a date next year. Right. Fingers crossed. This is Plan
Joanne Lockwood: A and everything's going to happen in five weeks time, so it's looking
Joanne Lockwood: good. A white wedding or white wedding?
Joanne Lockwood: Yes, white wedding. She's got it all planned. She's got 70 guests in
Joanne Lockwood: a converted barn with all the drapes and the chair
Joanne Lockwood: backs and beautiful.
Joanne Lockwood: So I'm going to be giving her away in a kind of a
Joanne Lockwood: nontraditional way, which is fantastic.
Mandy Hickson: Yeah. No, that is great, isn't it? Yeah, I'm very
Joanne Lockwood: proud. I'm really proud of her. She's an amazing independent.
Joanne Lockwood: She's a self made as anyone is self made. She's built her own career,
Joanne Lockwood: she's a manager of an early years, not really
Joanne Lockwood: a playgroup early years education establishment that takes children from two
Joanne Lockwood: years upwards as a manager. So she
Joanne Lockwood: trains people on boards people, fires people, mentors and looks after
Joanne Lockwood: people and deals with parents. So, yeah, she's got her own
Joanne Lockwood: career. That you learn and you realise very quickly it's all about the people
Mandy Hickson: managing the people, isn't it? Rather than just the business. It is.
Joanne Lockwood: My son is 25, so I'm well beyond he's an
Joanne Lockwood: It consultant, so he works for a big company.
Joanne Lockwood: Working almost exclusively, remotely at the moment is a remote
Joanne Lockwood: only good stuff.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I'm well beyond hiding the homework.
Joanne Lockwood: I've got all those memories of getting these phone calls.
Joanne Lockwood: We think we put your child back on the rails and have this big conversation,
Joanne Lockwood: this big expectation setting, and you think, Right, we've cracked it this time,
Joanne Lockwood: and you just assume everything's smooth again. It's not, is it? No, never. My husband,
Mandy Hickson: I the whole time going, what have we done so wrong? But all I'm
Mandy Hickson: thinking upon thinking is, they were both really nice before the teens and I'm sure
Mandy Hickson: they'll both come back. And in fact, my older son, we're seeing in fact, we're
Mandy Hickson: seeing signs of them both coming back. No, I do.
Mandy Hickson: Jest. But there have been challenging times,
Mandy Hickson: especially in lockdown. I think everything was just
Mandy Hickson: put under a magnifying glass, wasn't it? Of course, suddenly you've
Mandy Hickson: got teenage boys that are designed to not want to be
Mandy Hickson: with their parents and here you are. Anyone fancy a game of
Mandy Hickson: Risk? It's like, Why would we want to do that?
Joanne Lockwood: I spent, what, four years away after school,
Joanne Lockwood: joined the RAF and then came out and then came back to living with my
Joanne Lockwood: parents. And that was the worst thing I ever did, because we're not designed to
Joanne Lockwood: fly and come back again. No, I know, and I think that was the worst.
Mandy Hickson: So many are struggling at the moment, isn't it? When they're boot, they call them
Mandy Hickson: the boomerang generation, isn't it? Because it's just a nightmare with
Mandy Hickson: university fees to pay back and
Mandy Hickson: trying to save any money for a deposit and everything is really tough, really
Mandy Hickson: tough for them. So, going back to your time in the
Joanne Lockwood: RAF, you obviously held officer rank, so
Joanne Lockwood: you automatically had authority over a number of people, and that respect
Joanne Lockwood: comes with the rank, et cetera. But did you ever find that you were being
Joanne Lockwood: maybe seated differently as a female
Joanne Lockwood: officer? Did people not take you as seriously? Did the
Joanne Lockwood: ranks still recognise you as an officer at that time? I'll be honest,
Mandy Hickson: no, I didn't, actually. I think I was really quite lucky on
Mandy Hickson: that respect, to be honest. Joanne
Mandy Hickson: I think for myself, I know it's going to sound
Mandy Hickson: a bit funny. Height helps. I'm quite a
Mandy Hickson: larger than life character. And so I
Mandy Hickson: think when you're six foot tall, you come across as
Mandy Hickson: being very confident as well that you almost command
Mandy Hickson: a level that's not sort of if you're
Mandy Hickson: five foot tall and perhaps you're a lot quieter, that's quite hard if you're
Mandy Hickson: then taking on an entire or talking to an entire group of men. So I
Mandy Hickson: never really had a problem with that. And I think when I got to the
Mandy Hickson: of, we talked about authenticity being really important. I've always been
Mandy Hickson: who I am. What you see is what you get with me. And
Mandy Hickson: it's been really nice, actually, recently, because when I left the Air
Mandy Hickson: Force, I started doing keynote speaking, and
Mandy Hickson: one of the best pieces of advice I ever got was this from this guy,
Mandy Hickson: Alan Chambers, and he was an Arctic explorer, ex Royal Marine, oh,
Mandy Hickson: great, great character. And I was talking to him and I said, how do
Mandy Hickson: I get into becoming a speaker? And he just said to me two words. And
Mandy Hickson: I was, you know, thinking of, like, the names of agents. He went be
Mandy Hickson: yourself. And I went, oh, God, is there not more to it than that? He
Mandy Hickson: goes, no, honestly, all people want is authenticity. And
Mandy Hickson: it's been one of the things that I've just kept in the back of my
Mandy Hickson: mind at all times is, when you're on the stage, don't pretend to be somebody
Mandy Hickson: you're not. Don't suddenly change your voice. Don't
Mandy Hickson: suddenly not be Mandy from Manchester, just be
Mandy Hickson: who you are. And guess what? People love who you are
Mandy Hickson: because they can spot when people are faking it
Mandy Hickson: immediately. And the one thing I always get is, oh, my goodness,
Mandy Hickson: you're identical to how you are on a podcast, or, oh, you're
Mandy Hickson: identical to how you are when I met you at this event, and I think,
Mandy Hickson: just be who you are the whole way through. And A, it takes the stress
Mandy Hickson: away, doesn't it? I mean, that must have been for yourself
Mandy Hickson: when you transitioned to suddenly be able to say, I can
Mandy Hickson: now be authentically, who I am. That must have
Mandy Hickson: been a huge relief. It was. But it
Joanne Lockwood: also came with its own set of anxieties because I knew I could stand
Joanne Lockwood: on stage. I knew I used to do a lot of afternoon speaking because you
Joanne Lockwood: were. The Roundtable, weren't you? I was the National President of the Roundtable,
Joanne Lockwood: so I was used to wearing a black tie, going to
Joanne Lockwood: Blokey Stag events in the afternoon.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, so I was used to all that. So I knew I could speak.
Joanne Lockwood: People told me I was entertaining and funny and witty and also
Joanne Lockwood: engaging, so I kind of knew I could do it, but could I do
Joanne Lockwood: it on stage in a dress? Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: Did I feel authentic or was I
Joanne Lockwood: pretending to be somebody else? And then it took me a long while to realise
Joanne Lockwood: that this really was me and I became comfortable. And I
Joanne Lockwood: think I remember having a conversation with yourself probably four years ago. No,
Mandy Hickson: I remember it at a time. Just before I started speaking. And you probably told
Joanne Lockwood: me to be authentic, be yourself. And I think a mutual friend,
Joanne Lockwood: Rachel Morders, who you saw,
Joanne Lockwood: I saw her speak one day and someone in the audience asked her how she
Joanne Lockwood: got into public speaking and she flippantly replied, put it in your
Joanne Lockwood: LinkedIn profile and go for it. And that's the advice I kind of
Joanne Lockwood: took as well. I thought, well, put professional speaker on your LinkedIn profile,
Joanne Lockwood: just be it. I was in two
Joanne Lockwood: minds at the time. A, could I get on stage and address
Joanne Lockwood: and speak? Will I be taken seriously? And also my
Joanne Lockwood: voice, I was really self conscious about my voice being quite deep, quite resonant,
Joanne Lockwood: feeling my chest. And I thought about voice coaching and I
Joanne Lockwood: thought, if I take my voice away, I'm doing it
Joanne Lockwood: for somebody else because this is my voice. I don't mind it, okay? It
Joanne Lockwood: gets annoying when I get misgendered on the phone a few times, but now I
Joanne Lockwood: use it to my advantage because I can create that shock and awe
Joanne Lockwood: value when I'm on stage. I let the audience
Joanne Lockwood: hang for 3 seconds before I speak and they go, Whoa, where did
Joanne Lockwood: that come from? I was expecting this female voice to come out of the
Joanne Lockwood: microphone and it was a boom.
Mandy Hickson: I think it is. I love that power of the surprise. I
Mandy Hickson: mean, often when I'm speaking at big events, I'll say to the
Mandy Hickson: company, how much are you going to advertise this? And they say, oh,
Mandy Hickson: we'll advertise. I said, how about you say we have got a fast jet
Mandy Hickson: pilot coming in to speak to us, but you don't give the name. They
Mandy Hickson: go, oh. And then I will be queuing up, literally
Mandy Hickson: getting a coffee. Everyone will be like, mulling around and I was standing and I'll
Mandy Hickson: be standing in a queue and there'll be these two women perhaps talking like there
Mandy Hickson: was on one occasion, and I heard them go, oh, God, fast jet
Mandy Hickson: pilot coming. Oh, my God. They're always really fit. Really fit. Gorgeous
Mandy Hickson: blokes eight. Not always in
Mandy Hickson: my valued opinion, but there you go. And I just thought, this is
Mandy Hickson: fascinating. And I love the fact that if you don't
Mandy Hickson: say what gender you are when you walk on the stage, they say, welcome to
Mandy Hickson: stage flight lifter Mandy Hickson. Everyone goes and you
Mandy Hickson: almost I love can make it. My first question. Guys, girls, stand
Mandy Hickson: up. Who was expecting a man? And I said, Please be honest.
Mandy Hickson: The whole audience just stand up. And I love that
Mandy Hickson: because you just think, I don't mean to do it. I do
Mandy Hickson: it all the time. We were working on
Mandy Hickson: this big event and it was with an engineering company and we'd been
Mandy Hickson: doing this like a Myers Briggs. It's called the strength
Mandy Hickson: development index. And I was looking at all these profiles and they were all
Mandy Hickson: almost within a five pence piece. Everyone they had recruited were exactly the same
Mandy Hickson: profile, apart from one person that was so far right on
Mandy Hickson: extreme leadership and dominance. And I went, oh, I wonder
Mandy Hickson: what he's like. And then it's a she. And I thought,
Mandy Hickson: Mandy, you're the know, I can't believe you've
Mandy Hickson: done that. But we do it and it's this unconscious bias
Mandy Hickson: isn't so it's a great way to be able to and it's not that you're
Mandy Hickson: catching people out, of course it's not, but it
Mandy Hickson: just reminds people that we are doing that, that
Mandy Hickson: we do do it all the time. Back in the day when we used to
Joanne Lockwood: be able to fly commercially, it seems like a lifetime ago. I know, but back
Joanne Lockwood: in the day when we could fly, I remember sitting next to a female sort
Joanne Lockwood: of colleague in my network and she's also a DNI
Joanne Lockwood: professional. And we're sitting on the plane, just strapped ourselves in and the pilot came
Joanne Lockwood: over and it was a female voice. And a few
Joanne Lockwood: seconds passed and this female colleague turned to me and said, I know I'm a
Joanne Lockwood: DNI professional, but I now feel more nervous because we've got a female
Joanne Lockwood: pilot.
Joanne Lockwood: I still feel that it's still out there and women
Joanne Lockwood: aren't any less biassed against women than men
Joanne Lockwood: are. No. Well, I'll tell you what I mean. I was on a
Mandy Hickson: flight and it was an all female flight deck, and they
Mandy Hickson: said, and this is your captain. It was a female. And they said, My first
Mandy Hickson: officer is a female. I was like, yes. And then I was like, Why
Mandy Hickson: are you, like, cheering so much? It's because actually,
Mandy Hickson: Easyjet Carolyn McCall, when she was the CEO of Easyjet, made it her
Mandy Hickson: mission to try to go from 7% female on the flight deck to
Mandy Hickson: 12%. And she didn't succeed. So there's a reason that
Mandy Hickson: we still assume it's going to be a man is because in 90% of the
Mandy Hickson: time, it will be.
Mandy Hickson: It's just that you're conditioned to do that. And I think we're conditioned
Mandy Hickson: from such an early stage of our lives, aren't we? And I'll never
Mandy Hickson: forget I love this video. It was made by Inspiring The Future, which
Mandy Hickson: is a charity I do a lot of work with, about trying to change,
Mandy Hickson: create role models for young children.
Mandy Hickson: And they went into a primary school, a fast jet pilot,
Mandy Hickson: surgeon and a firefighter, and they asked all the children
Mandy Hickson: to draw a picture of these people and name
Mandy Hickson: them, and all of them named them a man's name. Then the
Mandy Hickson: three women went out, got dressed in all their kit, came in and they went,
Mandy Hickson: Why are you dressed up like that? And they went, no, we are it. We
Mandy Hickson: are them. I am a surgeon, I am a firefighter, I am a fast
Mandy Hickson: jet pilot. And then they had a whole chat about it and it was really
Mandy Hickson: positive. And then my friend, that was the
Mandy Hickson: fighter pilot left, one little girl said to her, when you go
Mandy Hickson: back, are you going to have to give your husband his uniform
Mandy Hickson: back? It was like, oh, my gosh, have we completely
Mandy Hickson: missed the whole point of this? That's how ingrained it
Mandy Hickson: is, isn't it? It doesn't matter that you've got someone
Mandy Hickson: that's showing people, people are still
Mandy Hickson: contacting me. I mean, the book has been wonderful for that, to be honest, Joanne,
Mandy Hickson: is because it's opened up a dialogue know, I'm
Mandy Hickson: getting youngsters, contacting me all the time on Instagram, which is, quite frankly,
Mandy Hickson: an unknown thing to me. So I'm having to work out how to use Instagram
Mandy Hickson: because I'm rubbish at that one. I can do Twitter and Facebook, but I was
Mandy Hickson: like, Instagram? This is a new thing, newfangled
Mandy Hickson: medium, and they contact me on it all the time.
Mandy Hickson: And it's been really interesting because some people sort
Mandy Hickson: of saying, I'm going to careers advisors and they're going, oh, I would have
Mandy Hickson: never thought that of that as a woman's job. These are
Mandy Hickson: careers guidance. People still saying those sorts of comments
Mandy Hickson: find it shocking. Is that why it's so difficult
Joanne Lockwood: for the CEO of Easyjet to go from nine to twelve?
Joanne Lockwood: Do we still have this problem where young women, young girls are being
Joanne Lockwood: socialised around gendered
Joanne Lockwood: expectations for them? Yeah, I think so. And I just
Mandy Hickson: mean, I know that must have been about six years ago, I
Mandy Hickson: was asked, would I be the subject of a book? And I was like, oh,
Mandy Hickson: yeah, I'd love to be. How exciting. And they did a primary school series and
Mandy Hickson: it was called Tara Bins Explores. I mean, I'm not sure, it's quite a strange
Mandy Hickson: name. And it was basically imagine Mr Ben of our
Mandy Hickson: era as a little girl, she goes into a dressing up box
Mandy Hickson: and she puts on a pilot's uniform, and she comes out and she
Mandy Hickson: goes on a mission. And it was basically but all
Mandy Hickson: of them were Stem related or like real typical
Mandy Hickson: male jobs, and they just said, we want to just start
Mandy Hickson: actually putting that gender stereotype to bed and actually having
Mandy Hickson: this little girl as the explorer that goes off, and she does all these very
Mandy Hickson: male jobs. And I think that's the age that we need to start getting
Mandy Hickson: them at. I agree. I talked
Joanne Lockwood: to a lot of people about having pre parenting classes, not about
Joanne Lockwood: the big ball and the Lamar's classes, all this kind of like but it's
Joanne Lockwood: about how to bring up your children with equal opportunities, equal
Joanne Lockwood: expectations, and not force gender onto your children.
Joanne Lockwood: We almost need to train, preparents on how they can create
Joanne Lockwood: these equal opportunities, because so many parents bring that bias into
Joanne Lockwood: their lives. I remember talking to other parents where
Joanne Lockwood: they're automatically steering their boys or their girls into different directions.
Mandy Hickson: But I do find that fascinating, and I think that opens a whole I know
Mandy Hickson: that I can't remember who it was. I think it was the lovely twins, and
Mandy Hickson: I can't remember what their names are. The two doctors on television. Yes.
Mandy Hickson: You know who I mean? Xander and the other.
Mandy Hickson: And they had these babies, and they
Mandy Hickson: basically put these babies and then they put slightly older children, like four and five
Mandy Hickson: year olds in to play with the babies. And two of the babies were dressed
Mandy Hickson: in pink and two were blue. And these little children
Mandy Hickson: instantly started giving the girls, the
Mandy Hickson: pink ones, the dolls to play with. Well,
Mandy Hickson: actually, they'd swapped the genders round, and it was fascinating
Mandy Hickson: that it was one of the boys that was dressed in pink,
Mandy Hickson: actually. He was very happy with the doll, but the other one kept on going
Mandy Hickson: straight back and crawling across to get to the cars. And it was just
Mandy Hickson: about this. Even at the age of three and four, we're trying
Mandy Hickson: to get them to play with you're not letting your children almost even
Mandy Hickson: as four year olds and five year olds that were playing with them when they
Mandy Hickson: weren't letting them play with what they wanted to. They were trying to
Mandy Hickson: instil their stereotype onto a baby
Mandy Hickson: because of what it's dressed. A blue T shirt with a
Joanne Lockwood: soldier on it or a pink T shirt with a fair I know, a
Joanne Lockwood: princess on it. Exactly. There you go. We do it all the
Mandy Hickson: time. Yeah. But I've certainly noticed in the last four years,
Joanne Lockwood: I hang around more in female only groups, or most of my
Joanne Lockwood: day, say, context, tend to be female. And I'm so much more enlightened
Joanne Lockwood: as to the breadth of women out there doing all these different
Joanne Lockwood: roles. Whereas maybe in my previous life, I was so blinkered
Joanne Lockwood: to think it was only a man's world. And now the way I look at
Joanne Lockwood: it now is it's actually a very female world out there.
Joanne Lockwood: But the struggle is finding that acceptance or finding that door that could be
Joanne Lockwood: opened. They say living in the shoes, don't they? And say, until you've lived in
Mandy Hickson: the shoes, you've never experienced it. Have you read the book?
Mandy Hickson: I should get a commission from this man, Matthew Sayeed's book,
Mandy Hickson: Rebel Ideas. It's a really I've not read it. No,
Joanne Lockwood: but he's also got black box thinking as well, hasn't he? Yeah, he wrote the
Mandy Hickson: other book. He does, which I really enjoyed. But then he's written rebel ideas. It's
Mandy Hickson: all about cognitive diversity, and it's how much we focused
Mandy Hickson: on cultural and gender and all the different diversities, but actually
Mandy Hickson: having cognitive diversity about people that think differently. And he just gave lots
Mandy Hickson: and lots of different examples where people haven't lived in the shoes of somebody
Mandy Hickson: else, you can never imagine what it's like. So even
Mandy Hickson: if, for example, if you're in a wheelchair because you are injured,
Mandy Hickson: and you finally start to try to make a tube journey, and
Mandy Hickson: you realise only then that actually there's only a certain amount of
Mandy Hickson: distance you can get on the tube because some stations you just can't
Mandy Hickson: access. And yet you would never have known that had you not lived
Mandy Hickson: as that person. And I think you saying that when you're a
Mandy Hickson: man, you're living in a certain world. And my husband spends the whole
Mandy Hickson: time saying, Why is it all about women? What about male?
Mandy Hickson: And I'm like, Because actually, it's been all about men for so many years. And
Mandy Hickson: actually, if you look at just how far women have
Mandy Hickson: change the dialogue over the last 2030 years,
Mandy Hickson: momentum is on our side, but the males have not changed
Mandy Hickson: theirs. So it's all about the rate of change is what we're seeing,
Mandy Hickson: as opposed to where we're at. I think,
Mandy Hickson: yeah, I was going to. Cast my mind back to when
Joanne Lockwood: women got the vote. Okay, I wasn't there, obviously, I can't cast my
Joanne Lockwood: own mind that far. But the narrative around it, and if you
Joanne Lockwood: read the narrative, at the time, it was men allowed
Joanne Lockwood: women to vote. And that sounds really insulting, but at
Joanne Lockwood: the time, men were the only people who could vote. Men were the only people
Joanne Lockwood: in Parliament, men were the only people in the upper class who had any
Joanne Lockwood: say. Therefore, it had to be the people with
Joanne Lockwood: privilege that opened the door and allow women to vote. And
Joanne Lockwood: I often say this to people that when we're trying to get gender equality, it's
Joanne Lockwood: not women talking about gender equality, it's when men talk about gender
Joanne Lockwood: equality. We need the people who hold the power, who hold the privilege, whether that's
Joanne Lockwood: straight people, whether that's white people, whether that's men, whoever that privilege is, to open
Joanne Lockwood: the door. Otherwise, we become
Joanne Lockwood: the marauding mob with pitchforks outside, trying to
Joanne Lockwood: storm the castle and be let in. Of course, all they do then is pour
Joanne Lockwood: oil in your head and put the drawbridge up. So we have to approach the
Joanne Lockwood: castle in a more open dialogue and engage with the people of privilege
Joanne Lockwood: to allow us into the castle. And that's the challenge we have at
Joanne Lockwood: the moment. It's creating situation where
Joanne Lockwood: men, white men, don't feel threatened by
Joanne Lockwood: diversity, by inclusion, because they don't feel it's for them. And that's the real
Joanne Lockwood: challenge I'm seeing at the moment, is men are getting scared because they're being minoritized
Joanne Lockwood: effectively. That's how they feel. Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, because
Mandy Hickson: one of the questions I always get asked when I do my speeches is, can
Mandy Hickson: a woman have it all? And I say, well, what is all? And the
Mandy Hickson: answer is probably not, by the way, you can't. I don't think
Mandy Hickson: there will be. I love who was it? Oh,
Mandy Hickson: cheryl Sandberg. Lean in and she talks about life not being this ladder, but it
Mandy Hickson: being a jungle gym. And I think it's so she said, grow some strong
Mandy Hickson: nails and hands to cling onto the cargo net at certain times.
Mandy Hickson: But it's a lovely analogy that we're not just going up. But my big
Mandy Hickson: point is that, like you say, we're not going to see true change
Mandy Hickson: until the men want it too, so you're not going to get
Mandy Hickson: equal. Well, this was pre COVID times. You say
Mandy Hickson: we want flexible working until the men want the flexible working,
Mandy Hickson: until the men want those same parental rights as
Mandy Hickson: maternity, as maternity leave, until we see
Mandy Hickson: that, then you don't get change because they were
Mandy Hickson: still in that position of a majority who are therefore making
Mandy Hickson: the decisions. And I love the fact we are seeing, I mean, some
Mandy Hickson: incredibly powerful women. And over the last year, when you look
Mandy Hickson: at how many more female leaders there are on the world stage,
Mandy Hickson: I just love it. It's been happening quietly and
Mandy Hickson: subtly in lockdown and we've emerged and it's like, oh,
Mandy Hickson: yes, there's been a quiet revolt taking on the world
Mandy Hickson: and I'm not even a huge women's liberal or anything like that.
Mandy Hickson: I wouldn't particularly consider myself a feminist
Mandy Hickson: until I feel that there is a
Mandy Hickson: misalignment, until I feel that actually something is
Mandy Hickson: not right. And then I do feel quite indignant about
Mandy Hickson: no. Yeah, I completely agree. And I love the way you said it's about this
Joanne Lockwood: jungle gym, because if we're not careful, it's like the Mary
Joanne Lockwood: Porter's book, work like a Woman rather than working like a man. Can women
Joanne Lockwood: have it all? Well, they can have all that they want. Yeah, exactly. I don't
Joanne Lockwood: necessarily want the same things. Success for
Joanne Lockwood: me now is nothing like success for me 20 years ago. What
Joanne Lockwood: I want today, and some of that comes through maturity, age, the
Joanne Lockwood: fact that my children have moved on. You want different things as you grow
Joanne Lockwood: older anyway. And some of it's also come from my real life and my gender.
Joanne Lockwood: I have a different view of what is important and necessary.
Joanne Lockwood: It's more sufficient based rather than acquisition based.
Joanne Lockwood: Have I got enough for me for now, for us? Can we survive? Are we
Joanne Lockwood: happy? Happiness is more important than stuff. Okay,
Joanne Lockwood: it's age, but also I think women can have all they want.
Mandy Hickson: Yeah, it's also don't you think though, John, it's about accepting
Mandy Hickson: as to where you are. So you mentioned Rachel Mornter earlier. So
Mandy Hickson: Rachel is a really good friend of mine and when I left the Air
Mandy Hickson: Force I was speaking at an event with her and we got so
Mandy Hickson: excited because we'd therefore decided to set up a company and it's called Inspiring Women
Mandy Hickson: for Work. It was all about. It wasn't meant to be just
Mandy Hickson: particularly just about women getting back to work, but we were just really aware that
Mandy Hickson: when you've been out of work for some time, be it through
Mandy Hickson: maternity or illness or a carer or whatever it
Mandy Hickson: is, when you're going back, you've lost that level of confidence. And
Mandy Hickson: confidence is like a muscle, and we need just to exercise it.
Mandy Hickson: And so we set about launching this business and
Mandy Hickson: one of the things we got all these life coaches to come along, all these
Mandy Hickson: women came up to the course and then we also did sort of
Mandy Hickson: like potential careers, things that might work. One of the big
Mandy Hickson: takeaways for me is about accepting that where
Mandy Hickson: you want to be at your time of life is not always where you did
Mandy Hickson: want to be in the past. So it could be working
Mandy Hickson: in Tesco's is where you want to be and that is
Mandy Hickson: fine, it's getting your head around that just because at
Mandy Hickson: one point you wanted to be CEO of a blue chip
Mandy Hickson: company, it doesn't mean that that's what you want now. And I think
Mandy Hickson: for myself when I was in the Air Force it was all
Mandy Hickson: about the flying, it was about being the best version I could be and
Mandy Hickson: then once I had children I was then mum
Mandy Hickson: and I had to be a mum as know I didn't have
Mandy Hickson: grandparents living locally I very much had to make
Mandy Hickson: that situation work. My husband was in the know, he was away all
Mandy Hickson: the time and I couldn't just be going back to the front line and flying
Mandy Hickson: in Afghanistan going, well, my career is everything oh, by the way, who's looking after
Mandy Hickson: your two boys? Well, quite frankly, somebody
Mandy Hickson: know it's that whole levels of responsibility and I had to change really
Mandy Hickson: my own. And I talk about choosing your flight path
Mandy Hickson: because we constantly change our flight path as we're going
Mandy Hickson: through life. So true.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm not saying every man, but many men have the luxury of
Joanne Lockwood: being to say someone will look after the children, I don't have
Joanne Lockwood: to. There's almost like the default position. If a man isn't going to look after
Joanne Lockwood: children, that's okay. But the buck stops often with a mother. And
Joanne Lockwood: again, there are plenty of relationships where that's not the case. And I'm not saying
Joanne Lockwood: every case, but there are so many opportunities where men have the opportunity to
Joanne Lockwood: say, I can walk out, and I can go and do my career. And
Joanne Lockwood: the buck stops with my wife, my partner, whoever it may be. And
Joanne Lockwood: that does, as you say, alters people's flight paths, alters
Joanne Lockwood: people's ambitions in life as well. Because actually,
Joanne Lockwood: I would probably guess that seeing your children develop
Joanne Lockwood: and grow was actually more important to you than elements of your
Joanne Lockwood: career. Flying a fast jet is one thing, but seeing children learn to read, write,
Joanne Lockwood: and grow is a completely different experience, isn't it? Yeah, it is.
Mandy Hickson: And I think it was interesting, really, because then when I left the
Mandy Hickson: Air Force, I had done all my training to become an airline pilot, and I'd
Mandy Hickson: assumed I would go into that because that's what everyone
Mandy Hickson: does who has been a pilot in the Air Force 99%
Mandy Hickson: become airline pilots. And I thought, well, that's what I would do. And it was
Mandy Hickson: only through a very fortuitous conversation, I'll be honest, rather drunkenly at a
Mandy Hickson: dinner party when I was sharing a story about being shot at by a surface
Mandy Hickson: to air missile in Iraq, as you do as a live party moment.
Mandy Hickson: When the conversation hit a lull, I slipped it
Mandy Hickson: in, and there was someone at the table who said, oh, my goodness,
Mandy Hickson: have you ever thought about becoming a speaker? And I said,
Mandy Hickson: what is a speaker? Because in the Air Force, we didn't exactly have a lot
Mandy Hickson: of motivational speakers. And also, this was ten years ago, and I don't think it
Mandy Hickson: was seen as quite as such a big thing. Well, I certainly knew nothing about
Mandy Hickson: it, and they gave me an opportunity to speak at an event, and I just
Mandy Hickson: spoke for 20 minutes, all on cue cards. And it was the crappiest speech I've
Mandy Hickson: ever delivered in my life, because I was reading these cue cards about my own
Mandy Hickson: life. I mean, really, do you not know it?
Mandy Hickson: And actually, from that moment, I've never had a cue card since and
Mandy Hickson: never read from a script, ever. My husband always goes, how do you
Mandy Hickson: not do that? And I go, oh, just write a bullet. And I have literally
Mandy Hickson: four bullets on my hand. And that'll be know, that'll be the speech.
Mandy Hickson: But going back to Rachel's point know, do you put it
Mandy Hickson: out there? How do you become a speaker? Basically, somebody said to me after that,
Mandy Hickson: and what do you do? I said, I'm a keynote speaker. I delivered
Mandy Hickson: 120 minutes speech, and I started saying, I am a speaker.
Mandy Hickson: And it was in a ski shallow. And they went, oh, my goodness, we're after
Mandy Hickson: one. Can you do an event in a week's time or something like that? I
Mandy Hickson: was like, yes, I can. And that was it. I was then a
Mandy Hickson: speaker. So you know what? Say it. It's amazing what
Mandy Hickson: happens. And then a year later, someone starts paying you real money.
Mandy Hickson: On this first event. She said, well, obviously we'll pay you. And I said, you
Mandy Hickson: get paid to talk about yourself? Oh, my God, this is a
Mandy Hickson: revelation. It's like my dream world.
Mandy Hickson: Sorry, does that sound a bit fickle?
Mandy Hickson: Nothing happier. Most of the speakers that you probably know and I
Joanne Lockwood: probably know, we probably feel the same, to be able
Joanne Lockwood: to share your passion with people and get rewarded for
Joanne Lockwood: it's no different to someone who writes a book and earns money from a book,
Joanne Lockwood: or people who stand in a pulpit and give a
Joanne Lockwood: sermon. It's no different to politicians standing on the dispatch box.
Joanne Lockwood: We're just getting paid to share our knowledge, aren't we? You are. And I think
Mandy Hickson: one thing that's really dawned on me as well, which I don't think I'd ever
Mandy Hickson: really grasped, was just the power of the storytelling.
Mandy Hickson: And I think this is what you and I talked about really early doors,
Mandy Hickson: when you said, this is what's happening, I'm transitioning
Mandy Hickson: and I'm really worried. And I was like, but you've got all the same stories
Mandy Hickson: and that story is incredibly powerful. And I was
Mandy Hickson: speaking it was a police event, actually, it was a diversity event
Mandy Hickson: for the police force. And there was a wonderful lady, Nell,
Mandy Hickson: and she was talking about her transition. And afterwards I shared my
Mandy Hickson: story and she just said to me, I feel so inspired
Mandy Hickson: by I failed so many different points in my know and
Mandy Hickson: I was very lucky to get to do what I did.
Mandy Hickson: And we were chatting afterwards and then a year later, she sort of said to
Mandy Hickson: me, mandy, you've inspired me to follow my dream. And I said, and what was
Mandy Hickson: that? And she said, you said to me a really poignant thing. Your entire life
Mandy Hickson: up to now has been about your gender, about living in the wrong
Mandy Hickson: body. Now you've transitioned. There's almost a
Mandy Hickson: gap there now. It's like you're there now. And I said,
Mandy Hickson: So what is your passion? And she said sailing. And I was like,
Mandy Hickson: Get qualified, get out there. And she sent me a picture of her as a
Mandy Hickson: day skipper and she said, I've done it, Mandy. And I was just like,
Mandy Hickson: yes. Do you know what? It was such a poignant moment. It was
Mandy Hickson: a wonderful picture of Nell as a day skipper
Mandy Hickson: sailing her boat. And it just made me
Mandy Hickson: realise that now was the time to start living as who I was now
Mandy Hickson: that I could be my true self. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: I've got a similar feeling. It was a case
Joanne Lockwood: of I often say, when people ask me who
Joanne Lockwood: transition themselves, going through that euphoric,
Joanne Lockwood: scared, whatever stage it is, I said, but the ultimate aim of transitioning
Joanne Lockwood: is for life to be ordinary. Yeah, it just
Joanne Lockwood: becomes life. You get up in the morning and your biggest thing is what's the
Joanne Lockwood: weather that detects what shoes you're going to wear, the weather, and if
Joanne Lockwood: you detect what shoes you're going to wear, whether you wear a skirt or a
Joanne Lockwood: pair of trousers, or whether you're going to wear a coat. So the weather becomes
Joanne Lockwood: a key factor. And then where am I going today? Am I walking across London?
Joanne Lockwood: Right? I need to wear shoes. I can walk across London. So life dictates
Joanne Lockwood: the stuff that you get on with, not this confusion in your head, all
Joanne Lockwood: the stuff that's going on in your life. For me, it was hearing one voice
Joanne Lockwood: in my head. It was like being completely all the parts of me were just
Joanne Lockwood: aligned to one voice. That was when I woke up one day and went,
Joanne Lockwood: wow, it's so peaceful in here.
Joanne Lockwood: That's when I knew I'd arrived at the point I needed to be, when it
Joanne Lockwood: was just I could shut my eyes and there was no noise and I
Joanne Lockwood: didn't have any things in my head. And that's the ultimate aim for me, was
Joanne Lockwood: finding that tranquilly, that alignment, and life just
Joanne Lockwood: became ordinary. I then ended up the same problems that everybody else did
Joanne Lockwood: earning a living, getting the shopping, driving the car. Yeah,
Mandy Hickson: absolutely. And I completely understand that.
Mandy Hickson: I don't know how much help there is, because surely
Mandy Hickson: what you're going through for
Mandy Hickson: your mental health state at that point is just unbelievable, isn't
Mandy Hickson: it? Is there much help on that side as
Mandy Hickson: well? I think most people who are going through would say
Joanne Lockwood: it's inadequate. The waiting times for gender clinics are too
Joanne Lockwood: long, there's a lack of knowledge at primary care, GP,
Joanne Lockwood: CCG level. We kind of expect the
Joanne Lockwood: NHS to be experts on people inside and
Joanne Lockwood: out. The reality is that NHS people are just people.
Joanne Lockwood: If they've not come across trans people or gender diverse people, then they
Joanne Lockwood: haven't. So, yes, they're person centric,
Joanne Lockwood: yes, they deeply care, but if they haven't got experience, they haven't got experience. And
Joanne Lockwood: I think many trans people, gender diverse, nonbinary people, have a higher
Joanne Lockwood: expectation of what should be available than actually is. So I'd
Joanne Lockwood: like to see that change, more gender support. Yeah. And it'll come, but,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, I'd say woefully inadequate in people who are trained
Joanne Lockwood: and available to counsel at
Joanne Lockwood: a reasonable cost and a reasonable waiting time. Yeah,
Mandy Hickson: no, I can only imagine that, actually, because I just
Mandy Hickson: think the stress that you're under and I certainly know that
Mandy Hickson: talking to my friend that was living in the closet, in the ref,
Mandy Hickson: his brain was just constantly that stress bucket was
Mandy Hickson: full before you've even come to work. How can you do your job on top
Mandy Hickson: of that? And it is very hard, isn't it? Yeah. You try and have conversations
Joanne Lockwood: about what you did at the weekend, or are you looking forward to getting married,
Joanne Lockwood: having kids? And you've then got to have this entire backstory.
Joanne Lockwood: Everything you do has to have another story and you have to
Joanne Lockwood: weave and what have I told people? It slips out
Joanne Lockwood: and it becomes so complex.
Joanne Lockwood: The other thing I realised was I got this point where I woke
Joanne Lockwood: up one day for the first time in my life. I have no secrets from
Joanne Lockwood: anybody. I'm an open book. My biggest secret is
Joanne Lockwood: out. Yeah. It's no secret. I'm not
Joanne Lockwood: hiding anything anymore. Yeah. And that's quite cathartic
Joanne Lockwood: liberating. And I can imagine that's been very, very well
Mandy Hickson: received, hasn't it, as a speaker as well, for yourself, Joanne. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: I had the advantage that I think that I took part of Channel Four documentary,
Joanne Lockwood: which broadcast two years ago. So that whole process was like writing a book for
Joanne Lockwood: me. It was basically turning myself inside out to four or 5 million
Joanne Lockwood: people who watched it or whatever. So that was very powerful and it got me
Joanne Lockwood: used to talking about myself. And the other golden rule as a speaker is you
Joanne Lockwood: talk from the scar, not from the wound. So you've got to be talking
Joanne Lockwood: about all the anguish you've got. You almost like narrate the
Joanne Lockwood: history of it. Yes. So I think I healed myself. I found myself,
Joanne Lockwood: and now I can talk about my life in a narration point
Joanne Lockwood: of view, rather than being inside the problem, which is quite
Joanne Lockwood: powerful and it is well received. People want to hear the story. There's a lot
Joanne Lockwood: of empathy out there, a lot of compassion. And people want to know how to
Joanne Lockwood: do better, how they support. Some of the most moving times I get is
Joanne Lockwood: when someone who's listened to a talk will get in the chat afterwards, or come
Joanne Lockwood: up and see me afterwards and say, my son, my daughter is transitioning,
Joanne Lockwood: or My wife partner husband's transitioned.
Joanne Lockwood: So there's always one person or two people in the audience, virtually
Joanne Lockwood: everywhere I go, who has a trans rated story. And just to
Joanne Lockwood: have them come up and say thanks. Thank you, Joanne. It's been really great seeing
Joanne Lockwood: you here, bringing acceptance, bringing visibility. So that's
Joanne Lockwood: what motivates me sometimes, is to get that just that
Joanne Lockwood: thank you. If you like. Yeah. And I think, as well,
Mandy Hickson: talking openly about it as you do is just fantastic, isn't it?
Mandy Hickson: Because I think so many other people would. I'm through it now.
Mandy Hickson: I just want to get on with my life. I don't want to constantly have
Mandy Hickson: to make that my life now, which is in some ways what you are
Mandy Hickson: doing, because you're constantly talking about it, doing so
Mandy Hickson: how are we ever going to change the dialogue? It
Mandy Hickson: is about changing culture, and the only way we
Mandy Hickson: do about that is having understanding, having acceptance.
Mandy Hickson: And you know what? You can't be what you can't see,
Mandy Hickson: you can't feel it, you can't have that emotion. And it's quite hard to be
Mandy Hickson: empathetic if you've never met somebody or talk to them.
Mandy Hickson: I remember, actually, I must have been about 16, and this is hilarious, because I
Mandy Hickson: went. As my friend would say, I'll be the judge of that. But I went
Mandy Hickson: with my mum. So my mum was a single mum bringing up her two girls.
Mandy Hickson: She was six foot tall. My sister was six foot one and I was six
Mandy Hickson: foot. My mum said, I'm never going to meet any men,
Mandy Hickson: so she joined the Tall Person's Club. Now, I mean,
Mandy Hickson: I can't even imagine what was going through them anyway.
Mandy Hickson: For women, you had to be six foot to join, and for men, you had
Mandy Hickson: to be about, I don't know, 7ft or something. And we walked in and the
Mandy Hickson: first person I met was someone that was
Mandy Hickson: transitioning. And I was 16 and I had never met
Mandy Hickson: anybody and I ended up sitting next to them at the dinner.
Mandy Hickson: And it was really enlightening because
Mandy Hickson: we were talking about
Mandy Hickson: just sort of falling in love, holding hands, saying
Mandy Hickson: goodbye to someone at a train station, you know, and all of
Mandy Hickson: those little things. And he said, you know, that's what I want to do. But
Mandy Hickson: it was the fact that I had no understanding of the concept
Mandy Hickson: of what you had to do to transition,
Mandy Hickson: of living as a woman. Is it for two years or something? It was then,
Mandy Hickson: anyway, a lot of. The gender identity
Joanne Lockwood: clinic process and name change and
Joanne Lockwood: to be accepted, there was a lot of gatekeeping. And two years was always
Joanne Lockwood: seen as this test of test of character. If you couldn't do it for two
Joanne Lockwood: years, you were kidding, sort of thing. So that was always the mental block
Joanne Lockwood: and that has improved a bit. But there's still a lot of gatekeeping
Joanne Lockwood: around this two year mentality. Yeah. And I remember talking to them,
Mandy Hickson: they found it really tough, but it was my first
Mandy Hickson: experience and I think, my goodness, it shaped how I
Mandy Hickson: would therefore be able to grow up and have an
Mandy Hickson: acceptance and an understanding, because I'd spoken to someone, I'd
Mandy Hickson: spent time with them and I think that's really important. So I think what you're
Mandy Hickson: doing is essential. Yeah. And in the way
Joanne Lockwood: you did your career, you were one, as you say, the second only
Joanne Lockwood: ever female pilot with Gr Four in the front line. That
Joanne Lockwood: was a trend setting as well. And I'm sure many pilots
Joanne Lockwood: since have benefited from that, or other
Joanne Lockwood: people in the Air Force who are women have also benefited from that role
Joanne Lockwood: model experience. And we'll do what we do. You hope so.
Mandy Hickson: And at the time, you don't really think that you're being a
Mandy Hickson: pioneer, you're just doing what you want to do. But it's only
Mandy Hickson: afterwards when you look back and you think, yeah, actually, we were
Mandy Hickson: changing the dialogue, we were changing mindsets and
Mandy Hickson: behaviours. And that is really important.
Mandy Hickson: And especially when I get the emails that I get daily from some of the
Mandy Hickson: youngsters who have read my book and said, thank you, thank you for doing
Mandy Hickson: what you've done, because it's enabling me to do what I want to do. Now,
Joanne Lockwood: you mentioned your book a couple of times. You want to just make sure that
Joanne Lockwood: the title do you want to give a quick synopsis of your book for people
Joanne Lockwood: who don't know it? Very happy to. It
Mandy Hickson: was called it is called an officer, not a gentleman. It was going
Mandy Hickson: to be called Bird's Eye View, but I was told that that wasn't allowed,
Mandy Hickson: wasn't probably politically correct enough, but actually,
Mandy Hickson: it's a female perspective on fast jet training.
Mandy Hickson: The highs, the lows, the emotional roller coaster of it. And
Mandy Hickson: I think it really sits very closely and hand in hand with my
Mandy Hickson: speech, because when I actually do my keynote speeches, it's not about being a
Mandy Hickson: woman in a man's world, bizarrely, it's about being a fast jet pilot. Whereas
Mandy Hickson: this gives perhaps more of an insight into the impostor syndrome that
Mandy Hickson: I felt at times, some of the struggles we went through. I
Mandy Hickson: lost friends on squadrons who died in
Mandy Hickson: aircraft crashes and really just giving
Mandy Hickson: an actual real life account of the
Mandy Hickson: intensity of fast jet training as well. It's brutal at
Mandy Hickson: times. And I think just having that insight into something
Mandy Hickson: and I think I've sold just coming up for 8000
Mandy Hickson: copies, it went to the number one bestseller on Amazon for books
Mandy Hickson: in aviation, and it's been on the market almost
Mandy Hickson: for a year in June. And I've been blown away, actually,
Mandy Hickson: by the comments it's received globally, which has been
Mandy Hickson: wonderful. I often see great comments on LinkedIn,
Joanne Lockwood: where you've spoken, you've talked about your book, and I see the warmth and passion
Joanne Lockwood: that people and the high regard people hold you and turn out. I haven't read
Joanne Lockwood: it yet, but I will one day, I promise, on audiobook. Just do it on
Mandy Hickson: the way. Can I get it on audible? Can I?
Mandy Hickson: I narrated it myself, actually, which was, again, I found that really quite
Mandy Hickson: emotional, actually. I was reading it and I was doing it in the studio down
Mandy Hickson: in the New Forest to a guy that had never done an audiobook
Mandy Hickson: recording before. And we were doing it and I was
Mandy Hickson: telling quite a funny story. At one point, he just burst out laughing. He went,
Mandy Hickson: I'm so sorry, we're going to have to record that bit again. But again, it
Mandy Hickson: was a really I enjoyed I actually enjoyed being able to be the one that
Mandy Hickson: told my story for audiobook. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: Okay, well, I'm definitely going to go on to Audible and find that now. I
Joanne Lockwood: can't wait to listen to it. I keep saying I will. I will do
Joanne Lockwood: that. Brilliant. Thank you. I can't
Joanne Lockwood: believe we've been talking for an hour already. Incredible.
Mandy Hickson: We both had a cup of tea in our hand as well. You see. It
Mandy Hickson: was a sort of cup of tea in the chat. Yes, it was. It was
Joanne Lockwood: a quick coffee or cup of tea between friends. So
Joanne Lockwood: how can people get hold of you. If they're looking for a keynote speaker, they
Joanne Lockwood: want to find out more about you. Where's the best place to find you? To
Mandy Hickson: be honest, I'm everywhere. Someone said, oh, my goodness, Mandy, you like a bad smell
Mandy Hickson: at the moment. So I'm all over different social media. So if you just look
Mandy Hickson: up Mandy Hickson, I've got my own YouTube channel. I'm
Mandy Hickson: on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook
Mandy Hickson: and I'm on either as Mandy Hickson or Mandy Hickson Speaker. And
Mandy Hickson: my website's, Hickson Ltd. So
Mandy Hickson: HicksonLimited.com. And that's got all the information that you could
Mandy Hickson: possibly want about me. And it has. I checked it out just before we
Joanne Lockwood: started recording and, yes, it's definitely there. So, fantastic.
Joanne Lockwood: Well, thank you to you, the listener, for tuning in and listening,
Joanne Lockwood: for making it this far and getting to the end. If you've got any friends
Joanne Lockwood: or colleagues, please share the Inclusion Bites podcast. That's
Joanne Lockwood: B-I-T-E-S. I've got a number of other exciting guests lined
Joanne Lockwood: up that I'm sure you'll be inspired by over the next few weeks and months.
Joanne Lockwood: And, of course, if you'd like to be a guest, if you'd like to inspire
Joanne Lockwood: the audience, then please do get in contact. And if you've got any suggestions
Joanne Lockwood: on how we can improve, I'd also love to hear from you. To
Joanne Lockwood: jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co uk.
Joanne Lockwood: Finally, my name is Joanne Lockwood and it's been absolute pleasure to host
Joanne Lockwood: this podcast for you today. Catch you next time. Bye.